Grabbag
Final word count for 2007: 107,627 words. That doesn't seem too shabby.
New job: next week. We'll see what happens. I'm a bit wary. But the walk is nice.
Going to start doing sporadic review/summary/observation thing on the contents of the bigass Connie Willis collection I got for Christmas, divided up much like things are when I review Neil Gaiman's collections and things. Only Connie Willis has conveniently divided things up for me beforehand. Awesome!
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis
"The Winds of Marble Arch": Not in Willis' previous collections. The titular novella about a couple back in London for an academic conference for the first time since they were in their twenties. They're older now, more prosperous, and the narrator is unsettled to discover that the city is nothing like he remembered and the people he fondly remembers have gotten old. But he's distracted from these tangible problems by a horrifying experience on the subway, a strange, chilling wind that smells of death and decay. Instead of focusing on the change in his old friends, or the fact that his wife is acting oddly, the narrator sets off searching for the source or cause of the winds. It's not Willis at her best - I wouldn't have thought it notable enough to act as the title for the collection - but it's an interesting, sometimes frantic, sometimes mellow, story of change, old age, death, and how frightened people are of these things.
And I would refuse to go to an Andrew Lloyd Weber show, too.
"Blued Moon": I love this. This is Connie Willis playing the screwball comedy card /and/ her English major/love of language card. A community where slang and colloquialisms have progressed to the point where speech is incomprehensible. A young man hired by a big corporation for reasons he isn't sure of, forced to share an apartment with another employee of the company, a scheming faux-Southerner who plans on marrying the CEO's daughter. The daughter, a young woman studying English and the formation of languages, who just wants to meet a nice young man who speaks plain English. A new project causing huge bicarbonate soda emissions which are making the moon look blue. It's chaotic, in that screwball comedy way, and it's just plain fun, especially with what Willis is doing with language.
"Just Like the Ones We Used to Know": Not in Willis' previous collections, but I read the Analog this novella was originally published in. I don't think this is one of Willis' better stories. Really, I think it's one of the weaker stories in the collection. It's not that it isn't interesting - the stories and reactions of various people across America when there globe is covered by sudden, often unseasonable, snow on Christmas Eve. Some of them are very sweet - I'm particularly fond of the narrative following a maid of honour, the overbearing bride, and the fallout from hardly anyone being able to get to the wedding due to planes being grounded. There are some very sweet stories, but they don't really combine well for a more powerful narrative. Willis can have a lot more oomph than this story, which really ends up being little more than a sweet Christmas story.
"Daisy, In the Sun": I've read this story a couple times, but this time I think it finally clicked in my head. Willis' blending of coming of age for a young girl, with all the bloody horrificness that can accompany it, and the fear of the sun going nova, nuclear winter, and the end of the world is poignant, a weird combination of frightening and beautiful, that lacks the grimness a lot of end of the world narratives have. "Daisy, In the Sun" has a lot more impact now, when people, whether they believe in it or not, are worried about global warming, that I think makes its meaning easier to understand. It's not one of Willis' happier stories, but it's one of the good ones, that perfect unification of humanity and science fiction tropes, with particularly evocative imagery.
New job: next week. We'll see what happens. I'm a bit wary. But the walk is nice.
Going to start doing sporadic review/summary/observation thing on the contents of the bigass Connie Willis collection I got for Christmas, divided up much like things are when I review Neil Gaiman's collections and things. Only Connie Willis has conveniently divided things up for me beforehand. Awesome!
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis
"The Winds of Marble Arch": Not in Willis' previous collections. The titular novella about a couple back in London for an academic conference for the first time since they were in their twenties. They're older now, more prosperous, and the narrator is unsettled to discover that the city is nothing like he remembered and the people he fondly remembers have gotten old. But he's distracted from these tangible problems by a horrifying experience on the subway, a strange, chilling wind that smells of death and decay. Instead of focusing on the change in his old friends, or the fact that his wife is acting oddly, the narrator sets off searching for the source or cause of the winds. It's not Willis at her best - I wouldn't have thought it notable enough to act as the title for the collection - but it's an interesting, sometimes frantic, sometimes mellow, story of change, old age, death, and how frightened people are of these things.
And I would refuse to go to an Andrew Lloyd Weber show, too.
"Blued Moon": I love this. This is Connie Willis playing the screwball comedy card /and/ her English major/love of language card. A community where slang and colloquialisms have progressed to the point where speech is incomprehensible. A young man hired by a big corporation for reasons he isn't sure of, forced to share an apartment with another employee of the company, a scheming faux-Southerner who plans on marrying the CEO's daughter. The daughter, a young woman studying English and the formation of languages, who just wants to meet a nice young man who speaks plain English. A new project causing huge bicarbonate soda emissions which are making the moon look blue. It's chaotic, in that screwball comedy way, and it's just plain fun, especially with what Willis is doing with language.
"Just Like the Ones We Used to Know": Not in Willis' previous collections, but I read the Analog this novella was originally published in. I don't think this is one of Willis' better stories. Really, I think it's one of the weaker stories in the collection. It's not that it isn't interesting - the stories and reactions of various people across America when there globe is covered by sudden, often unseasonable, snow on Christmas Eve. Some of them are very sweet - I'm particularly fond of the narrative following a maid of honour, the overbearing bride, and the fallout from hardly anyone being able to get to the wedding due to planes being grounded. There are some very sweet stories, but they don't really combine well for a more powerful narrative. Willis can have a lot more oomph than this story, which really ends up being little more than a sweet Christmas story.
"Daisy, In the Sun": I've read this story a couple times, but this time I think it finally clicked in my head. Willis' blending of coming of age for a young girl, with all the bloody horrificness that can accompany it, and the fear of the sun going nova, nuclear winter, and the end of the world is poignant, a weird combination of frightening and beautiful, that lacks the grimness a lot of end of the world narratives have. "Daisy, In the Sun" has a lot more impact now, when people, whether they believe in it or not, are worried about global warming, that I think makes its meaning easier to understand. It's not one of Willis' happier stories, but it's one of the good ones, that perfect unification of humanity and science fiction tropes, with particularly evocative imagery.