Blackout

This author, Connie Willis, has won several prestigious science fiction awards (Hugo, Nebula). So, her bona fides, along with a positive reviews from several sources including this lengthy one in the Washington Post, and an intriguing story line, persuaded me to dive into this incredibly overlong (500 pages) and tedious book. I have never worked so hard to get to such a disappointing ending. We begin in the year 2060, in Oxford, England, when time travel has been perfected and historians routinely travel back to various periods of time to make observations and do their research more directly than is possible through today's documentary methods. But we already have hints that things are starting to go awry as the schedules for several people are being re-arranged at the last minute, creating all sorts of problems with getting the historians properly prepared with background information, appropriate costuming, and even the relevant language skills for their assignment. Three characters, Eileen, Polly, and Mike, all end up in various parts of WWII-era Britain (London in the Blitz, the rescue of soldiers from Dunkirk, the countryside evacuation of children) unable to get back to present time. They eventually manage to track down one another in hopes that the others have an effective "drop" to return to Oxford, but there the story ends. It turns out that All Clear, the sequel, is really just the second half of the present book. Based on this review from The Guardian, I am unlikely to pursue another trudge through overly detailed and not very interesting day to day meanderings in order to find out if they make it back. While I love sci-fi and historical novels, this one left me mostly bored and tired.