Connie Willis

In this book and others, Connie Willis writes of historians for whom time travel is a routine procedure. The originating period for the travelers in To Say Nothing of the Dog (written in 1997) is in the 2050s, well after the academic discovery of time travel in 2013, and the story begins in media res in 1940, but most of the chapters take place in 1888.

Like the only other Willis book I have read (Bellwether), this novel was for me a romantic comedy with sf features more than the other way show more around. The discussions of fate and free will, of the role of individual decision, and the puzzling of temporal paradoxes were all adroit and engaging, but I felt like the propulsive tensions of the book, and its moments of greatest intensity, really stemmed from its amorous matchmaking.

As far as the theory of time travel is concerned, the story very much avoids any sort of "many worlds" system of diverging timelines. The "continuum" is practically personified, spoken of by the historians as if it had conscious agency in its homeostatic functioning. It was almost like another name for God, in a book where none of the characters--whether from the 2050s or the 1880s--seemed to think in explicitly theological terms, despite it centering on a cathedral along with a humorous subplot about Spiritualism.

Literary allusions abound, to The Moonstone, Alice in Wonderland, Agatha Christie, Wodehouse, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others. Now that we are well past the dates of many of the events anticipated in Willis' fiction here (including "the Pandemic" sometime between 2000 and 2013), this fiercely clever book's intertextuality keeps it "real" somehow.

This novel is the second in a series, and I haven't read the first. But I honestly felt more disadvantaged from not having read Jerome K. Jerome's Victorian Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog than from having skipped Willis' Doomsday Book. And surely one should be able to read a series about time travellers in any order. I did like this one well enough that I expect I will eventually get back its predecessor. show less

Book club pick ☺

I have always been fond of Three Men in a Boat. It is incredibly nice to come back to To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is basically a love letter to Jerome K. Jerome, an idealised image of Victorian England, Victorian fiction, and Golden Age mystery novels. The author turns all of the above on its head and creates a delightful time travel romp. The stakes are high, too – it’s the whole space-time continuum, no less ;)

There is something to chuckle, laugh, or smile at on show more every page.

“ ’What on earth were you doing in the water?’
‘Drowning’, said professor Peddick.”

I loved the effects of time-lag (it happens when you do too much time travelling), which include attacks of maudlin sentimentality. Then you say stuff like “It’s no wonder they call you man’s best friend. Faithful and loyal and true, you share in our sorrows and rejoice in our triumphs…” ets etc. Lovely.

There are lots of misunderstandings and people talking at each other rather than to each other, because their brains went on a holiday. Really, I wouldn’t trust any of these characters with ordering a coffee for me, let alone time travel. But it also means that you are wonderfully entertained all the way through.

Things come together very satisfyingly by the end. Don’t look too closely, though, because time travel books rarely make sense. Just go with the flow, dear reader. Enjoy the flow of the Thames... :))) show less

A Lot Like Christmas is an updated and expanded version of Connie Willis's Miracle, a collection of her Christmas-themed fantasy and SF stories. None of the stories are original to this collection, though five of them are new additions since the 2000 publication of Miracle.

The stories are all delightful, but you do notice some similarities when you read them all in one batch. Willis is fond in her holiday stories of throwing together a pair of co-workers or acquaintances who realize, after show more a lot of zippy screwball-esque banter, that they are meant to be together. (The words, "Why, Miss Jones, you're beautiful!" don't actually appear anywhere, but they might as well.)

Nearly half of these stories are of that type, but the story details are different enough to keep you going despite the repetition. "Newsletter" mixes Christmas with Invasion of the Body Snatchers; "deck.halls@boughs/holly" imagines the future of party planning; "Now Showing" turns a trip to the multiplex into a spy caper. Best of this bunch, and for me the best story in the book, is "All Seated on the Ground," a story about choral singing and xenolinguistics.

Willis's stories borrow elements from Sherlock Holmes ("Cat's Paw"), The Twilight Zone ("In Coppelius's Toyshop"), and All About Eve ("All About Emily"). We're warned that a white Christmas isn't always all it's cracked up to be ("Just Like the Ones We Used To Know") and paid a visit from a very un-Dickensian Spirit of Christmas Present ("Miracle").

These are lovely bagatelles, and only the Grinchiest reader could fail to be amused. show less

Out of all of the silly books i've read, this might be the most ridiculous. I enjoyed it immensely as I am a woman with a deep passion for silly things.

Francie, who is in Roswell, New Mexico, to be the maid of honour for a UFO-themed wedding, has gone to the bride's car to retrieve something when ~~~whoosh~~~ she is abducted by an alien. This alien resembles a tumbleweed, is tentacled, intelligent, and he abducts other earthlings along their crazy route to go god-knows-where. The book is show more full of alien and cowboy tropes, encompassing John Wayne, Robert Redford, Las Vegas wedding chapels, one-armed bandits that no longer have arms, just a button, men in black (not the movie), and bridesmaid's dresses that glow in the dark.

It's a romance, it appears, a paean to friendship, and I read all day with chuckles and a purring cat. Four stars for being not only a good book, but a relaxant that helped me more than all the sedatives from Big Pharma. show less