Connie Willis is an American spec fic author and a favourite of mine, though I haven’t read all her books or short fiction. It’s kind of hard to read the lot, there is so much of it. But I love everything of hers I have read. She writes both funny and serious - and the funny fiction is really funny.
There is a series of novels about time travel by students and staff of Oxford University in the future. They are in the same universe, but not always with the same characters.
The first of her novels I read, on recommendation of a friend, was Doomsday Book. The heroine, Kivrin Engle, has worked to learn everything she can about the lifestyle, culture and language of 14th century England before time travelling there. The language is Middle English, though she also has a chip that helps her understand the language anyway, but it takes time to kick in. She is hosted by a noble family as she has pretended to have been attacked on the road. Unfortunately, the year in which she turns up is the wrong one, and the plague is raging. She comes to care deeply about the family she is with. Meanwhile, there is also a plague in modern Oxford…
There was a very funny novel in the series, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, in which the Oxford time travellers are in Victorian England. In their own time a woman called Lady Schrapnell, wants to restore Coventry Cathedral, which was bombed in World War II, and there is an artefact, the “bishop’s bird stump”, that went missing just before the cathedral was bombed.
Look, the story is very involved, too much to describe, but it’s hilarious. Read it.
Others in the series, Blackout/All Clear and short story “Fire Watch”, which had time travel to World War II, are more serious. They all won Hugo Awards, and two, Doomsday Book and Blackout/All Clear also won the Nebula Award(voted on by fellow spec fic authors).
Passage is about a scientist who is studying near-death experiences and has theories about it. She is able to reproduce them without actual near-death. When one of her test subjects can’t make it one day, she does it herself and finds herself on the Titanic… I loved this one. I have read it more than once, since discovering a copy at a second hand shop. I also bought it in e book.
She also writes novellas and short stories, including a collection of Christmas themed stories. It has been a while since I read those, but I’m fairly sure one of the stories featured the ghost of Scrooge helping a boss who is a lot like he was before he changed.
I’m about to start reading Remake, a novel written in the 1990s in which the Hollywood film industry is creating films with long- dead actors. Sound familiar? We can do that now, but not when she wrote it.
I really do recommend anything written by Connie Willis; just about everything she writes ends up at least short listed for one award or more, and often winning. You should be able to get them in ebook or print, and some in audiobook.
See you tomorrow with X Is For Extras!
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