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Joe's Reviews > Blackout
Blackout (All Clear, #1)
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Colin is upset. It's 2060 and the lad skips class to search the Oxford campus desperately for Mr. Dunsworthy. The porter, Mr. Purdy, tells Colin that the professor is in research. The professor's secretary Eddritch is much more closed lipped, but when Colin tries the lab, the director Badri and the tech Linna are far too busy sending researchers through time.
At least, they're supposed to be doing this. Schedules are being reshuffled at the last minute, you see. Michael has trained to be sent back to Pearl Harbor in 1941 but his orders are rewritten and he's notified he's to be sent to Dunkirk for the British evacuation, which requires serious prep he has no time for.
Meanwhile, his roommate Charles is headed to Singapore and learning how to play tennis in order to fit in. Eileen has already been sent back in time to observe Operation Pied Piper during the London Blitz. She's upset because her mistress in 1940 has notified her she's to learn how to drive an automobile, in the event the Germans attack and ambulance drivers are needed ...
On page 44 of Blackout, I gave up. There are several reasons for this. I might have dropped in on Connie Willis right in the middle of her time travel saga and was simply not invested in her Oxford academics as they fret and worry and rant over last minute changes to their orders of being sent through time. You're being sent back in time! Why are you bitching and moaning? Shut up!
Maybe if I hadn't come in late, I'd care a fig about any one of the half dozen characters Willis introduces in the first two pages. As is, I found the material far too geriatric, too plodding for my taste. Whatever excitement, great romance or life and death struggle awaits these characters is barely hinted at after one hour of reading. I'm jumping in my time machine and getting outta here ...
At least, they're supposed to be doing this. Schedules are being reshuffled at the last minute, you see. Michael has trained to be sent back to Pearl Harbor in 1941 but his orders are rewritten and he's notified he's to be sent to Dunkirk for the British evacuation, which requires serious prep he has no time for.
Meanwhile, his roommate Charles is headed to Singapore and learning how to play tennis in order to fit in. Eileen has already been sent back in time to observe Operation Pied Piper during the London Blitz. She's upset because her mistress in 1940 has notified her she's to learn how to drive an automobile, in the event the Germans attack and ambulance drivers are needed ...
On page 44 of Blackout, I gave up. There are several reasons for this. I might have dropped in on Connie Willis right in the middle of her time travel saga and was simply not invested in her Oxford academics as they fret and worry and rant over last minute changes to their orders of being sent through time. You're being sent back in time! Why are you bitching and moaning? Shut up!
Maybe if I hadn't come in late, I'd care a fig about any one of the half dozen characters Willis introduces in the first two pages. As is, I found the material far too geriatric, too plodding for my taste. Whatever excitement, great romance or life and death struggle awaits these characters is barely hinted at after one hour of reading. I'm jumping in my time machine and getting outta here ...
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Reading Progress
November 22, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
November 22, 2014
– Shelved
December 17, 2014
–
Started Reading
December 17, 2014
–
6.52%
"The drop only opened once an hour, and in another hour it would be dark. The drop was far enough into the woods that its shimmer couldn't be seen from the road, but with the blackout, any light was suspect, and the Home Guard, for lack of anything better to do, sometimes patrolled the woods, looking for German parachutists."
page
32
December 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
abandoned
December 18, 2014
–
Finished Reading
September 3, 2017
– Shelved as:
sci-fi-time-travel
Comments Showing 1-8 of 8 (8 new)
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Carmen
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Dec 18, 2014 11:10PM
I don't blame you. It sounds dull and confusing.
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Blackout probably isn't the best place to start with Willis. I think you kind of have to get invested in this world through prior books. Sorry you didn't like it, but it's probably good that you didn't keep going. This story moves very slowly, and I say that as someone who likes Willis's work.
I always feel a little guilty abandoning a book but I feel much stronger about the fact that life is too short to read bad books. Great review
Try To Say Nothing of the Dog. It's the same world but faster paced and much funnier. The plot ends of being almost incidental in the end--you're having too much fun with the puns and other word play. It's still in my top five favorites 15 years after I read it the first time.
Good choice. I struggled my way through this one in it's entirety because I enjoyed other Willis novels. This one was boring, repetitive and frustrating. afterward, I deliberately read spoilers of part 2 All Clear so that I don't feel I have to suffer more just to see how everything plays out :)
Carmen wrote: "I don't blame you. It sounds dull and confusing."Dull, yes. More so plodding than confusing, linda. I can't understand writing about time travel through the lens of a half dozen students who are perturbed about their assignment to have to time travel.
Tadiana wrote: "Blackout probably isn't the best place to start with Willis. I think you kind of have to get invested in this world through prior books."
Jody wrote: "Try To Say Nothing of the Dog. It's the same world but faster paced and much funnier."
Thank you, ladies. I tried to start with The Doomsday Book but my library couldn't find the copy their catalog claimed was stocked. Maybe a time traveler took it? I would've been much more wary of starting with this book if it had a number affixed to it. I assumed it was a stand alone. So, when it comes to Connie Willis, start with To Say Nothing For the Dog and see if you're able to branch out from there. Not that I'm going to do that anytime soon ...
Debbie wrote: "I struggled my way through this one in it's entirety because I enjoyed other Willis novels. This one was boring, repetitive and frustrating."
I agree, Debbie. It's a bad sign when you start daydreaming about the better book, or at least, the book you wanted to read. I started imagining Hayley Atwell being pursued by German agents on a train to London and captured being the time portal opened or something ... It's not the author's fault. This wasn't the book for me.
Colin played a big part in Doomsday Book as a precocious 12-year-old. I see Willis carried on the irritating frustrations of academic life into the rest of the series. I'll let you know what book 2 is like after I read it.
