Reviewed by Paul Johnson for Readers' Favorite

In 2060, time travel has been invented by Mr. Dunworthy and practiced at Oxford University by a small group of historians that go back in time via drop points to investigate particular aspects of some event. Along with Dunworthy, there are several main protagonists, all of whom are visiting England during 1940: Polly Churchill, Merope Ward, Michael Davies, and Gerald Phipps. Colin Templer a teenager, has a major crush on Polly. Back at Oxford, the time travel technicians are very busy but, as the story opens, seem to be busier than usual causing all manner of schedule changes for the historians. After a time, three of the four historians’ drop points become unavailable, either due to local circumstances or for reasons unknown. These three gather in London where they hope that their fourth colleague’s site remains functional. The one little problem is that they are not certain exactly where in England he was supposed to go or what cover name he is using. The final chapter describes the arrival of another time traveler who remains unidentified. And, finally the mystery, what is happening with the time travel apparatus to cause these unusual situations. Unfortunately, we must wait until the second part of the story to find out.

My review of "Blackout" is from the audio book format. An essential part of an audio book experience is the person reading the book. I found Katherine Kellgren’s reading to be first rate, providing a complete mental picture for each character. "Blackout" is a big book, around 500 pages on 16 CD’s, which comes to almost 19 hours of listening. I am a fan of science fiction, especially time travel and a history buff as well so my expectations for this story were high. I did find that some of the disks were were a little wordy and my attention wandered just a little from time to time. This story is heavily detailed but did provide a wonderful insight about life and hardships endured during a crucial time in history. There was only one drawback. "Blackout" ends with a cliffhanger, which may leave some readers dissatisfied since the whole story won't be completely resolved until a concluding volume titled 'All Clear' is available. All in all, it’s an entertaining story that Time Travel and history lovers will enjoy.