Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Bantam Books (New York, 1993). 1st edition, 1st printing. 480 pages. $5.99.
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Short Stories. HTML: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 lo… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member figre
I picked up this book and almost put it back in the “to be read” pile thinking to myself, “How many times can I read some of these stories?” Apparently, the answer is, a lot of times.
The minute I began to read “The Last of the Winnebagos” (for the umpteenth time), I remembered the power
The minute I began to read “The Last of the Winnebagos” (for the umpteenth time), I remembered the power
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and skill Willis wields in her writing. Simply stated, Willis is one of the best writers out there. And this collection is testament to that skill. Award-winners are included (“Even the Queen”, “At the Rialto”, and the previously mentioned Winnebagos). But every story is worth reading and, all together, they provide a fine representation of her various approaches and styles that invariably lead to success. Even when things slow down a little, the stories are still top-notch. Whether she is dealing with quantum physics and chaos theory, or the personal lives of people at the whimpering end of the world, her deft touch results in memorable stories that linger long after the reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member orangejulia
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.
LibraryThing member knitmeapony
One of the best collections of short stories by my favorite author.
LibraryThing member madrigal32
I was talking with a friend the other day who made the comment that good short stories are hard to find, but oh-so-wonderful when they are found. Connie Willis is a very intelligent woman who mixes her knowledge of history and science to make super believable science fiction landscapes in which to
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couch clever tales that almost always have more meaning that one initially suspects. I particularly liked her tribute 40's era romance plots in "Spice Program", and her super intelligent cut at political correctness using, of all things, Shakespeare! in "Ado", and finally, the depressing but beautiful "Schwarzchild Radius" in which she makes life mimic science. Oh, so much fun! Show Less
LibraryThing member silentq
I got this book as part of my 2007 SantaThing and really enjoyed it. I'd read "Jack" before, but it's strong enough that I enjoyed re-reading it (a reimagining of Dracula set in the London Blitz). Willis jumps between time periods, alternate Earths and space colonies, and tones from serious to
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funny. Show Less
LibraryThing member magnuscanis
The stories in here range from good to excellent. They cover a wide range of themes, and while the science fiction tag is justified for the collection as a whole, the range is somewhat broader than could strictly be considered science fiction (which IMHO is a good thing).
My personal favourites in
My personal favourites in
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the collection were "Even the Queen", "Ado" and "Spice Pogrom" although there were no stories that I really didn't like. Show Less
LibraryThing member eclecticlibrarian
"Even the Queen" is a favorite short story.
LibraryThing member marysneedle
This book was kind of Half and Half for me.
The two stories that really stand out for me however is "Even the Queen" and "Ado".
Even the Queen takes to the limit the ultimate women's issue.
I think what it is saying is that men are not the only thing keeping women down sometimes it's ourselves.
Ado
Both are really good and relevant stories for today.
Second best for me is going to be Spice Pogrom, Jack, Winter's Tale, and Time out.
I think Connie Willis is a great writer and I'm hoping to be seeing more of her writing in the future.
The two stories that really stand out for me however is "Even the Queen" and "Ado".
Even the Queen takes to the limit the ultimate women's issue.
I think what it is saying is that men are not the only thing keeping women down sometimes it's ourselves.
Ado
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takes politically correctness to it's most extreme end where we get so tanlged up in not offending any one that nothing is left. Especially for an English teacher trying to find a Shakspere play to go over in class.Both are really good and relevant stories for today.
Second best for me is going to be Spice Pogrom, Jack, Winter's Tale, and Time out.
I think Connie Willis is a great writer and I'm hoping to be seeing more of her writing in the future.
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LibraryThing member aulsmith
I read this through in a couple of days and I think I might have been better off reading it more slowly. By the time I got to the last funny one, "At the Rialto," I was pretty tired of the schtick. However, all the serious ones still moved me. I particularly like her odd points of view on tragedy
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and redemption. I've reviewed each of the stories individually under the story name. Show Less
LibraryThing member simchaboston
Not as strong a collection as "Fire Watch", but does have some individual stories that shine ("Last of the Winnebagos" in particular).
LibraryThing member zeborah
I think I'm forced to finally conclude that there are only so many Connie Willis books one can read before the repeated themes make all the rest kind of redundant. They are still great stories, but they start feeling like all the same story with the names changed: the female lead, battling
That said, the World War II story in this collection had a new twist, and “Winter's Tale" was different from her usual; “Chance", too, was abnormally dark (though thankfully not as dark as “All My Darling Daughters" from another collection). And of course "Even The Queen" (though I'd read that one before).
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bureaucracy and political correctness, joins forces with the male lead and, after many amusing complications and misunderstandings caused by the ineptitude and illiteracy of those around them, not to mention some annoying children, together make an astounding discovery about the way the world works, and another astounding discovery about the fact that they've fallen in love.That said, the World War II story in this collection had a new twist, and “Winter's Tale" was different from her usual; “Chance", too, was abnormally dark (though thankfully not as dark as “All My Darling Daughters" from another collection). And of course "Even The Queen" (though I'd read that one before).
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LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Overall Summary and Review: Impossible Things is Connie Willis's second short story collection (her first was Fire Watch), and it was amazing. Some of the stories spoke to me more than others, of course, but they were all beautifully crafted, and not one of them was unenjoyable or out of place. The
Individual Stories:
- "The Last of the Winnebagos" is a story set in a future USA, where non-commercial highway travel has largely become a thing of the past, and killing an animal is punishable by law, involving a photojournalist who is on assignment to photograph a couple who have, as the title says, the last Winnebago still running. This story won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and I can certainly see why, although it wasn't one of my favorites in the book. I thought the photographer's musings on the nature of people and portraits and their camera faces was interesting (and accurate), and I appreciated the fact that even though this story's 15 years old, it's not showing its age at all. (Actually, that's true of the book as a whole.)
- "Even the Queen" is a story at the intersection of biology and technology, so you know it's going to make me happy. It involves the cultural reaction - and maybe even backlash - to a world where women no longer have to deal with monthly menstruation. Seeing as I have personally had some of the arguments between mother and daughter in this story, almost verbatim, about whether or not taking continuous cycles of birth control (and thereby not having periods) is healthy or not, I think Willis hit the nail pretty squarely on the head, but she manages to do it with much more wit than I could.
- The Schwarzschild radius is the radius at which light can no longer escape a black hole, and "Schwarzschild Radius" is a story set during World War I, which is when Schwarzchild did his calculations, and involving the gravitation pull of not of black holes, but of events. This was one of the more complex stories in the collection, and I'm not sure that I entirely got it; I think it would benefit from a second reading.
- "Ado" is a tale of political correctness gone haywire, and what happens if you try to Bowdlerize Hamlet so that it doesn't offend *anyone*. This was a cute little story, although not particularly subtle, and I feel like I've seen its main point made elsewhere.
- "Spice Pogrom" was probably my favorite story in this collection. It's the tale of first contact with an alien species, and our protagonist has one of the alien delegates staying in her bedroom, since there's nowhere else to put him in the incredibly crowded colony. She's under strict instructions from her boyfriend not to offend the alien, but there's somewhat of a communication barrier, and he keeps bringing home all kinds of stuff that they don't have space for... including, one day, a handsome stranger. This story shows off Willis's flair for comedy - and the zany, madcap, farcical style of comedy, with people tripping over each other on the stairs, and hilarious misunderstandings abounding. It's a ton of fun, but it's also got a really sweet heart at its core as well.
- "Winter's Tale" takes on the "Did Shakespeare really write all of Shakespeare?" debate from a unique point of view: that of his wife, Anne Hathaway (and also manages to address the issue of the "second-best bed" line in Shakespeare's will). I am a huge sucker for all things Shakespeare, so of course I loved this story... and bonus points for Willis's theory actually being both plausible, and one I hadn't heard before.
- "Chance" is the story of a woman who moves back to her college town as an adult, and begins seeing visions of the events between her and her college friends that led her life to where it is now. This is the darkest story in the collection, I think. I'd even call it bleak, although some of that might be its placement so soon after "Spice Pogrom". It's devestatingly effective, though, because there are so many opportunities for the story to go a different way, and it just tragically never does.
- "In the Late Cretaceous" is a story about a paleontology department facing some restructuring. As someone entrenched in academia (and therefore university politics) myself, a lot of this hit hilariously if disturbingly close to home. The ending didn't have quite the oomph I wanted, but it fit the story quite nicely. (This may be one story that shows its age, though, if only by the fact that one character is complaining about the super-expensive $80-per-semester parking pass. If only.)
- "Time Out" was my second-favorite story; a close second behind "Spice Pogrom". It's also madcap comedy with a solid beating heart to it; it involves a scientist who has chosen an elementary school as the perfect location to test his theories about chronodisplacement (also known as time travel), and the effects his research has on the otherwise ordinary people he enlists to help him. Willis has this amazing gift for throwing a ton of random-seeming elements into her stories and having them seem like they're all over the place, only for everything to slot together perfectly by the end.
- "Jack" confused me at first. It's set in a Fire Marshall's station during the London Blitz, so it was immediately reminiscent of "Fire Watch" (and presumably also Blackout, which I've not yet read). But the time-travel historians were missing, so I wasn't getting the appropriate sci-fi twist on straight historical fiction... at first. But then it came, and it was a good one, one which I will not spoil here, but one which - like that in "A Winter's Tale" - makes total sense and is sort of surprising that I'd really never seen it done before.
- "At the Rialto" is another story of academics, physicists this time, who are at a conference on quantum physics in Hollywood, of all places, where nothing seems to be going according to plan. My knowledge of quantum physics is mostly based on The Tao of Physics, a decades-old book that I read over a decade ago, but it was enough to make this story very funny, albeit in a more subtle way than some of the other funny stories in this collection.
Recommendation: Definitely recommended. This collection is solid enough to stand alongside Willis's novels for her existing fans, and would be a fine introduction to both her style and her range for someone new to her work. And even though Willis can get kind of "techy" in her sci-fi, with the big (albeit usually fake) words that could scare non-SFF readers away, I think there's a sensibility to her work that makes it more approachable than it might seem at first to someone new to the genre.
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stories cover a pretty wide array of tones - from madcap comedy to wistful nostalgia, from historical to dystopian, and everywhere in between and back again. The only thing that bothered me about this book was how many of the stories seemed to feature extremely self-involved, assholish, and emotionally unavailable boyfriends/husbands, to the point where I started to wonder about Willis's relationships, or whether she was just returning to that well of drama for convenience's sake. But even there, she manages to flip my expectations in one of the later stories, proving that she can write about stable significant others and happy couples after all. Overall, this was one of the best collections I've read, with a good mix of sci-fi and fantasy and contemporary and historical and future, and not a bad story in the bunch. 4.5 out of 5 stars.Individual Stories:
- "The Last of the Winnebagos" is a story set in a future USA, where non-commercial highway travel has largely become a thing of the past, and killing an animal is punishable by law, involving a photojournalist who is on assignment to photograph a couple who have, as the title says, the last Winnebago still running. This story won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and I can certainly see why, although it wasn't one of my favorites in the book. I thought the photographer's musings on the nature of people and portraits and their camera faces was interesting (and accurate), and I appreciated the fact that even though this story's 15 years old, it's not showing its age at all. (Actually, that's true of the book as a whole.)
- "Even the Queen" is a story at the intersection of biology and technology, so you know it's going to make me happy. It involves the cultural reaction - and maybe even backlash - to a world where women no longer have to deal with monthly menstruation. Seeing as I have personally had some of the arguments between mother and daughter in this story, almost verbatim, about whether or not taking continuous cycles of birth control (and thereby not having periods) is healthy or not, I think Willis hit the nail pretty squarely on the head, but she manages to do it with much more wit than I could.
- The Schwarzschild radius is the radius at which light can no longer escape a black hole, and "Schwarzschild Radius" is a story set during World War I, which is when Schwarzchild did his calculations, and involving the gravitation pull of not of black holes, but of events. This was one of the more complex stories in the collection, and I'm not sure that I entirely got it; I think it would benefit from a second reading.
- "Ado" is a tale of political correctness gone haywire, and what happens if you try to Bowdlerize Hamlet so that it doesn't offend *anyone*. This was a cute little story, although not particularly subtle, and I feel like I've seen its main point made elsewhere.
- "Spice Pogrom" was probably my favorite story in this collection. It's the tale of first contact with an alien species, and our protagonist has one of the alien delegates staying in her bedroom, since there's nowhere else to put him in the incredibly crowded colony. She's under strict instructions from her boyfriend not to offend the alien, but there's somewhat of a communication barrier, and he keeps bringing home all kinds of stuff that they don't have space for... including, one day, a handsome stranger. This story shows off Willis's flair for comedy - and the zany, madcap, farcical style of comedy, with people tripping over each other on the stairs, and hilarious misunderstandings abounding. It's a ton of fun, but it's also got a really sweet heart at its core as well.
- "Winter's Tale" takes on the "Did Shakespeare really write all of Shakespeare?" debate from a unique point of view: that of his wife, Anne Hathaway (and also manages to address the issue of the "second-best bed" line in Shakespeare's will). I am a huge sucker for all things Shakespeare, so of course I loved this story... and bonus points for Willis's theory actually being both plausible, and one I hadn't heard before.
- "Chance" is the story of a woman who moves back to her college town as an adult, and begins seeing visions of the events between her and her college friends that led her life to where it is now. This is the darkest story in the collection, I think. I'd even call it bleak, although some of that might be its placement so soon after "Spice Pogrom". It's devestatingly effective, though, because there are so many opportunities for the story to go a different way, and it just tragically never does.
- "In the Late Cretaceous" is a story about a paleontology department facing some restructuring. As someone entrenched in academia (and therefore university politics) myself, a lot of this hit hilariously if disturbingly close to home. The ending didn't have quite the oomph I wanted, but it fit the story quite nicely. (This may be one story that shows its age, though, if only by the fact that one character is complaining about the super-expensive $80-per-semester parking pass. If only.)
- "Time Out" was my second-favorite story; a close second behind "Spice Pogrom". It's also madcap comedy with a solid beating heart to it; it involves a scientist who has chosen an elementary school as the perfect location to test his theories about chronodisplacement (also known as time travel), and the effects his research has on the otherwise ordinary people he enlists to help him. Willis has this amazing gift for throwing a ton of random-seeming elements into her stories and having them seem like they're all over the place, only for everything to slot together perfectly by the end.
- "Jack" confused me at first. It's set in a Fire Marshall's station during the London Blitz, so it was immediately reminiscent of "Fire Watch" (and presumably also Blackout, which I've not yet read). But the time-travel historians were missing, so I wasn't getting the appropriate sci-fi twist on straight historical fiction... at first. But then it came, and it was a good one, one which I will not spoil here, but one which - like that in "A Winter's Tale" - makes total sense and is sort of surprising that I'd really never seen it done before.
- "At the Rialto" is another story of academics, physicists this time, who are at a conference on quantum physics in Hollywood, of all places, where nothing seems to be going according to plan. My knowledge of quantum physics is mostly based on The Tao of Physics, a decades-old book that I read over a decade ago, but it was enough to make this story very funny, albeit in a more subtle way than some of the other funny stories in this collection.
Recommendation: Definitely recommended. This collection is solid enough to stand alongside Willis's novels for her existing fans, and would be a fine introduction to both her style and her range for someone new to her work. And even though Willis can get kind of "techy" in her sci-fi, with the big (albeit usually fake) words that could scare non-SFF readers away, I think there's a sensibility to her work that makes it more approachable than it might seem at first to someone new to the genre.
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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
"Ado" is a super short story about an English teacher trying to get her class to study Shakespeare. The problem is this, every play is contested by some watchdog group. Mortician International takes offense to the word, "casket" in Act III, Students Against Suicide protest Ophelia's drowning, and
"At the Rialto" had me laughing from the very first pages. Dr. Ruth Baringer is a quantum physicist attending a chaos conference in Hollywood, California. Only she can't even check into her room because her name isn't in the registry. In fact, nothing is where it's supposed to be. Rooms where lectures are supposed to be occurring either have talks on channeling or stand empty. To make matters worse there is a colleague who is hell bent on trying to distract Dr. Baringer from attending a single lecture even if it is the wrong one. The chaos is just trying to attend the conference on chaos.
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so on. Even the students are allowed to refuse to learn a subject. Willis prefaced the story with an explanation, "political correctness is getting out of hand" (p 115)."At the Rialto" had me laughing from the very first pages. Dr. Ruth Baringer is a quantum physicist attending a chaos conference in Hollywood, California. Only she can't even check into her room because her name isn't in the registry. In fact, nothing is where it's supposed to be. Rooms where lectures are supposed to be occurring either have talks on channeling or stand empty. To make matters worse there is a colleague who is hell bent on trying to distract Dr. Baringer from attending a single lecture even if it is the wrong one. The chaos is just trying to attend the conference on chaos.
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LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
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
"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
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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!
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LibraryThing member memccauley6
There are so many good short stories in this book, I hardly know where to begin. "Even the Queen" is the most hilarious answer to `The Feminist Question' ever. I don't think anyone could ever top it. "In the Late Cretacious" is the funniest and most accurate portrayal of university politics I have
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ever read. "Ado" is a funny look at political correctness taken to its most extreme absurd conclusion. I can't recommend this book enough. Show Less
LibraryThing member themjrawr
fairly hit and miss for me, unfortunately
LibraryThing member delphica
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
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member caedocyon
A lot of the stories are apocalypse-themed, which is normally a big turn-off for me, but there was some very good work in here anyway.
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Collection — 1994)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
Physical description
480 p.; 4.2 inches
ISBN
0553564366 / 9780553564365