A review by mpclemens
All Clear by Connie Willis

2.0

So. This series is really two books. But not the two they're divided into.

One book is "a you-are-there retelling of parts of World War II, especially the Blitz." The other is "a twisty time-travel book set in parts of World War II, especially the blitz." Unfortunately, the two books are battling for the reader's attention throughout. Only within the final quarter of All Clear does the pair of novels pay off, but after being bombarded by near-endless amounts of character movement without character growth, I feel like it came too little, too late. There's not enough interest in the core characters to sustain a full limited-third-person style narrative and keep it compelling for the duration of the timeline that Willis has chosen.

Spoiler section:

Spoiler

Endless repetitions of characters stating the "rules" of time travel -- historians can't alter events -- becomes practically grating at times, and I feel that there were far more interesting things to set the characters to do other than endlessly run from point to point, trying to find a "drop" to their own home timeline. Far more interesting are when the characters simply accept the point and time in which they are working, and actually allow themselves to become part of history.