More book reviews!
Jan. 11th, 2011 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalThis would be the all-Connie Willis edition.
As the title would suggest, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories is a collection of short stories, which I selected because it was Christmas (yes, I am still reviewing books I read a month ago) and I wanted to read something festive. Unfortunately, this collection is rather disappointing - two stories that I thought were really good, a few that were "meh," a couple that made me want to gag from the unmitigated sap, and one or two that just seemed totally pointless. I kind of wish Willis had noted when she wrote each story (like Jim Butcher did in Side Jobs) because I'd be really curious to see if the ones I thought were terrible were the first ones she wrote, and she's improved over time.
One thing that frustrated me was that, in her introduction, Willis laments the fact that most Christmas stories "end up falling off into cynicism or mawkish sappiness." This collection is meant to be an attempt to walk the "narrow tightrope between sentiment and skepticism," and unfortunately, I think she failed on that front more than once. A few of the stories were absolutely chock full of the sentimental drivel she'd just criticized and far too predictable - you could see the happy ending coming a mile away. Then again, I think it probably says a lot about me that my favorite story was the one about the alien invasion. :) I also liked the murder mystery, although the "Christmas" aspect of that one was really thin. Some of them, like "The Pony" and "Inn," seemed like maybe there was a good story buried somewhere in that plot bunny, but Willis didn't write it.
I was much more satisfied with All Clear, which is the conclusion of the two-volume World War II/time-traveling story that began in Blackout. As I mentioned in my earlier review, I found the first half of the story pretty compelling despite the verbosity of the author. Having read the whole thing, I'd say that, with more disciplined editing, it certainly could have been cut down to one book. There are a lot of words wasted on Polly, Michael, and Eileen worrying about each other's safety, whether they can get home, and whether they've changed history in some way, causing the Allies to lose the war. There's also a lot of missed connections and misunderstandings, which gets a bit repetitive, and avoiding some of them would have cut down on the length.
That said, the characters and their predicament were engaging enough that I found myself wanting to keep reading to find out what happened to them, even if it took a zillion words to get there. I think the structure of the book also helped, because each chapter shifts perspective to a different character and possibly a completely different time and location, so the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you wondering what happens next, only the next chapter picks up a totally different thread - and at first I'd be impatient with it, wanting to resolve the cliffhanger, but then I'd get sucked into whatever was happening in THAT chapter, which would also end on a cliffhanger, and so it sort of propels you forward until you get all the answers.
I have to say, though, I can't imagine not reading these books one immediately after the other. There's no transition whatsoever - Blackout ends and All Clear picks up as though it's all one novel. And I'm all for not holding the readers' hands, but if you'd had to wait months in between books, a quick recap of what was happening would certainly have been helpful. I only had a few weeks' gap in between, and I still managed to be taken completely by surprise about a couple plot twists, simply because I didn't remember details from the first book. (Then again, maybe that was intentional, lol! If you remembered everything, it might've been too easy to figure out.)
It's pretty hard to talk about the time travel aspect of it without getting spoilery, so if you haven't read it yet, stop here. Otherwise, join me in twisting your brain into a pretzel! lol
I am pretty picky about my time travel theories. I like them to make some semblance of sense, at least remotely based in science and not just, "Hey, I don't know how this works, but it's a cool story, so who cares?" So... okay. The initial theory was that historians couldn't alter history. They could affect things, obviously, because just being there has an impact, but slippage is the continuum's failsafe to prevent major changes, so that whatever changes do occur are minor enough that the resulting ripple effect doesn't change the entire course of history. I was actually pretty satisfied with that theory. It preserves the current time line while still allowing people to have adventures in the past.
But then all of a sudden the drops aren't working and so Polly, Michael, and Eileen start to wonder if maybe they DID change too much and they broke the continuum. Which means that the previous theory was wrong - it's odd that it never happened before now, but I'd be okay accepting that the high number of historians visiting WWII over-saturated the continuum to the point that it couldn't absorb the changes anymore. It causes all kinds of paradoxes, which should probably rip the fabric of the universe apart, but it's all theoretical anyway, so as long as we see that there are consequences (such as the drops not opening because the future they came from doesn't exist anymore), it's believable to me. I suppose there's also leeway in that it can't be completely broken, since we don't actually live in a world where Hitler won the war, so unless there's a hefty suspension of disbelief, you have to figure they must be able to fix it somehow.
Then Mr. Dunworthy shows up and tells them that actually HE broke the continuum, that they never should've altered anything and that first run-in with the woman started the slippage, which is in fact evidence of the continuum starting to fracture. It keeps course-correcting - people simply die a different way or take a different path to the same ultimate outcome - but now it's potentially reached a tipping point where there's no way to repair the damage that's been done over the years. I actually thought it was kind of ballsy of Willis to go there, because it meant this wasn't just another time travel book. It was the last time travel story she could tell, because even if they managed to get back to the present, they wouldn't risk more time travel with the continuum so much in jeopardy. With that in mind, I could forgive the epic length of this story, viewing it as a swan song.
As it turns out, though, that's not the case. In fact, time travel was fine all along - it's history that was broken and needed some help from the future to be fixed. This I am not too sure about. I mean, I am okay with the idea that something happens because it already happened - i.e. the historians weren't changing anything, they were just doing what they'd already done to make history turn out the way it already did. And I even like that Willis preserved free will here, because this kind of time travel often has the flavor of predestination - it has to happen, because it already happened. But it's clear throughout that the characters are making choices, albeit choices guided to a certain end by limitations and roadblocks and delays. Usually in the form of Alf and Binnie, who are apparently some sort of instruments of divine intervention. And that's where I have the problem, because it feels like there's some conscious motivation attributed to the universe here. It's not totally clear to me whether we're supposed to view it as fate, or as a grand spiderweb of coincidences that all involve Alf and Binnie - but if it is just a series of coincidences, it's stretching the bounds of credibility to think that those two, troublemakers though they are, would be responsible for so many decisions that led to history happening the way it did. I'm also kinda iffy on the idea of the drops not working to prevent the characters from going home as well as preventing anyone from coming back to retrieve them. I mean, it happens because it has to happen because it already happened, but it just seems a little too... deliberate on the part of the universe, I guess.
It's pretty clear, though, that the time travel is just a plot device to illustrate Willis' main purpose (which, uh, kind of makes me wonder why I spent four paragraphs on the time travel theories. I'm a science nerd, so sue me). The real thrust of the novel is in celebrating the heroism of the ordinary people in England who may have contributed only in small ways, but without the culmination of each of those individual acts, the whole war might've turned out differently.
The other spoilery thing I wanted to talk about is Mary and Ernest turning out to be Polly and Michael. I did find it odd that their stories didn't seem to tie in to the others in Blackout, though I suppose they could've been other time travelers (maybe even one of the ones Polly and the others were looking for). As I said above, perhaps it would've been more obvious if I'd read All Clear immediately afterward, but there are so many names it's hard to keep track. I can't remember if the scenes in Blackout with Mary driving the ambulance used the same names for her friends as the ones in the VE-Day scenes. They called each other by their last names and random nicknames so much! Am I the only one who completely missed it? lol
One final thing that seemed odd to me is that none of the characters seem to have families back home. They're all very worried about changing the course of the war and being stuck in this timeline, but other than Colin, no one even mentions never seeing their family and friends again. It was especially peculiar, given Eileen's decision to stay in 1941. Didn't she care that her family would miss her?
Gah. That was kind of epic itself. Over 1,700 words of book reviews. I suppose it's appropriate, though, lol, given how long the one book was.
Next up: Black Swan and The Hunger Games (possibly not in the same post).
As the title would suggest, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories is a collection of short stories, which I selected because it was Christmas (yes, I am still reviewing books I read a month ago) and I wanted to read something festive. Unfortunately, this collection is rather disappointing - two stories that I thought were really good, a few that were "meh," a couple that made me want to gag from the unmitigated sap, and one or two that just seemed totally pointless. I kind of wish Willis had noted when she wrote each story (like Jim Butcher did in Side Jobs) because I'd be really curious to see if the ones I thought were terrible were the first ones she wrote, and she's improved over time.
One thing that frustrated me was that, in her introduction, Willis laments the fact that most Christmas stories "end up falling off into cynicism or mawkish sappiness." This collection is meant to be an attempt to walk the "narrow tightrope between sentiment and skepticism," and unfortunately, I think she failed on that front more than once. A few of the stories were absolutely chock full of the sentimental drivel she'd just criticized and far too predictable - you could see the happy ending coming a mile away. Then again, I think it probably says a lot about me that my favorite story was the one about the alien invasion. :) I also liked the murder mystery, although the "Christmas" aspect of that one was really thin. Some of them, like "The Pony" and "Inn," seemed like maybe there was a good story buried somewhere in that plot bunny, but Willis didn't write it.
I was much more satisfied with All Clear, which is the conclusion of the two-volume World War II/time-traveling story that began in Blackout. As I mentioned in my earlier review, I found the first half of the story pretty compelling despite the verbosity of the author. Having read the whole thing, I'd say that, with more disciplined editing, it certainly could have been cut down to one book. There are a lot of words wasted on Polly, Michael, and Eileen worrying about each other's safety, whether they can get home, and whether they've changed history in some way, causing the Allies to lose the war. There's also a lot of missed connections and misunderstandings, which gets a bit repetitive, and avoiding some of them would have cut down on the length.
That said, the characters and their predicament were engaging enough that I found myself wanting to keep reading to find out what happened to them, even if it took a zillion words to get there. I think the structure of the book also helped, because each chapter shifts perspective to a different character and possibly a completely different time and location, so the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you wondering what happens next, only the next chapter picks up a totally different thread - and at first I'd be impatient with it, wanting to resolve the cliffhanger, but then I'd get sucked into whatever was happening in THAT chapter, which would also end on a cliffhanger, and so it sort of propels you forward until you get all the answers.
I have to say, though, I can't imagine not reading these books one immediately after the other. There's no transition whatsoever - Blackout ends and All Clear picks up as though it's all one novel. And I'm all for not holding the readers' hands, but if you'd had to wait months in between books, a quick recap of what was happening would certainly have been helpful. I only had a few weeks' gap in between, and I still managed to be taken completely by surprise about a couple plot twists, simply because I didn't remember details from the first book. (Then again, maybe that was intentional, lol! If you remembered everything, it might've been too easy to figure out.)
It's pretty hard to talk about the time travel aspect of it without getting spoilery, so if you haven't read it yet, stop here. Otherwise, join me in twisting your brain into a pretzel! lol
I am pretty picky about my time travel theories. I like them to make some semblance of sense, at least remotely based in science and not just, "Hey, I don't know how this works, but it's a cool story, so who cares?" So... okay. The initial theory was that historians couldn't alter history. They could affect things, obviously, because just being there has an impact, but slippage is the continuum's failsafe to prevent major changes, so that whatever changes do occur are minor enough that the resulting ripple effect doesn't change the entire course of history. I was actually pretty satisfied with that theory. It preserves the current time line while still allowing people to have adventures in the past.
But then all of a sudden the drops aren't working and so Polly, Michael, and Eileen start to wonder if maybe they DID change too much and they broke the continuum. Which means that the previous theory was wrong - it's odd that it never happened before now, but I'd be okay accepting that the high number of historians visiting WWII over-saturated the continuum to the point that it couldn't absorb the changes anymore. It causes all kinds of paradoxes, which should probably rip the fabric of the universe apart, but it's all theoretical anyway, so as long as we see that there are consequences (such as the drops not opening because the future they came from doesn't exist anymore), it's believable to me. I suppose there's also leeway in that it can't be completely broken, since we don't actually live in a world where Hitler won the war, so unless there's a hefty suspension of disbelief, you have to figure they must be able to fix it somehow.
Then Mr. Dunworthy shows up and tells them that actually HE broke the continuum, that they never should've altered anything and that first run-in with the woman started the slippage, which is in fact evidence of the continuum starting to fracture. It keeps course-correcting - people simply die a different way or take a different path to the same ultimate outcome - but now it's potentially reached a tipping point where there's no way to repair the damage that's been done over the years. I actually thought it was kind of ballsy of Willis to go there, because it meant this wasn't just another time travel book. It was the last time travel story she could tell, because even if they managed to get back to the present, they wouldn't risk more time travel with the continuum so much in jeopardy. With that in mind, I could forgive the epic length of this story, viewing it as a swan song.
As it turns out, though, that's not the case. In fact, time travel was fine all along - it's history that was broken and needed some help from the future to be fixed. This I am not too sure about. I mean, I am okay with the idea that something happens because it already happened - i.e. the historians weren't changing anything, they were just doing what they'd already done to make history turn out the way it already did. And I even like that Willis preserved free will here, because this kind of time travel often has the flavor of predestination - it has to happen, because it already happened. But it's clear throughout that the characters are making choices, albeit choices guided to a certain end by limitations and roadblocks and delays. Usually in the form of Alf and Binnie, who are apparently some sort of instruments of divine intervention. And that's where I have the problem, because it feels like there's some conscious motivation attributed to the universe here. It's not totally clear to me whether we're supposed to view it as fate, or as a grand spiderweb of coincidences that all involve Alf and Binnie - but if it is just a series of coincidences, it's stretching the bounds of credibility to think that those two, troublemakers though they are, would be responsible for so many decisions that led to history happening the way it did. I'm also kinda iffy on the idea of the drops not working to prevent the characters from going home as well as preventing anyone from coming back to retrieve them. I mean, it happens because it has to happen because it already happened, but it just seems a little too... deliberate on the part of the universe, I guess.
It's pretty clear, though, that the time travel is just a plot device to illustrate Willis' main purpose (which, uh, kind of makes me wonder why I spent four paragraphs on the time travel theories. I'm a science nerd, so sue me). The real thrust of the novel is in celebrating the heroism of the ordinary people in England who may have contributed only in small ways, but without the culmination of each of those individual acts, the whole war might've turned out differently.
The other spoilery thing I wanted to talk about is Mary and Ernest turning out to be Polly and Michael. I did find it odd that their stories didn't seem to tie in to the others in Blackout, though I suppose they could've been other time travelers (maybe even one of the ones Polly and the others were looking for). As I said above, perhaps it would've been more obvious if I'd read All Clear immediately afterward, but there are so many names it's hard to keep track. I can't remember if the scenes in Blackout with Mary driving the ambulance used the same names for her friends as the ones in the VE-Day scenes. They called each other by their last names and random nicknames so much! Am I the only one who completely missed it? lol
One final thing that seemed odd to me is that none of the characters seem to have families back home. They're all very worried about changing the course of the war and being stuck in this timeline, but other than Colin, no one even mentions never seeing their family and friends again. It was especially peculiar, given Eileen's decision to stay in 1941. Didn't she care that her family would miss her?
Gah. That was kind of epic itself. Over 1,700 words of book reviews. I suppose it's appropriate, though, lol, given how long the one book was.
Next up: Black Swan and The Hunger Games (possibly not in the same post).
no subject
Date: Jan. 11th, 2011 09:41 pm (UTC)I almost had the same impression in Willis's "To Say Nothing of the Dog" where the male lead ended up sent way, way back in time to the building of the Cathedral not by his own choice... but it also helped move the plot along. And it always seemed like maybe the cat got through to the future the first time (though that was supposedly impossible) because time decided it was 'okay', and if it travelling through the future meant that housecats become not extinct, well isn't that changing time even if time is in the present? Ah well, it was mostly a comedy and I figured as soon as they told us that housecats were extinct that Princess Arjhimand would solve htat.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through "All Clear" and, yeah, I think there are too many failures to communicate going on that are a bit repetitive, but I'm enjoying it anyway.
no subject
Date: Jan. 11th, 2011 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 13th, 2011 03:14 pm (UTC)