First one was back in January. 11/22/63 By Stephen King
and recently the twin tomes Black Out and All Clear by Connie Willis.
Building a huge plot where the timelines and characters are interwoven brilliantly is quite a challenging task. Adding time travel to it makes it even more interesting. Not to mention the awkward paradoxes that arise in the Universe where time travel is possible.
Both (actually all three) novels, are highly recommended if you like reading stories that keep you at the edge of your seat most of the time. Last sentence of almost every chapter is bound to surprise you. (My personal observation: Such novels are really good to improve your reading speed)
In 11/22/63 Stephen King tells the story from a man's point of view who has found a portal through time that opens in the past - more accurately in the year 1958. The entire novel is based on this man's attempt to exploit this portal in order to stop the Kennedy Assassination in 1963. King's description of the America in 60's is very inviting (if only we knew of such portal). The ups and downs in the whole novel keep you entertained all of the time. Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"I saw that most of the passengers were smoking. The atmosphere in there must have been roughly akin to the atmosphere on Saturn" [in reference to popularity of smoking in the 60's]
Black Out and All Clear are two novels continuing the same storyline. The story is about a group of students of history from the year 2060, who travel back to the years of World War II, to study the history first hand (as part of their research assignments) and get trapped in the past. The narration of London during the entire period of war is quite fascinating. The characters of the story live through the London bombings because their portals back to their time stop working for some reason.
Although in 11/22/63, Stephen King has conveniently dumbed down the paradoxical implications of time travels; Connie Willis bravely weaves her story on top of them. Of course no one can give foolproof resolution for the impossible issues that arise with the concept of time travel. However Connie has been fairly successful in building a maze of mysteries and then using her flavor of Time travel theory to explain those mysteries satisfactorily. You have to admire how much work she must have put into these two novels.
Highly recommended.
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