Blackout - Connie Willis

Oxford in 2060, and Mr Dunworthy’s time travel lab is a chaotic place, sending scores of historians all over the place: to the Crusades, to Rome, and to World War II.

Michael Davies is prepping for Dunkirk, to observe heroes in action.

Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees, and trying to talk her thesis advisor into letting her go to observe VE Day. And Polly Churchill is evaluating the lives of shopgirls in the middle of the Blitz.

Then Mr Dunworthy disappears on some secret mission, and the time travel lab starts cancelling assignments and switching everyone’s schedules around, much to the disgust of the historians.

But when Michael, Merope and Polly reach their destinations, they discover no amount of study could have prepared them for the reality of daily life in World War II. It’s not just the incessant air raids, the blackouts and frightful rations; the once-reliable mechanics of time travel are showing significant glitches, and it’s not long before the historians begin to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can ever change the past.

Everything is spiralling out of control.