Of the two books ( Blackout and All Clear), I far preferred Blackout. More than anything, Willis’ books frustrate me: there is so much there, so many ideas that could progress in so many interesting ways, and yet she never quite elevates her material to where it needs to go. The books are competently if unexcitingly written with characters who tend towards the obnoxious (being all-knowing historians who like to frequently – far too frequently – reference their detailed knowledge of wartime England) but inoffensive, with plots that seem promising but which never deliver. If they were simply bad I think I would have an easier time reviewing them but there’s nothing glaringly awful in them. After years of hearing how great her books were and of being intrigued by her time-travelling historians I finally started reading them, beginning earlier this year with To Say Nothing of the Dog and continuing on earlier this month with Blackout and All Clear, her two-volume World War II saga published last year. It is my sad duty to inform everyone that I am officially not a Connie Willis fan, a revelation that is quite a disappointment to me.
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