Fire Watch
Connie Willis
After reading Doomsday
Book and the eponymous story in The
Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century, I knew that I had
to read more Connie Willis...and I was absolutely right. I don't know what it
is about her stories, but Willis continually finds ways to amaze me. Perhaps it
is her range- from time travel to post-apocalyptic landscapes to a more
typically futuristic space station, Willis pulls it all off seamlessly. Perhaps
the power of Willis's talent lies in her ability to make the science fiction
conceits almost vanish behind the raw emotional power of her stories: despite
sometimes employing standard science fiction tropes, these are not (merely)
gee-whiz-wow tales. Willis writes fiction that should be considered alongside the
work of the lit-fic critics' darlings, haunting stories that stay with you long
after you turn the final page. To choose standouts in a collection like this feels
at best like a hilarious understatement, but the stories that have had the
strongest effect on me are the horrifying "All My Darling Daughters" (I
was continually shocked by the brutality of this story, yet couldn't stop
myself from reading forward) and "A Letter from the Clearys," which
might actually be more devastating
despite employing a far more subtle emotional touch. Fire Watch may have been Connie Willis's first published group of
short stories, but it is simply superb, the work of a living master.