Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Four: Bellwether

So with Bellwether, I've concluded my unofficial Connie Willis month, although she's written many other delightful novels that I haven't read or reread in the past month.  Bellwether is the first book by Willis I'd ever read, and partly for that reason it holds a very fond place in my heart.  But I also love it because it's a little nugget of joy.  By far shorter than any of her time travel novels, Bellwether tells the tale of two corporate scientists who end up working together and discover a lot more than they'd bargained for.  Written after Doomsday Book but before the other time travel stories, many of the same themes run through this novel--especially regarding the effects of actions in chaotic systems--but Bellwether also has a healthy dose of gentle fun-poking at modern life as it urges thinking for oneself (a theme I can definitely get behind).  If you like happy, light-hearted, slightly snarky stories, I'd highly recommend Bellwether.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Three: Blackout and All Clear

As in past years, I'm discussing Connie Willis's monumental two-part story in one post because Blackout and All Clear really can't be read separately: it's one story that's been published in two (very long) parts.  This concludes her novel-length repertoire of time travel stories, and what a conclusion!  I first discovered these books in February of 2014, reread them last February, and now returned to them for the third time in as many years, and they're so wonderfully detailed and layered and complex that there's something new to notice with each rereading.  Without giving too much away, these books focus on three of Mr. Dunworthy's history students who are each studying a different aspect of England's involvement in WWII.  As one might expect from Connie Willis, their stories converge in interesting and unexpected ways, playing out over the course of years.  Reading these final time travel novels on the heels of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, one can see that certain themes and concerns travel through these works (and also through Willis's other works, most of which I'm not rereading at the moment), especially the effects of actions in complex or chaotic systems (a concern central to perhaps my favorite novel by Willis, Bellwether, which I'll be reading next).  With so much happening throughout the book's several stories, which are not always told in chronological order (always pay attention to the date given at the beginning of the chapter!), these works are not for the faint of heart, to be sure, totaling in at over a thousand pages, but if you like intricate, carefully crafted, well researched storytelling, it's hard to beat Blackout and All Clear.