UNITED STATES AUTHOR · SCIENCE FICTION · FICTION
Connie Willis
Constance Elaine Trimmer "Connie" Willis (born December 31, 1945) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won more major genre awards than any other writer, including eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards. Most recently, she won the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011. Several of her works feature time travel by history students at the future University of Oxford, called the Time Travel series or the Oxford Time Travel Series.
The lesson does not seem to sink in.
— from War of the Worlds
Most acclaimed
All Seated on the Ground
2007
The aliens have landed! The aliens have landed! But instead of shooting death rays, taking over the planet and carrying off Earthwomen, they've just been standing there for months on end, glaring like a disapproving relative. And now it's nearly Christmas, and the commission assigned to establish communications is at their wits' end. They've resorted to taking the aliens to Broncos games, lighting displays, and shopping malls, in the hope they'll respond to something! And they do, but in a way nobody ever expected, and Meg, the commission, and an overworked choir director find themselves suddenly caught up in an intergalactic mess involving Christmas carols, scented candles, seventh-grade girls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Meg's Aunt Judith, Victoria's Secret, and Handel's Messiah.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Connie Willis' entertaining comedy inspired by Jerome K. Jerome's [Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)]. [Robert A. Heinlein]mentioned the earlier work in [Have Spacesuit will Travel]as Kip's father's favorite. :
Promised Land
2000
"These thirteen books must be seen as representative, not definitive, works. They are nodal points, places where vast areas of thought and feeling gathered and dispersed, creating a nation as various and vibrant as the United States, which must be considered one of the most successful nation-states in modern history, and a republic built firmly on ideas, which are contained in its major texts. Where we have been must, of course, determine where we are going. My hope is that this book helps to show us where we have been and engenders a lively conversation about our destination, which seems perpetually in dispute." --from Promised LandAmericans need periodic reminding that they are, to a great extent, people of the book--or, rather, books. In Promised Land, Jay Parini repossesses that vibrant, intellectual heritage by examining the life and times of thirteen "books that changed America." Each of the books has been a watershed, gathering intellectual currents already in motion and marking a turn in American life and thought. Their influence remains pervasive, however hidden, and in his essays Jay Parini demonstrates how these books entered American life and altered how we think and act in the world. The thirteen "books that changed America": Of Plymouth Plantation - The Federalist Papers - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - The Journals of Lewis and Clark - Walden - Uncle Tom's Cabin - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - The Souls of Black Folk - The Promised Land - How to Win Friends and Influence People - The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care - On the Road - The Feminine Mystique Promised Land offers a reading of the American psyche, allowing us to reflect on what our past means for who we are now. It is a rich and immensely readable work of cultural history that will appeal to all book lovers and students of the American character alike.