I'm obviously in the minority

[madbaker]

I've been a SF/F reader for a very long time. I date my start to seven or eight, when I discovered Heinlein and Bradbury and Vance. It's fair to blame my dad for reading The Hobbit as a bedtime story when I was five, though.

This is possibly heretical, but since it's on LiveJournal no one will actually read this and flame me. So here goes:
I don't understand why Connie Willis is a popular writer.

I've read a couple of her books. I thought they were okay - nothing world-shaking or engrossing, certainly nothing that made me want to read more of her work. The couple I read were, in fact, among the many ones she's written that have won many awards. But they were far from the best things I read that year. I only vaguely remember one of them, and that was getting to the end and going "So... nothing actually happened."

Taste is a funny thing. I'm not limited to one genre; I sometimes like space opera, sometimes guns and monsters, sometimes heroic (or anti-heroic) fantasy. I adored both Ancillary Justice and City of Stairs and those two have nothing in common. Except excellent writing. And... I just don't think Connie Willis is an excellent writer.

The rest of SF/F fandom disagrees. And that's fine. But I don't get it and I don't see that ever changing.

Comments

[tshuma]

I know I have read Connie Willis and yet I couldn't tell you what it was. That is usually telling, to me.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of her.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

"She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works — more major awards than any other writer — most recently the year's "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010)."

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I am clearly an ill-educated luddite. :)

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Me either, but if she's recent that could explain it, since I have been avoiding reading in English in a (somewhat successful) attempt at improving my Swedish.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

She's been winning major awards since the eighties, when I read the sf magazines religiously, and she just one a Hugo recently for her two-volume book about WWII.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I am just oblivious then...

[lifeofglamour.livejournal.com]

I used to love her writing, but it seems that between when I first read her works and now (some 20 years) my tastes have changed and now it really doesn't work for me. I dunno.

I find her very evocative

[learnteach.livejournal.com]

and occasionally very realistically depressing. I do get why her books are awarded...but avoid them right now. She does "minor character in life, not the hero, in dramatic events" very well. So, perhaps Madbaker, you like me like a clear and present hero (ine) to identify with, and a clear and present narrative--hers are more like Alexander McCall Smith's, full of homelife and events not clearly marked.

Re: I find her very evocative

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I don't necessarily need a standout hero/ine.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I'm a big Connie Willis fan, but not really for her novels. They just aren't her best work. Her short stories, now...they will twist sideways and punch you in the gut, and leave a smattering of themselves in your brain that will last forever.

My favorites are below, and mostly science fiction. Most of these are collected in "The Best of Connie Willis", which your library might have. The collection "Impossible Things" is a good one, too. She also writes sff Christmas stories, which are clever and touching and funny. These are collected in "Miracle and Other Christmas Stories".

A Letter from the Clearys
The Last of the Winnebagos
Blued Moon
Why the World Didn't End Last Tuesday (may have the day wrong)

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I hoped you would speak up as a Willis partisan. I'm not sure I'll bother checking out the short stories, but I appreciate the information!