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A review by isabellarobinson7
The Winds of Marble Arch And Other Stories by Connie Willis
4.0
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:
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.)