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A review by jwells
The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
My first experience with Connie Willis, and it's a knockout. Fantastic stories that pulled me in immediately and delivered satisfying endings. Commenting only on some of them:
A Letter from the Clearys. I love how this one starts out like the narrator and her dog are in a normal world, just going to the post office, and the story only slowly drops clues that things are definitely not normal.
Death on the Nile.All the characters might be dead, and the narrator might prefer that possibility to the other option.
The Soul Selects Her Own Society. A story in the form of a hilariously bad academic paper. The second thing I’ve read this month suggesting that aliens would be tremendously impressed by Emily Dickinson (After The Humans by Matt Haig).
Fire Watch. The first of two stories in this collection reflecting Willis’s interest in the Blitz and the London Underground. Also a statement about how she thinks history should be studied, perhaps. (Passionately, emotionally involved with the human beings who lived through it.)
Even the Queen. The message of this one irritates me somewhat. It’s not either or:whether our culture programs us with false negativity about menstruation or whether it's genuinely an awful experience for many people. Both can be, and are, true.
The Winds of Marble Arch. Honestly beautiful story. Second one about the Underground and mentioning the people hiding there during the Blitz.
All Seated on the Ground. A fresh and very funny take on the story about aliens landing on earth, and humans struggling to communicate with them.
The Last of the Winnebagos. Made me cry like a baby.
A Letter from the Clearys. I love how this one starts out like the narrator and her dog are in a normal world, just going to the post office, and the story only slowly drops clues that things are definitely not normal.
Death on the Nile.
The Soul Selects Her Own Society. A story in the form of a hilariously bad academic paper. The second thing I’ve read this month suggesting that aliens would be tremendously impressed by Emily Dickinson (After The Humans by Matt Haig).
Fire Watch. The first of two stories in this collection reflecting Willis’s interest in the Blitz and the London Underground. Also a statement about how she thinks history should be studied, perhaps. (Passionately, emotionally involved with the human beings who lived through it.)
Even the Queen. The message of this one irritates me somewhat. It’s not either or:
The Winds of Marble Arch. Honestly beautiful story. Second one about the Underground and mentioning the people hiding there during the Blitz.
All Seated on the Ground. A fresh and very funny take on the story about aliens landing on earth, and humans struggling to communicate with them.
The Last of the Winnebagos. Made me cry like a baby.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Infidelity and War
There is a dog death in "Last of the Winnebagos" - not a spoiler, we are told early in the story. The dog owner's grief is a theme of the story. (To me, it makes a difference when a death is treated respectfully, as it is here, versus with casual cruelty, as it is in some other books.)