Despite kicking off Willis' superb time-travel series (which I love), I was surprised that the title story, Fire Watch didn't do all that much for me.Īll My Darling Daughters however, was genuinely VERY creepy and will (unfortunately) live long in the memory. The kind of story that makes me want to shout, ' Yes, Connie! Yes! Write more stories like this!'Īs with all short story collections it's a mixed bag.

It's a sparkling celebration of coincidences and technical jargon. The last story, Blued Moon is the star - very much in the same vein as To Say Nothing of the Dog (my favourite Willis novel). Her protagonists are typically beset by single-minded people pursuing illogical agendas, such as attempting to organize a bell-ringing session in the middle of a deadly epidemic ( Doomsday Book), or frustrating efforts to analyze near-death experiences by putting words in the mouths of interviewees ( Passage). Willis tends to the comedy of manners style of writing. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog and the short story 'Fire Watch,' found in the short story collection of the same name. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students and faculty of the future University of Oxford. Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She lives in Greeley, Colorado with her husband Courtney Willis, a professor of physics at the University of Northern Colorado. She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards.

She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s. Service for the Burial of the Dead (1982)Ĭonstance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. Disturbing, revealing, and provocative, this remarkable collection of short fiction brings together some of the best work of an incomparable writer whose ability to amaze, confound, and enlighten never fails. In 'The Sidon in the Mirror,' a mutant with the unconscious urge to become other people finds himself becoming both killer and victim. In 'A Letter from the Clearys,' a routine message from distant friends shatters the fragile world of a beleaguered family. Here in one volume are twelve of her greatest stories, including double award-winner 'Fire Watch,' set in the universe of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, in which a time-traveling student learns one of history's hardest lessons. Her startling and powerful works have redefined the boundaries of contemporary science fiction. Winner of six Nebula and five Hugo awards, Connie Willis is one of the most acclaimed and imaginative authors of our time.

Fire watch by connie willis