Thursday, December 9, 2010

Fire Watch, by Connie Willis

Award judges at times like to reward a story that relies mostly on its emotional strength rather than the speculative imagination, and that would be where they went with Fire Watch. It's a time travel story, but there's only a smattering of talk of grandfather paradoxes or whatever. It's mostly the struggles of a history student sent back in time to experience the saving of St. Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz. It's post Cold-War-Turned-Hot, which makes it feel dated, but that's OK. For me, it never quite got a grip. It depended a lot on the reader's independent feelings about the cathedral, and I can't say I'm familiar with it. But if you want to read it, do it soon, as Infinity Plus has been dormant for awhile.

No comments:

Post a Comment

When the Moon Hits Your Eye, by John Scalzi

Scalzi is able to write humorous novels that get at deeper truths and really go places. "Red Shirts" and "The Kaiju Preservat...