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Impossible Things
Winner of six Nebula and two Hugo awards for her fiction, Connie Willis is acclaimed for her gifted imagination and bold invention. Here are eleven of her finest stories, surprising tales in which the impossible becomes real, the real becomes impossible, and strangeness lurks at every turn.
The end of the world comes not with a bang but a series of whimpers over many years in "The Last of the Winnebagos."
The terror of pain and dying gives birth to a startling truth about the nature of the stars, a principle known as the "Schwarzschild Radius."
In "Spice Pogrom," an outrageous colony in outer space becomes the setting for a screwball comedy of bizarre complications, mistaken identities, far-too-friendly aliens--and even true love.
The last of the Winnebagos --
Even the queen --
Schwarzschild radius --
Ado --
Spice pogrom --
Winter's tale --
Chance --
In the late Cretaceous --
Time out --
Jack --
At the Rialto
The end of the world comes not with a bang but a series of whimpers over many years in "The Last of the Winnebagos."
The terror of pain and dying gives birth to a startling truth about the nature of the stars, a principle known as the "Schwarzschild Radius."
In "Spice Pogrom," an outrageous colony in outer space becomes the setting for a screwball comedy of bizarre complications, mistaken identities, far-too-friendly aliens--and even true love.
The last of the Winnebagos --
Even the queen --
Schwarzschild radius --
Ado --
Spice pogrom --
Winter's tale --
Chance --
In the late Cretaceous --
Time out --
Jack --
At the Rialto
461 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1994
121 people are currently reading
1579 people want to read
About the author
Connie Willis
256 books4,680 followersConstance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s.
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA).
She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband Courtney Willis, a professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado. She also has one daughter, Cordelia.
Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students and faculty of the future University of Oxford. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the short story "Fire Watch," found in the short story collection of the same name.
Willis tends to the comedy of manners style of writing. Her protagonists are typically beset by single-minded people pursuing illogical agendas, such as attempting to organize a bell-ringing session in the middle of a deadly epidemic (Doomsday Book), or frustrating efforts to analyze near-death experiences by putting words in the mouths of interviewees (Passage).
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA).
She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband Courtney Willis, a professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado. She also has one daughter, Cordelia.
Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students and faculty of the future University of Oxford. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the short story "Fire Watch," found in the short story collection of the same name.
Willis tends to the comedy of manners style of writing. Her protagonists are typically beset by single-minded people pursuing illogical agendas, such as attempting to organize a bell-ringing session in the middle of a deadly epidemic (Doomsday Book), or frustrating efforts to analyze near-death experiences by putting words in the mouths of interviewees (Passage).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
April 23, 2019
Beware the efficiency expert - the modern day version of the Tyrannosaurus Rex
Teachers threatened with dismissal take on new studies like flying instructors, escape from the predators and leave the university.
Enjoy!
Teachers threatened with dismissal take on new studies like flying instructors, escape from the predators and leave the university.
Enjoy!
September 9, 2008
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'
If there is a raison d'être for genre fiction, it is summarized in the above quote from Through the Looking Glass. But the book "Impossible Things" also rekindles my anger at the fact that things people like Connie Willis write is even classified as anything other than fiction and so shelved away from the areas where "normal" people browse for books. I think Neil Gaiman put it best (summarizing yet other people)
"I sometimes really wish that all fiction books of all genres for any people over the age of about 12 were simply filed alphabetically by author, because as Patrick Nielsen Hayden once pointed out to me, shelving by genre simply tells people the places in a bookshop that they don't have to go. And Sturgeon's Law suggests that they'll be missing out on some good stuff that's shelved in those places."
But, I really haven't told you anything about the book. It is a collection of short stories, some involving the future, some involving aliens, all involving characters trying to deal with their lives. Connie Willis has this skill in conveying empathy that makes you want to weep for dogs in "The Last Winnebago", feel guilt in "Jack", and wish Cary Grant could have filmed "Spice Pogrom".
I'm three books into reading Connie Willis, and while this collection is the most uneven thing I've read yet, I'm still enamored with her wit, humor, and writing.
If there is a raison d'être for genre fiction, it is summarized in the above quote from Through the Looking Glass. But the book "Impossible Things" also rekindles my anger at the fact that things people like Connie Willis write is even classified as anything other than fiction and so shelved away from the areas where "normal" people browse for books. I think Neil Gaiman put it best (summarizing yet other people)
"I sometimes really wish that all fiction books of all genres for any people over the age of about 12 were simply filed alphabetically by author, because as Patrick Nielsen Hayden once pointed out to me, shelving by genre simply tells people the places in a bookshop that they don't have to go. And Sturgeon's Law suggests that they'll be missing out on some good stuff that's shelved in those places."
But, I really haven't told you anything about the book. It is a collection of short stories, some involving the future, some involving aliens, all involving characters trying to deal with their lives. Connie Willis has this skill in conveying empathy that makes you want to weep for dogs in "The Last Winnebago", feel guilt in "Jack", and wish Cary Grant could have filmed "Spice Pogrom".
I'm three books into reading Connie Willis, and while this collection is the most uneven thing I've read yet, I'm still enamored with her wit, humor, and writing.
October 31, 2021
Actually a very good short story collection, but suffers from an unusual Connie Willis problem: I think the stories are almost all too short. They make their points, and then they just end - without real endings.
But they’re almost all interesting, and almost all funny, and sometimes they’re extremely sharp. Sometimes they have hints of what Willis will become, too - the parking! The hotel employee! The space station space crunch! Good stuff.
But they’re almost all interesting, and almost all funny, and sometimes they’re extremely sharp. Sometimes they have hints of what Willis will become, too - the parking! The hotel employee! The space station space crunch! Good stuff.
October 31, 2024
Rating: 3 stars
I seem to have done everything with this book except read it. I killed a moth with it. I have used it as a mouse pad on innumerable occasions. It was a phone stand, a temporary headrest, a dog pillow, and a sun shade. This all adds up to 54 days spent reading this 480 page book. And I've put writing this review off, too, until almost a month later. But now I actually need to write stuff, because I am starting to forget about some of the stories. So now that everyone is watching the rugby, I have a moment to spare (I always seem to be writing these reviews while a rugby game is on, honestly).
The Last of the Winnebagos:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Last of the Winnebagos can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Even the Queen:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula winner
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for Even the Queen can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Schwarzschild Radius:
Awards and nominations: Locus and Nebula nominee
As she so skilfully did in At the Rialto with quantum physics, through Schwarzschild Radius Willis parallels general relativity to real life historical events and the experiences of soldiers during World War I. Karl Schwarzschild, the German physicist who provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, is the subject of this eponymous short story which is based on incidents in his life. Schwarzschild Radius is largely told through flashbacks by a soldier who just so happened to intercept a letter from Einstein to Schwarzschild while the latter was serving as a Lieutenant on the front lines during the First World War. As the story progresses, the unsettling comparisons are drawn between the circumstances facing the soldiers in the trenches and the theories being addressed in science.
Ok, well, that was all rather formal, sorry. I guess this is one of Connie Willis' more serious stories tonally, and my review ended up reflecting that unintentionally.
Ado:
Well, isn’t this relevant? After all those book bannings last year. Ado takes place at a school sometime in the future (or perhaps an alternate past) when an English teacher decides to her class is going to study Shakespeare for a semester. Problem is, there are too many butthurt people in the world so political correctness is taken to the extreme. Any and every little piece of media that might in some small, insignificant way offend someone, has been banned. And I mean everything. Examples: The Merchant of Venice is ruled out as an option because Morticians International object to the use of the word 'casket' in Act III. They also can't do As You Like It because Mothers Against Transvestites filed a restraining order against it for Rosalind dressing up as a man in Act II, and The Sierra Club don't like it for "destructive attitudes toward the environment." - Orlando carves Rosalind's name into a tree.
Eventually they cut their losses and decide on Hamlet, with some rather heavy censoring. Are you ready?
- The Commission on Poison Prevention feels the "graphic depiction of poisoning in the murder of Hamlet's father may lead to copycat crimes."
- The Literature Liberation Front objects to the phrases, "Frailty, thy name is woman," and "O, most pernicious woman," and the "What a piece of work is man" speech
- The National Cutlery Council objects to the depiction of swords as deadly weapons because "swords don't kill people. People kill people."
- The Copenhagen Chamber of Commerce objects to the line, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
- The International Federation of Florists object to the fact that Ophelia falls in picking flowers
- Morticians International say there is a "negative portrayal of interment-preparation personnel" (the gravedigger) and inaccurate representation of burial regulations (neither a hermetically sealed coffin nor a vault appear in the scene).
- The Society for the Advancement of Philosophy considers the line "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" a slur on their profession.
- The Actors' Guild challenge Hamlet's hiring of nonunion employees
- And to top it all off, Drapery Defense League object to Polonius being stabbed while hiding behind a curtain.
All complaints considered, they reduce the entire play of Hamlet down to four lines deemed "safe" to read, i.e. they won't piss anyone off because they are literally discussing the weather. Yes, this was probably way to long a segment for such a short story, but I find this funny and want to come back and read the list.
Spice Pogrom:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This one is long. And I mean loooooooooong. It takes up over 20% of the overall page count of this collection, despite there being 11 stories in total. The reason I took so long to read this collection was almost entirely because of this story. It was long and convoluted, but that was the whole point of it. It is essentially a nonsense, screwball comedy that takes place in space. I mean, Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh is a character's name. Yes, I spelled that correctly. No, it is not a keyboard smash. Also, it had first contact in there somewhere.
Winter's Tale:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
Ah, Shaky P is back. Well, his family anyway. Winter's Tale is basically a fictional reimagining of Shakespeare's wife and daughters. Yes, it is interesting, but I honestly forgot most of the story because it took me ages to read. I know I said Spice Pogrom was responsible for me taking 54 days to finish the collection, but this story also had a large part in that. It is all written in Shakespearean English ("Dost thou hear something?" is a direct quote from this story) AND it is told in first person, so there is no reprieve for my modern ears.
Eh, well, we all know one thing Shakespearean English is good for: finding small obscure words to keep in mind for the next time you play Boggle.
Chance:
Awards and nominations: Locus and World Fantasy Award nominee
I read this story in one sitting. And after I finished it, all I could say was "oof". Now, as I write this review, all I can still say is "oof".
Chance is about exactly what it says it is about - chance. Little things that happen often without thought that vastly affect future events. I won't say too much, (not that there is anyone here worried about spoilers for this obscure story from a (relatively) obscure collection,or that there's anyone here at all besides me) but the story focuses on this woman who is living with some major guilt and regret about events she contributed to in the past that, at the time, seemed insignificant. In present day, when the story is set, our character is dealing with the ramifications of the choices she made. While at first it seems the shame is all in her head, things start happening that she can't explain, nor chalk up to insanity.
In conclusion, Chance is a hard hitting story that packs as much (if not more) of a punch in under 40 pages than some full length novels do in over 500.
Time Out:
Awards: Hugo and Locus nominee
I honestly forgot this story even existed, but I know exactly why: the introduction. Before each of the stories in this collection, Connie Willis includes a little half-page introduction, usually about what inspired her to write the story. In the introduction to Time Out, she explains how she often gets her sci-fi concepts from the most mundane of places. She lists things like singing in church choirs, having Mary Kay facials, putting on garage sales, before saying this: "I've even been to Tupperware parties - only slightly stranger than Venusian eyestalk-bonding ceremonies - at which you participate in arcane contests. 'How many words can you make out of 'Tupperware'?' 'Warp, put, upper, rue...' " Why do I bring this up? Because I got stuck doing just that: finding small words that I can make out of the letters in 'Tupperware'. And there are a lot.
As for the story... I don't really remember. Keep in mind, I am writing this section two and a half months after starting this book, so I am going almost solely by notes. And the only thing my notes say for this story is "aahhh so many words".
In the Late Cretaceous:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This is a short story about laughing at things. And I mean fair enough. There's a lot to laugh at these days. Specifically, this story is about laughing at the things society tells you not to laugh at. I think this quote Willis gives in her introduction sums it all up perfectly, so I'm just going to put it here to save myself the hassle:
Of course, then, In the Late Cretaceous takes place in a school, Ground Zero for all things mockery. Students make fun of teachers. Students question the lessons. Teachers mess around with the students. Teachers even try to be Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society. All in all, it's a good ole' time.
Jack:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
This story was great. Probably my favourite in the whole collection. And I'm not just saying that because it is historical fiction set during the Second World War. I know, I know, people are sick of the time period, and yet media keeps being released about it. If you have ever wondered who still cares about WWII stories, the answer is me. I still care. I'm the reason for all those movies and books. Thematically, I just love the time period and can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Jack by Connie Willis is a novella set during the London Blitz. The story follows a young man named (you guessed it) Jack, operating as part of a close-knit group of volunteers whose job it is to locate people trapped under wreckage post-air raid. One day, a new member is added to Jack's recovery party who, coincidentally, shares his first name. This new Jack seems to be getting increasingly lucky when it comes to detecting survivors, so much so, that our Jack begins to suspect that perhaps more than chance is contributing to the strange man's success...
With this story, you get Willis' trademark attention to historical detail. When she chooses to set a story in the past, you can bet she will research the absolute crap out of the time period to make it as authentic an experience for the reader as possible, (barring time travel). Specifically, Willis always seems to be fascinated by the every day lives of people. As well as including the large overarching historical accuracies, she places particular regard on the smaller aspects of daily life that are often overlooked, yet were all the more important to the people who lived them. This is something I can always count on Connie Willis to deliver, and part of the reason I keep coming back to her over and over again.
At the Rialto:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Hugo and Locus nominee
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for At the Rialto can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Closing thoughts: I liked Connie Willis' other collection, Time is the Fire, better than Impossible Things, but that is kind of an unfair comparison, given that the former is subtitled "The Best of Connie Willis". Either way, I now only have one novel and one story collection left to read from Willis and then I am (largely) done with her bibliography!
Holy moly, I did it. I finished the review. It took me forever, but I did it. Why I keep insisting on doing these mini reviews for short story collections, I have no idea. They end up being this annoying project that takes way too long, and are ultimately a selfish endeavour because the only person that ever reads them is me. Sigh. Whatever.
I seem to have done everything with this book except read it. I killed a moth with it. I have used it as a mouse pad on innumerable occasions. It was a phone stand, a temporary headrest, a dog pillow, and a sun shade. This all adds up to 54 days spent reading this 480 page book. And I've put writing this review off, too, until almost a month later. But now I actually need to write stuff, because I am starting to forget about some of the stories. So now that everyone is watching the rugby, I have a moment to spare (I always seem to be writing these reviews while a rugby game is on, honestly).
The Last of the Winnebagos:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Last of the Winnebagos can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Even the Queen:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula winner
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for Even the Queen can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Schwarzschild Radius:
Awards and nominations: Locus and Nebula nominee
As she so skilfully did in At the Rialto with quantum physics, through Schwarzschild Radius Willis parallels general relativity to real life historical events and the experiences of soldiers during World War I. Karl Schwarzschild, the German physicist who provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, is the subject of this eponymous short story which is based on incidents in his life. Schwarzschild Radius is largely told through flashbacks by a soldier who just so happened to intercept a letter from Einstein to Schwarzschild while the latter was serving as a Lieutenant on the front lines during the First World War. As the story progresses, the unsettling comparisons are drawn between the circumstances facing the soldiers in the trenches and the theories being addressed in science.
Ok, well, that was all rather formal, sorry. I guess this is one of Connie Willis' more serious stories tonally, and my review ended up reflecting that unintentionally.
Ado:
Well, isn’t this relevant? After all those book bannings last year. Ado takes place at a school sometime in the future (or perhaps an alternate past) when an English teacher decides to her class is going to study Shakespeare for a semester. Problem is, there are too many butthurt people in the world so political correctness is taken to the extreme. Any and every little piece of media that might in some small, insignificant way offend someone, has been banned. And I mean everything. Examples: The Merchant of Venice is ruled out as an option because Morticians International object to the use of the word 'casket' in Act III. They also can't do As You Like It because Mothers Against Transvestites filed a restraining order against it for Rosalind dressing up as a man in Act II, and The Sierra Club don't like it for "destructive attitudes toward the environment." - Orlando carves Rosalind's name into a tree.
Eventually they cut their losses and decide on Hamlet, with some rather heavy censoring. Are you ready?
- The Commission on Poison Prevention feels the "graphic depiction of poisoning in the murder of Hamlet's father may lead to copycat crimes."
- The Literature Liberation Front objects to the phrases, "Frailty, thy name is woman," and "O, most pernicious woman," and the "What a piece of work is man" speech
- The National Cutlery Council objects to the depiction of swords as deadly weapons because "swords don't kill people. People kill people."
- The Copenhagen Chamber of Commerce objects to the line, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
- The International Federation of Florists object to the fact that Ophelia falls in picking flowers
- Morticians International say there is a "negative portrayal of interment-preparation personnel" (the gravedigger) and inaccurate representation of burial regulations (neither a hermetically sealed coffin nor a vault appear in the scene).
- The Society for the Advancement of Philosophy considers the line "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" a slur on their profession.
- The Actors' Guild challenge Hamlet's hiring of nonunion employees
- And to top it all off, Drapery Defense League object to Polonius being stabbed while hiding behind a curtain.
All complaints considered, they reduce the entire play of Hamlet down to four lines deemed "safe" to read, i.e. they won't piss anyone off because they are literally discussing the weather. Yes, this was probably way to long a segment for such a short story, but I find this funny and want to come back and read the list.
Spice Pogrom:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This one is long. And I mean loooooooooong. It takes up over 20% of the overall page count of this collection, despite there being 11 stories in total. The reason I took so long to read this collection was almost entirely because of this story. It was long and convoluted, but that was the whole point of it. It is essentially a nonsense, screwball comedy that takes place in space. I mean, Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh is a character's name. Yes, I spelled that correctly. No, it is not a keyboard smash. Also, it had first contact in there somewhere.
Winter's Tale:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
Ah, Shaky P is back. Well, his family anyway. Winter's Tale is basically a fictional reimagining of Shakespeare's wife and daughters. Yes, it is interesting, but I honestly forgot most of the story because it took me ages to read. I know I said Spice Pogrom was responsible for me taking 54 days to finish the collection, but this story also had a large part in that. It is all written in Shakespearean English ("Dost thou hear something?" is a direct quote from this story) AND it is told in first person, so there is no reprieve for my modern ears.
Eh, well, we all know one thing Shakespearean English is good for: finding small obscure words to keep in mind for the next time you play Boggle.
Chance:
Awards and nominations: Locus and World Fantasy Award nominee
I read this story in one sitting. And after I finished it, all I could say was "oof". Now, as I write this review, all I can still say is "oof".
Chance is about exactly what it says it is about - chance. Little things that happen often without thought that vastly affect future events. I won't say too much, (not that there is anyone here worried about spoilers for this obscure story from a (relatively) obscure collection,
In conclusion, Chance is a hard hitting story that packs as much (if not more) of a punch in under 40 pages than some full length novels do in over 500.
Time Out:
Awards: Hugo and Locus nominee
I honestly forgot this story even existed, but I know exactly why: the introduction. Before each of the stories in this collection, Connie Willis includes a little half-page introduction, usually about what inspired her to write the story. In the introduction to Time Out, she explains how she often gets her sci-fi concepts from the most mundane of places. She lists things like singing in church choirs, having Mary Kay facials, putting on garage sales, before saying this: "I've even been to Tupperware parties - only slightly stranger than Venusian eyestalk-bonding ceremonies - at which you participate in arcane contests. 'How many words can you make out of 'Tupperware'?' 'Warp, put, upper, rue...' " Why do I bring this up? Because I got stuck doing just that: finding small words that I can make out of the letters in 'Tupperware'. And there are a lot.
As for the story... I don't really remember. Keep in mind, I am writing this section two and a half months after starting this book, so I am going almost solely by notes. And the only thing my notes say for this story is "aahhh so many words".
In the Late Cretaceous:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This is a short story about laughing at things. And I mean fair enough. There's a lot to laugh at these days. Specifically, this story is about laughing at the things society tells you not to laugh at. I think this quote Willis gives in her introduction sums it all up perfectly, so I'm just going to put it here to save myself the hassle:
You're not supposed to laugh at global warming or low self-esteem or cholesterol. This is the age of political correctness, a movement devoted to the stamping out of "inappropriate laughter" and the battle cry of every anti- (choose one: smoking, animal research, logging, abortion, Columbus) activist seems to be, "That's not funny. These are serious issues." Of course, seriousness and self-importance and what comedy is all about [...] and I feel it's my bounden duty to laugh at them. [...] It's either that, or cry. Or scream.
Of course, then, In the Late Cretaceous takes place in a school, Ground Zero for all things mockery. Students make fun of teachers. Students question the lessons. Teachers mess around with the students. Teachers even try to be Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society. All in all, it's a good ole' time.
Jack:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
This story was great. Probably my favourite in the whole collection. And I'm not just saying that because it is historical fiction set during the Second World War. I know, I know, people are sick of the time period, and yet media keeps being released about it. If you have ever wondered who still cares about WWII stories, the answer is me. I still care. I'm the reason for all those movies and books. Thematically, I just love the time period and can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Jack by Connie Willis is a novella set during the London Blitz. The story follows a young man named (you guessed it) Jack, operating as part of a close-knit group of volunteers whose job it is to locate people trapped under wreckage post-air raid. One day, a new member is added to Jack's recovery party who, coincidentally, shares his first name. This new Jack seems to be getting increasingly lucky when it comes to detecting survivors, so much so, that our Jack begins to suspect that perhaps more than chance is contributing to the strange man's success...
With this story, you get Willis' trademark attention to historical detail. When she chooses to set a story in the past, you can bet she will research the absolute crap out of the time period to make it as authentic an experience for the reader as possible, (barring time travel). Specifically, Willis always seems to be fascinated by the every day lives of people. As well as including the large overarching historical accuracies, she places particular regard on the smaller aspects of daily life that are often overlooked, yet were all the more important to the people who lived them. This is something I can always count on Connie Willis to deliver, and part of the reason I keep coming back to her over and over again.
At the Rialto:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Hugo and Locus nominee
I have recently read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for At the Rialto can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Closing thoughts: I liked Connie Willis' other collection, Time is the Fire, better than Impossible Things, but that is kind of an unfair comparison, given that the former is subtitled "The Best of Connie Willis". Either way, I now only have one novel and one story collection left to read from Willis and then I am (largely) done with her bibliography!
Holy moly, I did it. I finished the review. It took me forever, but I did it. Why I keep insisting on doing these mini reviews for short story collections, I have no idea. They end up being this annoying project that takes way too long, and are ultimately a selfish endeavour because the only person that ever reads them is me. Sigh. Whatever.
December 6, 2015
Connie Willis seems to be a one-trick pony. She does that trick very well (as illustrated by her recent Hugo for Blackout/All Clear), but reading her novels leads one to believe the only story she can write involves attention deficit morons beset by monomaniacal monkeys (usually the protag's friends and associates).
But no, there's more. Read Impossible Things. Connie is capable of so much more. Yes, the one-trick pony is still in evidence, but at least one needs only wade through twenty pages of that silliness, not six hundred. But she can do more! This collection of her 80s and 90s short stories covers a wide venue of science fiction, fantasy and good-old-fashioned storytelling. Some are genuinely funny, others so poignant they hurt, but most thoroughly entertain. (For a change, the introductions are worth reading, too.)
Now, if she'd write novels like these.
But no, there's more. Read Impossible Things. Connie is capable of so much more. Yes, the one-trick pony is still in evidence, but at least one needs only wade through twenty pages of that silliness, not six hundred. But she can do more! This collection of her 80s and 90s short stories covers a wide venue of science fiction, fantasy and good-old-fashioned storytelling. Some are genuinely funny, others so poignant they hurt, but most thoroughly entertain. (For a change, the introductions are worth reading, too.)
Now, if she'd write novels like these.
September 28, 2013
An excellent collection of Willis' short fiction, this book gathers together 11 of Willis' short stories, all previously published, however.
"The Last of the Winnebagos" – Willis' intro says that she has been criticized for this story by people who find it too "sentimental." However, it also won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, so not everyone agreed with that criticism! The book gives us a future scenario that is similar to that of Bradbury's ‘Fahrenheit 451' in some ways - the highways are super-fast, walled off from the scenery around them. A photojournalist on his way to an assignment to document a minor tourist attraction, an old couple who claim to be driving the very last Winnebago motor home around the country, sees a jackal run over in the road. This causes him to remember his dog, one of the last of the species, which was wiped out by a deadly virus – but his dog was killed in a car accident. In a case of too much, too late, the Secret-Service-type ‘humane society' investigates, putting both the journalist and the woman who accidentally ran over his dog years before under dire suspicion. Willis does a superb job here talking about the various kinds of extinction, different kinds of rights and freedoms, and the priorities and values that people assign, and why. Excellent story.
"Even the Queen" – A humorous story, which pokes a bit of fun at extremist feminism. The women of a family are up in arms because their teenage girl wants to join "The Cyclists." What could this group espouse that has them so horrified?
"Schwarzchild Radius" – Set in the trenches of WWI, soldiers are beset by deprivation, cold, violence and illness. In this situation, how did a brilliant physicist come up with theories regarding black holes that are respected years after his death?
"Ado" -- A comedic piece dealing with political correctness, which talks about what you have left if you try to eliminate everything that might possibly offend someone. (Answer: not much.) Not the most brilliantly earth-shattering concept, but done well.
"Spice Pogrom" – This sci-fi tale shows Willis' obsession with classic Hollywood, which I didn't go for too much in her novel ‘Remake.' However, I did really like this story of an alien ambassor visiting Earth's space station. Quarters are tight, and a NASA rep asks his girlfriend to put up one of the alien visitors in her apartment. Mr. ‘Okeefenokee' has a disconcerting love of shopping sprees and strip shows, and his comprehension of English is questionable. Mobbed by unwanted roommates, two particularly awful aspiring starlets, an unsympathetic landlord, etc, the tension grows to an almost unbelievable point... (and Willis conveys this amazingly effectively – it was stressful just to read!) But things wind up in a really cute and romantic way...
"Winter's Tale" – I agree with Willis' introduction here – she says that, in general, she finds conspiracy theories about Shakespeare's real identity annoying. However, this story, which speculates on who the Bard might have been, was really amazingly good – and almost believable! I cried.
"Chance" – An aging housewife moves back to the town where she went to college, at the urging of her self-centered husband, who only cares about the job he has waiting there. She reminisces about the choices she made in college, and reflects on how a decision doesn't necessarily have to be "evil" to ruin your entire life, and that of those around you.
"In the Late Cretaceous" – Here, Willis' wit. Again, skewers the academic milieu, when the latest disaster striking campus is the Dean bringing in an unqualified consultant to do observification and restructurification of the Paleontology department. Very funny, probably more so if you're a professor.
"Time Out" – Some similar themes here as to "Chance," but a much less hopeless take on them. Here, the housewife does get her second chance, and things work out in the end. Also brings in the academic setting, as a researcher is reluctantly recruited to work on a seemingly ridiculous experiment involving time travel.
"Jack" – Set during the Blitz of WWII, when normal British citizens organized to put out fires and rescue victims of bombings on a nightly basis. One team gets a new member who seems to have an almost preternatural sense for discovering where people might be trapped under rubble, and rescuing them. But one man suspects menace – is it just paranoia caused by war and stress.. or is there something more to his suspicions?
"At the Rialto" – Here, Willis applies ideas of quantum physics to researchers attending a conference in Hollywood. The weakest story in the lot, I found it somewhat annoying. Oh well, can't win ‘em all!
"The Last of the Winnebagos" – Willis' intro says that she has been criticized for this story by people who find it too "sentimental." However, it also won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, so not everyone agreed with that criticism! The book gives us a future scenario that is similar to that of Bradbury's ‘Fahrenheit 451' in some ways - the highways are super-fast, walled off from the scenery around them. A photojournalist on his way to an assignment to document a minor tourist attraction, an old couple who claim to be driving the very last Winnebago motor home around the country, sees a jackal run over in the road. This causes him to remember his dog, one of the last of the species, which was wiped out by a deadly virus – but his dog was killed in a car accident. In a case of too much, too late, the Secret-Service-type ‘humane society' investigates, putting both the journalist and the woman who accidentally ran over his dog years before under dire suspicion. Willis does a superb job here talking about the various kinds of extinction, different kinds of rights and freedoms, and the priorities and values that people assign, and why. Excellent story.
"Even the Queen" – A humorous story, which pokes a bit of fun at extremist feminism. The women of a family are up in arms because their teenage girl wants to join "The Cyclists." What could this group espouse that has them so horrified?
"Schwarzchild Radius" – Set in the trenches of WWI, soldiers are beset by deprivation, cold, violence and illness. In this situation, how did a brilliant physicist come up with theories regarding black holes that are respected years after his death?
"Ado" -- A comedic piece dealing with political correctness, which talks about what you have left if you try to eliminate everything that might possibly offend someone. (Answer: not much.) Not the most brilliantly earth-shattering concept, but done well.
"Spice Pogrom" – This sci-fi tale shows Willis' obsession with classic Hollywood, which I didn't go for too much in her novel ‘Remake.' However, I did really like this story of an alien ambassor visiting Earth's space station. Quarters are tight, and a NASA rep asks his girlfriend to put up one of the alien visitors in her apartment. Mr. ‘Okeefenokee' has a disconcerting love of shopping sprees and strip shows, and his comprehension of English is questionable. Mobbed by unwanted roommates, two particularly awful aspiring starlets, an unsympathetic landlord, etc, the tension grows to an almost unbelievable point... (and Willis conveys this amazingly effectively – it was stressful just to read!) But things wind up in a really cute and romantic way...
"Winter's Tale" – I agree with Willis' introduction here – she says that, in general, she finds conspiracy theories about Shakespeare's real identity annoying. However, this story, which speculates on who the Bard might have been, was really amazingly good – and almost believable! I cried.
"Chance" – An aging housewife moves back to the town where she went to college, at the urging of her self-centered husband, who only cares about the job he has waiting there. She reminisces about the choices she made in college, and reflects on how a decision doesn't necessarily have to be "evil" to ruin your entire life, and that of those around you.
"In the Late Cretaceous" – Here, Willis' wit. Again, skewers the academic milieu, when the latest disaster striking campus is the Dean bringing in an unqualified consultant to do observification and restructurification of the Paleontology department. Very funny, probably more so if you're a professor.
"Time Out" – Some similar themes here as to "Chance," but a much less hopeless take on them. Here, the housewife does get her second chance, and things work out in the end. Also brings in the academic setting, as a researcher is reluctantly recruited to work on a seemingly ridiculous experiment involving time travel.
"Jack" – Set during the Blitz of WWII, when normal British citizens organized to put out fires and rescue victims of bombings on a nightly basis. One team gets a new member who seems to have an almost preternatural sense for discovering where people might be trapped under rubble, and rescuing them. But one man suspects menace – is it just paranoia caused by war and stress.. or is there something more to his suspicions?
"At the Rialto" – Here, Willis applies ideas of quantum physics to researchers attending a conference in Hollywood. The weakest story in the lot, I found it somewhat annoying. Oh well, can't win ‘em all!
September 19, 2023
The Last of the Winnebagos The most heart-breaking story, not least because every time I read it I have to look up Aberfan again. Willis makes the vague otherness of extinction immediate and real.
Even the Queen Funny and outrageous and silly, except where it isn't. See for comparison any online comments thread on birth control. I love what Willis does with names, here too.
Schwartzchild Radius Probably a great test of whether or not one adores Willis' writing. WWI and black holes.
Ado This is another amusing story, but in a time when an extremist group is aggressively challenging hundreds of books in schools as part of a broader effort to wrest control of public education away from educators with some autonomy. Book challenges can be rooted in good intentions, theoretically, but in school it is necessary to spend some time discussing why a work is repugnant. "I don't want my child to read any book that disagrees with me, nor any book that shows people or animals doing [behavior currently attacked*] as a thing people or animals do^" is a terrifying idea.
<>Spice Pogrom>
<>Winter's Tale>
<>Chance>
*Popular targets in September 2023 are the right to be Black, the right to abortion, the right to vote for anyone except Trump/Republican candidates for other offices, the right to safely use a bathroom, receive appropriate medical care, or participate in sports as a Trans child, or the right to provide aid or comfort to anyone who wants an abortion, to not vote Republican, or to be their gender.
^while the books targeted within the last year were predominantly about Black history, racism, or LGBTQ+ people, it never ceases to amaze me that challenges are also made against books about a pair of male penguins who hatch an egg and raise that hatchling. Your theory is too tenuous to survive if it can be undermined by a single picture book about two real penguins.
Even the Queen Funny and outrageous and silly, except where it isn't. See for comparison any online comments thread on birth control. I love what Willis does with names, here too.
Schwartzchild Radius Probably a great test of whether or not one adores Willis' writing. WWI and black holes.
Ado This is another amusing story, but in a time when an extremist group is aggressively challenging hundreds of books in schools as part of a broader effort to wrest control of public education away from educators with some autonomy. Book challenges can be rooted in good intentions, theoretically, but in school it is necessary to spend some time discussing why a work is repugnant. "I don't want my child to read any book that disagrees with me, nor any book that shows people or animals doing [behavior currently attacked*] as a thing people or animals do^" is a terrifying idea.
<>Spice Pogrom>
<>Winter's Tale>
<>Chance>
*Popular targets in September 2023 are the right to be Black, the right to abortion, the right to vote for anyone except Trump/Republican candidates for other offices, the right to safely use a bathroom, receive appropriate medical care, or participate in sports as a Trans child, or the right to provide aid or comfort to anyone who wants an abortion, to not vote Republican, or to be their gender.
^while the books targeted within the last year were predominantly about Black history, racism, or LGBTQ+ people, it never ceases to amaze me that challenges are also made against books about a pair of male penguins who hatch an egg and raise that hatchling. Your theory is too tenuous to survive if it can be undermined by a single picture book about two real penguins.
March 16, 2010
I started this book this morning while waiting for vital laundry to dry. It's a collection of short fiction from the author of the Domesday Book (a personal favorite) so I knew I'd most likely adore it. As if turns out, it was almost entirely love at first read.
As an aside, when moving, be sure the bulk of your clean clothes are not left 300 miles away. It gets... untidy.
----
And now I've finished it. I'm not really sure I can do this one justice with a straight review. I should probably go down the list of stories and say a bit about each of them. Not every story in here caught me the way that Domesday did but some managed to be even more endearing.
--
"The Last of the Winnebagos" -- It probably says something sad for my grasp of cultures in my own country that I saw this title and just assumed it was about the RVs and not the native tribe the vehicles were named after. Turns out I was right, but I'm sad it never even occurred to me. This story took one reread to grow on me but that was all it took. Willis' gift for humor and her ability to truly touch dark issues can collide for me and it did in this troy of fascism in a future society. After the second read, however, I feel good and truly touched. This one's a favorite. (Poor dog...)
"Even the Queen" -- Probably my favorite piece in the whole book with 'At the Rialto' being a close second. I'm not sure exactly what appealed to me here more - the lighthearted way it's written or the rather serious topics that manage to get serious attention in that style. It's funny, pithy and very woman-centric (but not so much so that I could not both appreciate and relate).
"Schwarzchild Radius" -- I majored in Engineering Physics. Because of that, Willis' forays into physics fiction (phyction?) really work for me. This story was not as humorous as many of the other pieces in the book and while that worked for me, I can see how it might not for others. Not in my top three for this collection but a good read.
"Ado" -- This one seems like it was probably funnier at the time in which it was written. Some of the humor does not quite work today. That said, I adore anything that skewers political correctness and this absolutely does. Ado gets bonus points for being able to make dueling biblical passages funny.
"Spice Pogrom" -- This one is a misconception story based around the fun literary saw of culture clashes. The fun misunderstandings on the packed-to-the-gills space station (if you want to dignify it by calling it a station) are really enjoyable to muddle through along with the characters. This one does make my top three, just under Rialto.
"Winter's Tale" -- I admit it; I am one of the people who has always harbored a fondness for the 'Shakespeare didn't die' theory. Winter's Tale expounds on that fantasy and takes it to a place I never would have imagined. Witty and imaginative, it ties with Rialto for my list of loved stories in this book, That makes my Top Three a top four, I suppose.
"Chance" -- Ah, Chaos Theory, how I love you. I saw that this story originally published in Asimov magazine. I'd say I am surprised, considering its very relationship-oriented subject, but as an avid reader of Asimov in college? Not so much. This fits right in. I liked it, though it did seem like the Chaos Theory aspect was made to fit the story, not the other way around.
"In the Late Cretacious" -- Whenever an intelligent, imaginatively written story works in evolution, academia and dinosaurs, I am eight again, staring up at the T-Rex in the British Royal Museum and dreaming of riding one. Yeah, I know, riding a T-Rex is not a great call. First issue; where would you keep one? (And this story even has a constant gag about parking, so double win!)
"Time Out" -- A time-travel story that focuses more on the 'time' than the 'travel', which I very much like. Throw in Chicken Pox (which nearly killed me when I was a child) and you have the makings for a fun little romp. Not a favorite, but probably only because there was a lot of great competition in this book.
"Jack" -- Jack plays heavily on something that I learned to adore with Lovecraft's early work - perceived horror. Set during the Blitz in London, Jack may (or may not be, from your point of view) a vampire story. I have my own reasons for loving undead tales set in World War II but suffice to say? This is a good one.
"At the Rialto" -- This story about a physicist desperately trying to find the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle lectures had me laughing from the first page to the last. It was only after finishing it (and therefore the book, as this was the last story) that I realized how much it reminded me of one of my favorite movies - Clockwise with John Cleese. This is a very good thing.
--
And there you have it, a story-by-story rundown of my impressions from this book. There was never a 'least favorite' in the lot and while I could pick one if I had to, it's my review so I don't.
As an aside, when moving, be sure the bulk of your clean clothes are not left 300 miles away. It gets... untidy.
----
And now I've finished it. I'm not really sure I can do this one justice with a straight review. I should probably go down the list of stories and say a bit about each of them. Not every story in here caught me the way that Domesday did but some managed to be even more endearing.
--
"The Last of the Winnebagos" -- It probably says something sad for my grasp of cultures in my own country that I saw this title and just assumed it was about the RVs and not the native tribe the vehicles were named after. Turns out I was right, but I'm sad it never even occurred to me. This story took one reread to grow on me but that was all it took. Willis' gift for humor and her ability to truly touch dark issues can collide for me and it did in this troy of fascism in a future society. After the second read, however, I feel good and truly touched. This one's a favorite. (Poor dog...)
"Even the Queen" -- Probably my favorite piece in the whole book with 'At the Rialto' being a close second. I'm not sure exactly what appealed to me here more - the lighthearted way it's written or the rather serious topics that manage to get serious attention in that style. It's funny, pithy and very woman-centric (but not so much so that I could not both appreciate and relate).
"Schwarzchild Radius" -- I majored in Engineering Physics. Because of that, Willis' forays into physics fiction (phyction?) really work for me. This story was not as humorous as many of the other pieces in the book and while that worked for me, I can see how it might not for others. Not in my top three for this collection but a good read.
"Ado" -- This one seems like it was probably funnier at the time in which it was written. Some of the humor does not quite work today. That said, I adore anything that skewers political correctness and this absolutely does. Ado gets bonus points for being able to make dueling biblical passages funny.
"Spice Pogrom" -- This one is a misconception story based around the fun literary saw of culture clashes. The fun misunderstandings on the packed-to-the-gills space station (if you want to dignify it by calling it a station) are really enjoyable to muddle through along with the characters. This one does make my top three, just under Rialto.
"Winter's Tale" -- I admit it; I am one of the people who has always harbored a fondness for the 'Shakespeare didn't die' theory. Winter's Tale expounds on that fantasy and takes it to a place I never would have imagined. Witty and imaginative, it ties with Rialto for my list of loved stories in this book, That makes my Top Three a top four, I suppose.
"Chance" -- Ah, Chaos Theory, how I love you. I saw that this story originally published in Asimov magazine. I'd say I am surprised, considering its very relationship-oriented subject, but as an avid reader of Asimov in college? Not so much. This fits right in. I liked it, though it did seem like the Chaos Theory aspect was made to fit the story, not the other way around.
"In the Late Cretacious" -- Whenever an intelligent, imaginatively written story works in evolution, academia and dinosaurs, I am eight again, staring up at the T-Rex in the British Royal Museum and dreaming of riding one. Yeah, I know, riding a T-Rex is not a great call. First issue; where would you keep one? (And this story even has a constant gag about parking, so double win!)
"Time Out" -- A time-travel story that focuses more on the 'time' than the 'travel', which I very much like. Throw in Chicken Pox (which nearly killed me when I was a child) and you have the makings for a fun little romp. Not a favorite, but probably only because there was a lot of great competition in this book.
"Jack" -- Jack plays heavily on something that I learned to adore with Lovecraft's early work - perceived horror. Set during the Blitz in London, Jack may (or may not be, from your point of view) a vampire story. I have my own reasons for loving undead tales set in World War II but suffice to say? This is a good one.
"At the Rialto" -- This story about a physicist desperately trying to find the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle lectures had me laughing from the first page to the last. It was only after finishing it (and therefore the book, as this was the last story) that I realized how much it reminded me of one of my favorite movies - Clockwise with John Cleese. This is a very good thing.
--
And there you have it, a story-by-story rundown of my impressions from this book. There was never a 'least favorite' in the lot and while I could pick one if I had to, it's my review so I don't.
December 3, 2011
What I learned from this book: I either love or hate Connie Willis short stories. Despite being a big fan of To Say Nothing of the Dog, I am going to have to pass on Willis doing comedy in the future.
I'm not sure what aspect of her humorous writing is the most annoying. Candidates are 1. it feels like there is a (pause) at the end of each zinger (and they are very self-consciously zingers) for the benefit of the reader to schedule time to guffaw; 2. her targets are often one of these knee-slapping topics: doddering professors, red tape (gosh, isn't it silly?), and Idiot Manchild Husbands (did she have a bad divorce or something?); and 3. the relentless stupidity and obtuseness of others, which makes me sad that she has to go through life thinking so many other people are stupid and obtuse.
On the plus side, I very much enjoy her stories that aren't trying to be screwball comedies. In this collection, there was a terrific one about Shakespeare conspiracies and a really good one about the London bombings (although, interestingly, not exactly a Firewatch story).
Grade: Meh. C+? B-?
Recommended: if I had this to do over, I would have ditched the stories I wasn't enjoying and skipped ahead to find ones I liked better.
I'm not sure what aspect of her humorous writing is the most annoying. Candidates are 1. it feels like there is a (pause) at the end of each zinger (and they are very self-consciously zingers) for the benefit of the reader to schedule time to guffaw; 2. her targets are often one of these knee-slapping topics: doddering professors, red tape (gosh, isn't it silly?), and Idiot Manchild Husbands (did she have a bad divorce or something?); and 3. the relentless stupidity and obtuseness of others, which makes me sad that she has to go through life thinking so many other people are stupid and obtuse.
On the plus side, I very much enjoy her stories that aren't trying to be screwball comedies. In this collection, there was a terrific one about Shakespeare conspiracies and a really good one about the London bombings (although, interestingly, not exactly a Firewatch story).
Grade: Meh. C+? B-?
Recommended: if I had this to do over, I would have ditched the stories I wasn't enjoying and skipped ahead to find ones I liked better.
September 28, 2024
I generally enjoy Connie Willis’ novels, so when I came across this collection of novellas and short stories (all initially published between 1988 and 1992), I was keen to give it a go. And it’s a pretty diverse set of stories that cover a lot of the usual bases for Willis – bureaucratic chaos, science nerds, politically correct dystopias, Shakespeare conspiracy theories and comedy of errors and screwball comedies. Sometimes all in one story.
It would take more time and space than I have to go through each story, and in any case I enjoyed most of them. I will say the opener, “The Last Of The Winnebagos”, is the most difficult story in the bunch, and a daring one to put at the front – partly because of the depressing background premise (a plague has killed all the dogs), and partly because Willis opts to shift to flashbacks with no warning whatsoever, which keeps you on your toes but slows down what is otherwise very good and accessible prose.
If you can get through that, the rest of the collection is more or less a breeze. “Chance” (about a woman returning to her college alma mater and being haunted by her past) is perhaps the weakest and bleakest story here, and “Jack” (a vampire story set during the London Blitz) is a bit too predictable. And for some of these, it helps if you love gabby screwball comedy with lots of running gags as much as Willis does (which I do). Anyway, I enjoyed it, and will be reading more Willis in future.
It would take more time and space than I have to go through each story, and in any case I enjoyed most of them. I will say the opener, “The Last Of The Winnebagos”, is the most difficult story in the bunch, and a daring one to put at the front – partly because of the depressing background premise (a plague has killed all the dogs), and partly because Willis opts to shift to flashbacks with no warning whatsoever, which keeps you on your toes but slows down what is otherwise very good and accessible prose.
If you can get through that, the rest of the collection is more or less a breeze. “Chance” (about a woman returning to her college alma mater and being haunted by her past) is perhaps the weakest and bleakest story here, and “Jack” (a vampire story set during the London Blitz) is a bit too predictable. And for some of these, it helps if you love gabby screwball comedy with lots of running gags as much as Willis does (which I do). Anyway, I enjoyed it, and will be reading more Willis in future.
June 7, 2022
This is a collection of Willis's short fiction - some short stories, novellas and novelettes, four of which won Hugos or Nebulas. I liked this! Though I often struggle with novellas and novelettes. They're both too short and too long at the same time for me. Too short to really dig into a character, but too long to be the crisp, focused thing a short story is.
All that being said, you can really see what makes Willis Willis here. She likes to write screwball comedic dialogue, and a lot of her stories are like whirling circles that only come together right at the very end. She also has some cool thought experiments, like comparing the trenches in the First World War to black holes and the Schwarzchild Radius.
If you like sci-fi short stories, especially the ones that are more speculative than technology focused, and if you like your short fiction on the long side, you might like this.
All that being said, you can really see what makes Willis Willis here. She likes to write screwball comedic dialogue, and a lot of her stories are like whirling circles that only come together right at the very end. She also has some cool thought experiments, like comparing the trenches in the First World War to black holes and the Schwarzchild Radius.
If you like sci-fi short stories, especially the ones that are more speculative than technology focused, and if you like your short fiction on the long side, you might like this.
September 16, 2017
Crepuscolare e sommessa, la Signora della sci-fi, in questa godibile raccolta di racconti.
February 2, 2009
Not being a big fan of humorous SF (
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
was good but the subsequent books got less and less interesting), I found most of the stories in this collection...meh. To be honest, I couldn't even bring myself to finish some of the stories.
That said, "Winter's Tale" is a wonderful answer to all the "who was Shakespeare" conspiracy theorists and alone deserves 4 stars.
That said, "Winter's Tale" is a wonderful answer to all the "who was Shakespeare" conspiracy theorists and alone deserves 4 stars.
August 7, 2008
Some stories are better than others ( as in any collection), some stories are hilarious, others traumatized me for weeks ( Last of the Winnebagos. Very very good. But traumatic).
August 27, 2017
Short story collections can be so hard to rate. Connie Willis is an outstanding writer - there are few better at either farce or building up tension inside a social story - and there are some outstanding examples of that in this collection (Last of the Winnebagos, Even the Queen, Winter's Tale, Jack). Unfortunately to do this she relies on several repeating motifs, and seeing too many of them in a row tends to dilute their impact. It's likely best to read a story and put the book down for a week, then read the next.
Willis is also an example of why we need different voices in fiction: while she spends time in this kicking against 1980's shibboleths (Ado) which now read as dated and tiresome, her ability to speak for the middle age suburban wife and mom in science fiction is one one the things that makes her great. It's not the only thing, but there was no one else in the 80's and early 90's who produced things like Even the Queen, Chance, or Time Out when we obviously needed them. (We also clearly need more lovers of classic movie farces, where she channels her sense of timing, sharp dialogue and absurdity, even if I think Spice Pogrom goes on a little too long and At The Rialto is a little too on the nose - that's likely just me.)
Thinking over the stories again made me go up and boost my review by one star. Willis is like that.
Willis is also an example of why we need different voices in fiction: while she spends time in this kicking against 1980's shibboleths (Ado) which now read as dated and tiresome, her ability to speak for the middle age suburban wife and mom in science fiction is one one the things that makes her great. It's not the only thing, but there was no one else in the 80's and early 90's who produced things like Even the Queen, Chance, or Time Out when we obviously needed them. (We also clearly need more lovers of classic movie farces, where she channels her sense of timing, sharp dialogue and absurdity, even if I think Spice Pogrom goes on a little too long and At The Rialto is a little too on the nose - that's likely just me.)
Thinking over the stories again made me go up and boost my review by one star. Willis is like that.
August 16, 2021
A really good Collection of short stories from the master of long novels.
Highlights:
"The Last of the Winnebagos" - a bittersweet novel set in a future world where a virus has wiped out all dog's and a journalist (of a sorts) recalls the death of his own dog.
"Spice Pogrom" - A hilarious novel about first contact with a kind nod to the classic Hollywood comedy's.
"Chance" & "Time Out" - 2 novels about how life could have been and getting a second chance
""Jack" - A story about the people at a fire watch and rescue station in London during the Blitz in WW2 and a very special man who might be something more.
Highlights:
"The Last of the Winnebagos" - a bittersweet novel set in a future world where a virus has wiped out all dog's and a journalist (of a sorts) recalls the death of his own dog.
"Spice Pogrom" - A hilarious novel about first contact with a kind nod to the classic Hollywood comedy's.
"Chance" & "Time Out" - 2 novels about how life could have been and getting a second chance
""Jack" - A story about the people at a fire watch and rescue station in London during the Blitz in WW2 and a very special man who might be something more.
February 18, 2020
Highly enjoyable. Some stories were laugh-out-loud funny; others were devastatingly tender. They were all right up my alley.
November 10, 2008
Is it just me, or women do write more fluid dialogs in their SF stories? After reading McCaffrey, and then Bujold, and then finally reading Connie Willis, it came to me that while authors like Theodore Sturgeon, Greg Bear, even Asimov and Clarke, came up with mindblowing plot and intergalactic sweep, dialogs between their characters might seem stilted and perfunctory. Compare them with the dialogs between the characters of McCaffrey's "Pegasus in Flight" for instance, or Bujold's "The Warrior Apprentice", and especially with the characters in Willis' short stories, and you'll see the difference.
Willis wittily, and with a wry sense of humor, expounds on womanly woes in "Even The Queen". She cleverly, and comically, wrote about how love bloomed in unlikely situations, a space center embroiled in a negotiation with aliens ("Spice Pogrom") and a science convention in Hollywood ("At The Rialto"). She drew, in rich detail and with deep sensitivity, WW II London, with its unique band of bomb wardens, and a most civic-minded, patriotic, creature of the night ("Jack"). She waxed beautifully about loss ("Chance" and "The Last of The Winnebagos"), and spun a cannily authentic-sounding theory about the true author of Shakespeare's great plays ("Winter Tale"). She hurled barbed critique at censorship ("Ado") and corporatespeak ("In The Late Cretaceceous").
I think, if you're just starting to read SF, and especially if you don't care that much for science, and you think your life as a housewife or a nine-to-five worker is too ordinary, this is an excellent introduction to SF--one that brings science and life and emotions and fantasy together in an effortless, natural, funny, and sensitive way.
Willis wittily, and with a wry sense of humor, expounds on womanly woes in "Even The Queen". She cleverly, and comically, wrote about how love bloomed in unlikely situations, a space center embroiled in a negotiation with aliens ("Spice Pogrom") and a science convention in Hollywood ("At The Rialto"). She drew, in rich detail and with deep sensitivity, WW II London, with its unique band of bomb wardens, and a most civic-minded, patriotic, creature of the night ("Jack"). She waxed beautifully about loss ("Chance" and "The Last of The Winnebagos"), and spun a cannily authentic-sounding theory about the true author of Shakespeare's great plays ("Winter Tale"). She hurled barbed critique at censorship ("Ado") and corporatespeak ("In The Late Cretaceceous").
I think, if you're just starting to read SF, and especially if you don't care that much for science, and you think your life as a housewife or a nine-to-five worker is too ordinary, this is an excellent introduction to SF--one that brings science and life and emotions and fantasy together in an effortless, natural, funny, and sensitive way.
September 22, 2017
This one sits between a 2 and a 3 for me, and has the weird distinction of being one of the only books I've dropped as much because of the author commentary as the fiction. The stories themselves were hit and miss for me (which I expect in an anthology, a bit less from a single-author collection). The Last of the Winnebagos and Schwarzchild Radius were solid, slightly unsettling science fiction that will stay with me for a while. Spice Pogrom was an exercise in gritting my teeth to finish something--but I can't fault the execution, since it was a well-done take on a genre of movie that drives me crazy.
What finally finished the book off for me was how the author kept complaining in her pre-story notes, over and over, that the world had become too politically correct and isn't the idea of "women's issues" ridiculous and just... really? When I look at the feminist science fiction that was contemporaneous with this work, it makes me wonder who she's arguing with, and why it consumed so much of her attention that she ignored the interesting things that were happening in her own genre. The third time it happened, I decided to stop ignoring other things in my to-read pile for something that felt like such a slog to finish.
What finally finished the book off for me was how the author kept complaining in her pre-story notes, over and over, that the world had become too politically correct and isn't the idea of "women's issues" ridiculous and just... really? When I look at the feminist science fiction that was contemporaneous with this work, it makes me wonder who she's arguing with, and why it consumed so much of her attention that she ignored the interesting things that were happening in her own genre. The third time it happened, I decided to stop ignoring other things in my to-read pile for something that felt like such a slog to finish.
January 20, 2008
SF, Short Stories. All but four of these eleven short stories are present in Willis' new compendium The Winds of Marble Arch, but I'm giving it four stars anyway because it contains so many of my favorites, including Even the Queen, which I may just love the most. Also nice: Willis writes brief introductions to each piece, giving you a little hint of what she was thinking when she wrote it.
Of the four I hadn't read before, I liked Spice Pogram the best, a screwball comedy with an overcrowded planet, new alien visitors, and trouble with homonyms. Schwarzschild Radius was interesting too, set during WWI, the Western Front is like a collapsing star and no information can get out of a black hole once the Schwarzschild Radius has been passed. Winter's Tale is Willis' take on the Shakespeare conspiracy, and Time Out was muddled, too much tell and not enough show, but it had something to do with fidelity and the way we experience time.
Of the four I hadn't read before, I liked Spice Pogram the best, a screwball comedy with an overcrowded planet, new alien visitors, and trouble with homonyms. Schwarzschild Radius was interesting too, set during WWI, the Western Front is like a collapsing star and no information can get out of a black hole once the Schwarzschild Radius has been passed. Winter's Tale is Willis' take on the Shakespeare conspiracy, and Time Out was muddled, too much tell and not enough show, but it had something to do with fidelity and the way we experience time.
February 16, 2010
A collection of short stories by Connie Willis. I thought I'd read more of her short stories than I had, but there was only one story in here that I'd already read. "Even the Queen", which I like. I'm envious of the characters in it.
The stories have themes you'll be familiar with if you've read other things by Connie Willis. Time travel, the Blitz, Christianity, hectic goings-on, Hollywood.
One type of story she writes that I find uncomfortable is ones in which characters can never seem to sit down and talk to each other. The main character can't achieve the simplest of goals because she's too busy being interrupted by other people and circumstances. It creates a tension in me that I don't like. I'm not reading on to find out what happens next; I'm reading on so the out-of-control situation will finally END. It's rather like being overwhelmed by too much, prolonged, multitasking. In the stories, it makes for comedy, but I can't fully appreciate the humor, because I'm too irritated.
Absolutely none of the stories bored me, though. And I couldn't even point at flaws in them. Which is why she's a master.
The stories have themes you'll be familiar with if you've read other things by Connie Willis. Time travel, the Blitz, Christianity, hectic goings-on, Hollywood.
One type of story she writes that I find uncomfortable is ones in which characters can never seem to sit down and talk to each other. The main character can't achieve the simplest of goals because she's too busy being interrupted by other people and circumstances. It creates a tension in me that I don't like. I'm not reading on to find out what happens next; I'm reading on so the out-of-control situation will finally END. It's rather like being overwhelmed by too much, prolonged, multitasking. In the stories, it makes for comedy, but I can't fully appreciate the humor, because I'm too irritated.
Absolutely none of the stories bored me, though. And I couldn't even point at flaws in them. Which is why she's a master.
May 25, 2014
I had high hopes of enjoying this since I simply adored "To Say Nothing of the Dog" and "Doomsday Book" but I guess Connie Willis' short fiction isn't as appealing to me. The first story "The Last Winnebago" was dated in amusing ways - you know how it is. We can foresee all these future tech advances - her characters have ring tones that identify callers, but their phones are tied to their homes and cars, not carried around. The main character is photographer and has FILM. Actual film. Wow. I forgot that used to be a thing.
BUT... of course it's easy to snicker at failures of prognostication in science fiction. The story has a very tight plot, complex and neatly tied up at the end, which I think is Willis' strong suit.
My favorite story was the second-to-last one, "Jack", a tale of London during the blitz that doesn't pull any punches - also considered a Willis strong point.
BUT... of course it's easy to snicker at failures of prognostication in science fiction. The story has a very tight plot, complex and neatly tied up at the end, which I think is Willis' strong suit.
My favorite story was the second-to-last one, "Jack", a tale of London during the blitz that doesn't pull any punches - also considered a Willis strong point.
March 8, 2016
I don't usually enjoy reading short stories and bought this book only because I'm a Connie Willis fan and want to read everything she's ever written:) Surprisingly enough, I found myself enjoying these short stories very much. I especially liked "Spice Pogrom", "Even the Queen" and "Ado". As in Fire Watch (another collection of short stories by Connie Willis, but one I didn't enjoyed much), what I found very interesting is the preamble to each story, in which Willis explains her motivations. It gives the reader much insight into the stories.
December 26, 2015
Excellent collection of shorter and longer stories. Before I picked this book up at a thrift shop (mostly because of the interesting cover and a little because of the blurb at the back) I had never heard of Connie Willis, but now intend to get my hands on as much of her work as possible. Gardner Dozois was right in his introduction: Willis writes about People, just like Jane Austen, and that is a big part of what makes her stories work so well.
November 7, 2010
Connie Willis writes amazing novels and, as this collection shows, equally compelling short fiction. The stories in this collection cover a wide variet of stories, although all of them settle some place within science fiction. Willis' characteristic humor and way with words shine in these stories.
May 18, 2019
I have to stop reading those short story collections that have their authors write little personal blurbs before each story. I did not need to know that Willis is anti-feminist. Frankly listening to her grumbling about how political correctness is going to destroy us all rings so, so bitterly in the year of our Trump 2019 that I did not finish the collection. The stories I read were fine.
April 26, 2021
This is a book of short stories by the person who has won more Nebula and Hugo Awards than any other writer.
The Last of the Winnebagos sees a near future where a mutated parvovirus has killed off all species of dog. Only jackals are left and even those are vanishingly rare. The Humane Society monitors and polices any animal deaths. The roads are dominated by water tankers servicing the city of Phoenix and the like and travelling very fast to blur the speed cameras. Our narrator is a photojournalist who sees a dead jackal on the road while on his way to photograph the last Winnebago, and is drawn into a web of suspicion.
Even the Queen was apparently written in response to complaints that Willis never wrote about women’s issues. (Her view is of course that there ought to be no restrictions on what a writer writes about.) In the story a device called a shunt disseminates a drug called ammenerol which prevents periods. The narrator’s daughter causes a stushie in the family when she announces she wishes to join a group called the Cyclists, who see shunts and ammenerol as instruments of the male patriarchy seeking to deprive women of their natural functions. Nevertheless, the story is played for laughs.
Schwarzschild Radius combines the theory of a star’s gravitational collapse into a black hole with the memories of a Dr Rottschieben who apparently served with Schwarzschild in the Great War. It’s beautifully written and its embedded metaphor ingenious but doesn’t really hold up under retrospective scrutiny.
Ado imagines a future (very litigious, very USian) in which everybody complains about everything and so teaching is made almost impossible. Hamlet consists of only two lines.
Spice Pogrom is Willis’s tribute to Hollywood screwball comedies but also reminded me of one of James White’s Sector General stories. Aliens called Eahrohhs have come to Earth, or, rather, to a space station called Sony which has an idiosyncratic housing policy. One of them, Mr Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, has promised to deliver NASA a space program (sic) and narrator Chris’s Nasa employed fiancé has billeted him/it on her and told her to allow it/him whatever it wants. There is plenty of the incidental happenings the screwball comedy enshrines to complicate the story-line. This one turns on whether Mr Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh actually understands the English words they are all using but the story’s pay-off doesn’t really reward the time investment required by the reader.
Winter’s Tale riffs on the theory that since Shakespeare was low-born he could not have written all those magnificent plays and poems. Told as by Anne Hathaway it plays with that notion (which Willis’s foreword insists is surely incorrect,) and with the possibility that Christopher Marlowe’s murder in a Deptford Inn was faked while also providing a reason for Shakespeare’s famous bequest to Anne.
In Chance a woman has moved back to the town where she attended college (where everything is the same but everything is different) because her husband, who is interested only in career advancement, has a new job there. She starts to see the students as people she knew back in her youth and wonders on the chance happenings that change lives for the better - or worse.
In the Late Cretaceous is a satire on neologisms and academia, with the institution where it’s set also riddled with an over-officious set of traffic wardens, ticketing anything that doesn’t move. The professor of palæontology is a metaphorical dinosaur, still using chalk on blackboard. Willis’s preface to this laments what she calls political correctness, as being inimical, or at least antithetic, to comedy and moans about “every anti- (Choose one: smoking, animal research, logging, abortion, Columbus.)” Well she she did include anti-abortionists, so she’s not a complete lost cause.
Time Out centres round a project to produce a “temporal oscillator” with which to manipulate “hodiechrons” (quantum units of time which Willis has presumably named from the Latin for today and the Greek for time.) An anatomy of both the quotidian routines of marriage and parenthood - the domestic detail is thoroughly true to life - the vicissitudes of not well resourced research and nostalgia for youth it suggests a mechanism for the origins of déjà vu. The whole is intricately plotted but leans a bit too heavily on light-heartedness.
Jack returns to the subject of the London Blitz which Willis explored in her short story Fire Watch and novels To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout and All Clear. As in those (and The Doomsday Book) it is marred for a British reader by a failure to get details of life and usages in the UK correct. The story concerns a new member of an ARP unit who shows an uncanny knack for detecting bodies buried by rubble. He also disappears sharply to his day job. The narrator develops suspicions.
At the Rialto is set a in the eponymous hotel in Hollywod as it is hosting (or not) a meeting of quantum physicists. The plot revolves around a series of uncertainties.
The Last of the Winnebagos sees a near future where a mutated parvovirus has killed off all species of dog. Only jackals are left and even those are vanishingly rare. The Humane Society monitors and polices any animal deaths. The roads are dominated by water tankers servicing the city of Phoenix and the like and travelling very fast to blur the speed cameras. Our narrator is a photojournalist who sees a dead jackal on the road while on his way to photograph the last Winnebago, and is drawn into a web of suspicion.
Even the Queen was apparently written in response to complaints that Willis never wrote about women’s issues. (Her view is of course that there ought to be no restrictions on what a writer writes about.) In the story a device called a shunt disseminates a drug called ammenerol which prevents periods. The narrator’s daughter causes a stushie in the family when she announces she wishes to join a group called the Cyclists, who see shunts and ammenerol as instruments of the male patriarchy seeking to deprive women of their natural functions. Nevertheless, the story is played for laughs.
Schwarzschild Radius combines the theory of a star’s gravitational collapse into a black hole with the memories of a Dr Rottschieben who apparently served with Schwarzschild in the Great War. It’s beautifully written and its embedded metaphor ingenious but doesn’t really hold up under retrospective scrutiny.
Ado imagines a future (very litigious, very USian) in which everybody complains about everything and so teaching is made almost impossible. Hamlet consists of only two lines.
Spice Pogrom is Willis’s tribute to Hollywood screwball comedies but also reminded me of one of James White’s Sector General stories. Aliens called Eahrohhs have come to Earth, or, rather, to a space station called Sony which has an idiosyncratic housing policy. One of them, Mr Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, has promised to deliver NASA a space program (sic) and narrator Chris’s Nasa employed fiancé has billeted him/it on her and told her to allow it/him whatever it wants. There is plenty of the incidental happenings the screwball comedy enshrines to complicate the story-line. This one turns on whether Mr Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh actually understands the English words they are all using but the story’s pay-off doesn’t really reward the time investment required by the reader.
Winter’s Tale riffs on the theory that since Shakespeare was low-born he could not have written all those magnificent plays and poems. Told as by Anne Hathaway it plays with that notion (which Willis’s foreword insists is surely incorrect,) and with the possibility that Christopher Marlowe’s murder in a Deptford Inn was faked while also providing a reason for Shakespeare’s famous bequest to Anne.
In Chance a woman has moved back to the town where she attended college (where everything is the same but everything is different) because her husband, who is interested only in career advancement, has a new job there. She starts to see the students as people she knew back in her youth and wonders on the chance happenings that change lives for the better - or worse.
In the Late Cretaceous is a satire on neologisms and academia, with the institution where it’s set also riddled with an over-officious set of traffic wardens, ticketing anything that doesn’t move. The professor of palæontology is a metaphorical dinosaur, still using chalk on blackboard. Willis’s preface to this laments what she calls political correctness, as being inimical, or at least antithetic, to comedy and moans about “every anti- (Choose one: smoking, animal research, logging, abortion, Columbus.)” Well she she did include anti-abortionists, so she’s not a complete lost cause.
Time Out centres round a project to produce a “temporal oscillator” with which to manipulate “hodiechrons” (quantum units of time which Willis has presumably named from the Latin for today and the Greek for time.) An anatomy of both the quotidian routines of marriage and parenthood - the domestic detail is thoroughly true to life - the vicissitudes of not well resourced research and nostalgia for youth it suggests a mechanism for the origins of déjà vu. The whole is intricately plotted but leans a bit too heavily on light-heartedness.
Jack returns to the subject of the London Blitz which Willis explored in her short story Fire Watch and novels To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout and All Clear. As in those (and The Doomsday Book) it is marred for a British reader by a failure to get details of life and usages in the UK correct. The story concerns a new member of an ARP unit who shows an uncanny knack for detecting bodies buried by rubble. He also disappears sharply to his day job. The narrator develops suspicions.
At the Rialto is set a in the eponymous hotel in Hollywod as it is hosting (or not) a meeting of quantum physicists. The plot revolves around a series of uncertainties.
December 3, 2008
Favorite stories: "Even the Queen," "Spice Pogrom," "Winter's Tale," "Time Out."
November 1, 2010
A lovely collection highlighting the author's characters-first approach to speculative fiction.
November 30, 2022
“…Connie’s stories are always peopled with real human beings, no matter where or when they take place, recognizably real people whom we immediately believe in and accept…” – introduction to Impossible Things by Gardener Dozois
Connie Willis is an odd duck. She’s often shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy section, sharing space with elaborate and fantastic worlds such as Dune and grand predictive works by great minds like Isaac Asimov. But she is neither a prognosticator, nor is she a world builder. Her stories take place closer to home. Humans are her worlds. Interactions and emotions her technology.
She writes historical tragedies, scathing satires, and romantic comedies. Whether or not they’re in space or in the future is only coincidental, set dressing to what’s really happening with the characters and the emotions that they bring up in the reader.
Not that I would know the ennui of middle age, but I couldn’t help crying at the ending of “Chance” – a magical realistic tale of a 40-something woman revisiting her past and regretting her present. “The Last of the Winnebagos” and its slow burning depression of a near future world without dogs or RVs, crushed my spirits just as effectively as when I first read it in The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories.
Historical fiction also makes an appearance of course, because you cannot have Willis without a bit of the past showing up at some point. Irrational fears during wartime turns narrators unreliable in “Schwarzschild Radius” (set in the WWI German trenches) and “Jack” (set during the Blitz, Willis’ favorite time period). The bleakness of those tales contrast nicely with “Winter’s Tale”, which quietly plays credence to a Shakespeare conspiracy theory from the perspective of his wife. All are intimate portrayals of the past, human and terrible and wonderful at the same time.
Yet, as much as she’s good at writing tragedies, Willis is a sucker for a happy ending. “Spice Pogrom” is a particular stand out here, a romantic comedy in the style of Golden Age Hollywood. Think Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in an overcrowded space station playing host to an alien who may or may not understand what they are saying. Mad-capped pacing and a lovely romantic ending. Fluffy and fun and exactly what the doctor ordered, especially after her tragedies.
And you can’t forget Willis’s trademark wit, which also makes an appearance. “Ado” peers at a world so obsessed with political correctness that learning is an afterthought. “In the Late Cretaceous” follows professors dogged with efficiency and relevancy measures, which feels like it could play nicely as the next season of Netflix’s The Chair. Both stories were published in 1988 and 1991 respectively and are still painfully relevant today. Hilarious yet depressing tragicomedies that punch you in the gut as much as they make you laugh out loud.
If you think about it, Willis has a nice duality to her work as a whole. Funny yet heartbreaking. Futuristic yet realistic. Ironic yet romantic. Historical yet relevant. And that’s why I love reading Connie Willis’s short stories. They are not only the best of her writing distilled and perfected, but the perfect showcase for her range and talent of creating humans and emotions that are both powerful and fun often at the same time.
Connie Willis is an odd duck. She’s often shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy section, sharing space with elaborate and fantastic worlds such as Dune and grand predictive works by great minds like Isaac Asimov. But she is neither a prognosticator, nor is she a world builder. Her stories take place closer to home. Humans are her worlds. Interactions and emotions her technology.
She writes historical tragedies, scathing satires, and romantic comedies. Whether or not they’re in space or in the future is only coincidental, set dressing to what’s really happening with the characters and the emotions that they bring up in the reader.
Not that I would know the ennui of middle age, but I couldn’t help crying at the ending of “Chance” – a magical realistic tale of a 40-something woman revisiting her past and regretting her present. “The Last of the Winnebagos” and its slow burning depression of a near future world without dogs or RVs, crushed my spirits just as effectively as when I first read it in The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories.
Historical fiction also makes an appearance of course, because you cannot have Willis without a bit of the past showing up at some point. Irrational fears during wartime turns narrators unreliable in “Schwarzschild Radius” (set in the WWI German trenches) and “Jack” (set during the Blitz, Willis’ favorite time period). The bleakness of those tales contrast nicely with “Winter’s Tale”, which quietly plays credence to a Shakespeare conspiracy theory from the perspective of his wife. All are intimate portrayals of the past, human and terrible and wonderful at the same time.
Yet, as much as she’s good at writing tragedies, Willis is a sucker for a happy ending. “Spice Pogrom” is a particular stand out here, a romantic comedy in the style of Golden Age Hollywood. Think Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in an overcrowded space station playing host to an alien who may or may not understand what they are saying. Mad-capped pacing and a lovely romantic ending. Fluffy and fun and exactly what the doctor ordered, especially after her tragedies.
And you can’t forget Willis’s trademark wit, which also makes an appearance. “Ado” peers at a world so obsessed with political correctness that learning is an afterthought. “In the Late Cretaceous” follows professors dogged with efficiency and relevancy measures, which feels like it could play nicely as the next season of Netflix’s The Chair. Both stories were published in 1988 and 1991 respectively and are still painfully relevant today. Hilarious yet depressing tragicomedies that punch you in the gut as much as they make you laugh out loud.
If you think about it, Willis has a nice duality to her work as a whole. Funny yet heartbreaking. Futuristic yet realistic. Ironic yet romantic. Historical yet relevant. And that’s why I love reading Connie Willis’s short stories. They are not only the best of her writing distilled and perfected, but the perfect showcase for her range and talent of creating humans and emotions that are both powerful and fun often at the same time.
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