An excellent collection of Willis' short fiction, this book gathers together 11 of Willis' short stories, all previously published, however."The Last of the Winnebagos" – Willis' intro says that she has been criticized for this story by people who find it too "sentimental." However, it also won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, so not everyone agreed with that criticism! The book gives us a future scenario that is similar to that of Bradbury's ‘Fahrenheit 451' in some ways - the highways are super-fast, walled off from the scenery around them. A photojournalist on his way to an assignment to document a minor tourist attraction, an old couple who claim to be driving the very last Winnebago motor home around the country, sees a jackal run over in the road. This causes him to remember his dog, one of the last of the species, which was wiped out by a deadly virus – but his dog was killed in a car accident. In a case of too much, too late, the Secret-Service-type ‘humane society' investigates, putting both the journalist and the woman who accidentally ran over his dog years before under dire suspicion. Willis does a superb job here talking about the various kinds of extinction, different kinds of rights and freedoms, and the priorities and values that people assign, and why. Excellent story."Even the Queen" – A humorous story, which pokes a bit of fun at extremist feminism. The women of a family are up in arms because their teenage girl wants to join "The Cyclists." What could this group espouse that has them so horrified?"Schwarzchild Radius" – Set in the trenches of WWI, soldiers are beset by deprivation, cold, violence and illness. In this situation, how did a brilliant physicist come up with theories regarding black holes that are respected years after his death?"Ado" -- A comedic piece dealing with political correctness, which talks about what you have left if you try to eliminate everything that might possibly offend someone. (Answer: not much.) Not the most brilliantly earth-shattering concept, but done well."Spice Pogrom" – This sci-fi tale shows Willis' obsession with classic Hollywood, which I didn't go for too much in her novel ‘Remake.' However, I did really like this story of an alien ambassor visiting Earth's space station. Quarters are tight, and a NASA rep asks his girlfriend to put up one of the alien visitors in her apartment. Mr. ‘Okeefenokee' has a disconcerting love of shopping sprees and strip shows, and his comprehension of English is questionable. Mobbed by unwanted roommates, two particularly awful aspiring starlets, an unsympathetic landlord, etc, the tension grows to an almost unbelievable point... (and Willis conveys this amazingly effectively – it was stressful just to read!) But things wind up in a really cute and romantic way..."Winter's Tale" – I agree with Willis' introduction here – she says that, in general, she finds conspiracy theories about Shakespeare's real identity annoying. However, this story, which speculates on who the Bard might have been, was really amazingly good – and almost believable! I cried."Chance" – An aging housewife moves back to the town where she went to college, at the urging of her self-centered husband, who only cares about the job he has waiting there. She reminisces about the choices she made in college, and reflects on how a decision doesn't necessarily have to be "evil" to ruin your entire life, and that of those around you."In the Late Cretaceous" – Here, Willis' wit. Again, skewers the academic milieu, when the latest disaster striking campus is the Dean bringing in an unqualified consultant to do observification and restructurification of the Paleontology department. Very funny, probably more so if you're a professor."Time Out" – Some similar themes here as to "Chance," but a much less hopeless take on them. Here, the housewife does get her second chance, and things work out in the end. Also brings in the academic setting, as a researcher is reluctantly recruited to work on a seemingly ridiculous experiment involving time travel."Jack" – Set during the Blitz of WWII, when normal British citizens organized to put out fires and rescue victims of bombings on a nightly basis. One team gets a new member who seems to have an almost preternatural sense for discovering where people might be trapped under rubble, and rescuing them. But one man suspects menace – is it just paranoia caused by war and stress.. or is there something more to his suspicions?"At the Rialto" – Here, Willis applies ideas of quantum physics to researchers attending a conference in Hollywood. The weakest story in the lot, I found it somewhat annoying. Oh well, can't win ‘em all!
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'If there is a raison d'être for genre fiction, it is summarized in the above quote from Through the Looking Glass. But the book "Impossible Things" also rekindles my anger at the fact that things people like Connie Willis write is even classified as anything other than fiction and so shelved away from the areas where "normal" people browse for books. I think Neil Gaiman put it best (summarizing yet other people)"I sometimes really wish that all fiction books of all genres for any people over the age of about 12 were simply filed alphabetically by author, because as Patrick Nielsen Hayden once pointed out to me, shelving by genre simply tells people the places in a bookshop that they don't have to go. And Sturgeon's Law suggests that they'll be missing out on some good stuff that's shelved in those places."But, I really haven't told you anything about the book. It is a collection of short stories, some involving the future, some involving aliens, all involving characters trying to deal with their lives. Connie Willis has this skill in conveying empathy that makes you want to weep for dogs in "The Last Winnebago", feel guilt in "Jack", and wish Cary Grant could have filmed "Spice Pogrom".I'm three books into reading Connie Willis, and while this collection is the most uneven thing I've read yet, I'm still enamored with her wit, humor, and writing.
What do You think about Impossible Things (1994)?
Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors because I like her writing style, I appreciate her sensibilities, and I enjoy her characters and plots. She often writes comedy with substance, which I love, and very light-touch SF/SN/PN—meaning stories very grounded in the real world but with just enough of an interesting twist to be even more engaging than a lot of highly fantastical tales. Many of her characters in this collection are adults ranging from 30-50s, which is refreshing in a world of fiction devoted to teens and twenty year old characters. She is especially strong in writing characters, real ones, not wish fulfillments or stereo types, or even the standard kinds of characters we often see in fiction. From a near future time in which we have lost dogs as a species, to a near future when we welcome the first alien species to earth and it's a situation comedy, to a conference of quantum physicists held very appropriately in Hollywood and a time travel experiment meets mid-life crisis, the compilation is imaginative, fresh, intelligent and entertaining.
—Amber
A favorite quote:“I’m not talking about sin,” Elizabeth said. “I’m talking about little things that you wouldn’t think would matter so much, like stepping in a puddle or having a fight with somebody. What if you drove off and left somebody standing in the middle of the road because you were mad, and it changed their whole life, it made them into a different person? Or what if you turned and walked away from somebody because your feelings were hurt or you wouldn’t open your window, and because of that one little thing their whole lives were changed and now she drinks too much, and he killed himself, and you didn’t even know you did it…I didn’t make him kill himself and I didn’t make her get a divorce, but if I hadn’t turned and walked away from them that day, everything would have been different.”--from the short story “Chance” in Impossible Things, by Connie Willis
—Melanie
Is it just me, or women do write more fluid dialogs in their SF stories? After reading McCaffrey, and then Bujold, and then finally reading Connie Willis, it came to me that while authors like Theodore Sturgeon, Greg Bear, even Asimov and Clarke, came up with mindblowing plot and intergalactic sweep, dialogs between their characters might seem stilted and perfunctory. Compare them with the dialogs between the characters of McCaffrey's "Pegasus in Flight" for instance, or Bujold's "The Warrior Apprentice", and especially with the characters in Willis' short stories, and you'll see the difference. Willis wittily, and with a wry sense of humor, expounds on womanly woes in "Even The Queen". She cleverly, and comically, wrote about how love bloomed in unlikely situations, a space center embroiled in a negotiation with aliens ("Spice Pogrom") and a science convention in Hollywood ("At The Rialto"). She drew, in rich detail and with deep sensitivity, WW II London, with its unique band of bomb wardens, and a most civic-minded, patriotic, creature of the night ("Jack"). She waxed beautifully about loss ("Chance" and "The Last of The Winnebagos"), and spun a cannily authentic-sounding theory about the true author of Shakespeare's great plays ("Winter Tale"). She hurled barbed critique at censorship ("Ado") and corporatespeak ("In The Late Cretaceceous"). I think, if you're just starting to read SF, and especially if you don't care that much for science, and you think your life as a housewife or a nine-to-five worker is too ordinary, this is an excellent introduction to SF--one that brings science and life and emotions and fantasy together in an effortless, natural, funny, and sensitive way.
—Illyria
