CT: The Genius of Connie Willis
Happy Saturday, Internet!
This week I've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite authors, Connie Willis. Mostly, I've been realizing just how much of my creative life as an adult has been shaped by her work.
You see, when I was in sixth grade, my family went to Hawaii on vacation. I only brought one book for the trip (because I didn't know yet, okay, that one book was never going to be enough for an entire vacation) and of course, I finished it on the plane ride there. So before I could descend into despair, my older sister took pity on me and gave me one of the books she'd brought. It was Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, and I absolutely inhaled it.
I'd always been into fantasy, but Doomsday Book was my first real foray into science fiction. I spent the vast majority of the following decade trying to track down every single one of Willis' books, and let me tell you that not a single one has been a disappointment. But here are a few of my favorites:
Fire Watch/Doomsday Book/To Say Nothing Of The Dog/Blackout/All Clear/...
These books are often referred to as The Oxford Time Travel Series. They're brilliant- time travel narratives done to the best of their potential. They're not quite sequels, although I do think it's best to read them in sort-of the right order. They're all set inside a near-future where time travel has been invented and given to the history students at Oxford. The students go back in time and are able to really observe the time period they're studying, although of course it's never as easy as that.
Each book follows a different student or set of students, and they each have their own tone. Doomsday Book is heartbreaking (in the best way), whereas To Say Nothing Of The Dog is hysterical. And the way that Willis builds on the conventions of the world and the mechanics of time travel from book to book is outstanding. I literally re-read at least one of these books every year.
Passage
One of the amazing things about Willis' writing is her ability to fit her narrative style to the story. Passage is about doctors studying near-death experiences, and the closer they get to finding an answer to what purpose NDE's serve in the brain, the more you realize how tightly Willis has wound their world with their research. To say much more would be to risk revealing one of the greatest narrative twists I've ever read, so I'll leave it at that.
Impossible Things
While I obviously love her long-form fiction, I think that Connie Willis really shines in her short stories. Impossible Things was the first one of her short story collections that I ever read, and her range is really incredible. All of the stories fall more or less in the realm of science fiction, although often she's writing the kind of science fiction that looks at who we are as humans rather than uses a huge device. And as humans we're ridiculous (Even The Queen) or broken (The Last of the Winnebagos) or terrifying (Jack).
I realized even as I put this list together that specifically naming any of these books does a HUGE disservice to the rest of them. So let me just say this. They're all good. I have never read a short story that didn't move me to my core or make me laugh or set my imagination on fire. And let's just save the story of my sort-of-but-not-really stalking of her for another day...
Peace,
CT
This week I've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite authors, Connie Willis. Mostly, I've been realizing just how much of my creative life as an adult has been shaped by her work.
You see, when I was in sixth grade, my family went to Hawaii on vacation. I only brought one book for the trip (because I didn't know yet, okay, that one book was never going to be enough for an entire vacation) and of course, I finished it on the plane ride there. So before I could descend into despair, my older sister took pity on me and gave me one of the books she'd brought. It was Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, and I absolutely inhaled it.
I'd always been into fantasy, but Doomsday Book was my first real foray into science fiction. I spent the vast majority of the following decade trying to track down every single one of Willis' books, and let me tell you that not a single one has been a disappointment. But here are a few of my favorites:
Fire Watch/Doomsday Book/To Say Nothing Of The Dog/Blackout/All Clear/...
These books are often referred to as The Oxford Time Travel Series. They're brilliant- time travel narratives done to the best of their potential. They're not quite sequels, although I do think it's best to read them in sort-of the right order. They're all set inside a near-future where time travel has been invented and given to the history students at Oxford. The students go back in time and are able to really observe the time period they're studying, although of course it's never as easy as that.
Each book follows a different student or set of students, and they each have their own tone. Doomsday Book is heartbreaking (in the best way), whereas To Say Nothing Of The Dog is hysterical. And the way that Willis builds on the conventions of the world and the mechanics of time travel from book to book is outstanding. I literally re-read at least one of these books every year.
Passage
One of the amazing things about Willis' writing is her ability to fit her narrative style to the story. Passage is about doctors studying near-death experiences, and the closer they get to finding an answer to what purpose NDE's serve in the brain, the more you realize how tightly Willis has wound their world with their research. To say much more would be to risk revealing one of the greatest narrative twists I've ever read, so I'll leave it at that.
Impossible Things
While I obviously love her long-form fiction, I think that Connie Willis really shines in her short stories. Impossible Things was the first one of her short story collections that I ever read, and her range is really incredible. All of the stories fall more or less in the realm of science fiction, although often she's writing the kind of science fiction that looks at who we are as humans rather than uses a huge device. And as humans we're ridiculous (Even The Queen) or broken (The Last of the Winnebagos) or terrifying (Jack).
I realized even as I put this list together that specifically naming any of these books does a HUGE disservice to the rest of them. So let me just say this. They're all good. I have never read a short story that didn't move me to my core or make me laugh or set my imagination on fire. And let's just save the story of my sort-of-but-not-really stalking of her for another day...
Peace,
CT
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