Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site


Join Us June 24-25 for the Hot Fun in the Summertime Book Club! Get Details  
> FAQ Home
> Tag: Connie Willis

But Do Say Something of the Cat

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

by 2 Comments

To Say Nothing of the Dog wasn’t sitting on my shelf at home, but was tucked away in a used book store in Loreto, Mexico. I had seen the book title years ago, once confusing it with Let’s Not go to the Dogs Tonight (these books have nothing in common other than Dog in the title) and for a few pesos was willing to give it a go.  The story is intentionally silly, the Coventry Cathedral is being rebuilt in Oxford in the future. The […]

Time Travel Done Right

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

by 5 Comments

This is the second Connie Willis book I’ve read, and it will not be the last.  The phrase tour de force is thrown around with a distressing lack of discretion, but this book truly deserves it.   In Doomsday Book, the author follows two main characters in two times: Kivrin is an enthusiastic young historian who travels to 14th century England for investigative purposes despite the warnings of Mr. Dunworthy, her tutor at Oxford and the main character we follow ‘back home’ in the 21st century.  […]

Huh, do I work with the author?

Bellwether by Connie Willis

by 1 Comment

Bellwether was written in 1997 by Connie Willis, but seems very current.  It’s considered science fiction, but frankly, I don’t think it really is since everything in it could actually happen.  Set in a big corporation called HiTek, it is told from the point of view of Sandra, a researcher trying to discover what causes fads.  She is navigating life while interacting with friends and coworkers who are all investigating different things while the company pushes for one of them to win the Niebnitz Grant […]

It’s science, it’s fiction, but it’s not science fiction

Bellwether by Connie Willis

by 6 Comments

Why is Connie Willis considered a science fiction writer? Is it just because she wrote about time travel that one time? I haven’t read a ton of her stuff (I did read the time travel one), but I don’t quite get it. This book is fine and fun, but not science fiction at all, even though the cover says “One of science fiction’s best writers.” Sandra is a scientist at a corporate-America type research institute that reminded me a little of Veridian Dynamics. She’s looking […]

All Clear – Connie Willis (2010)

All Clear by Connie Willis

by Leave a Comment

The sequel to Black Out, which I contend should have been trimmed by 40% of each book and turned into a single volume. Was works for different reasons in Firewatch feels bloated here, and what worked well in Doomsday Book and was boring in To Say Nothing of the Dog, fails here too. I kept waiting for this book to end, and my god the book seemed like it was dying to end. But it didn’t end. Until it finally did. The issue with this […]

Like a time traveling Bertie Wooster

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

by 4 Comments

Series: Oxford Time Travel. I read Book One (Doomsday Book) in 2010. What I remembered about this series prior to reading this book: A friend recommended Doomsday Book to me because of the Middle Ages setting and the references to bubonic plague (infectious diseases are my jam). What I chiefly remember about it now was that I couldn’t get into the story because I kept waiting for the buboes to show up (plague doesn’t come into the story until well over halfway through, as I […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo