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[personal profile] divisionsandprecisions
I completely stopped writing about it, but I have been reading a lot more in the last year. The most unforgettable was Connie Willis's Blackout/All Clear.

I wasn't sure what to expect, because I really like Connie Willis, but this two-part book seemed to receive either lukewarm support or a complete panning from many people, especially in the context of the Hugo nominations. Now that I have read it, I can say that this is perhaps Willis's best work and as deserving of a Hugo as anything in years.

She continues to play with her time-travel ideas in the same world, but this time she finds a story that is worth telling. The story is of life in England during the early days of World War 2. The role of the time travelers is to provide the reader two things. First a viewpoint from which to observe the residents of the 1940s. Second, a route to understanding the emotions of the residents. The plot is set up so that the time-travelers are experiencing their own catastrophe that engulfs them in feelings of fear, loss, despair, wild hope, and determination, mirroring the emotional state of the WW2 civilians around them. This is the best example I know of how SFF can tell a story more effectively than a straightforward approach.

An example of this is an early scene in a London air raid shelter. It is hard to understand how the 1940s residents there feel without following their entire story as war in Europe is building. But we are following a time traveler who is lost and frightened and finds a strange comfort in this deep basement below London, much like what the residents are feeling.

The first volume contains the best material about England and WW2. The second volume spends more of its time resolving the plot.

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