All Clear (Hardcover)
Description
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.
About the Author
Connie Willis, who was recently inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, has received six Nebula awards and ten Hugo awards for her fiction; her novel Passage was nominated for both. Her other works include Blackout, Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, Uncharted Territory, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Fire Watch, and Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. Connie Willis lives in Colorado with her family.
Praise for All Clear…
Praise for Blackout
“As vivid an evocation of England during World War II as anyone has ever written . . . You’ll find here a novelist who can plot like Agatha Christie and whose books possess a bounce and stylishness that Preston Sturges might envy.”—The Washington Post
“A tour-de-force. [Willis is] one of America’s finest writers.”—The Denver Post
“[Willis has] researched Blackout so thoroughly her readers may imagine she had access to the time machine her characters use.”—The Seattle Times
“This compassionate and deeply imagined novel . . . gives the reader a strong you-were-there feeling.”—The Times-Picayune
“A page-turning thriller . . . Willis uses detail and period language exquisitely well, creating an engaging, exciting tale.”—Publishers Weekly
“Depicts the times and the spirit of the British people remarkably vividly. . . . multifaceted and believable.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“[A] book with something for everyone that ends up working on every level. It is adventure. It is history. It is science. It is, indeed, thrilling. And it is unforgettable.”—January Magazine
“I loved this book. It is informative, subtle, full of great characters and has a wonderful plot. . . . Brilliant. Willis at her finest.”—Michael Moorcock