Talk:Blackout/All Clear

Merge discussion
Blackout and All Clear are really one story in two volumes, and I think they would be much better served as one article. This has been discussed in the past on the talk page for All Clear, with the idea of a merger treated with favor. Much pertaining to the books is common to them both, such as the characters, the plot summary, and now the Hugo nomination and Nebula win.

This leads me to my suggested title for the merged article. Unfortunately, the books each have their own title, with no official title for the pairing/diptych/what-have-you. But in both the Nebula and Hugo listings, the diptych is known as "Blackout/All Clear", and this appears to be Willis's preferred title as well, as can be seen on The Official Connie Willis Website—scroll down to "A Note for Hugo Nominators from the ConnieWillis.net Webmaster".

I therefore propose that both the article Blackout (novel) and the article All Clear be turned into redirects to an article which would be entitled Blackout/All Clear and which would be for both volumes. I will wait at least a week before following up on this suggestion to allow time for discussion. Proposals of alternate names for the combined article are also welcome. Princess Lirin (talk) 20:45, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. --BobC32 (talk) 22:06, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This is one of those things where there isn't any neat way to go about it. If Willis had given the two volume story an overarching name, much like The Lord of the Rings encapsulates The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, it would be much easier. That being said, I have no real objections to the merge itself. My one suggestion would be to keep the plot summaries of each volume separate. –Cg-realms (talk • contribs) 14:46, 29 May 2011 (EDT)


 * I have no objection to a merger. I think Blackout (novel) should remain as the title, with All Clear redirecting to that. I don't like the idea of a combo title with a forward slash in it. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:38, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks everybody for your input. The title is definitely the biggest issue where the merge is concerned. This is actually why I've waited so long to propose this merge, because I wasn't sure what title to use. Scjessey, I agree that the presence of the slash in the title is not ideal, but we do have the fact that this is the most officially-recognized title for the collection. I just don't feel comfortable with Blackout (novel) being the title for the whole article, since it only applies to half (or if you're going by page counts, less than half).
 * Cg-realms, keeping plot summaries separate is doable, and now that I think about it I can see that it might be a good idea. If you had any specific reasons for suggesting it, could you explain further?
 * I'll probably do the merge sometime in the next 24 hours unless any other points are raised here. At this point, I'm thinking I'll still go with the Blackout/All Clear title, but we can always move it later if Willis eventually realizes that she needs a Lord of the Rings-style combo title and provides us with one. Princess Lirin (talk) 05:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I think the slash remains a stupid idea. This is now a subpage of Blackout. This mess needs to be fixed in short order. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:NC-SLASH discusses slashes in titles—it says that article names in the main namespace "can contain slashes if appropriate". I felt that the slash-containing title was appropriate because we currently have no better title for the two volumes as a whole. The naming conventions page says that because of how subpages are handled, the corresponding talk page "may display a redundant subpage level-up link at the top" as a side effect, but you will notice that this only happens on the talk page; Blackout/All Clear is not a subpage of Blackout.
 * I selected this title not because it was something I came up with as a good way to combine the two titles, but because it is the way Willis's official website and therefore also the Hugo and Nebula mentions of these books presented the title. Do you have a suggestion of a better title that refers to both halves of the story as a whole? I'm willing to consider other options, but at this point only one has been suggested, and that did not cover both volumes. Princess Lirin (talk) 22:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * As I indicated earlier in this discussion, if it has to be merged at all (and there's no pressing reason why it needed to be, quite honestly), the content should be at Blackout (novel) with All Clear redirecting to that (or to Blackout (novel)). -- Scjessey (talk) 18:11, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Why? Before the publisher split the novel into two volumes, the original title was going to be 'All Clear'. I don't like the slash any more than you do, as it's very awkward, but it seems more honest than arbitrarily choosing the title of one volume over the other. Princess Lirin, I suggested keeping the summaries for each volume separate for the sake of clarity. It's a minor formatting issue, but it provides readers more information by identifying where the split is. The only solution I can think of for the naming issue would be merging all of the Dunworthy/Oxford time travel books into a single series article. This would obviously be even more problematic because Fire Watch, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog all won some prominent awards and are therefore notable in their own right. On a related note, the 2010 Nebula Award went to Blackout/All Clear, and was awarded as a single novel with the dreaded slash and everything. The 2011 Hugo Award Nominees announcement also listed the books as a single novel Blackout/All Clear with the slash. –Cg-realms (talk • contribs) 01:34, 18 June 2011 (EDT)

Series Article ?
Other authors with a series of novels set in one universe have articles that at least list the books in the series and provide links there and back for the individual titles.

For example:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_the_Skolian_Empire ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_%28series%29.

Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travel series now has 5 novels (or 4 if you lump the last two together) plus the short story, Firewatch. Is it too soon to offer this treatment to her series as well ?

Jg og 2 (talk) 16:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Those stories certainly share an essential context of time travel from Oxford during a fictional mid-21st century, and thus share a common fictional science fiction "universe". But it's not clear that the stories form a "series" in the usual literary sense. The stories don't depend or build from each other (except within the Blackout/All Clear diptych). Only one character (Dunworthy) routinely appears throughout, but -- although sometimes has pivotal row -- he isn't a main protagonist outside of Doomsday Book. Other characters who occasionally re-appear do not usually have pivotal roles (except, perhaps, Colin in both Doomsday Book and Blackout/All Clear). In general, the main characters in one story have no connection (though most are graduate students of Dunworthy's at different times) with those in other stories. Although there are some shared themes, there's no overall character or story arc between the stories. Until and unless Willis writes more in this vein, it is probably too soon to characterize these stories as a real series. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobC32 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Allegorical names
Hello, all!

I am trying NOT to do Original Research, believe me, but the allegorical names are all over the place, and Connie herself refers to them within the text and outside it.

I've added to the text some mentions of Merope WARD and Vicar GOODE, and I suggested that Connie took Michael Davies' last name from a real war hero. Then I thought I'd better stop.

Polly's names of Churchill and Sebastian are already explained in the text.

But Merope itself, as well as Dunworthy, Denewell, Rickett (Rickets, Rickettsial disease), Kingsman, Templer, Tensing (for a man who works in the most tense part of the war, possibly?) ... I'm not trying to LOOK for these things. As Buffy says in BtVS, "I didn't jump [to conclusions]. I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were."

Would it be best if I were to write to Connie Willis and ask her if she meant these names to be allegorical? Because we all know the pain of adding what seems obvious information and then having it removed as OR.

I don't really believe that all of these names need to be explained, of course! That's an article for an academic journal. I ask you only whether it's okay, or overkill, to explain the source of "Merope" and to point out that "Templer" is the name of an idolizer.

Thanks, everyone! OcelotHod (talk) 07:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)  OcelotHod

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