Helping is Heroic
Feb. 16th, 2014 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselJul 2013
All Clear - Connie Willis - Gollancz, 2012
* * * *
Not a lot to say about this one except that it completes the story of Blackout and has the predicted virtues and faults. As a depiction of the realities of the Second World War it is splendid, but the resolution of the science fiction plot is as disappointing as expected.
The balance between the three main characters is better and the action focuses on tracking down fellow historians whose drops might still be open, which leads to some exciting set pieces. The plot overall is pleasing, with the links between the apparently disconnected scenes set in the later parts of the war and the main action slowly becoming apparent, and the whole knitting together nicely.
Willis has Diana Wynne Jones' propensity to engage her readers with puzzles, which in general is an authorial trait that I like. Willis' Americanism lets her down a little here, though. One of her puzzles relates to an aspect of the second world war that is iconic to most British people but of which her characters (historians, no less) appear not to have heard. As a result I figured it out some fifty pages earlier than I was supposed to.
And this was a repeated pattern later in the story. In a sense, Willis builds her world too well - once you see what she is doing, it's not too hard to predict what the links will be. It's also the chief reason for the failure of the big SF mystery, the reason why the drops back to Oxford won't open. The answer will be clear to any analytical reader long before the characters figure it out, and Willis doesn't succeed in convincing us that their slow realisation is a reasonable response to their situation rather than a convenient authorial contrivance to eke out the plot.
But then, as I remarked previously, this is best not read as an SF novel. It's not even a novel about the spirit of the Blitz, important though that is to it. It's about the origins of heroism. Mike, Merope and Polly cannot be impartial observers, even when the stability of their own histories could require that they do. And that fundamental impulse to help out also lies at the heart of the spirit of the Blitz. Humans care. The actions that come from that trait will not necessarily be intended or desirable, but the impulse to help others is heroic. And that's an idea that's worth writing about, even if the science fiction framework that supports it is contrived.
All Clear - Connie Willis - Gollancz, 2012
* * * *
Not a lot to say about this one except that it completes the story of Blackout and has the predicted virtues and faults. As a depiction of the realities of the Second World War it is splendid, but the resolution of the science fiction plot is as disappointing as expected.
The balance between the three main characters is better and the action focuses on tracking down fellow historians whose drops might still be open, which leads to some exciting set pieces. The plot overall is pleasing, with the links between the apparently disconnected scenes set in the later parts of the war and the main action slowly becoming apparent, and the whole knitting together nicely.
Willis has Diana Wynne Jones' propensity to engage her readers with puzzles, which in general is an authorial trait that I like. Willis' Americanism lets her down a little here, though. One of her puzzles relates to an aspect of the second world war that is iconic to most British people but of which her characters (historians, no less) appear not to have heard. As a result I figured it out some fifty pages earlier than I was supposed to.
And this was a repeated pattern later in the story. In a sense, Willis builds her world too well - once you see what she is doing, it's not too hard to predict what the links will be. It's also the chief reason for the failure of the big SF mystery, the reason why the drops back to Oxford won't open. The answer will be clear to any analytical reader long before the characters figure it out, and Willis doesn't succeed in convincing us that their slow realisation is a reasonable response to their situation rather than a convenient authorial contrivance to eke out the plot.
But then, as I remarked previously, this is best not read as an SF novel. It's not even a novel about the spirit of the Blitz, important though that is to it. It's about the origins of heroism. Mike, Merope and Polly cannot be impartial observers, even when the stability of their own histories could require that they do. And that fundamental impulse to help out also lies at the heart of the spirit of the Blitz. Humans care. The actions that come from that trait will not necessarily be intended or desirable, but the impulse to help others is heroic. And that's an idea that's worth writing about, even if the science fiction framework that supports it is contrived.