Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #240820 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

Synopsis
This collection of short science fiction includes the novella "Fire Watch," the novelette "A Letter from the Clearys," and twelve other acclaimed stories.

Customer Reviews

An Opulent Collection of the Wild and Weird
This is an excellent collection of stories by one of today's premier writers of speculative fiction (I use the term advisedly as some of these stories cross the border from science fiction to fantasy and most unusual horror).

The opening story, "Fire Watch", really belongs in the same universe as her Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, dealing with a time traveler in London during the Blitz. Very effective, with a well realized main character, it explores what the real purpose of life is under the pressure of either trying to change or preserve the past.

The best story here may be "All My Darling Daughters", which presents a boarding school of the future that will surprise and shock. Written in a futuristic teen slang that takes a little time to get used to (and is quite a departure from Willis' normal style), its investigation of sexual morals and abusive 'fathers' provides much food for thought. The story is strongly anti-male without crossing the line into being a feminist tract, with a fair dollop of Willis' trademark satire. Disturbing and all too believable.

"Sidon in the Mirror" is an odd combination of science fiction and horror. From a starting point of call-girl house located on the surface of a star, it travels an unusual road through murder, love, and true desires for death as it follows a being who, by nature, ends up becoming a 'copy' of someone in his close circle of acquaintances. Very different, but I did feel the ending was a little too pat.

"Samaritan" explores an area investigated by several others, such as Heinlein's "Jerry Was Man" and Orson Scott Card's Lovelock, about where the line should be drawn between animal and human. As usual, Connie brings her own viewpoint to this idea, and does so in quite an effective manner.

"Service for the Burial of the Dead" definitely crosses the line into fantasy/horror, but regardless of the genre, Willis knows how to write a tale that will engross and force the reader's participation - in this case, in a most spine-tingling manner.

"Mail Order Clone" deals with a man who orders a clone of himself from a magazine ad, and has a definite funny side as it explores gullibility, bureaucracies, and domestic relations.

"Daisy in the Sun" will take a bit of effort to follow, as for much of the early part of the story things do not seem to be very logical - in fact much of it feels very dreamlike, with a dream's lack of consistency. "A Letter from the Clearys", while well written, follows too closely to some by now clichéd ideas. "And Come from Miles Around" is too slight an idea to be really effective, but makes for a decent quiet read.

"Blued Moon" is, for my money, the weakest story in the book, dealing with happenstances of coincidence gone wild, under the influence of an artificial blue moon. Here I'm afraid Willis tried too hard for the slapstick and the crazy within her satirical outline, but this was the only story in the book that I thought really failed.

Overall, Willis demonstrates, in story after story, a great understanding of human nature, from its best attributes to its embarrassing foibles. She can be funny, poignant, ethereal, biting, demanding, and gritty, but she is always entertaining and worth reading.

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Glad this has been reprinted!
This wide-ranging story collection is THE gift I give to friends when they wonder aloud whether imaginative literature can BE literature; it's both "sf" and "terrific writing." If you have read Willis' other work, this is her FIRST collection; the story "Fire Watch" was written before _Doomsday Book_ and has the first appearance of Kivrin. In addition to the Hugo-winning stories ("FW," "Clearys") _FW_ has many other treasures. Not everyone likes them all; "Sidon" is the one I can't figure out, while "Lost & Found" is my favorite, a haunting, standout story.

Wonderful soft science fiction, real people, makes you think
Connie Willis is an amazingly diversified writer whose collection of short stories ranges from the near future/near past (Fire Watch; A Letter from the Clearys), somewhat more traditional science fiction (The Sidon in the Mirror), tales of human weakness and morality (I forget the title, but the story involves teenagers in a cross between an orphanage and a boarding school) that kept me thinking about it to for days. And just when you think all she can do is serious stuff, she comes up with one of the funniest stories I've ever read in an anthology (Blue Moon?). Well worth reading.