Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis

 

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Connie Willis is one of my favorite speculative fiction writers.  I especially love her Oxford Time Travel series, but I have also become a fan of her shorter works. Take a Look at the Five and Ten is classic Willis: it revolves around a rather dysfunctional family with some sympathetic characters and a little something to think about at the end.

Ori’s family is large and confusing:  multiple marriages have given rise to a whole host of step siblings, step-cousins, ex- grandparents, and so forth, but they seem to get together around the holidays.  Ori dreads it, but obediently shows up anyway, knowing that Sloane (daughter of  Ori’s former stepfather’s Dave’s current wife) will be flouting her latest trophy boyfriend and that Grandma Elving (who is the mother of Dave’s fourth wife) will talk endlessly about her days at Woolworth’s in the 1950s.  Not even the food is good.

This time Sloane is showing off Lassiter who is in med school (of course) and studying neuroscience at the same university that Ori attends—not that Sloane lets her get a word in edgewise.  Unlike most of Sloane’s boyfriends, Lassiter seems more thoughtful and he is definitely interested in Grandma Elving’s interminable stories of every detail of her time at the store, much to Sloane’s displeasure.  Lassiter explains to Ori that her incessant repetition of all the details of that time and her need to share are classic symptoms of TFBM:  Traumatic Flash Bulb Memory, which is what Lassiter is studying.  The problem is that there seems to be a missing component.  Grandma Elving never mentions anything traumatic that occurred.

Lassiter enlists Ori’s help to try to uncover the reason for the TFBM.  But is it fair to make a frail old lady remember something that she apparently has tried to forget?

At only 115 pages, I read this quickly in one sitting.  It was lighter on the SF/Fantasy aspects than most of Willis' work but I found the story to be very satisfying.  At first I thought it was too easy, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the question Willis was really asking.

And that’s why I like Connie Willis:  she encourages me to think.

Jack by Connie Willis

Reviewed by Jeanne

Set in London during the Blitz, this novella is told from the point of view of Jack Harker, a member of the air raid rescue squad.  He and his fellow recruits are tasked with searching for survivors under the rubble left after the bombs, and to watch for incendiary devices and douse the fires.  They’re a ragtag group, headed by the strong-willed Miss Lucy.  They’re joined by a new volunteer, also named Jack.  He doesn’t quite fit in with the others, keeping to himself, not socializing with the others, and not even sharing food.  He is, however, superb at locating survivors.

As the war takes its toll, Harker begins to be suspicious of the other Jack.  He has a mysterious day job that is apparently so important that he leaves even in the middle of a search and is vague about his origins.  Is he a spy—or something else?

This 1991 novella has just been reissued in a standalone volume.  At only 108 pages, Willis manages to pack a lot into a small space.  Having read and enjoyed a number of her other works, I was looking forward to this one and I was not disappointed. . . except that  another review I read gave away some things I would rather have not known beforehand.  Hence, my very brief description above.  Willis has used the London Blitz as a backdrop for several of her books and stories (Blackout and All Clear, two parts of one story, are especial favorites) and she seems to know the terrain.  As with all of her work, I was left with things to ponder. A memorable tale well told.

Bellwether by Connie Willis

Reviewed by Kristin

Connie Willis is known as an award winning science fiction writer, but this short novel serves up something slightly different.  Rather than creating mind reading technology or traveling in time, Dr. Sandra Foster and her co-workers are making scientific discoveries for the benefit of the corporate world.  Bellwether still has the quirkiness for which Willis is known, but it is framed in a somewhat modern setting—Boulder, Colorado in (apparently) the mid-1990’s.  Willis won the 1997 Nebula Award for this work and it is well deserved.

Sandy is a research and development sociologist funded by HiTek, a huge corporation with more money than common sense, although it’s hard to see the money when you must fill out a 57 page budgetary request form for each new research project.  And that’s not even mentioning the new 22 page supply procurement form, just to get some paperclips!  Sandy is hoping to discover how fads begin, and Management is hoping to capitalize on that discovery in order to make more—you guessed it—money.

Sandy’s work life is made even more frustrating by HiTek’s “interdepartmental assistant.”  Flip is supposed to deliver mail, make copies, and generally provide assistance, but she spends 90% of her time tossing the long hank of hair sprouted from her shaved head, and sighing in such a way that everyone knows how inconvenient their requests are.  

Out in the community, Sandy has a habit of dropping by the local library, checking out favorite books to be sure they are not weeded out if a computer generated report shows that they have not been used in a year.  What library lover would dislike a character who wants to protect her favorite tales?  The offbeat humor made me laugh as I listened to the audiobook.  The characters are presented with distinct voices, making it clear who is speaking which lines of dialogue.

From Flip’s eye rolling and snarky comments, to biologist Dr. Bennett O’Reilly’s social awkwardness, to Management’s continually evolving acronyms, Bellwether moves forward quickly in an unconventional yet amusing way.  Although Sandy begins with a research project, she ends up on a journey leading her to discover more about trends, chaos, sheep, and love than she ever would have expected.