Steel_Wind
Legend
I've been listening to the 2010/2011 Nebula, Locus and Hugo award winning diptych by Connie Willis, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Blackout-Connie-Willis/dp/0345519833/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320637392&sr=1-1"]Blackout[/ame] and [ame="http://www.amazon.com/All-Clear-Connie-Willis/dp/0553592882/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b"]All Clear[/ame]. This isn't a novel with a sequel. It's a novel published in two parts. Blackout/All Clear was intended to be one book -- but it was decided that it was too long to publish in one volume. Happily, it has an ending, too.These two science fiction novels are about time travelling historians from 2060 who become trapped in the past of World War II, most especially in the days of the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz. The books are very low on anything approaching tech or technobabble and very long on the social impact of the war upon England during 1940. If you wondered what the hell it was like to live in London as it suffered under a night (and sometime daytime) bombing campaign for 8 months -- this is the book.
The research of the war period is very well done. The WWII aspects of the novel are not about showing battles or high level strategy or anything of the kind. The closest it has got to battle so far is the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Quite consciously, the author is instead determined to show the reader how every day people were the real heroes of the era. This is about what it was like to be a citizen of London during the Blitz. A shop girl, a nurse, an ambulance driver or a domestic servant looking after evacuee children. Or simple fisherman and citizens, spontaneously going forth to rescue the British Expeditionary Force under fire in their motor boats, pleasure craft, and skiffs.
This is the war from the worm's eye view of the common every day English citizen. These books have won a bevy of awards and were both edited by Anne Groell -- who is also George RR Martin's editor at Bantam/Spectra.
The principal suspense in the novel is that the reader is not certain why the characters have become trapped -- but the central tenet among historians that time travel, which they believe to be safe and can be performed without any possibility of introducing a paradox or changing history -- is tragically wrong. Small errors are starting to creep in and the historians are coming to the dawning horror of realizing that their actions may have altered history -- with potentially disastrous consequences. The Butterfly Effect is under the microscope in these novels.
The narrator of the audio books, Katherine Kellgren, is a good reader, who even manages to pull off a few male voices almost believably (quite a feat, actually) -- and the voices of the females within the story are done rather brilliantly. Overall, a pleasing voice to listen to.
I would recommend these audio books to those with a sincere interest in WWII history. This is not SF for those looking for a great deal of action, however. It's a deliberate and mostly slow moving tale, to be sure. It does have its moments of stark raving terror; it's mostly about the Blitz, after all. What were you expecting?
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. Just a couple of chapters in, but so far it is excellent.
