レビュー要約

• 歴史調査の密度と、戦時下の市民生活を丹念に描く姿勢が評価されている。一方で、長大な構成と迂回の多い展開を重く感じる読者もいる。

レビュー

• Very good!

  It takes time for the story to start and to get used to the characters and background but then you're completely taken into it. A lot of details and descriptions about daily life during the Blitz too.

• 長い！ "All Clear" と合わせて一つの話

  ペーパーバック: 624ページ Gollancz (2011/6/1) ISBN-10: 0575099275 のレビュー 買ってから気づくのもマヌケな話だが、次作"All Clear" と合わせて一作である。 長い、という感想が多い。わたしもそう思う。しかし、それはこの作品に対して見当違いの文句だろう。 ちょっと例が悪いが、ラブコメ長篇コミックに対して、長い！話が進まない、と文句をつけるようなものだ。ファンは、延々と続く語り口を楽しむのであって、長いほど楽しめるのだろう。 SFとしては、テッド・チャンとかグレッグ・イーガンのような難解系ではなくて安心した。ファンの方々はすでにご存知でしょうが、SF的アイディアは単純であり、あとはストーリーと語り口と薀蓄で読ませるタイプの作品である。 アイディアがシンプルな分、ストーリーは複雑。三人のタイム・トラベラーの視点から描かれ、三つか四つくらいの話が同時進行する。たぶん、この前編に後半への伏線がたっぷり含まれているのだろう。 予想通り、わたしが苦手なシェイクスピアが出てくる。うーむ。 あと、全体のテーマ（というほどでもないのか、重要な要素であるのか、まだ前半では不明だが）に関連すると思われ、作中にも何度も出てくるジェイムズ・バリーの芝居については、以下のテキストあり。 Peter Pan and Other Plays: The Admirable Crichton; Peter Pan; When Wendy Grew Up; What Every Woman Knows; Mary Rose (Oxford World's Classics) 作中で練習する、The Admirable Crichton も収録。 それから、Mary Rose という作品が、ピーター・パンとは逆の設定。女性がタイム・スリップをして、若いころのまま戻ってくるという話。後編への布石になっているのか？ ともかく、後編を読まなくては判断できない作品である。

• Tedious

  In the English paperback edition I used, this (with the companion volume) runs to about 1,100 pages. It's about 1,050 pages too long. The plot (what little of it there is) is set up in the span of about 5 pages, and the resolution comes about 1000 pages later (in the second book). The remainder of the book is dull, dull, dull interior monologues repeating the same needless ruminating by the few indistinguishable, flat, unbelievable characters. I read fairly quickly and finished these two only so I can warn others away. Please don't waste your time or money on these.

• ADDICT !

  Magnifique saga en 2 volumes : Blackout et All clear, tout à la fois science fiction, histoire, roman d'aventure... admirablement construit à plusieurs voix et sur plusieurs temps, magnifiquement renseigné (quelle érudition !), passionnant et non dénué d'humour ! Un pur bonheur; quand on ferme le deuxième volume on n'a qu'une idée recommencer la lecture depuis le premier.

• Not bad, but...

  ... One expects more from Connie Willis. Interesting, well documented with historical data, it makes you feel what had to be like to live as a civilian in the daily bombed London, but there are too many pages describing the main characters going from A to B, then deciding they should have stayed in A, coming back there just to change their minds and returning to B for whatever reason. That's repetitive and probably unnecessary. Nevertheless, if you're patient, the actions develops into some great cliffhangers and brilliant moments here and there.

• Loved the Doomsday book but was disappointed by her other ...

  Loved the Doomsday book but was disappointed by her other works. This one however, is almost as good as the Doomsday book. I did not, however, like that the ending was one of those that does not tie up loose ends but that leaves you hanging for the next book.

• A wonderful mix of time travel and World War II history

  Connie Willis' newest novel, Blackout had a lot of things in its favor even before I read the first page: (1) it was written by Connie Willis, whose work I admire; (2) it's a time-travel story, which is a minor passion of mine; (3) it takes place in London in World War II, a setting which pushes more of my buttons. When I started reading it, I knew I would not be disappointed. The story follows three "historians" from Oxford, circa 2060, who are researching aspects of the Blitz in London. They do this by traveling back in time and embedding themselves in various events. The story is rich with the setting and details of the period. The amount of research I imagine it must have taken shows through in the fine detail of what life must have been like during the Blitz. Having been to London, roamed the city and the Underground, I could picture very well where the events took place. Connie Willis' fabulous description, and especially, the little details she adds, helped complete the picture of what it was like 70 years ago, with bombs falling overhead. The characters come to life, too, and Willis even captures some rather witty examples of the British sense of humor that had me laughing out loud. But the story has another layer, one which gradually build in tension: time travel itself, and its implications. More and more it appears that the historians are finding themselves stuck in 1940 London. The usual methods of extraction do not appear to be working. And no one knows why. The writing really helps make the story come alive. Connie Willis is a master at this. The words on the page disappear and you feel embedded in the scenes, the sounds of the exploding bombs shuddering your bones, the droning of the airplanes rattling your teeth. She makes it look so easy, and yet if it were this easy to write a good story, everyone would be able to do it. I don't give out 5-stars for books very often. (The last piece of science fiction to which I gave 5-stars was Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine .) I don't have hard and fast rules for this kind of thing, but there are 2 things that clue me in to the fact that what I am reading is 5-star material: first, it's a page turner, one that I can't seem to put down. I ended up finishing this book between 3-4 am simply because I woke up and had to know how it ended. Second, if I find myself getting close to the end of a book and wishing there was more, I know I've got something that's worthy of 5-stars. Both apply to Blackout. And yet--in this rare instance, my wish is coming true. For Blackout is really just the first half of the story. The second half of the story, All Clear is scheduled for a fall release. So the story will continue. This leads to one of two minor issues I found with the book. First, the fact that the story ends abruptly with a cliff-hanger means that people will have to wait to find out how things turnout, and some people may find that frustrating. Second, it seems there are ways that our stranded time-travelers could make contact with their colleagues in the future--some fairly obvious ones--but those are not considered by characters. At least not in the first half of the story. (Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity hints at one possible solution--something that was also used in the Back to the Future series.) Regardless, this was an absolutely wonderful read and I no eagerly await the conclusion of the story, desperately hoping it will be as good as the opening.

• A Masterful Story-Teller

  Blackout is part one of a tale concluded in part two - All Clear. You *could* read just one but would miss so much so plan on both. If you have read Connie Willis before you will know what to expect - her gentle, educated and knowledgable take on history using a form of time-travel that, although not explained is still quite unique to her stories. Having said "gentle" don't expect her to shy away from grim reality when it's needed, it is just presented in an easy style that pulls you through it. The research put into these two books is astonishing considering they are not academic books. There may be historical errors, as others have mentioned in these reviews, but you'd have to do some serious study to spot them. What is more, if you know little about the London Blitz or WWII's effect on the country, your eyes will be opened. You will walk with the people who lived through it, you will see them suffer, see them rejoice and understand so much more because of it. There are reasons for the many failed attempts the time-travellers endure trying to get home to their future Oxford but you'll have to wait until All Clear to find out what they are. Suffice to say the time-travellers growing anxiety at the possibility of them altering history by their presence ramps up and by the end you will probably do as I did and dive straight into All Clear. Certainly it carries on seamlessly. Yes, a few readers have been disappointed by the abrupt end to Blackout, which offered no conclusions, just an added mystery tacked on at the end which *did* seem a little out of place looking back (it wasn't the character I thought it was). All is forgiven though. It made sense in the actual end. I'll conclude my review on the All Clear page, but I will say this for readers new to the story - bear with the author, she knows what she is doing and wraps it all up neatly at the end. It's a bit of an emotional roller-coaster at times but worth your time if you are interested in the period and would like to know what it was like living on the Home Front rather than out in the trenches, up in the skies or battling on the seas. Those men and women were at the cutting edge but that didn't meant staying at home was particularly easy - or safe.

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