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The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories
"Variety is the soul of pleasure," And variety is what this comprehensive new collection of Connie Willis is all about. The stories cover the entire spectrum, from sad to sparkling to terrifying, from classics to hard-to-find treasures with everything in between -- orangutans, Egypt, earthworms, roast goose, college professors, mothers-in-law, aliens, secret codes, Secret Santas, tube stations, choir practice, the post office, the green light on Daisy's dock, weddings, divorces, death, and assorted plagues, from scarlet fever to "It's a Wonderful Life." And a dog. Famous for her "sure-hand plotting, unforgettable characters, and top-notch writing," Willis has been called, "the most relentlessly delightful science fiction writer alive," and there are numerous examples here. Among them, Willis's most famous stories -- the Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning "Fire Watch" and "Even the Queen" and "The Last of the Winnebagos" -- along with undiscovered gems like Willis's heartfelt homage to Jack Williamson, "Nonstop to Portales." Her magical Christmas stories are here, too, from "Newsletter" to "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know..." which last year was made into the TV movie, Snow Wonder, starring Mary Tyler Moore. We've collected stories from throughout Willis's career, from early ones like "Cash Crop" and "Daisy, in the Sun," right up to her newest stories, including the wonderful "The Winds of Marble Arch." There's literally something for everyone here. If you're a diehard Willis fan, you'll be delighted with hard-to-find treasures like the until-now uncollected, "The Soul Selects Her Own Society..." If you've never read Connie Willis, this is your chance to discover "A Letter from the Clearys" and, well, "Chance." To say nothing of, "At the Rialto," the funniest story ever written about quantum physicists. And Willis's chilling, "All My Darling Daughters." And...oh, there are too many great stories here to list and pleasures galore. So enjoy!
600 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
67 people are currently reading
1172 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 130 reviews
March 8, 2022
I guess I got me another fav author! No, what IS this magic?
Q:
I breathed it in deeply. A scent of lilacs and rain and expectation. Of years of tourists reading London on $40 a Day and newlyweds holding hands on the platform. Of Elliott and Sara and Cath and I, tumbling laughingly after the Old Man, off the train and through the beckoning passages to the District Line and the Tower of London. The scent of spring and the All-Clear and things to come. (c)
Q:
"You’re blocking the way," the man said. "People are trying to get through."
"We’re improving the atmosphere," I said and kissed her again.
We stood there a moment, breathing it in–leaves and lilacs and love. (c)
Q:
I breathed it in deeply. A scent of lilacs and rain and expectation. Of years of tourists reading London on $40 a Day and newlyweds holding hands on the platform. Of Elliott and Sara and Cath and I, tumbling laughingly after the Old Man, off the train and through the beckoning passages to the District Line and the Tower of London. The scent of spring and the All-Clear and things to come. (c)
Q:
"You’re blocking the way," the man said. "People are trying to get through."
"We’re improving the atmosphere," I said and kissed her again.
We stood there a moment, breathing it in–leaves and lilacs and love. (c)
June 30, 2023
Connie Willis is something of a one-trick pony. She does her trick very well, but the shallowness of her style shouts when a dozen of her short stories are lumped together, as here. Especially when some are poor enough that they’d probably never see publication except in such an anthology. 700 pages of it.
As her readers know, Willis is fascinated with London during the Blitz. That is represented here, but she ranges far across the globe to present the usual suspects—late, lazy, lost or looney—fighting their own attention deficit and (usually) an impersonal bureaucracy or just the dead hand of the past to fulfill some (usually) mundane, but existentially significant to them, task. And driving themselves (and the reader) crazy in the process.
Few of these stories involve time travel: the staple of many of her books.
A quibble: many of these stories are old enough that the future they forecast already hasn't happened.
A better example of Willis’ style and single trick is Doomsday Book. That book has a soul which many of these stories lack. If you’ve never read Willis before, start with Doomsday Book.
As her readers know, Willis is fascinated with London during the Blitz. That is represented here, but she ranges far across the globe to present the usual suspects—late, lazy, lost or looney—fighting their own attention deficit and (usually) an impersonal bureaucracy or just the dead hand of the past to fulfill some (usually) mundane, but existentially significant to them, task. And driving themselves (and the reader) crazy in the process.
Few of these stories involve time travel: the staple of many of her books.
A quibble: many of these stories are old enough that the future they forecast already hasn't happened.
A better example of Willis’ style and single trick is Doomsday Book. That book has a soul which many of these stories lack. If you’ve never read Willis before, start with Doomsday Book.
on-hiatus
February 11, 2016June 9, 2015: $2.99 on Kindle. A novella and 23 short stories by Connie Willis, one of my favorite SF/fantasy authors.
December 31, 2019
12/31/2019 Listened to "At the Rialto" via EscapePod episode 600
Review from November 2009 (ten years one month fifteen days ago to be exact) follows:
3.17 stars to be exact. For mini-reviews of all the short stories, please see the comments associated with my status updates.
My six favorite stories were:
The Blued Moon - This was laugh out loud hilarious. It reminded me of my favorite episode of Fawlty Towers.
A Letter from the Clearys - Post-apocalyptic stressed out family with a non-barking dog making do on the slopes of the Peak.
The Last of the Winnebagos - Good mystery and interesting alternate future with a Gestapo-like Humane Society.
And a tie between three Christmas stories:
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know - Everyone's dreaming of a white Christmas ... and sometimes dreams do come true.
Epiphany - The Epiphany story retold. Charming.
Inn - Nativity lost in the time-space continuum.
Some of the short stories are depressing and struck a nerve with me as a woman. If that was her intent, then she succeeded.
Overall, I liked the collection of short stories. An eclectic collection to appeal to almost any taste and genre.
Review from November 2009 (ten years one month fifteen days ago to be exact) follows:
3.17 stars to be exact. For mini-reviews of all the short stories, please see the comments associated with my status updates.
My six favorite stories were:
The Blued Moon - This was laugh out loud hilarious. It reminded me of my favorite episode of Fawlty Towers.
A Letter from the Clearys - Post-apocalyptic stressed out family with a non-barking dog making do on the slopes of the Peak.
The Last of the Winnebagos - Good mystery and interesting alternate future with a Gestapo-like Humane Society.
And a tie between three Christmas stories:
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know - Everyone's dreaming of a white Christmas ... and sometimes dreams do come true.
Epiphany - The Epiphany story retold. Charming.
Inn - Nativity lost in the time-space continuum.
Some of the short stories are depressing and struck a nerve with me as a woman. If that was her intent, then she succeeded.
Overall, I liked the collection of short stories. An eclectic collection to appeal to almost any taste and genre.
May 4, 2010
3.5 stars. This review is only for the title story, "The Winds of Marble Arch." A subtle, very well written story about the ability of a few people to feel the "emotional echoes" of traumatic historical events and the effect such experioencs have on them.
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novella
Nominee: World Fantasy Award for Best Novella
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novella
Nominee: World Fantasy Award for Best Novella
November 15, 2008
Connie Willis makes me crazy. How can she be so prolific, and so brilliant, and such a masterful craftsman, and make it all look so easy? (All right, yes: the middle two explain the last.)
This collection of short fiction, while a door-stopper, is amazing. (Actually, my biggest complaint is that the Subterranean Press designer did a pretty unprofessional job with the cover font. Let that be the last I speak of it.) Connie Willis, now, writes in -- could we call them several different modes? One of her modes is cozy and clever, and this is the mode that, not so surprisingly, I guess, she seems to win most of her Hugos and Nebulas for. Let me be clear: her cozy & clever SF is very clever indeed -- tightly plotted, with splendid dialogue, beautiful pacing, lovable characters, and always with "the SF idea" woven in with resonant and clever (there's that word again) parallels to the main story. We have, oh, let's see, "Blued Moon" in this category, to be sure, and "Newsletter," "In the Late Cretaceous," "At the Rialto," "Even the Queen," "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know"; to some degree, though only to a degree, you could say the same of "The Last of the Winnebagoes."
(No. Strike that. "The Last of the Winnebagoes" is darker than that, even though, bizarrely enough, it doesn't read that way.)
So, there's this sort of cozy mode, with romance and screwball humor, and true love waiting at the end. Oh, and have I mentioned she likes to write Christmas stories? Connie Willis's Christmas stories are probably the least intolerable Christmas stories from an SF author I've ever read, but I'll never be a fan of that genre.
But then there are another set of stories, and those are dark, so dark they're pretty close to violent, and I love them. They have no sentiment in them at all. It's been stripped out and flayed away. It's horrifying. They're chilling, gripping, and really good. Among this group we find many of my favorites in the volume, including "All My Darling Daughters" (ARGH), "Cash Crop," "A Letter from the Clearys," "The Curse of Kings," "Chance," and, I think, "Jack": a fascinating story set in one of Willis's favorite backdrops -- London during the Blitz -- but not one of her future-Oxford time-travel tales. I don't know whether one could rightly put "The Last of the Winnebagoes" in with these, but I think it's one of my favorites as well, partly because of its straight-down theme of human loss and sorrow; and there's a certain specific, elegiac grief in there that I'm susceptible to, and that reminds me of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
There are other favorites that I'd read prior to finding this volume, in Willis's collection Fire Watch. "Daisy, In the Sun" is one of them: a sorrowful, strange and beautiful piece. (I've seen readers comment that they find this story merely "surreal" or "wish the author had spent more time with it." I wonder if they've read it carefully enough: it's a complete piece, with a complete story, but it is a mosaic and requires refracted looking.) And there's "Service for the Burial of the Dead," which is a sort of American Gothic tale, a Hawthorne story told by the bonneted women, and I can't explain, because... To describe it, it sounds as if its themes are worn and I shouldn't love it. And yet I do, at the end the story wins: it filled me with sadness and confusion.
Among pieces missing from this collection which I'm sorry not to see is "The Sidon in the Mirror," which is found in Fire Watch. I understand its exclusion -- its plotting and pacing are both more muddled than we've come to expect of the author -- and yet its hard-edged colony setting and its unsettling first-person identity games fascinate me, in a way reminiscent of early Delany or (this will sound weird) Alfred Bester. Also, "Lost and Found," a phenomenal snippet of a piece about the end of the world, and one of Willis' stories about religion and belief, which I really do find interesting when they're not centred on preordained Christmas outcomes and feelings. "Samaritan," which, happily, is in The Winds of Marble Arch, is another such piece.
Can I just wrap up with a few apparently unrelated comparisons? Like how I'm also sorry not to see "And Come From Miles Around" (amazingly, not a Christmas story), which in an infinitely more good-natured way pokes some of the same buttons as James Tiptree did in early feminist SF like "The Women Men Don't See"? And how despite my accusations of coziness, I actually am full of admiration for "Even the Queen," which makes me feel like I'm in the presence of a Jane Austen for SF: making the first fiction, prickly and gripping and even relevant, about the things that women talk about around tea tables? And have I mentioned that "Daisy, In the Sun" always makes me think of Joyce Carol Oates' infinitely anthologized "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", except, maybe, it's better?
I think my conclusion is, read Connie Willis. Her oeuvre is amazing, and if you're interested in the underbones of short-story writing and of SF, as I am, there's a tremendous amount to learn.
This collection of short fiction, while a door-stopper, is amazing. (Actually, my biggest complaint is that the Subterranean Press designer did a pretty unprofessional job with the cover font. Let that be the last I speak of it.) Connie Willis, now, writes in -- could we call them several different modes? One of her modes is cozy and clever, and this is the mode that, not so surprisingly, I guess, she seems to win most of her Hugos and Nebulas for. Let me be clear: her cozy & clever SF is very clever indeed -- tightly plotted, with splendid dialogue, beautiful pacing, lovable characters, and always with "the SF idea" woven in with resonant and clever (there's that word again) parallels to the main story. We have, oh, let's see, "Blued Moon" in this category, to be sure, and "Newsletter," "In the Late Cretaceous," "At the Rialto," "Even the Queen," "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know"; to some degree, though only to a degree, you could say the same of "The Last of the Winnebagoes."
(No. Strike that. "The Last of the Winnebagoes" is darker than that, even though, bizarrely enough, it doesn't read that way.)
So, there's this sort of cozy mode, with romance and screwball humor, and true love waiting at the end. Oh, and have I mentioned she likes to write Christmas stories? Connie Willis's Christmas stories are probably the least intolerable Christmas stories from an SF author I've ever read, but I'll never be a fan of that genre.
But then there are another set of stories, and those are dark, so dark they're pretty close to violent, and I love them. They have no sentiment in them at all. It's been stripped out and flayed away. It's horrifying. They're chilling, gripping, and really good. Among this group we find many of my favorites in the volume, including "All My Darling Daughters" (ARGH), "Cash Crop," "A Letter from the Clearys," "The Curse of Kings," "Chance," and, I think, "Jack": a fascinating story set in one of Willis's favorite backdrops -- London during the Blitz -- but not one of her future-Oxford time-travel tales. I don't know whether one could rightly put "The Last of the Winnebagoes" in with these, but I think it's one of my favorites as well, partly because of its straight-down theme of human loss and sorrow; and there's a certain specific, elegiac grief in there that I'm susceptible to, and that reminds me of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
There are other favorites that I'd read prior to finding this volume, in Willis's collection Fire Watch. "Daisy, In the Sun" is one of them: a sorrowful, strange and beautiful piece. (I've seen readers comment that they find this story merely "surreal" or "wish the author had spent more time with it." I wonder if they've read it carefully enough: it's a complete piece, with a complete story, but it is a mosaic and requires refracted looking.) And there's "Service for the Burial of the Dead," which is a sort of American Gothic tale, a Hawthorne story told by the bonneted women, and I can't explain, because... To describe it, it sounds as if its themes are worn and I shouldn't love it. And yet I do, at the end the story wins: it filled me with sadness and confusion.
Among pieces missing from this collection which I'm sorry not to see is "The Sidon in the Mirror," which is found in Fire Watch. I understand its exclusion -- its plotting and pacing are both more muddled than we've come to expect of the author -- and yet its hard-edged colony setting and its unsettling first-person identity games fascinate me, in a way reminiscent of early Delany or (this will sound weird) Alfred Bester. Also, "Lost and Found," a phenomenal snippet of a piece about the end of the world, and one of Willis' stories about religion and belief, which I really do find interesting when they're not centred on preordained Christmas outcomes and feelings. "Samaritan," which, happily, is in The Winds of Marble Arch, is another such piece.
Can I just wrap up with a few apparently unrelated comparisons? Like how I'm also sorry not to see "And Come From Miles Around" (amazingly, not a Christmas story), which in an infinitely more good-natured way pokes some of the same buttons as James Tiptree did in early feminist SF like "The Women Men Don't See"? And how despite my accusations of coziness, I actually am full of admiration for "Even the Queen," which makes me feel like I'm in the presence of a Jane Austen for SF: making the first fiction, prickly and gripping and even relevant, about the things that women talk about around tea tables? And have I mentioned that "Daisy, In the Sun" always makes me think of Joyce Carol Oates' infinitely anthologized "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", except, maybe, it's better?
I think my conclusion is, read Connie Willis. Her oeuvre is amazing, and if you're interested in the underbones of short-story writing and of SF, as I am, there's a tremendous amount to learn.
April 10, 2008
I'm not usually a big fan of short stories, but of course I'll read anything Connie Willis writes. Even the ones that have been published before are fun to read again. I was thrilled to see "Firewatch" included in this collection, and felt the ending as strongly this time as I did the first time I read it. Other stories, like "Blued Moon" and "At the Rialto" carry Willis' trademark corporate stupidity and mangled language, but others, like "A Letter from the Clearys" and "Nonstop to Portales" are so subtly written, it's both a joy (because you can finally see how well Willis works her craft) and a sorrow (because the story's over!). Some endings are a bit overdone (title-story "The Winds of Marble Arch", "The Last of the Winnebagos"). Others endings are a bit muddled ("The Curse of Kings", "Daisy, In the Sun", "Cash Crop"), but some endings ("All My Darling Daughters") are all too clear. The inclusion of such hilarious gems as "Even the Queen" and especially "The Soul Selects Her Own Society..." (pay attention to the footnotes!) more than make up for any flaws. Overall, the collection is a must-read for any Willis fans, and anyone else who just wants to read a broad collection of well-done stories.
April 25, 2025
Rating: 4 stars
Connie Willis is a master of both the sublime and ridiculous, and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories is probably one of the most accurate representations of this - and I didn't even know it existed until a few months ago. In my quest to read (and subsequently review) everything Willis has ever touched, somehow this omnibus collection never crossed my path, including eight whole stories I had yet to read!
To reflect these dual literary personalities of Willis, I decided early on to categorise each story in this collection as a Type A representing the "sublime", or Type B for the "ridiculous". Basically, if the story is serious, it's A and if it's silly it is B. I very quickly regretted this choice because it meant I had to make a definitive decision on each new story, and that is precisely the reason I don't individually rate each story. Sigh, well, I'm committed to it now.
The Winds of Marble Arch:
Awards and nominations: Hugo winner; Locus and World Fantasy Award nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Winds of Marble Arch can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Blued Moon:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This one has a simple premise: what if we shoot hydrocarbons into space to fix the ozone? But there is an unintended side effect: the chemicals start turning the Moon another colour, namely, blue. And taking the saying "once in a blue moon" literally, this change in the Moon's colour causes a dramatic increase in the number of coincidences happening on Earth.
And as you can imagine from Connie Willis, these coincidences feed straight into the screwball comedy part: this guy called Ulric works at the place where the Moon shooting happens and is roommates with a dude named Brad who has a lot of girlfriends and fiancées, usually all at the same time. But the girl Brad really wants is the boss guy's daughter Sally, (so he can get rich or something) and he keeps coming up with elaborate schemes to woo her, much to Ulric's chagrin. But of course Ulric doesn't know what Sally looks like, and the very woman he has been repeatedly bumping into over several weeks just so happens to be the only person Brad cannot seem to find. A quintessential Type B Connie Willis, with all the fun and shenanigans you would expect from the stories in that category.
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Just Like the Ones We Used to Know can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Daisy, in the Sun:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
In the same way that Blued Moon was a perfect example of her Type B stories, Daisy, in the Sun is Connie Willis at her most sombre. The background to the story is that the sun is going go nova, and a family worrying about and preparing for the inevitable end of the world. This young girl named Daisy is not super concerned about the heat death of Earth, she is more so bothered by the fact that her menstrual cycles will be starting soon and she thinks that means she will have to start growing up.
It is one of those stories that unravels slowly as you go along, so there is not much more I can say without spoiling the ending. But even then, the story ends with this kind of ambiguity that you are still left feeling unsure as to what actually happened. I will say (mild) trigger warnings for sexual assault, because certain events are implied if not directly shown. Daisy, in the Sun is very clearly a Type A story, probably up there in intensity with the ending of Doomsday Book.
A Letter from the Clearys:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for A Letter from the Clearys can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Newsletter:
Awards and nominations: Locus winner
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Newsletter can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Fire Watch:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story separately from any story collection. My review for Fire Watch can be found here
Nonstop to Portales:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This one is about a super boring town that has nothing interesting to do in it (we have one of those: it’s called Hamilton). This dude gets a job there, and before he accepts it, he decides to arrive a few days early to see the (nonexistent) sights. There are no museums, no heritage sites, no memorials, no guided tours, and especially no tourist traps because there are no other tourists in the town to trap. Eventually, the dude ends up on a bus tour of some famous guy’s house and stuff. The catch being he has no idea who the person is, and the tour and its participants are not quite what you would call normal...
This story was just fun the whole way through. It was light hearted, but not silly. Definitely a Type B Connie Willis.
Ado:
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Ado can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
All My Darling Daughters:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This story is about this girl called Octavia who... well, to be honest, she’s the kind of girl that would absolutely bully me if I was at her school. She would see me coming from a mile away and take me down with just one look. (I was going to describe her properly, but I think that sums her up pretty well.) Anyway, Octavia gets a new roommate in her university dorm, and this new girl is rather soft and naive - which is a perfect for our main character because it means she can insult her all she wants without worrying about any kind of retort. Just listen to how Octavia describes her on the very first page:
(Yes, those words mean what you think they mean.) This one line perfectly encapsulates both character's personalities, and their relationship to one another. And it gives you an idea as to the tone of this story. Octavia is a bit rough around the edges and rather crass, which is quite different from typical Connie Willis protagonists. I believe there's even the first f bomb I’ve seen Willis drop (of which this story has multiple) and the first (almost) sex scene I have read from her (although there may have been one at the end of Crosstalk now that I think about it).
The actual narrative of All My Darling Daughters surrounds two main points: some of the students in the dorm getting these little furry pet things (to my knowledge they were never distinctly described, but I imagined them looking like tribbles but with the proportions of a ferret), and also the boys seemingly inexplicably not wanting to have sex anymore. And at the risk of giving too much away, as the story progresses you find out these two things are somewhat... related.
In terms of story type, this one is a mixture. It started out and I was thinking it was definitely a Type B, but as the story went on, I was surprised by how serious it got. So I would say first half Type B, second half Type A.
In the Late Cretaceous:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for In the Late Cretaceous can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
The Curse of Kings:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This story is about a newspaper journalist writing an article on a curse that is rumoured to exist, and he is trying to find out if it indeed is real or not. He goes and visits places where the supposed cursed things have happened, asks the same questions repeatedly despite getting no answer the first time (as reporters tend to do) and always wants to know about someone called the Sandalman. I would probably call it a soft Type A. In all honesty though, this story didn’t really work for me. Maybe it's because I couldn't quite tell if it was all supposed to be literal or figurative, so I struggled to grasp the authorial intent behind certain narrative decisions and therefore wasn't super invested in the story. Ah, well, you can't win them all.
Even the Queen:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula winner
I have already 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.
Inn:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Inn can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Samaritan:
Just like in Cats Paw, another Willis story, Samaritan surrounds smart monkeys. It is set in a near future where we have learned to communicate with the primates via sign language, and monkeys are rented out by zoos to do jobs and help around the town, basically like a temp agency. The monkey this short story is centred around is called Esau, and while working at a church he has befriended one of the assistants to the Reverend, and she claims Esau wants to be baptised. The reverend then has to figure out whether he can legitimately do this. (To no one's surprise, there is nothing in the Bible about baptising monkeys.) The story makes some really good comments on free will, particularly in regards to religion and religious practices. It highlights how some people do things in the church not because they personally want to, but because they want to please others, or they think it is what they "should do" and if they don't they are somehow "failing". From that description, you would think it was more of a Type A story, and I suppose it is, but far from the heaviest one.
Cash Crop:
This story is set in a future where the world’s plants are all dead or dying, and its people are slowly falling victim to sickness caused by the lack of vegetation (think the Earth portions of Interstellar movie). Humanity's only provision is the Magassar, a huge ship that carries a bunch of healthy plants and medicines around to those who need it most. But of course, this ship and its precious cargo are owned by the state. Effectively, the government controls who lives and who dies.
The people on the ground therefore have to rely of their favour if they want to survive. Unless they can grow something sellable on their own (which is nearly impossible in the current climate) and make money off of it, namely a “cash crop”. The story follows a young girl named Haze and her family who are in desperate need of a cash crop, because as Haze is preparing for her high school graduation, illness starts spreading around her community. As people start succumbing to their ailments, the what once was thought of as imminent arrival of the Magassar is looking to be all too distant.
This story was so well executed, I can't believe it wasn't even nominated for any major awards. It is so relevant to the issues we are facing today, that the fact it was written in 1984 - LITERALLY 40 YEARS AGO - is one of the most astounding things I have heard lately. A Type A story for sure, but a very important one.
Jack:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Jack can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
The Last of the Winnebagos:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already 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.
Service For the Burial of the Dead:
This lady was (almost definitely) having a relationship with an engaged man, so when he ends up dead, she is naturally everyone's prime suspect - all except the fiancée, who seems to be lacking a few brain cells. So to the chagrin of all, not least herself, she is invited to the funeral… where she meets the man. Yes, the dead one. What follows is a lot of internal flip-flopping on the part of the reader as to whether the events are actually taking place or if they are all just figments of a bereaved mind. And as ambiguous as it is, the ending is just perfect. A Type A topic, but wryly treated like a Type B.
The Soul Selects Her own Society:
Awards and nominations: Hugo winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Soul Selects Her own Society can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Chance:
Awards and nominations: World Fantasy Award nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Chance can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
At the Rialto:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Hugo and Locus nominee
I have already 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.
Epiphany:
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Epiphany can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
So now I am one step closer to reading Connie Willis's entire bibliography! Since I last checked my progress against a list of her work, Willis has actually released a new novel, The Road to Roswell, so while before I was semi-near to finishing all her most popular (and accessible) works, I have a couple more to go before I really have to start digging. (Damn you Passage, I can't find you anywhere.)
Connie Willis is a master of both the sublime and ridiculous, and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories is probably one of the most accurate representations of this - and I didn't even know it existed until a few months ago. In my quest to read (and subsequently review) everything Willis has ever touched, somehow this omnibus collection never crossed my path, including eight whole stories I had yet to read!
To reflect these dual literary personalities of Willis, I decided early on to categorise each story in this collection as a Type A representing the "sublime", or Type B for the "ridiculous". Basically, if the story is serious, it's A and if it's silly it is B. I very quickly regretted this choice because it meant I had to make a definitive decision on each new story, and that is precisely the reason I don't individually rate each story. Sigh, well, I'm committed to it now.
The Winds of Marble Arch:
Awards and nominations: Hugo winner; Locus and World Fantasy Award nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Winds of Marble Arch can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Blued Moon:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
This one has a simple premise: what if we shoot hydrocarbons into space to fix the ozone? But there is an unintended side effect: the chemicals start turning the Moon another colour, namely, blue. And taking the saying "once in a blue moon" literally, this change in the Moon's colour causes a dramatic increase in the number of coincidences happening on Earth.
And as you can imagine from Connie Willis, these coincidences feed straight into the screwball comedy part: this guy called Ulric works at the place where the Moon shooting happens and is roommates with a dude named Brad who has a lot of girlfriends and fiancées, usually all at the same time. But the girl Brad really wants is the boss guy's daughter Sally, (so he can get rich or something) and he keeps coming up with elaborate schemes to woo her, much to Ulric's chagrin. But of course Ulric doesn't know what Sally looks like, and the very woman he has been repeatedly bumping into over several weeks just so happens to be the only person Brad cannot seem to find. A quintessential Type B Connie Willis, with all the fun and shenanigans you would expect from the stories in that category.
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Just Like the Ones We Used to Know can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Daisy, in the Sun:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
In the same way that Blued Moon was a perfect example of her Type B stories, Daisy, in the Sun is Connie Willis at her most sombre. The background to the story is that the sun is going go nova, and a family worrying about and preparing for the inevitable end of the world. This young girl named Daisy is not super concerned about the heat death of Earth, she is more so bothered by the fact that her menstrual cycles will be starting soon and she thinks that means she will have to start growing up.
It is one of those stories that unravels slowly as you go along, so there is not much more I can say without spoiling the ending. But even then, the story ends with this kind of ambiguity that you are still left feeling unsure as to what actually happened. I will say (mild) trigger warnings for sexual assault, because certain events are implied if not directly shown. Daisy, in the Sun is very clearly a Type A story, probably up there in intensity with the ending of Doomsday Book.
A Letter from the Clearys:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for A Letter from the Clearys can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Newsletter:
Awards and nominations: Locus winner
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Newsletter can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Fire Watch:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story separately from any story collection. My review for Fire Watch can be found here
Nonstop to Portales:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This one is about a super boring town that has nothing interesting to do in it (we have one of those: it’s called Hamilton). This dude gets a job there, and before he accepts it, he decides to arrive a few days early to see the (nonexistent) sights. There are no museums, no heritage sites, no memorials, no guided tours, and especially no tourist traps because there are no other tourists in the town to trap. Eventually, the dude ends up on a bus tour of some famous guy’s house and stuff. The catch being he has no idea who the person is, and the tour and its participants are not quite what you would call normal...
This story was just fun the whole way through. It was light hearted, but not silly. Definitely a Type B Connie Willis.
Ado:
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Ado can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
All My Darling Daughters:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This story is about this girl called Octavia who... well, to be honest, she’s the kind of girl that would absolutely bully me if I was at her school. She would see me coming from a mile away and take me down with just one look. (I was going to describe her properly, but I think that sums her up pretty well.) Anyway, Octavia gets a new roommate in her university dorm, and this new girl is rather soft and naive - which is a perfect for our main character because it means she can insult her all she wants without worrying about any kind of retort. Just listen to how Octavia describes her on the very first page:
"She wouldn't know a bone from a vaj, and wouldn't know what went into which either."
(Yes, those words mean what you think they mean.) This one line perfectly encapsulates both character's personalities, and their relationship to one another. And it gives you an idea as to the tone of this story. Octavia is a bit rough around the edges and rather crass, which is quite different from typical Connie Willis protagonists. I believe there's even the first f bomb I’ve seen Willis drop (of which this story has multiple) and the first (almost) sex scene I have read from her (although there may have been one at the end of Crosstalk now that I think about it).
The actual narrative of All My Darling Daughters surrounds two main points: some of the students in the dorm getting these little furry pet things (to my knowledge they were never distinctly described, but I imagined them looking like tribbles but with the proportions of a ferret), and also the boys seemingly inexplicably not wanting to have sex anymore. And at the risk of giving too much away, as the story progresses you find out these two things are somewhat... related.
In terms of story type, this one is a mixture. It started out and I was thinking it was definitely a Type B, but as the story went on, I was surprised by how serious it got. So I would say first half Type B, second half Type A.
In the Late Cretaceous:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for In the Late Cretaceous can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
The Curse of Kings:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
This story is about a newspaper journalist writing an article on a curse that is rumoured to exist, and he is trying to find out if it indeed is real or not. He goes and visits places where the supposed cursed things have happened, asks the same questions repeatedly despite getting no answer the first time (as reporters tend to do) and always wants to know about someone called the Sandalman. I would probably call it a soft Type A. In all honesty though, this story didn’t really work for me. Maybe it's because I couldn't quite tell if it was all supposed to be literal or figurative, so I struggled to grasp the authorial intent behind certain narrative decisions and therefore wasn't super invested in the story. Ah, well, you can't win them all.
Even the Queen:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula winner
I have already 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.
Inn:
Awards and nominations: Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Inn can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Samaritan:
Just like in Cats Paw, another Willis story, Samaritan surrounds smart monkeys. It is set in a near future where we have learned to communicate with the primates via sign language, and monkeys are rented out by zoos to do jobs and help around the town, basically like a temp agency. The monkey this short story is centred around is called Esau, and while working at a church he has befriended one of the assistants to the Reverend, and she claims Esau wants to be baptised. The reverend then has to figure out whether he can legitimately do this. (To no one's surprise, there is nothing in the Bible about baptising monkeys.) The story makes some really good comments on free will, particularly in regards to religion and religious practices. It highlights how some people do things in the church not because they personally want to, but because they want to please others, or they think it is what they "should do" and if they don't they are somehow "failing". From that description, you would think it was more of a Type A story, and I suppose it is, but far from the heaviest one.
Cash Crop:
This story is set in a future where the world’s plants are all dead or dying, and its people are slowly falling victim to sickness caused by the lack of vegetation (think the Earth portions of Interstellar movie). Humanity's only provision is the Magassar, a huge ship that carries a bunch of healthy plants and medicines around to those who need it most. But of course, this ship and its precious cargo are owned by the state. Effectively, the government controls who lives and who dies.
The people on the ground therefore have to rely of their favour if they want to survive. Unless they can grow something sellable on their own (which is nearly impossible in the current climate) and make money off of it, namely a “cash crop”. The story follows a young girl named Haze and her family who are in desperate need of a cash crop, because as Haze is preparing for her high school graduation, illness starts spreading around her community. As people start succumbing to their ailments, the what once was thought of as imminent arrival of the Magassar is looking to be all too distant.
This story was so well executed, I can't believe it wasn't even nominated for any major awards. It is so relevant to the issues we are facing today, that the fact it was written in 1984 - LITERALLY 40 YEARS AGO - is one of the most astounding things I have heard lately. A Type A story for sure, but a very important one.
Jack:
Awards and nominations: Hugo, Locus and Nebula nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Jack can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
The Last of the Winnebagos:
Awards and nominations: Hugo and Nebula winner; Locus nominee
I have already 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.
Service For the Burial of the Dead:
This lady was (almost definitely) having a relationship with an engaged man, so when he ends up dead, she is naturally everyone's prime suspect - all except the fiancée, who seems to be lacking a few brain cells. So to the chagrin of all, not least herself, she is invited to the funeral… where she meets the man. Yes, the dead one. What follows is a lot of internal flip-flopping on the part of the reader as to whether the events are actually taking place or if they are all just figments of a bereaved mind. And as ambiguous as it is, the ending is just perfect. A Type A topic, but wryly treated like a Type B.
The Soul Selects Her own Society:
Awards and nominations: Hugo winner; Locus nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Time is the Fire. My review for The Soul Selects Her own Society can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
Chance:
Awards and nominations: World Fantasy Award nominee
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, Impossible Things. My review for Chance can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
At the Rialto:
Awards and nominations: Nebula winner; Hugo and Locus nominee
I have already 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.
Epiphany:
I have already read this story in another Connie Willis short story collection, A Lot Like Christmas. My review for Epiphany can be found as a part of my larger review for that collection here.
So now I am one step closer to reading Connie Willis's entire bibliography! Since I last checked my progress against a list of her work, Willis has actually released a new novel, The Road to Roswell, so while before I was semi-near to finishing all her most popular (and accessible) works, I have a couple more to go before I really have to start digging. (Damn you Passage, I can't find you anywhere.)
May 13, 2009
Ms. Willis has done a lot of research into the bombings of London during World War II. This is evident through her inclusion of three (three!) different stories in this collection that have some connection to that theme. “The Winds of Marble Arch” is one; “Night Watch” is another; and “Jack” rounds out that triptych of stories.
Now, am I complaining? Heck no! Ms. Willis is a fine, extraordinary writer, and she has a knack for writing stories that are a lot like those zany romantic comedies from the 1950s. But she really shines and shows her talents when she tackles serious subjects, like war, sexuality, humanity, and religion. And the fact that these three stories all center on the same central theme, yet still manage to be very different stories with very different tones, just goes to show that when you’re reading a Connie Willis book, you’re sure to be impressed.
It is impossible for me to give this collection of her short stories an objective review, because Ms. Willis is one of my favorite authors. It’s very, very difficult to pick a favorite story from the collection, because they’re all so very, very good. I love her screwball romantic comedy stories, and I love that she manages to incorporate hard science into those stories, sometimes even going so far as to incorporate that science into the characters of those stories (you’ll just have to read “At the Rialto” and “Blued Moon” to understand what I mean). I also love her heavier stories, especially “Night Watch,” which I really think should be made into a movie (and considering how aggravated I get with Hollywood’s habit of adapting something that is already a success instead of creating something original, that’s saying something). “All His Darling Daughters” is just about the darkest, most disturbing story I’ve read, but I still find something very significant in the story to tell people, “You have to read this!” She has some gentler stories in there, as well, including her Christmas stories (”Epiphany” and “Inn” are touching stories of faith and perseverance), a tribute to a fellow science-fiction author who inspired her (”Nonstop to Portales”), a back-handed tribute to Emily Dickinson (”The Soul Selects Her Own Society…”), and a satirical, clever story of aliens, romance, and holiday newsletters (”Newsletter”). Really, I can’t think of a single dud story in the collection. Some had more of an impact than others, but none are bad, and each one of them had something important to say.
If you’ve already experienced Doomsday Book, Bellwether, To Say Nothing of the Dog, or Lincoln’s Dreams, then it won’t take any more prodding from me to get you to read this book (be forewarned, though, that you’ll see a lot of reprinted stories here, but they’re all worth re-reading, that’s for certain). If you haven’t discovered the wonder that is Connie Willis, though, I could think of no other better place to start than with The Winds of Marble Arch.
Now, am I complaining? Heck no! Ms. Willis is a fine, extraordinary writer, and she has a knack for writing stories that are a lot like those zany romantic comedies from the 1950s. But she really shines and shows her talents when she tackles serious subjects, like war, sexuality, humanity, and religion. And the fact that these three stories all center on the same central theme, yet still manage to be very different stories with very different tones, just goes to show that when you’re reading a Connie Willis book, you’re sure to be impressed.
It is impossible for me to give this collection of her short stories an objective review, because Ms. Willis is one of my favorite authors. It’s very, very difficult to pick a favorite story from the collection, because they’re all so very, very good. I love her screwball romantic comedy stories, and I love that she manages to incorporate hard science into those stories, sometimes even going so far as to incorporate that science into the characters of those stories (you’ll just have to read “At the Rialto” and “Blued Moon” to understand what I mean). I also love her heavier stories, especially “Night Watch,” which I really think should be made into a movie (and considering how aggravated I get with Hollywood’s habit of adapting something that is already a success instead of creating something original, that’s saying something). “All His Darling Daughters” is just about the darkest, most disturbing story I’ve read, but I still find something very significant in the story to tell people, “You have to read this!” She has some gentler stories in there, as well, including her Christmas stories (”Epiphany” and “Inn” are touching stories of faith and perseverance), a tribute to a fellow science-fiction author who inspired her (”Nonstop to Portales”), a back-handed tribute to Emily Dickinson (”The Soul Selects Her Own Society…”), and a satirical, clever story of aliens, romance, and holiday newsletters (”Newsletter”). Really, I can’t think of a single dud story in the collection. Some had more of an impact than others, but none are bad, and each one of them had something important to say.
If you’ve already experienced Doomsday Book, Bellwether, To Say Nothing of the Dog, or Lincoln’s Dreams, then it won’t take any more prodding from me to get you to read this book (be forewarned, though, that you’ll see a lot of reprinted stories here, but they’re all worth re-reading, that’s for certain). If you haven’t discovered the wonder that is Connie Willis, though, I could think of no other better place to start than with The Winds of Marble Arch.
January 1, 2008
SF, Short Stories. This isn't the definitive Connie Willis collection -- it's missing a few stories from Miracle and Other Christmas Stories and Impossible Things -- but it's close.
Of the ones I hadn't read before, I liked Nonstop to Portales, a bus of tourists in the middle of nowhere; Ado, in the future, teaching Shakespeare will only take a minute; In the Late Cretaceous, a university's paleontology department has to evolve or die; The Last of the Winnebagos, a future where dogs are extinct and the Humane Society is out of control; The Soul Selects Her Own Society, a hilarious send up of academia and Emily Dickinson, with footnotes; and At the Rialto, a story about quantum entanglement and Hollywood.
I like Willis' short stories, but if I'm going to read 700 pages of her writing, I'd prefer if it were in novel form. This is a good book to have around; just don't read it all at once like I was forced to do (stupid 14-day library books) because you'll learn all her little writing tricks and it takes the fun out of her stories if you immediately know where they're going.
Of the ones I hadn't read before, I liked Nonstop to Portales, a bus of tourists in the middle of nowhere; Ado, in the future, teaching Shakespeare will only take a minute; In the Late Cretaceous, a university's paleontology department has to evolve or die; The Last of the Winnebagos, a future where dogs are extinct and the Humane Society is out of control; The Soul Selects Her Own Society, a hilarious send up of academia and Emily Dickinson, with footnotes; and At the Rialto, a story about quantum entanglement and Hollywood.
I like Willis' short stories, but if I'm going to read 700 pages of her writing, I'd prefer if it were in novel form. This is a good book to have around; just don't read it all at once like I was forced to do (stupid 14-day library books) because you'll learn all her little writing tricks and it takes the fun out of her stories if you immediately know where they're going.
December 12, 2020
4+ stars
Willis’s novella is an easy and engaging read with her usual skillful characterization and pacing and enjoyable nods to some of her earlier books, and just a breeze, but a satisfying one, of sci-fi
Willis’s novella is an easy and engaging read with her usual skillful characterization and pacing and enjoyable nods to some of her earlier books, and just a breeze, but a satisfying one, of sci-fi
January 4, 2021
I'd like to think I'm starting off 2021 with a certified chonk of a book. This is a massive short-story collection, stuffed with stories ranging across genre, subject matter, theme, continent, and time period. Reading it straight through was like grabbing a box of Valentine's chocolates expecting each candy to be slightly different but all recognizably from the same box, only to find that the chocolatier-in-charge lost his mind and started filling the chocolates with everything from macaroni to funfetti.
Ah, variety. It is the spice of life.
1. The Winds of Marble Arch: Best classified as magical realism, the title story explores how people would react if they could sense the tragedy of the past in everyday gusts of wind. It's a strong start to the collection, and gives readers a taste of the blend of historical tragedy and current-day foibles that Willis is famous for. (4/5)
2. Blued Moon: A slapstick rom-com set at an engineering plant. It works better than the premise suggests, and comes together in one final act like all good stories of this sort should, but personal taste stopped me from enjoying this as much as others would. (My sense of humor runs a little drier, and this was pure pratfalls/slapstick). (3/5)
3. Just Like the Ones We Used to Know (*): A cute Christmas story with a Love, Actually vibe that ran a little long. Some characters were more enjoyable than others to follow, which made the story a little unbalanced and fatty. However, extra points for making the viola player a viable love interest because as a former Violist myself, we are highly underappreciated, never get the melody, and are just as cute as the violinists. (2.5/5)
4. Daisy In the Sun: A mind-bender about memory. It never grabbed me, and while this may make me a bad SFF fan since all the award-people loved this one, I just never found a place to dig in. It also doesn't help than 2020 was the Year of Excellent Books Specifically About How Memory Affects Us, so this one didn't leave a good taste. (1/5)
5. A Letter from the Clearys: Post-apocalyptic short about those trying to survive. It was well-written, well-paced, and well-edited, but the lack of any real twist paired with my own personal dislike of apocalyptic fiction prevented me from really enjoying this. (3/5).
6. Newsletter: Another Christmas story, this one centered around the specific stress of coming up with stories to tell your relatives. It's fun, but like the other Christmas story, a little fatty. (2.5/5).
7. Fire Watch: A novella set in the same universe as her Oxford Time Traveler's series. I truly believe that the particular concept underlying said series lets Willis shine, and lets her bring all of her wit, spirit, faith, love of SFF, and knowledge of history to the forefront. This story is no different, and lets our hero have a full arc, gives us a peek at the lives of the heroes from the other books, and reaffirms Willis's constant message about the importance of the individual over numbers and generalized movements. (5/5).
8. Nonstop to Portales: A story written for a friend about a time-traveling tour bus, that does have its charms, but doesn't have much of a payoff. (2/5)
9. Ado: A short political satire about censorship at the high school level. It's quick, clever, fun, and doesn't pull any punches. (4/5).
10: All My Darling Daughters: Truly scarring. Its a horror-sci-fi, and to indicate how I felt about it, I googled it right after I finished reading it to make sure I actually read what I thought I did. If most stories in this collection range from PG-PG-13, this would be a hard R, for many, many reasons. (3/5)
11. In the Late Cretaceous: Following the hardest of Willis's stories came one of the lightest--and funniest. This short followed the efforts of a university's paleontology department to not be defunded, and man, did it hit the sweet spot with me. The humor was spot-on, the main character was the perfect straight-man to all of the gags, and the university atmosphere worked so well. M favorite story out of the collection, hands down. (6/5).
The Curse of Kings: DNF. (1./5)
Even the Queen: I can see this being on every list of required feminist reading, mostly because it should be. It's an open discussion of a certain....time....in a way that is sharply funny and clever. It references universal teaching methods, sayings, and jokes told to every single girl, whether they are an neruotic grandmother, powerful diplomat, judge, a hippie, or stay-at-home mother. Instead of pushing for souless Captain Marvel-esque projects to promote girl-power, publishers need to be urging stories like this: funny and candid stories about what it is like to be female. (5/5)
Inn: DNF. (1/5). I know, I know, bad reader.
Samaritan: Bit odd, but I was down for it. It looked like it was going down the do-animals-truly-have-souls route, but ended up being an exploration of the balance between church doctrine, the wants of the congregation, the needs of the lost, and the individual beliefs of pastors. It sounds a bit dry, but the main character is an orangutan. You kinda have to read it. (4/5)
Cash Crop: DNF (1/5).
Jack: Another genre story set during the London Blitz, this time with a fantasy bend instead of a sci-fi one. As with most of her stories set during this particular event in history, every element, real and fake, was perfectly balanced and rung true. (5/5)
The Last of the Winnebagos: An incredibly sad dystopian revolving around a world without dogs. It may sound trite, and while it doesn't have the spark her more...fun-loving...stories do, it is easy to see why this one picked up so many awards. If you have had a dog you loved...well...you may end up crying over this one. (4/5)
Service for the Burial of the Dead: Ok, Hill House. (3.5/5)
The Soul Selects Her Own Society: There is a real chance that this was not written by Connie Willis, and was instead written by me, that one time I got a lil' tipsy before handing in a final on Renaissance Lit. basically, an absolute broken professor analyzes Dickinson. (3/5)
Chance: DNF (1/5). Every collection has its duds, stop looking at me like that.
At the Rialto: Another example of a story that while mildly humorous, just didn't land for me. Apparently, everyone with an actual education in this stuff disagrees with me. (2.5/5)
Epiphany: A story that appeared to be a commentary on the story of the Good Samaritan at first, then ran headlong into exploring the themes of Biblical interpretation/The Book of Revelations all while juggling an actual story line. How you feel about the story probably depends on your view of both the character of God and the concept of personal revelation. No matter how you stand on the matters, Willis actually took a stand on the matters without shying away AND without getting away from the story, both of which I respect. (4.5/5).
*passes out*
Ah, variety. It is the spice of life.
1. The Winds of Marble Arch: Best classified as magical realism, the title story explores how people would react if they could sense the tragedy of the past in everyday gusts of wind. It's a strong start to the collection, and gives readers a taste of the blend of historical tragedy and current-day foibles that Willis is famous for. (4/5)
2. Blued Moon: A slapstick rom-com set at an engineering plant. It works better than the premise suggests, and comes together in one final act like all good stories of this sort should, but personal taste stopped me from enjoying this as much as others would. (My sense of humor runs a little drier, and this was pure pratfalls/slapstick). (3/5)
3. Just Like the Ones We Used to Know (*): A cute Christmas story with a Love, Actually vibe that ran a little long. Some characters were more enjoyable than others to follow, which made the story a little unbalanced and fatty. However, extra points for making the viola player a viable love interest because as a former Violist myself, we are highly underappreciated, never get the melody, and are just as cute as the violinists. (2.5/5)
4. Daisy In the Sun: A mind-bender about memory. It never grabbed me, and while this may make me a bad SFF fan since all the award-people loved this one, I just never found a place to dig in. It also doesn't help than 2020 was the Year of Excellent Books Specifically About How Memory Affects Us, so this one didn't leave a good taste. (1/5)
5. A Letter from the Clearys: Post-apocalyptic short about those trying to survive. It was well-written, well-paced, and well-edited, but the lack of any real twist paired with my own personal dislike of apocalyptic fiction prevented me from really enjoying this. (3/5).
6. Newsletter: Another Christmas story, this one centered around the specific stress of coming up with stories to tell your relatives. It's fun, but like the other Christmas story, a little fatty. (2.5/5).
7. Fire Watch: A novella set in the same universe as her Oxford Time Traveler's series. I truly believe that the particular concept underlying said series lets Willis shine, and lets her bring all of her wit, spirit, faith, love of SFF, and knowledge of history to the forefront. This story is no different, and lets our hero have a full arc, gives us a peek at the lives of the heroes from the other books, and reaffirms Willis's constant message about the importance of the individual over numbers and generalized movements. (5/5).
8. Nonstop to Portales: A story written for a friend about a time-traveling tour bus, that does have its charms, but doesn't have much of a payoff. (2/5)
9. Ado: A short political satire about censorship at the high school level. It's quick, clever, fun, and doesn't pull any punches. (4/5).
10: All My Darling Daughters: Truly scarring. Its a horror-sci-fi, and to indicate how I felt about it, I googled it right after I finished reading it to make sure I actually read what I thought I did. If most stories in this collection range from PG-PG-13, this would be a hard R, for many, many reasons. (3/5)
11. In the Late Cretaceous: Following the hardest of Willis's stories came one of the lightest--and funniest. This short followed the efforts of a university's paleontology department to not be defunded, and man, did it hit the sweet spot with me. The humor was spot-on, the main character was the perfect straight-man to all of the gags, and the university atmosphere worked so well. M favorite story out of the collection, hands down. (6/5).
The Curse of Kings: DNF. (1./5)
Even the Queen: I can see this being on every list of required feminist reading, mostly because it should be. It's an open discussion of a certain....time....in a way that is sharply funny and clever. It references universal teaching methods, sayings, and jokes told to every single girl, whether they are an neruotic grandmother, powerful diplomat, judge, a hippie, or stay-at-home mother. Instead of pushing for souless Captain Marvel-esque projects to promote girl-power, publishers need to be urging stories like this: funny and candid stories about what it is like to be female. (5/5)
Inn: DNF. (1/5). I know, I know, bad reader.
Samaritan: Bit odd, but I was down for it. It looked like it was going down the do-animals-truly-have-souls route, but ended up being an exploration of the balance between church doctrine, the wants of the congregation, the needs of the lost, and the individual beliefs of pastors. It sounds a bit dry, but the main character is an orangutan. You kinda have to read it. (4/5)
Cash Crop: DNF (1/5).
Jack: Another genre story set during the London Blitz, this time with a fantasy bend instead of a sci-fi one. As with most of her stories set during this particular event in history, every element, real and fake, was perfectly balanced and rung true. (5/5)
The Last of the Winnebagos: An incredibly sad dystopian revolving around a world without dogs. It may sound trite, and while it doesn't have the spark her more...fun-loving...stories do, it is easy to see why this one picked up so many awards. If you have had a dog you loved...well...you may end up crying over this one. (4/5)
Service for the Burial of the Dead: Ok, Hill House. (3.5/5)
The Soul Selects Her Own Society: There is a real chance that this was not written by Connie Willis, and was instead written by me, that one time I got a lil' tipsy before handing in a final on Renaissance Lit. basically, an absolute broken professor analyzes Dickinson. (3/5)
Chance: DNF (1/5). Every collection has its duds, stop looking at me like that.
At the Rialto: Another example of a story that while mildly humorous, just didn't land for me. Apparently, everyone with an actual education in this stuff disagrees with me. (2.5/5)
Epiphany: A story that appeared to be a commentary on the story of the Good Samaritan at first, then ran headlong into exploring the themes of Biblical interpretation/The Book of Revelations all while juggling an actual story line. How you feel about the story probably depends on your view of both the character of God and the concept of personal revelation. No matter how you stand on the matters, Willis actually took a stand on the matters without shying away AND without getting away from the story, both of which I respect. (4.5/5).
*passes out*
December 29, 2007
For some reason, it took me awhile to get into the title story. It's classic Connie and once I picked it back up after vacation, it flew. But it's still not my favorite.
I did immediately love Cash Crop. It was an early story, so haunted, very reminiscint of Daisy, in the Sun. I wasn't surprised by the twist, but I had thought she was a carrier. Still, this was gorgeous. I thought it was my favorite, until I read the next new story.
Curse of the Kings was creepy and scary and if you love The Mummy, you will adore this.
Nonstop to Portales was very very interesting, and I loved the twist at the end. It was a very quiet story, not very Connie until the end, but I enjoyed it.
Then. Then came The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective, and that was my very favoritest of all. If only this wasn't a 700+ page book, because I want everyone to read this and it's a hard book to loan out for a 10 page story. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard, though. It's a brief article written by a desperate English professor who wants tenure, reinterpreting Emily Dickinson's poetry through H.G. Welles's theory of zombies. Complete with poems that she wrote after her death and were found by another desperate grad student in 1990. *g* It's a must read.
I paid extra for the signed copy with two extra stories. Capra Corn was a delight - I figured out the movies immediately, which was fun. Definitely a precurser to Spice Pogrom, another screwball comedy of hers that I adore. Substitution Trick was also a great deal of fun.
Overall: A++ wonderful stuff. I can't wait for the next novel.
Original review:
It's here, it's here!! My beautiful humongous signed Connie Willis book with brand new stories, yay!!!
I did immediately love Cash Crop. It was an early story, so haunted, very reminiscint of Daisy, in the Sun. I wasn't surprised by the twist, but I had thought she was a carrier. Still, this was gorgeous. I thought it was my favorite, until I read the next new story.
Curse of the Kings was creepy and scary and if you love The Mummy, you will adore this.
Nonstop to Portales was very very interesting, and I loved the twist at the end. It was a very quiet story, not very Connie until the end, but I enjoyed it.
Then. Then came The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective, and that was my very favoritest of all. If only this wasn't a 700+ page book, because I want everyone to read this and it's a hard book to loan out for a 10 page story. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard, though. It's a brief article written by a desperate English professor who wants tenure, reinterpreting Emily Dickinson's poetry through H.G. Welles's theory of zombies. Complete with poems that she wrote after her death and were found by another desperate grad student in 1990. *g* It's a must read.
I paid extra for the signed copy with two extra stories. Capra Corn was a delight - I figured out the movies immediately, which was fun. Definitely a precurser to Spice Pogrom, another screwball comedy of hers that I adore. Substitution Trick was also a great deal of fun.
Overall: A++ wonderful stuff. I can't wait for the next novel.
Original review:
It's here, it's here!! My beautiful humongous signed Connie Willis book with brand new stories, yay!!!
July 17, 2014
I'm about halfway through this collection. Willis is amazing. She is the best writer of screwball comedy alive, but she also has amazing range and depth. The title story is a clear-eyed story about love in middle age, while "The Curse of Kings" is a short thriller as full of twists as Law and Order, and "Even the Queen" is just one of the best stories ever written.
Now I got to look up some Jack Williamson, because of Willis things he's a good writer, he must be great.
***
I think "Last of the Winnebagos" may be the saddest story ever written, and one of the kindest. "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" is hilarious, a perfect spoof of college English papers, with the funniest footnotes since Terry Pratchett. "Cash Crop" is classic scifi, with an Asimovian interest in the psychology of colonizers.
Willis has such amazing breadth. This is an impressive collection of short fiction.
***
I had to attend a meeting this weekend, not unlike "At the Rialto", only, without the fun.
I think Willis may be the best writer of short fiction alive. This is a great collection.
Now I got to look up some Jack Williamson, because of Willis things he's a good writer, he must be great.
***
I think "Last of the Winnebagos" may be the saddest story ever written, and one of the kindest. "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" is hilarious, a perfect spoof of college English papers, with the funniest footnotes since Terry Pratchett. "Cash Crop" is classic scifi, with an Asimovian interest in the psychology of colonizers.
Willis has such amazing breadth. This is an impressive collection of short fiction.
***
I had to attend a meeting this weekend, not unlike "At the Rialto", only, without the fun.
I think Willis may be the best writer of short fiction alive. This is a great collection.
August 19, 2014
A great collection. My favorite stories are Fire Watch, Even the Queen, Newsletter, Inn, and The Soul Selects Her Own Society. I love her fascination with Christmas and with The Blitz.
Stories included:
The Winds of Marble Arch
Blued Moon
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
Daisy, in the Sun
A Letter from the Clearys
Newsletter
Fire Watch
Nonstop to Portales
Ado
All My Darling Daughters
In the Late Cretaceous
The Curse of Kings
Even the Queen
Inn
Samaritan
Cash Crop
Jack
The Last of the Winnebagos
Service for the Burial of the Dead
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Chance
At the Rialto
Epiphany
Stories included:
The Winds of Marble Arch
Blued Moon
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
Daisy, in the Sun
A Letter from the Clearys
Newsletter
Fire Watch
Nonstop to Portales
Ado
All My Darling Daughters
In the Late Cretaceous
The Curse of Kings
Even the Queen
Inn
Samaritan
Cash Crop
Jack
The Last of the Winnebagos
Service for the Burial of the Dead
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Chance
At the Rialto
Epiphany
April 25, 2010
I love Connie Willis, but her rapid-fire dialog and interweaving plots start to feel a little tiring after the fifth or sixth short story in a row. This is definitely not a book to read all in one week.
July 6, 2017
Quite a variety of stories here, particularly for Connie Willis fans. Not all the stories were to my taste, but many of them were great!
If you're a CW fan, I'm sure you'll find this well worth the read.
If you're a CW fan, I'm sure you'll find this well worth the read.
November 26, 2021
Якби був такий жанр як "релігійна фантастика", то я би без жодного сумніву відніс до нього 2/3 оповідань цієї книги. От правда фантастики в них не більше ніж в оповіданнях Моема чи О Генрі. Ну і ще 1/3 суто технічно - про подорожі в часі, але по суті - про бомбування Лондона під час Другої Світової Війни. І фантастики в них теж не більше, ніж в Моема.
Однозначно не моє.
Однозначно не моє.
September 12, 2017
" 'Variety is the soul of pleasure.' And variety is what this comprehensive new collection of Connie Willis is all about. The stories cover the entire spectrum, fr9om sad to sparkling to terrifying, from classics to hard-to-find treasures with everything in between -- orangutans, Egypt, earthworms, roast goose, college professors, mothers-in-law, aliens, secret codes, Secret Santas, tube stations, choir practice, the post office, the green light on Daisy's dock, weddings, divorces, death, and assorted p0lagues, from scarlet fever to 'It's a Wonderful Life'. And a dog.
"Fampous for her 'sure-hand plotting, unforgettable characters, and top-notch writing,' Willis has been called, 'the most relentlessly delightful science fiction writer alive,' and there are numerous examples here. Among them, Willis's most famous stories -- the Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning Fire Watch and Even the Queen and The Last of the Winnebagos -- along with undiscovered gems like Willis's heartfelt homage to Jack Williamson, Nonstop to Portales. Her magical Christmas stories are here, too, from Newsletter to Just Like the Ones We Used to Know ... which last year [2005] was made into the TV movie, Snow Wonder, starring Mary Tyler Moore.
"We've collected stories from throughout Willis's career, from the early ones like Cash Crop and Daisy, in the Sun, right up to her newest stories, including the wonderful The Winds of Marble Arch. There's literally something for everyone here. If you're a diehard Willis fan, you'll be delighted with hard-to-find treasures like the until-now uncollected, The Soul Selects Her Own Society ... If you've never read Connie Willis, this is your chance to discover A Letter From the Clearys , and, well, Chance. To say nothing of, At the Rialto, the funniest story ever written bout quantum Physicists. And Willis's chilling, All My Darling Daughters.
"And...oh, there are too many great stories here to lest and pleasures galore. So enjoy!"
~~front & back covers
This is a massive book. Bigger than some of the Outlanders. But well worth it, at least in my opinion. But then, in the interests of full disclosure, I'm a diehard Connie Willis fan, and have been ever since I read To Say Nothing of the DogPassage, which I fell upon because I so much love Jerome4 K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, with the subtitle "To Say Nothing of the Dog." And then there was Passage, which I read years ago but can still recite the plot from memory, and still turn the ending over in my mind ...
These stories are a mixed bag, of course. I didn't care for The Winds of Marble Arch mostly because it's a story that doesn't make sense until you read almost all of it; I dislike that literary device but Ms. Willis uses it more often than I'm happy about. I'm especially fond of Inn one of the best Christmas stories ever, detested The Soul Selects Her Own Society ..., and absolutely howled with laughter at At the Rialto.
Obviously I think most of these stories are well worth reading, and the wonderful thing about collections of short stories is that you can just skip any of them you don't like.
"Fampous for her 'sure-hand plotting, unforgettable characters, and top-notch writing,' Willis has been called, 'the most relentlessly delightful science fiction writer alive,' and there are numerous examples here. Among them, Willis's most famous stories -- the Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning Fire Watch and Even the Queen and The Last of the Winnebagos -- along with undiscovered gems like Willis's heartfelt homage to Jack Williamson, Nonstop to Portales. Her magical Christmas stories are here, too, from Newsletter to Just Like the Ones We Used to Know ... which last year [2005] was made into the TV movie, Snow Wonder, starring Mary Tyler Moore.
"We've collected stories from throughout Willis's career, from the early ones like Cash Crop and Daisy, in the Sun, right up to her newest stories, including the wonderful The Winds of Marble Arch. There's literally something for everyone here. If you're a diehard Willis fan, you'll be delighted with hard-to-find treasures like the until-now uncollected, The Soul Selects Her Own Society ... If you've never read Connie Willis, this is your chance to discover A Letter From the Clearys , and, well, Chance. To say nothing of, At the Rialto, the funniest story ever written bout quantum Physicists. And Willis's chilling, All My Darling Daughters.
"And...oh, there are too many great stories here to lest and pleasures galore. So enjoy!"
~~front & back covers
This is a massive book. Bigger than some of the Outlanders. But well worth it, at least in my opinion. But then, in the interests of full disclosure, I'm a diehard Connie Willis fan, and have been ever since I read To Say Nothing of the DogPassage, which I fell upon because I so much love Jerome4 K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, with the subtitle "To Say Nothing of the Dog." And then there was Passage, which I read years ago but can still recite the plot from memory, and still turn the ending over in my mind ...
These stories are a mixed bag, of course. I didn't care for The Winds of Marble Arch mostly because it's a story that doesn't make sense until you read almost all of it; I dislike that literary device but Ms. Willis uses it more often than I'm happy about. I'm especially fond of Inn one of the best Christmas stories ever, detested The Soul Selects Her Own Society ..., and absolutely howled with laughter at At the Rialto.
Obviously I think most of these stories are well worth reading, and the wonderful thing about collections of short stories is that you can just skip any of them you don't like.
July 9, 2012
I read an audio version of The Winds of Marble Arch (not the "Other Stories")
Originally posted at FanLit.
Tom and his wife are visiting London so Tom can attend an academic conference while his wife goes shopping with a friend. When Tom takes the Tube to the conference, he feels a strange wind in the Underground. It’s more than just the normal drafts created by trains coming and going; this wind smells ancient and deadly and makes him feel afraid. Skipping the conference, and forgetting to buy theater tickets, Tom spends the next couple of days riding the Tube all over (under, actually) London to try to find the origin of the winds that only he seems to feel.
Connie Willis’s The Winds of Marble Arch won the Hugo Award for Best Novella and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. Like several of her stories, this one involves a time-traveling academic, except that he doesn’t actually move through time, but he senses historical events when he visits places where bad things have happened — in this case, the London Underground.
The Winds of Marble Arch gets tedious in the middle as Tom races from station to station sniffing the air, buying history books at the gift shops, and overwhelming us with information about what happened at each station during the London Blitz of WWII. This might be interesting for someone who’s familiar with all of the Tube stations, but for me it all ran together and I couldn’t appreciate all of Connie Willis’s extensive research into the history of the London Underground during WWII. There are also too many details about London theatres, actors, and plays —another favorite topic for Willis.
It’s not all just an excuse to lecture us on London Blitz history and Underground geography, though. Willis cleverly relates these bombings and the dreadful winds they created to the disastrous effects of adultery, divorce, and aging. This part of the novella is truly beautiful.
Dennis Boutsikaris superbly narrates Audible Frontiers’ version of The Winds of Marble Arch.
Originally posted at FanLit.
Tom and his wife are visiting London so Tom can attend an academic conference while his wife goes shopping with a friend. When Tom takes the Tube to the conference, he feels a strange wind in the Underground. It’s more than just the normal drafts created by trains coming and going; this wind smells ancient and deadly and makes him feel afraid. Skipping the conference, and forgetting to buy theater tickets, Tom spends the next couple of days riding the Tube all over (under, actually) London to try to find the origin of the winds that only he seems to feel.
Connie Willis’s The Winds of Marble Arch won the Hugo Award for Best Novella and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. Like several of her stories, this one involves a time-traveling academic, except that he doesn’t actually move through time, but he senses historical events when he visits places where bad things have happened — in this case, the London Underground.
The Winds of Marble Arch gets tedious in the middle as Tom races from station to station sniffing the air, buying history books at the gift shops, and overwhelming us with information about what happened at each station during the London Blitz of WWII. This might be interesting for someone who’s familiar with all of the Tube stations, but for me it all ran together and I couldn’t appreciate all of Connie Willis’s extensive research into the history of the London Underground during WWII. There are also too many details about London theatres, actors, and plays —another favorite topic for Willis.
It’s not all just an excuse to lecture us on London Blitz history and Underground geography, though. Willis cleverly relates these bombings and the dreadful winds they created to the disastrous effects of adultery, divorce, and aging. This part of the novella is truly beautiful.
Dennis Boutsikaris superbly narrates Audible Frontiers’ version of The Winds of Marble Arch.
April 25, 2009
I'm giving this one five stars, not because all the stories were perfect, but because taken as a whole, the collection presents a fabulous variety. Some of the stories are science fiction (like "Cash Crop"), some are contemporary with odd little twists (like "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know"), some have time travel (like "Fire Watch," which has the added bonus of a Doomsday Book reference), and one is so downright creepy I'd like to forget it. Some short story collections feel awkward, not because the stories themselves aren't good, but because they weren't really written to be read all at once. With Willis' stories, the book is organized by loose themes, rather than chronology, and while the style is all distinctly Willis, they never feel repetitive. The only thing missing was a note about when all the stories were originally published. This book is massive and a bit of a chore to lug around, but it's just so well-rounded. I don't always take easily to short stories (which is odd because I spent a whole class writing them in college) but this one more than won me over, and I'll definitely reread it.
August 1, 2019
Three stars, but some of this bumper collection of stories rate more, and rather too many rate less.
Connie Willis seems fascinated by the London Blitz in some of these stories, presumably written in some cases when she was working on her pair of time-travel novels set then. Like them, however, her research seems superficial at times; if fanfic writers can get Britpickers at need, I really don't see why she can't. She makes some extraordinarily silly mistakes - a 'raspberry torte' in late autumn wartime London? Rutabagas? 'Row houses'? A Duchess of York giving the VC to an airman for shooting down 15 enemy planes. (And one, moreover, called Quincy. Who in Britain named a son that in the 1920s?) Measuring London distances in terms of blocks and omitting 'street', 'road' and so-on from street names?
These are just a few I noted from one story. They would all leap out at any Brit, but pass unnoticed by many Americans. They set my teeth on edge, particularly when historical characters, embedded in their own eras say them.
One or two of the stories were enjoyable, though quite a few were forgettable. I would suggest this collection works best for Willis completists and non-Brits.
Connie Willis seems fascinated by the London Blitz in some of these stories, presumably written in some cases when she was working on her pair of time-travel novels set then. Like them, however, her research seems superficial at times; if fanfic writers can get Britpickers at need, I really don't see why she can't. She makes some extraordinarily silly mistakes - a 'raspberry torte' in late autumn wartime London? Rutabagas? 'Row houses'? A Duchess of York giving the VC to an airman for shooting down 15 enemy planes. (And one, moreover, called Quincy. Who in Britain named a son that in the 1920s?) Measuring London distances in terms of blocks and omitting 'street', 'road' and so-on from street names?
These are just a few I noted from one story. They would all leap out at any Brit, but pass unnoticed by many Americans. They set my teeth on edge, particularly when historical characters, embedded in their own eras say them.
One or two of the stories were enjoyable, though quite a few were forgettable. I would suggest this collection works best for Willis completists and non-Brits.
March 8, 2016
I'm not a fan of short stories and novellas. I never really enjoy them because they are so... short! There is hardly time for character or plot developement and I always feel that something is lacking.
Now when the stories are written by Connie Willis... Her short stories and novellas are really condensed version of her novels. She is such a fantastic writer that she manages to develop a plot in only a few pages. I think what I love most about her writing is that the story doesn't usually make much sense in the beginning but the understanding starts creeping on you as you read and as the line between reality and fiction starts bending.
I won't review all the stories in this omnibus (there are so many!) and will only list the ones I enjoyed most:
Blued Moon
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
Newsletter
Fire Watch
Ado
All My Darling Daughters
Even the Queen
Samaritan
Service for the Burial of the Dead
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
At the Rialto
I almost forgot to mention that I loved the introduction by Willis and her mentioning the things she likes:)
Now when the stories are written by Connie Willis... Her short stories and novellas are really condensed version of her novels. She is such a fantastic writer that she manages to develop a plot in only a few pages. I think what I love most about her writing is that the story doesn't usually make much sense in the beginning but the understanding starts creeping on you as you read and as the line between reality and fiction starts bending.
I won't review all the stories in this omnibus (there are so many!) and will only list the ones I enjoyed most:
Blued Moon
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
Newsletter
Fire Watch
Ado
All My Darling Daughters
Even the Queen
Samaritan
Service for the Burial of the Dead
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
At the Rialto
I almost forgot to mention that I loved the introduction by Willis and her mentioning the things she likes:)
March 3, 2012
Occasionally you come across a story that disturbs you so much you know it will never fully leave you, and will influence your writing and the way you deal with plot set-up in the years to come. This was just one of those stories. I would've given it 4.5 stars, if possible, and the only reason I didn't rate it 5 was due to the choppiness of the writing and the fact that the main protagonist's affected language kept throwing me out of the scene. Twisted climax with thwarted resolution that still has my stomach tied in knots days after.
Read
October 6, 2017De los relatos de Connie Willis yo haría dos secciones: los que son temas recurrentes en el resto de sus obras y por tanto son buenos, y los que son más originales y directamente son geniales.
Hay un par de relatos sobre el Blitz; unos cuantos más de romances casuales, divertidos y con un toque ligero de ciencia que da la historia; muchos relatos navideños (y cuando hablo de Navidad hablo de religión además de la festividad); y esto sólo entre los temas recurrentes. A mí, algunos de los originales me han gustado más.
Hay un par de relatos sobre el Blitz; unos cuantos más de romances casuales, divertidos y con un toque ligero de ciencia que da la historia; muchos relatos navideños (y cuando hablo de Navidad hablo de religión además de la festividad); y esto sólo entre los temas recurrentes. A mí, algunos de los originales me han gustado más.
September 28, 2015
I hate giving Connie Willis three stars.
I've read her books for years and usually grab them as soon as they come out. I don't know if I missed this collection when it first came out, or by passed it before I expected the issue that happened. Either way, I decided to read it now.
I realized many, many years ago that I do not like reading collections of short stories. Five or six in a row? fine. Story after story....eh?
I was good with Connie's collection for about 500 pages - so, yes, I really like her writing - but 800 pages is enough to burn me out. Hence, three stars.
I've read her books for years and usually grab them as soon as they come out. I don't know if I missed this collection when it first came out, or by passed it before I expected the issue that happened. Either way, I decided to read it now.
I realized many, many years ago that I do not like reading collections of short stories. Five or six in a row? fine. Story after story....eh?
I was good with Connie's collection for about 500 pages - so, yes, I really like her writing - but 800 pages is enough to burn me out. Hence, three stars.
August 23, 2012
If you are a fan of Connie Willis, you will like this book. You will also have read a great deal of it before.
I believe, however, that this is the most comprehensive collection of Willis' short fiction out there. it's got just a ton of stuff... and it weighs a ton.
It'd be a great introduction to Willis' work, and it's a must for completists.
I believe, however, that this is the most comprehensive collection of Willis' short fiction out there. it's got just a ton of stuff... and it weighs a ton.
It'd be a great introduction to Willis' work, and it's a must for completists.
January 7, 2008
Excellent collection of Connie Willis's short stories, including some hard to find. Loved "Newsletter," a Christmas story I'd never read of hers. As usual, "Chance" is my favorite short story of all time, but "Daisy in the Sun" is also unforgettable and "The Last of the Winnebagos."
October 26, 2016
Great little compilation. I especially enjoyed the tale with the subway that still remembers World War II bombing raids. The winds never forget. Creepy. Some repeats from other anthologies. A decent intro to Connie Willis, though nothing beats her Doomsday Book!
February 9, 2017
После рассказа "Возлюбленные мои дочери" я удивлялась, как это случилось, что Конни Уиллис - не слишком широко популярный писатель? Но как-то глядя на сборник рассказов понимаешь, что они не дотягивают. Всё вроде бы хорошо, есть даже весьма сильные места, но в основном всё то вторично, то смазано за счёт неловкого юмора, то просто плоско. Автор постоянно топчется на месте, вытаптывая все те ростки чего-то нового, которые при хорошем уходи могли получить неплохое развитие. Постоянно хочется сказать, что это уже было, и если не у какого-то другого писателя, которому пришла в голову примерно та же идея, но Уиллис помимо прочего занимается самоплагиатом.
Вихри мраморной арки - заглавное произведение, использующее столь взволновавшую автора тему бомбёжки Лондона, которая встретится нам в сборнике не раз. Немного настораживает отношение к супружеству: муж и жена должны быть счастливы и любить друг друга, никак иначе. Ну и вообще у Уиллис весьма патриархальные взгляды на жизнь, которые чуть-чуть трансформируются по ходу сборника.
Посиневшая луна - тоже произведение о любви и о её предопределённости: это судьба и никак иначе. Но если не углубляться, то забавная околонаучная романтическая история. Из-за выброса в атмосферу луна приобрела синий оттенок. Таким образом наступило то самое время, которое по-английски называется once a blue moon. И событиям пришлось происходить так, как будто рак на горе свистнул.
Светлое рождество - скорее, снежное рождество. Что если бы все желания сбывались? Ну хотя бы одно - снег на рождество, но зато у всех. Или это просто бесконечное повторение заезженной песни вызывает снежную бурю?
Роза, на Солнце - вот это один из очень хороших рассказов. Проблема того, что же рано или поздно случится с нашей ближайшей звездой, поднималась многими фантастами. Но Уиллис делает это с несколько неожиданного, эмоционального (если так можно сказать) ракурса. Проблема физического плана трансформируется в эмоциональную. Что-то похожее на рассказ "Kyrie" Пола Андерсона, но только лучше.
Письмо от Клири - постапокалиптический мир, нечего есть, за свою жизнь надо бороться - классика. И небольшая разовая отсылка к прошлому в виде письма. Фокус именно на этой детали - как тяжело бороться с мыслями об альтернативном прошлом, которое когда-то казалось нормальным будущим, но потом всё пошло не так.
Рождественский листок - тема рождества не отпускает Уиллис, почти так же как и бомбардировка Лондона. Не часто увидишь такую зацикленность. Но вообще это рассказ совершенно не о рождестве, а даже хорошая история о вторжении Чужих, которое почти никто не заметил. Чаще всего вторжение чужеродного паразита в фантастике делает людей хуже, тогда как паразиты Уиллис делают людей добрее, разумнее, человечнее. Тем не менее, вмешательство - всё равно зло, считает автор.
Пожарная охрана - а это очередной рассказ о бомбёжке Лондона и очередная история из Оксфордского цикла об историческом факультете, который отправляет студентов в прошлое исследовать историю на местах. Конечно, в эпоху космических кораблей и путешествий во времени организовать мало-мальски ничего не могут, поэтому студента, который готовился встретиться с апостолом Павлом, оправляют в Лондон во время Второй мировой защищать собор святого Павла от зажигательных бомб. В общем, тема знакомая, если вы уже читали Ночной дозор Сары Уотерс. Конечно же, всё заканчивается на печально-оптимистичной ноте, студент навсегда запоминает свой урок по истории (тот же самый, что и в Книге Страшного суда ), история - это живые люди. Ничего слишком выдающегося. Почему-то Уиллис считает, что в будущем вымрут все кошки.
До Порталеса без остановок - несколько похожее на заказушку, но при этом выглядит и как нелепая ученическая ода человеку, которым восхищаешься. Так Уиллис решила выразить своё увожение к писателю-фантасту Джеку Уильямсону. Лично я о таком никогда не слышала и о его мегазаслугах в становлении сайфай я вообще не в курсе. Если бы вот Уиллис выбрала кого-нибудь познаменитее, рассказ бы конечно заиграл красками чуть больше.
Много шуму - вот это если не совсем блестяще, то хотя бы злободневно. При нонешнем уровне неправильно понятой толерантности и требований всякого рода в той или иной степени угнетаемых меньшинств соблюдать их равноправие во всякой, в том числе и просто смешной, форме, тема редактирования классики - злободневна. Уиллис рассматривает любимого Шекспира непредвзято и понимает, что в современном мире ему не писать.
В позднем меловом - здесь Уиллис проводит параллель между поздним Меловым периодом и реорганизацией процесса обучения в университете, а именно - на факультете палеонтологии. Тиранозавры, вот это вот. Ну мы уже поняли, что к новшествам Уиллис относится настороженно.
Проклятие королей - повесть такая же хорошая, как "Возлюбленные дочери", сильно перекликаются если не тематикой, то во всяком случае стилем и настроением. Межпланетный контакт, уязвимая цивилизация беззащитных инопланетян, разрушительная деятельность человека (ну в данном случае не только человека), не могущего остановиться и не хватать то, что "плохо" лежит.
Даже у королевы - попытка Уиллис писать на феминистическую тему. Не очень понятно, зачем её сюда занесло, но позицию её мы хорошо поняли, да, спасибо. Идея, что в будущем человечество освободится от менструаций, как минимум половине человечества не может не нравиться.
Гостиница - очередной рассказ о.... рождестве! Мы ничего не знаем о путешествии Иосифа и Марии из Назарета в Вифлеем (как будто мы хоть что-то знаем о любом другом описываемом в библии событии!), так что почему бы им не потеряться где-нибудь во времени и пространстве ненадолго в районе рождества. Уиллис отправляет их через многие века в храм, построенный во славу их ещё нерождённому сыну. Отношения с религией у Уиллис предсказуемые, тема для неё волнующая и вдохновляющая.
Самаритянин - так вот, о религии. Уиллис рассуждает на тему, что если человек произошёл от обезьяны, может ли обезьяна уверовать и окреститься, или это только человеческая прерогатива? В этом отношении моё видение отличается от авторского: религия не возвышает нас над животными, но наоборот низводит на примитивный уровень.
Что посеешь... - когда человечеству доведётся начать колонизацию новых планет, ему придётся приспособляться под новые условия - так же, как мы модифицировали геном растений, чтобы они росли в новых условиях. Тема избитая до синяков, рассказов с этой мыслью - миллион. И ни один из них не выглядит настолько вторичным, как этот.
Джек - очередной рассказ... о бомбёжке Лондона во время Второй мировой! Некий Джек по ночам добровольцем помогает выискивать людей под завалами, оставляемыми немецкими ночными налётами. У Джека просто чутьё на людей под завалами. Именно эта мистическая интуиция вызывает подозрения у тёзки Джека. Во время войны какая только пакость не повылазит из своих тёмных углов. На мой вкус самый удачный рассказ на означенную тему у автора.
Последняя из "Виннебаго" - в данном случае "Виннебаго" - это трейлер, хотя на русский это принято переводить абсолютно непонятным в контексте словом "фургон". Выше Уиллис в недалёком будущем расправляется с кошками, здесь - с собаками. Какое безрадостное будущее нас ожидает без лучших мохнатых друзей с мокрыми носами, которые были с нами на протяжении всей нашей истории! И какое безрадостное будущее наступит, когда под прикрытием заботы о природе наступит эпоха "Большого Брата"! Кроме того, какое безрадостное будущее нас ожидает, когда человечество наконец-то избавится от этих дурацких трейлеров... а нет, по ним автор не так уж сильно горюет. Организация, следящая за всеми, безотносительно животных - большая и печальная тема. Но тут она введена как будто бы побоку. И каково же будет ваше удивление, когда я скажу, что истинная идея рассказа, о которой с нами хочет побеседовать автор - это идея всего во всём, всепроникающей любви. Герой рассказа не смог сфотографировать свою любимую собаку, но находит утешение своему горю через многие годы, когда не осталось ни одной собаки, в самом себе. Да, настолько сумбурный рассказ, хотя на самом деле всё это не лишено смысла.
Заупокойная служба - рассказ, по меркам всего сборника, следует назвать неплохим. О несмирившихся мертвецах, которые не хотят бездеятельно прозябать свою вечность.
Вторжение и отторжение - юмореска на тему научной фантастики и сатиры по поводу поэзии Эмили Дикинсон. Не то чтобы очень свежо, но для Уиллис - очень.
Случайность - это хороший рассказ о том, что маленькая глупость, совершённая в молодости, может разрушить целую жизнь. О том, что надо уметь прощать и если уж не обдумывать свои мимолётные поступки, то хотя бы не бояться исправлять последствия. И, как водится, всё то, о чём писал Макюэн в Искуплении .
В отеле "Риальто" - один из немногих чётко получившихся рассказов, который, что самое удивительное, весьма сумбурен в силу тематики - квантовая физика. Чтобы понять квантовую физику, надо расслабиться и получать удовольствие - считает Уиллис. Очень хорошо смотрятся туннелирование, неопродалённость, хаос и прочие штуки на макроуровне. И рассказ достаточно свежий, только всего лишь перекликается с заглавным рассказом.
Прозрение - последняя повесть, не о рождестве, но о втором пришествии! Уиллис берёт свой принцип человечности истории и переносит героев в историю написанную, но вряд ли когда возможную - история второго пришествия в наши дни. Библия кишит каким-то сумбуром, как его понимать? Автор предлагает понимать это как некий цирк - то есть если не совсем буквально, то допустить всё то невозможное и противоречивое - в нашей жизни такого на самом деле пруд пруди.
Вихри мраморной арки - заглавное произведение, использующее столь взволновавшую автора тему бомбёжки Лондона, которая встретится нам в сборнике не раз. Немного настораживает отношение к супружеству: муж и жена должны быть счастливы и любить друг друга, никак иначе. Ну и вообще у Уиллис весьма патриархальные взгляды на жизнь, которые чуть-чуть трансформируются по ходу сборника.
Посиневшая луна - тоже произведение о любви и о её предопределённости: это судьба и никак иначе. Но если не углубляться, то забавная околонаучная романтическая история. Из-за выброса в атмосферу луна приобрела синий оттенок. Таким образом наступило то самое время, которое по-английски называется once a blue moon. И событиям пришлось происходить так, как будто рак на горе свистнул.
Светлое рождество - скорее, снежное рождество. Что если бы все желания сбывались? Ну хотя бы одно - снег на рождество, но зато у всех. Или это просто бесконечное повторение заезженной песни вызывает снежную бурю?
Роза, на Солнце - вот это один из очень хороших рассказов. Проблема того, что же рано или поздно случится с нашей ближайшей звездой, поднималась многими фантастами. Но Уиллис делает это с несколько неожиданного, эмоционального (если так можно сказать) ракурса. Проблема физического плана трансформируется в эмоциональную. Что-то похожее на рассказ "Kyrie" Пола Андерсона, но только лучше.
Письмо от Клири - постапокалиптический мир, нечего есть, за свою жизнь надо бороться - классика. И небольшая разовая отсылка к прошлому в виде письма. Фокус именно на этой детали - как тяжело бороться с мыслями об альтернативном прошлом, которое когда-то казалось нормальным будущим, но потом всё пошло не так.
Рождественский листок - тема рождества не отпускает Уиллис, почти так же как и бомбардировка Лондона. Не часто увидишь такую зацикленность. Но вообще это рассказ совершенно не о рождестве, а даже хорошая история о вторжении Чужих, которое почти никто не заметил. Чаще всего вторжение чужеродного паразита в фантастике делает людей хуже, тогда как паразиты Уиллис делают людей добрее, разумнее, человечнее. Тем не менее, вмешательство - всё равно зло, считает автор.
Пожарная охрана - а это очередной рассказ о бомбёжке Лондона и очередная история из Оксфордского цикла об историческом факультете, который отправляет студентов в прошлое исследовать историю на местах. Конечно, в эпоху космических кораблей и путешествий во времени организовать мало-мальски ничего не могут, поэтому студента, который готовился встретиться с апостолом Павлом, оправляют в Лондон во время Второй мировой защищать собор святого Павла от зажигательных бомб. В общем, тема знакомая, если вы уже читали Ночной дозор Сары Уотерс. Конечно же, всё заканчивается на печально-оптимистичной ноте, студент навсегда запоминает свой урок по истории (тот же самый, что и в Книге Страшного суда ), история - это живые люди. Ничего слишком выдающегося. Почему-то Уиллис считает, что в будущем вымрут все кошки.
До Порталеса без остановок - несколько похожее на заказушку, но при этом выглядит и как нелепая ученическая ода человеку, которым восхищаешься. Так Уиллис решила выразить своё увожение к писателю-фантасту Джеку Уильямсону. Лично я о таком никогда не слышала и о его мегазаслугах в становлении сайфай я вообще не в курсе. Если бы вот Уиллис выбрала кого-нибудь познаменитее, рассказ бы конечно заиграл красками чуть больше.
Много шуму - вот это если не совсем блестяще, то хотя бы злободневно. При нонешнем уровне неправильно понятой толерантности и требований всякого рода в той или иной степени угнетаемых меньшинств соблюдать их равноправие во всякой, в том числе и просто смешной, форме, тема редактирования классики - злободневна. Уиллис рассматривает любимого Шекспира непредвзято и понимает, что в современном мире ему не писать.
В позднем меловом - здесь Уиллис проводит параллель между поздним Меловым периодом и реорганизацией процесса обучения в университете, а именно - на факультете палеонтологии. Тиранозавры, вот это вот. Ну мы уже поняли, что к новшествам Уиллис относится настороженно.
Проклятие королей - повесть такая же хорошая, как "Возлюбленные дочери", сильно перекликаются если не тематикой, то во всяком случае стилем и настроением. Межпланетный контакт, уязвимая цивилизация беззащитных инопланетян, разрушительная деятельность человека (ну в данном случае не только человека), не могущего остановиться и не хватать то, что "плохо" лежит.
Даже у королевы - попытка Уиллис писать на феминистическую тему. Не очень понятно, зачем её сюда занесло, но позицию её мы хорошо поняли, да, спасибо. Идея, что в будущем человечество освободится от менструаций, как минимум половине человечества не может не нравиться.
Гостиница - очередной рассказ о.... рождестве! Мы ничего не знаем о путешествии Иосифа и Марии из Назарета в Вифлеем (как будто мы хоть что-то знаем о любом другом описываемом в библии событии!), так что почему бы им не потеряться где-нибудь во времени и пространстве ненадолго в районе рождества. Уиллис отправляет их через многие века в храм, построенный во славу их ещё нерождённому сыну. Отношения с религией у Уиллис предсказуемые, тема для неё волнующая и вдохновляющая.
Самаритянин - так вот, о религии. Уиллис рассуждает на тему, что если человек произошёл от обезьяны, может ли обезьяна уверовать и окреститься, или это только человеческая прерогатива? В этом отношении моё видение отличается от авторского: религия не возвышает нас над животными, но наоборот низводит на примитивный уровень.
Что посеешь... - когда человечеству доведётся начать колонизацию новых планет, ему придётся приспособляться под новые условия - так же, как мы модифицировали геном растений, чтобы они росли в новых условиях. Тема избитая до синяков, рассказов с этой мыслью - миллион. И ни один из них не выглядит настолько вторичным, как этот.
Джек - очередной рассказ... о бомбёжке Лондона во время Второй мировой! Некий Джек по ночам добровольцем помогает выискивать людей под завалами, оставляемыми немецкими ночными налётами. У Джека просто чутьё на людей под завалами. Именно эта мистическая интуиция вызывает подозрения у тёзки Джека. Во время войны какая только пакость не повылазит из своих тёмных углов. На мой вкус самый удачный рассказ на означенную тему у автора.
Последняя из "Виннебаго" - в данном случае "Виннебаго" - это трейлер, хотя на русский это принято переводить абсолютно непонятным в контексте словом "фургон". Выше Уиллис в недалёком будущем расправляется с кошками, здесь - с собаками. Какое безрадостное будущее нас ожидает без лучших мохнатых друзей с мокрыми носами, которые были с нами на протяжении всей нашей истории! И какое безрадостное будущее наступит, когда под прикрытием заботы о природе наступит эпоха "Большого Брата"! Кроме того, какое безрадостное будущее нас ожидает, когда человечество наконец-то избавится от этих дурацких трейлеров... а нет, по ним автор не так уж сильно горюет. Организация, следящая за всеми, безотносительно животных - большая и печальная тема. Но тут она введена как будто бы побоку. И каково же будет ваше удивление, когда я скажу, что истинная идея рассказа, о которой с нами хочет побеседовать автор - это идея всего во всём, всепроникающей любви. Герой рассказа не смог сфотографировать свою любимую собаку, но находит утешение своему горю через многие годы, когда не осталось ни одной собаки, в самом себе. Да, настолько сумбурный рассказ, хотя на самом деле всё это не лишено смысла.
Заупокойная служба - рассказ, по меркам всего сборника, следует назвать неплохим. О несмирившихся мертвецах, которые не хотят бездеятельно прозябать свою вечность.
Вторжение и отторжение - юмореска на тему научной фантастики и сатиры по поводу поэзии Эмили Дикинсон. Не то чтобы очень свежо, но для Уиллис - очень.
Случайность - это хороший рассказ о том, что маленькая глупость, совершённая в молодости, может разрушить целую жизнь. О том, что надо уметь прощать и если уж не обдумывать свои мимолётные поступки, то хотя бы не бояться исправлять последствия. И, как водится, всё то, о чём писал Макюэн в Искуплении .
В отеле "Риальто" - один из немногих чётко получившихся рассказов, который, что самое удивительное, весьма сумбурен в силу тематики - квантовая физика. Чтобы понять квантовую физику, надо расслабиться и получать удовольствие - считает Уиллис. Очень хорошо смотрятся туннелирование, неопродалённость, хаос и прочие штуки на макроуровне. И рассказ достаточно свежий, только всего лишь перекликается с заглавным рассказом.
Прозрение - последняя повесть, не о рождестве, но о втором пришествии! Уиллис берёт свой принцип человечности истории и переносит героев в историю написанную, но вряд ли когда возможную - история второго пришествия в наши дни. Библия кишит каким-то сумбуром, как его понимать? Автор предлагает понимать это как некий цирк - то есть если не совсем буквально, то допустить всё то невозможное и противоречивое - в нашей жизни такого на самом деле пруд пруди.
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