Oh man, I love this book.

I wasn't really going to write a formal review for Connie Willis' The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories". I figured all the SFF sites and magazines would cover it and honestly, it's not like the world hasn't heard of Connie Willis; her work is going to get reviewed. I read the first couple of stories over a month ago and enjoyed them a lot but yesterday, while hanging out in bed with my sick son, I realized that short story reading was perfect for the kind of day I was having. So I picked up Winds again and this time, I hardly put it down.

I am seriously mad about this book.

Some of the stories and novellas ("Letter From the Clearys", "Firewatch", etc.) have been published in other collections but there is also some material that has never been collected before, and thus is crazy hard to find (if not impossible). The first novella, the title story, is a contemporary story about marriage and friendship that includes a SF twist about the Second World War. Reading "Winds of Marble Arch" and then "Firewatch" gives both tales a lot more power - I was always a fan of "Firewatch" but this time, knowing what happened in Marble Arch, I was even more on edge as the characters in "Firewatch" struggled to keep St. Paul's Cathedral safe during the Blitz. As soon as one of them talked about sleeping in the underground at night I thought "oh no!" - I had forgotten that part but after "Marble Arch" it was very nearly all I could think about. (You can get the full TOC at the Subterranean Press site - just follow the link for the book above.)

"Blued Moon" is another of those screwball comedy type stories, ala Bellwether, that I think Willis really excels at. You have some scientists, one of whom is a major cad (engaged to multiple women at the same company), two characters fascinated by language and a mother who makes Gloria Steinhem look like a pussycat. This was just flat out fun from start to finish. I am so impressed by how Willis holds all these complicated plot threads together on stories like this. She makes comedy look easy, but then again so did Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel and we all know it isn't. (She does this again with "Even the Queen" which is, of all things, about women obtaining medical advancements that remove their periods from their lives. Of course some women embrace this while others think it is wrong - the whole thing ends up being debated at lunch between multiple mother/daughter/in-law generations and is pretty much hysterical if you are a woman of any age.)

Willis shifts gears more than once in the collection, from an alien invasion story that is also about annoying Christmas newsletters in "Newsletter" to the dangers of the song "White Christmas" in "Just LIke the Ones We Used to Know". (I have a weakness for Willis' Christmas stories because they are so darn unique. They are like the best Christmas music to me; when a holiday story is written well it really does manage to pack a powerful punch.)

"Nonstop to Portales" has made me want to seek out and read every single thing that Jack Wiliamson ever wrote, and is one of those delightful time travel stories that bibliophiles love. "Ado" reminded me why we have to fight censorship every time, all the time time and never let our guard down. What I really liked about this one was that Willis gets her message across while still being funny, and in the end manages to tell a much more powerful story that way, then in if she pounded us with seriousness.

And then - crap - then I read "All My Darling Daughters".

I can't get this story out of my head. It has to be one of the most horrifying stories of rape and abuse that I have every read and what is so amazing is that none of it is obvious - none of it is right there in front on of you. In fact, at first it was hard for me to figure out what the point was as it seemed to be about a rather obnoxious college student of the future who used a lot of tough talk and slang and didn't seem to care about anyone other than herself. She's pissed off because none of the guys at school are interested in getting laid which means she isn't getting laid all that much plus her freshman roommate is a first class ninny (we've all been there) and then....then everything takes the most horrific turn.

I just can't describe how impressive and intense and downright tragic this story is. And the end blows your mind; it just about kills you. And I kept thinking when I was done, how did she do this? How did the same author of these laugh out loud comedies and the drama of WWII turn around and make me feel so angry and dirty and stunned all in one fell swoop? How can you be this good of a writer is so very many different ways?

The answer to that question is found, if at all, in the introduction to the collection. This is where Ms. Willis writes about "a few of my favorite things". I wish she would write an essay collection off this intro because it makes for excellent reading. Here's why she loves SF:

"It [SF] seemed interested in anything and everything - science, psychology, stars (both astronomical and Hollywoodian), ghosts, robots, aliens, dodoes, illuminated manuscripts, Martians, merry-go-rounds, nuclear war, spaceships, curious little shops...There was nothing that fell outside its boundaries. And since I was interested in everything too - from campus parking to signing apes to mistakes that can't be rectified - I fell hopelessly in love with the field."

Oh - "campus parking". That reminds me of "In the Late Cretaceous" which is so much my college experience (at both colleges I attended) that it is not even funny. Pure genius and everyone who ever wondered why parking was so important at universities when things like theft, rape and even murder went unsolved, is going to grin from ear to ear reading this one.

Science fiction isn't the only thing Willis loves though. She also includes Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat in her intro, as well as Shakespeare, Screwball Comedies, ("They're like sonnets, sort of, with happy endings, and I only wish there were more of them."), Agatha Christie (and Dorothy Sayers) and The Public Library. Here is Willis on libraries:

And it was in the library that I found all sorts of things I wasn't looking for at all - books on chaos theory and literary criticism, an article on body sniffers in the Blitz and one about Aberfan in Wales, were all the children had been killed when the coal tip slid down on the town and scientific articles about the EPR paradox and the effect of large particulates on the color of the stratosphere.

Connie Willis learned everything at the public library, just as Ray Bradbury did. Is it any wonder that they are both such incredibly eclectic short story writers? The evidence of all that learning, on Ms. Willis' part, is front and center in The Winds of Marble Arch. I am telling you, if you know are a fan of a well written story then you must treat yourself to this book (700 freaking pages - and totally reasonable via amazon.) As it turns out I will be reviewing this, hopefully for Bookslut in November. Not enough good things can be written about it, or about just how awesomely talented Connie Willis is.

[Post title is a quote taken from "Firewatch".]