All Clear

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Overview

In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060—the setting for several of her most celebrated works—and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to ...
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All Clear

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More About This Book

Overview

In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060—the setting for several of her most celebrated works—and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler’s bombers attempt to pummel London into submission.

Now the situation has grown even more dire. Small discrepancies in the historical record seem to indicate that one or all of them have somehow affected the past, changing the outcome of the war. The belief that the past can be observed but never altered has always been a core belief of time-travel theory—but suddenly it seems that the theory is horribly, tragically wrong.

Meanwhile, in 2060 Oxford, the historians’ supervisor, Mr. Dunworthy, and seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who nurses a powerful crush on Polly, are engaged in a frantic and seemingly impossible struggle of their own—to find three missing needles in the haystack of history.

Told with compassion, humor, and an artistry both uplifting and devastating, All Clear is more than just the triumphant culmination of the adventure that began with Blackout. It’s Connie Willis’s most humane, heartfelt novel yet—a clear-eyed celebration of faith, love, and the quiet, ordinary acts of heroism and sacrifice too often overlooked by history.

Blackout and All Clear are the winners of the 2010 Nebula Award and 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Last month we welcomed the paperback publication of Connie Willis' Blackout (9780345519832); now we greet the well-tuned conclusion of her time-travel duology. In the first novel, three Oxford historians from 2060 slipped back into the war-torn world of 1940 England. Sent to observe behavior of the period, the trio becomes convinced that they might have inadvertently resteered present and future history on a very damaging new course. All Clear sounds an alarm that is anything but reassuring. Meanwhile, back in 2060, the historians' supervisor and one of his young students begin a corrective mission of their own.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780553807677
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 10/19/2010
  • Pages: 656
  • Sales rank: 901,061
  • Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 9.40 (h) x 1.90 (d)

Meet the Author

Connie Willis is the award-winning author of Doomsday Book, Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether. Connie has been awarded 10 Hugo Awards, 11 Locus Poll Awards and 6 Nebula Awards.
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Read an Excerpt

Well, he hasn't come yet, sir, he's more than a bit late tonight.

—London Porter to Ernie Pyle, referring to the German Bombers

London—26 October 1940

By noon Michael and Merope still hadn't returned from Stepney, and Polly was beginning to get really worried. Stepney was less than an hour away by train. There was no way it could take Merope and Michael—correction, Eileen and Mike; she had to remember to call them by their cover names—no way it could take them six hours to go fetch Eileen's belongings from Mrs. Willett's and come back to Oxford Street. What if there'd been a raid and something had happened to them? The East End was the most dangerous part of London.

There weren't any daytime raids on the twenty-sixth; she thought. But there weren't supposed to have been five fatalities at Padgett's either. If Mike was right, and he had altered events by saving the soldier Hardy at Dunkirk, anything was possible. The space-time continuum was a chaotic system, in which even a minuscule action could have an enormous effect.

But two additional fatalities—and civilians, at that—could scarcely have changed the course of the war, even in a chaotic system. Thirty thousand civilians had been killed in the Blitz and nine thousand in the V-1 and V-2 attacks, and fifty million people had died in the war.

And you know he didn't lose the war, Polly thought. And historians have been traveling to the past for more than forty years. If they'd been capable of altering events, they'd have done it long before this. Mr. Dunworthy had been in the Blitz and the French Revolution and even the Black Death, and his historians had observed wars and coronations and coups all across history, and there was no record of any of them even causing a discrepancy, let alone changing the course of history.

Which meant that in spite of appearances, the five fatalities at Padgett's Department Store weren't a discrepancy either. Marjorie must have misunderstood what the nurses said. She'd admitted she'd only overheard part of their conversation. Perhaps the nurses had been talking about the victims from another incident. Marylebone had been hit last night, too, and Wigmore Street. Polly knew from experience that ambulances sometimes transported victims to hospital from more than one incident. And that people one thought had been killed sometimes turned up alive.

But if she told Mike about having thought the theater troupe was dead, he'd demand to know why she hadn't known St. George's would be destroyed and conclude that was a discrepancy as well. Which meant she needed to keep him from finding out about the five casualties at Padgett's till she'd had a chance to determine if there actually were that many.

Thank goodness he wasn't here when Marjorie came, she thought. You should be glad they're late.

And thank goodness her supervisor had taken Marjorie back to hospital, though it meant Polly hadn't had a chance to ask her what exactly the nurse had said. Polly had offered to take Marjorie there herself so she could ask the hospital staff about the fatalities, but Miss Snelgrove had insisted on going, "So I can give those nurses a piece of my mind. What were they thinking? And what were you thinking?" she scolded Marjorie. "Coming here when you should be in bed?"

"I'm sorry," Marjorie had said contritely. "When I heard Padgett's had been hit, I'm afraid I panicked and jumped to conclusions."

Like Mike did when he saw the mannequins in front of Padgett's, Polly thought. Like I did when I found out Eileen's drop in Backbury didn't open. And like I'm doing now. There's a logical explanation for why Marjorie heard the nurses say there were five fatalities instead of three, and for why no one's come to get us. It doesn't necessarily mean Oxford's been destroyed. Research might have got the date the quarantine ended wrong and not arrived at the manor till after Eileen had left for London to find me. And the fact that Mike and Eileen aren't back yet doesn't necessarily mean something's happened to them. They might simply have had to wait till Theodore's mother returned from her shift at the aeroplane factory. Or they might have decided to go on to Fleet Street to collect Mike's things.

They'll be here any moment, she told herself. Stop fretting over things you can't do anything about, and do something useful.

She wrote out a list of the times and locations of the upcoming week's raids for Mike and Merope—correction, Eileen—and then tried to think of other historians who might be here besides Gerald Phipps. Mike had said there was an historian here from some time in October to eighteenth December. What had happened during that period that an historian might have come to observe? Nearly all the war activity had been in Europe—Italy had invaded Greece, and the RAF had bombed the Italian fleet. What had happened here?

Coventry. But it couldn't be that. It hadn't been hit till November fourteenth, and an historian wouldn't need an entire fortnight to get there.

The war in the North Atlantic? Several important convoys had been sunk during that period, but being on a destroyer had to be a ten. And if Mr. Dunworthy was canceling assignments that were too dangerous . . .

But anywhere in the autumn of 1940 was dangerous, and he'd obviously approved something. The intelligence war? No, that hadn't really geared up till later in the war, with the Fortitude and V-1 and V-2 rocket disinformation campaigns. Ultra had begun earlier, but it was not only a ten, it had to be a divergence point. If the Germans had found out their Enigma codes had been cracked, it clearly would have affected the outcome of the war.

Polly looked over at the lifts. The center one was stopping on third. They're here—finally, she thought, but it was only Miss Snelgrove, shaking her head over the negligence of Marjorie's nurses. "Disgraceful! I shouldn't be surprised if she had a relapse with all her running about," she fumed. "What are you doing here, Miss Sebastian? Why aren't you on your lunch break?"

Because I don't want to miss Mike and Eileen like I missed Eileen when I went to Backbury, but she couldn't say that. "I was waiting till you got back, in case we had a rush."

"Well, take it now," Miss Snelgrove said.

Polly nodded and, when Miss Snelgrove went into the stockroom to take off her coat and hat, told Doreen to send word to her immediately if anyone came in asking for her.

"Like the airman you met last night?"

Who? Polly thought, and then remembered that was the excuse she'd given Doreen for needing to know the names of airfields. "Yes," she said, "or my cousin who's coming to London, or anyone."

"I promise I'll send the lift boy to fetch you the moment anyone comes. Now, go."

Polly went, running downstairs first to look up and down Oxford Street and see if Mike and Eileen were coming, and then going up to ask the shop assistants in the lunchroom about airfields. By the end of her break, she had half a dozen names that began with the correct letters and/or had two words in their names.

She ran back down to third. "Did anyone ask for me?" she asked Doreen, even though they obviously hadn't come.

"Yes," Doreen said. "Not five minutes after you left."

"But I told you to send word to me!"

"I couldn't. Miss Snelgrove was watching me the entire time."

I knew I shouldn't have left, Polly thought. This is exactly like Backbury.

"You needn't worry, she hasn't gone," Doreen said. "I told her you were on lunch break, and she said she had other shopping to do and she'd—"

"She? Only one person? Not a man and a girl?"

"Only one, and definitely not a girl. Forty if she was a day, graying hair in a bun, rather scraggy-looking—"

Miss Laburnum. "Did she say what she was shopping for?" Polly asked.

"Yes," Doreen said. "Beach sandals."

Of course.

"I sent her up to Shoes. I told her it was likely too late in the season for us to carry them, but she was determined to go see. I'll watch your counter if you want to go—oh, here she is," she said as the lift opened.

Miss Laburnum emerged, carrying an enormous carpetbag. "I went to see Mrs. Wyvern and obtained the coats," she said, setting the carpetbag on Polly's counter, "and I thought I'd bring them along to you."

"Oh, you needn't have—"

"It was no bother. I spoke to Mrs. Rickett, and she said yes, your cousin could share your room. I also went to see Miss Harding about the room for your Dunkirk friend. Unfortunately, she'd already let it, to an elderly gentleman whose house in Chelsea was bombed. Dreadful thing. His wife and daughter were both killed." She clucked sympathetically. "But Mrs. Leary has a room to let. A second-floor back. Ten shillings the week with board."

"Is she in Box Lane as well?" Polly asked, wondering what excuse she could give after Miss Laburnum had gone to all this trouble if it was in a street on Mr. Dunworthy's forbidden list.

"No, she's just round the corner. In Beresford Court."

Thank goodness. Beresford Court wasn't on the list either.

"Number nine," Miss Laburnum said. "She promised me she won't let it to anyone else till your friend's seen it. It should do very nicely. Mrs. Leary is an excellent cook," she added with a sigh and opened the carpetbag.

Polly caught a glimpse of bright green inside. Oh, no, she thought. It hadn't even occurred to her when she'd asked Miss Laburnum about the coats that she might—

"I hoped to get a wool overcoat for your gentleman friend," Miss Laburnum said, pulling out a tan raincoat, "but this Burberry was all they had. There were scarcely any ladies' coats either. Mrs. Wyvern says more and more people are making do with last year's coats, and I fear the situation will only grow worse. The government's talking of rationing clothing next—" She stopped at the expression on Polly's face. "I know it's not very warm—"

"No, it's just what he needs. There's been so much rain this autumn," Polly said, but her eyes were on the carpetbag. She braced herself as Miss Laburnum reached in again.

"That's why I got your cousin this," she said, pulling out a bright green umbrella. "It's a frightful color, I know, and it doesn't match the black coat I obtained for her, but it was the only one without any broken spokes. And if it's too gaudy for her, I thought we might be able to use it in The Admirable Crichton. The green would show up well onstage."

Or in a crowd, Polly thought.

"It's lovely, I mean, I know my cousin won't think it too bright, and I'm certain she'll lend it to us for the play," she said, chattering in her relief.

Miss Laburnum laid the umbrella on the counter and pulled the black coat out of the carpetbag, then a black felt hat. "They hadn't any black gloves, so I brought along a pair of my own. Two of the fingers are mended, but there's still wear in them." She handed them to Polly. "Mrs. Wyvern said to tell you that if any of Padgett's employees are in a similar situation to send them to her and she'll see they get coats as well." She snapped the bag neatly shut. "Now, do you know if Townsend Brothers sells plimsolls and where I might find them?"

"Plimsolls?" Polly said. "You mean canvas tennis shoes?"

"Yes, I thought they might work instead of beach sandals. The sailors on board ship might have been wearing them, you see, when it sank. I asked in your shoe department, but they hadn't any. Sir Godfrey simply doesn't realize how filthy the station floors are—chewing gum and cigarette ends and who knows what else. Two nights ago, I saw a man"—she leaned across the counter to whisper—"spitting. I quite understand that Sir Godfrey has more pressing things on his mind, but—"

"We may have some in the games department," Polly said, cutting her off in midflow. "It's on fifth. And if we're out of plimsolls," which Polly was almost certain they would be, with rubber needed for the war effort, "you mustn't worry. We'll think of something else."

"Of course you will." Miss Laburnum patted her arm. "You're such a clever girl."

Polly escorted her over to the lift and helped her into it. "Fifth," she said to the lift boy, and to Miss Laburnum, "Thank you ever so much. It was terribly kind of you to do all this for us."

"Nonsense," Miss Laburnum said briskly. "In difficult times like these, we must do all we can to help each other. Will you be at rehearsal tonight?" she asked as the lift boy pulled the door across.

"Yes," Polly said, "as soon as I get my cousin settled in."

If she and Mike are back by then, she added silently as she went back to her counter, but she felt certain now they would be.

You were worried over nothing, she thought, picking up the umbrella and looking ruefully at it. And it will be the same thing with Mike and Eileen. Nothing's happened to them. There weren't any daytime raids today. Their train's been delayed, that's all, like yours was this morning, and when they get here, you'll tell Eileen the airfield names you've collected, and she'll say, "That's the one," and we'll ask Gerald where his drop is and go home, and Mike will go off to Pearl Harbor, Eileen will go off to VE-Day, and you can write up your observations of "Life in the Blitz" and go back to fending off the advances of a seventeen-year-old boy.

And in the meantime, she'd best tidy up her counter so she wouldn't have to stay late tonight. She gathered up the umbrella, the Burberry, and Eileen's coat and put them in the stockroom and then put the stockings her last customer had been looking at back in their box. She turned to put the box on the shelf.

And heard the air-raid siren begin its unmistakable up-and-down warble.

In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best.

winston churchill,

_VE-Day, 8 May 1945

London—7 May 1945

"douglas, the door's closing!" paige shouted

from the platform.

"Hurry!" Reardon urged. "The train will leave—"

"I know," she said, attempting to squeeze past the two Home Guards who were still singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary." And forming a solid wall. She tried to go around, but dozens of people were trying to board the car and pushing her back away from the door.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 75 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(38)

4 Star

(16)

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2 Star

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 77 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 2, 2010

    "What if...?"

    What if this book had an editor who knew how to wield a red pencil? What if someone had actually bothered to check how many times the phrase "what if" began a sentence in this book? What if the plot wasn't sidetracked by ENDLESS worrying about "what ifs" by its principal characters? What if the story focused on what the characters actually did, rather than their incessant "what if" questioning? What if the author spent more time on the interesting details of life under the Blitz, or better fleshed out what was happening back in the future?

    Then, the book may have been worth reading...

    5 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 2, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    The sequel to Blackout is a fantastic time travel thriller

    The twenty-first century historians (Polly Churchill, Merope Ward, and Michael Ward) remain stuck in England during the Nazi Blitz of the country. After being separated for a time (see Blackout), they reunite in London. However, their effort to find a way to tell their future associates at Oxford in 2060 about their predicament remains impossible.

    They also know time is running out before Polly's presence causes a time paradox having been to this era once before. Their fears over the Polly quandary also have them afraid they may have already changed 1940, which will have ripple effects into their time and beyond.

    The sequel to Blackout is a fantastic time travel thriller as the trio struggles with the notions that ironically time is running out on them and they may have caused a change in the future. The story line is fast-paced, but the previous tale must be read first to grasp the nuances of All Clear. Fans will relish this strong tale as the trapped threesome in 1940 is unaware that their colleagues back in 2060 are working a time correction to insure All Quiet on the Western Front.

    Harriet Klausner

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 15, 2013

    "All Clear" is the second half of the novel begun in t

    "All Clear" is the second half of the novel begun in the volume "Blackout." The first volume marshalls the characters, sets up their situations, and frames the terms of the mystery. The present volume is where the action takes place. The two volumes together constitute a stunning novel that explores the British home front during World War II and Ms. Willis' favorite locale, London during the Blitz. Readers should be warned that neither volume is complete without the other; the first volume ends just as the setup is complete and the action is about to begin, and the second volume will make no sense to a reader who has not read the first volume. Any reader who has not read "Blackout" shortly before plunging into "All Clear" might well find it helpful to reread volume one before starting volume two.

    Using her time-traveling historians as viewpoint characters, Ms. Willis explores a number of issues, in particular the distinction between what we can know of an historical event and what the experience was like for those who lived it. The overarching theme of the novel is heroism. One of the historians is present to study heroism explicitly in three specific instances during the War. He gets caught up in the rescue of the troops at Dunkirk, is wounded, and his world unravels from there. He gets a close-up view of heroism, trying to understand it in others and also finding it within himself. We also see the heroism of Londoners on the home front, a heroism called up by different circumstances yet no less real than the heroism of the battlefield. The Blitz must have been a horrific experience to those who lived during it; Ms. Willis does a superb job of evoking that period of the War, neither sensationalizing nor trivializing it.

    Another theme, which is present, more or less overtly, in all the time-travel novels and stories, is what I call the "rules of engagement." Each historian is forced to confront his or her position as an observer and must work out how to relate to the "contemps" he or she encounters. Here, the dilemma is acute: how do you relate yourself rightly to people who are caught in a terrible situation, when you are an observer with plans to depart? Can you make friends, must you remain aloof--and in the situation of this novel, how can you watch people suffering on such a scale without getting involved?

    As is usual in Ms. Willis' time-travel novels, the characters must confront unexpected behavior on the part of the space-time continuum, and as usual, the resolution is quite unexpected yet tells us something about the nature of the universe and the moral values that undergird community life. As usual, the continuum is a sort of "silent character" that moves in mysterious ways to achieve unclear ends, ends which the historians must figure out--in this novel because the answer literally means the difference between life and death for them and for the contemps for whom they have begun to care. Ms. Willis' love of screwball comedy is equally apparent in "Blackout/All Clear" as it is in "To Say Nothing of the Dog" but is transformed here into what might be more appropriately called screwball drama.

    The resolution to the characters' difficulties is, as is typical of Ms. Willis' novels, both unexpected and highly satisfying. I highly recommend this novel.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 23, 2013

    Excellent

    It is rare that I want to reread a book as soon as I finished reading the first time.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 2, 2012

    Recommended with reservations

    I had a lot of questions about the premise, the sense of urgency and rush that the post grads and students exhibited in trying to get to the past to observe and study, and the lack of concern about what time travel might do. After that I enjoyed the historical narrative and remained interested in what happened to the characters for the entire rather long novel (the combination of Blackout and All Clear)

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 30, 2012

    ?

    Yes. Deathwisper will. Shes the inly one i no of who will die when me and my sisters fight.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 22, 2012

    Boremeer here

    I cannot post at the next result plz come here. I hope someone reads this. Oh g i wish my nok would leave me b. :-(

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted January 6, 2012

    Outstanding

    This 641-page conclusion to the first book of this two-book series ("Blackout") is probably the best Science Fiction/Fantasy book I have ever read. The detail is extremely realistic, and I have no reason to doubt that it is historically accurate. The conclusion of the story lines is emotional and surprising. I was unable to put the book down during the last 200 pages or so. Willis is certainly the best at her craft in the modern era. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I would recommend to anybody.

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  • Posted December 28, 2011

    highly recommended

    This is a great book. This book is for anyone who has just returned from vacation to Europe or the UK. In it, you will find many of the same tube station stops. You will find yourself wanting to carry on with any of the characters who are on journey through many of the tourist attractions like trafalagar square or Saint Paul's gardens. It is a one of a kind time travellers book.

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  • Posted August 15, 2011

    A Real Page-Turner!

    When I finished Blackout I had to get this one to find out what happened! Connie Willis always makes me care for her characters and that was true here as well. Alf and Binnie were my favorites!) I also enjoy how she puts light and funny scenes in just when they're needed to ease the tension. I'll definitely reread these books (after I reread the other books in this universe).

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  • Posted July 4, 2011

    The 2nd of Willis' new Oxford Time Travel story

    All Clear is the second (of two) volumes of Connie Willis' Blackout/All Clear "novel". Do not read this book until you have first read Blackout. These two volumes are not independent stories. All Clear picks up right where Blackout left off, and there's truly no help for you if you start with All Clear. Willis herself has said that these two volumes should be treated at one novel, and you do yourself a great disservice if you don't treat them that way yourself.

    I really like Willis' time travel stories, her "Doomsday Book" being one of my all-time favorites. Blackout/All Clear is set primarily during the London Blitz of World War II (with some diversions to other WWII locales and times). The storyline essentially is that of historians sent back in time to study elements of the war, and who wind up trapped in their past and spend the bulk of the books trying to get back to their base in 2060 Oxford.

    The storyline here has a tendency to get frustrating, since the characters have a very difficult time accomplishing the things they're trying to do. The ultimate resolution of the plot has more to do with what is done accidentally, rather than deliberately, and that tends to weaken the characters. It also means a close reading is helpful, and I'm sure a re-read (should I ever empty my to-be-read pile) will yield a significant amount of relevant detail I missed the first time around.

    Nevertheless, the ending is strong and well done --- once the "frustrating" bits are over, and the characters start to get a glimpse of what's really going on, it became really hard to put the book down.

    The world Willis paints of 1940s England is fantastic, and might really be the true star of the show. I don't really know if any of it is accurate, but I really got the feeling that she'd done an amazing amount of research and loved making sure the details were right.

    This pair of books was well worth reading, even with the frustrations there. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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  • Posted June 24, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Award-winning

    Fans of any genre of fiction will love this sequel to "Blackout."

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  • Posted May 18, 2011

    Simply amazing...

    'Blackout' and 'All Clear' are both well written and deeply moving... as with 'The Doomsday Book', Connie Willis brings such life and emotion to both her characters and their world... as you read you can't help but become invested in them, to care for them and their struggles... a truly gifted writer.

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  • Posted February 10, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Highly Recommended

    This follow up book to Blackout continued to have me enthralled throughout. I could barely put this book down, and when I had finished reading it, I wanted more. That is a lot to say for a sequel with over 600 pages, (the first book had nearly 600 pages). The plot is a little complicated due to the time travel aspect, but that is what kept me entertained. I fell in love with the characters, and I felt like I knew them. I could imagine every scene. The author did a great job at making me feel like I was there in London during World War II, hearing the air raid sirens, running to the underground shelters, mending stockings because they were so hard to come by...an amazing book by an amazing author. I can't wait to read another book by Connie Willis. If they are all as good as this book (and the first book), I will devour them all.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 25, 2011

    Phew...

    This book stinks.

    0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted December 1, 2010

    Loved the story but...

    I was warned not to read "Blackout" until "All Clear" had come out, so I read them over the weekend together. I love the story line, but the ending is confusing. She gets you so wrapped up in these peoples lives (see other reviews) and then doesn't really tell you what happened. That was the biggest disappointment. Then, since the other reader had read a copy out of the library, I was going to "lend" my e-book version so she could re-read and see if she could explain the ending to me better (who the heck is Colin really?) and I could not lend it. If I'd bought it in paper it would be in the mail already. I'm disappointed in the publisher being so rude about that.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 17, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 26, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 23, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 11, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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