Blackout by Connie Willis

Blackout is a time-travelling adventure story. It’s set in 2060 and follows three historians, Polly Merope and Michael. Historians in 2060 do their job differently than historians do today. They don’t guess how people lived by finding artefacts or reading works of the time. Instead they travel to the time in question and actually live the history. They have a whole team of people to prepare them for their journey from clothes to important dates to driving the vehicles of the time. Our three historians all go to World War Two to separate areas of England as each is researching something different. They cannot be seen to appear in to thin air so each is given a ‘drop site’ that delivers them where they are supposed to be and allows them to check in when needed.

I do like a time travel novel where people go back to what is, for us, fairly recent history. Having each character looking into their area of interest means we get to see how people in London view and experience the war compared to people in the country who are taking in evacuated children and collecting items to help with the war effort. It helps break the story up and keeps you reading as she often leaves you on a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter and the next one is from someone else’s point of view.

The book is written to draw you in and take you on a journey with these three people. Willis creates vivid images although, having not experienced anything like it, it is still difficult to imagine just how terrifying it is being in the middle of a war. Polly, who is based in London, has memorised all of the big department stores on Oxford Street that get bombed and when so she can get a job that will be safe. She also knows the area that will get bombed each night. Even though she has this information she is still terrified and doesn’t always trust that what she knows will happen will actually happen.

The characters are all fairly similar in that they are all historians and are all based at the same university. They are all keen to be in on the action but their boss is very cautious and doesn’t like them to be in danger zones. They have all time-travelled before too, so they have certain expectations of how their trip will go. However, when things start to go wrong, that’s when you get to see their real personalities and how they cope in unexpected circumstances, away from the characters that have been created for them. They often have their research to fall back to get them through but sometimes they are unprepared as they didn’t always have time to get their research done. This allows them to understand even better, the people whose time they are living in.

Although it doesn’t seem that far in the future, Willis’s 2060 is an advanced time. The time-travellers are unsure how to do things that we wouldn’t even think about, like how to send a letter, where the stamp goes and the address. But the time isn’t so futuristic as to be unrecognisable. Not knowing an awful lot about WWII I enjoyed reading about how everyone did their bit to help and just got on with it once they’d got the hang of the raids. You have to admire the people who stayed behind to keep the country going as well as the amazing things the troops themselves went through. I will definitely be reading the sequel to this as it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Well worth a read if you like Doctor Who or historic or adventure stories.

Overall rating 5 out of 5