When my hold on All Clear finally came in at the library, I realized I hadn’t planned ahead enough to be able to re-read Blackout, as I thought I might want to. (I read Blackout back in May.) But I figured I’d go ahead and read All Clear anyhow, hoping that Connie Willis would remind me of any key details I’d forgotten. Which she did: this book, which picks up the multiple plot threads of Blackout, with its story of time-traveling historians from 2060 visiting England during WWII, manages to be interesting from the start without being overwhelming. The characters, often, are trying to figure out what’s going on, so it works for them to be mulling over recent events, which helps ease the reader back into the story. By the time I got to page 61—the first appearance in this volume of the phrase I’d been dreading a little—”this was time travel”—I was happy enough with the way the plot was drawing me in that I didn’t mind too much. I minded a little more when it reappeared on page 77—”this was, after all, time travel,” but then I resolved not to let it bother me henceforth.
As with the last book, the story is told in chapters that move from one place/time to another, so you might jump from central London in November 1940 to Kent in April 1944 to Golders Green in July 1944. And, again, like the last book, there are many chapters that end in cliffhangers, which is both great and dastardly, as I mentioned when I wrote about Blackout: it feels like such an authorial trick, but at the same time, it totally works: I found myself perpetually eager to keep reading. (One night, I nearly missed my stop on the train home from work because I was so engrossed.) Some plot points are obvious, and some motifs are heavy-handed, but the the story was compelling enough that I didn’t care. (And oh, I am such a sucker for the subplot involving Sir Godfrey, a Shakespearean actor who clearly is in love with one of our time-traveling protagonists: it made me cry. Twice.)
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