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Blackout/All Clear - Wikipedia. Blackout and All Clear are the two volumes that comprise a 2. American author Connie Willis.

Blackout was published February 2, 2. Spectra. The second part, the conclusion All Clear, was released as a separate book on October 1. The diptych won the 2. Nebula Award for Best Novel,[2] the 2. Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel,[3] and the 2. Hugo Award for Best Novel.[4][5] These two volumes are the most recent of four books and a short story that Willis has written involving time travel from Oxford during the mid 2. Plot introduction[edit]Willis imagines a near future (first introduced in her 1.

Fire Watch" and featured in two of her previous novels: Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog) in which historians conduct field work by traveling into the past as observers. The research is mainly conducted at the University of Oxford in England in the mid- 2. In their world, time- travel has been known since the early 2.

The time- travel device, a portal called "the Net", remains in the time- traveler's present, while sending the time- traveler to a particular location (called "the drop") and time. They can return from the same location when someone in the future re- opens the Net for them at an agreed- upon "rendezvous" time. Showtime Full Shadow Of The Vampire Online Free on this page. Historians in Willis' world believe that the laws of physics resist possible alterations to the past by preventing time- travel to certain places or times.

In some cases, the machine used for time- travel will refuse to function, rendering the trip impossible. In other cases, "slippage"—a shift from the exact, desired target in time and/or space—occurs. The time- traveler arrives at the nearest place and time suitable for preventing a time paradox; although sometimes this is only a few minutes later than planned, it can be as much as several years. An example is when the character Polly wishes to arrive on September 1. London, but instead arrives on September 1. In addition to slippage, which the technicians operating the net cannot control or predict, there are other reasons why a historian might not be able to travel to a certain time. Once a time- traveler has visited a certain date, he or she can never go to that same time again.

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The 2. 1st- century authorities controlling time- travel also have rules and can deem some historical periods too dangerous for time- travel, even though those times might be theoretically accessible. Plot summary[edit]Blackout[edit]It's the year 2. Oxford University are a hair's breadth away from revolting. Mr. Dunworthy keeps changing their assignments at the last minute, for reasons not explained until All Clear. Michael Davies, who had prepared for a first- hand look at the events of Pearl Harbor, for example by having brain implants to give him an American accent and knowledge of that time, abruptly finds himself instead being sent to witness the response to the Battle of Dunkirk. The constant changes also mean that the wardrobe department can't assemble the proper wardrobe for Polly Churchill, who plans to work as a shopgirl during the Blitz. Merope Ward, overseeing child refugees from London in Warwickshire, finds herself utterly unable to find the support she needs to complete her first assignment in the past.

Dunworthy himself is nowhere to be found, having set off for a meeting with another academic, Ishiwaka, who theorizes that continued time travel has pushed the laws that safely govern it to the breaking point. When they make it to World War II- era England, all initially seems well. Merope takes on the persona of an Irish girl, Eileen O'Reilly, to secure a position in the staff of an English country manor house.

From December, 1. May, 1. 94. 0, she works for Lady Caroline as a servant; she desires to observe children evacuated from London during World War II.[8] She sees far more of these children and their predicaments than she bargained for, especially some undisciplined trouble- makers, sister and brother street urchins Binnie and Alf Hodbin. Merope, referred to mostly in both books as Eileen, excels at her assignment, even when she comes to dislike it and to try desperately to escape to her "drop," which is located in the woods outside the manor grounds. The children love her, and when Alf comes down with measles, and then infects the dozens of other children, the house is quarantined; Eileen proves an excellent and tireless nurse, against her own wishes. She is appalled by what she considers the barbaric medical treatments of 1. Binnie's life only by stealing some aspirin to bring the girl's fever down. Eileen repeatedly finds herself unable to return to 2.

She helps to return most of the children to their homes, and then plans to travel by train to seek help from her friend Polly, who should, by September, 1. London. To her dismay, the local vicar, Mr. Goode, has arranged for Binnie and Alf to be given "safe passage" to Canada, so that they will not have to remain with their neglectful mother in Whitechapel, which, as Eileen knows, was bombed during the Blitz. But, as she also knows, they are likely to be transported on the SS City of Benares, which was torpedoed by a German submarine.

Unable to allow this to happen, Eileen accompanies the brats to London, after which she can seek Polly. During their train trip, Alf's mischievousness delays their train; if the train had proceeded on time, it would have been destroyed by German bombers.

When they disembark from the train and cross a field to find a bus, they witness in the sky the beginning of the Battle of Britain. Alf (who fancies himself a plane spotter) and Binnie are delighted to watch an air battle between a German Messerschmitt fighter plane against a Hawker Hurricane and a Spitfire. The Messerschmitt is destroyed, and Eileen manages both to return the children to their home and to find Polly.

Polly, fair- haired and pretty, secures employment at a department store in Oxford Street in the West End of London. Her intention (that is, her research assignment) was "to observe shelterers in the tube stations",[9] but she ends up joining a group huddling under St. George's Church. The group, most of whom become fond of Polly, includes the nasty- tempered Mrs. Rickett, who owns a boarding house where Polly rents a tiny room; some other boarders, including the sweet but flighty spinster Miss Laburnum; Sir Godfrey, a Shakespearean actor who forms a crush on Polly; a rector; Mr.

Simms and his dog Nelson; Lila and Viv, young women who chat constantly about dances and movie stars; and others. Michael Davies had planned to travel to witness the attack on Pearl Harbor. Instead, he is sent to Dover, a trip he had intended to make later, where he had planned to witness heroism during the Dunkirk evacuation. When he discovers that, instead of Dover, he has landed in Saltram- on- Sea, a town 3. Mike Davis, an American war correspondent, who wishes to cover the British anti- invasion preparations of World War II. The residents are pleased to find a "Yankee" interested in them. To his horror, he is brought against his will onto the small, barely seaworthy craft Lady Jane of Commander Harold and taken across the English Channel to help evacuate the soldiers from the beach at Dunkirk.

When they arrive at the mole there, soldiers begin scrambling onto the boat, but Michael must dive underwater to free the propeller from a corpse which has become entangled with it.