Book completed

[eve_prime]

Blackout, by Connie Willis. The first volume of Blackout/All Clear. I read this about 10 years ago, and I'm reading it again since J is in London and Oxford this week, two places very much present in this book. It's set mostly in London, 1940-1945, with a few scenes in Oxford in 2060. The premise is that for one Oxford research team, the study of history involves time travel back to major events. In theory these "historians" can't affect the course of history, but as this story goes along, it's not clear as to whether that's really the case. We're following three main characters along with numerous others, and the writing style is such that everything described is someone's immediate thoughts and experiences, with very little longer-term perspective (ironic, because they're supposed to be historians). The reader learns quite a lot about what it was like in London during the Blitz. There are a few twists and turns, where people turn out to be other than we think they are, but these aren't revealed until much later in All Clear. It's a fascinating book - although a bit tiresome at times when our characters keep missing each other and/or are focused on what must be going wrong with their project, but that's part of the point, I suppose.