To Say Something of Ms. Willis

Reading Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog, one cannot help but compare it to Jack Finney's Time and Again.

Both are marvelously detailed and filled with rich characters. The mechanism each employs to manage time travel is believable enough within the universe each author creates. And both give the reader a true sense of time and place and seem to excise all modern language in favor of straight-forward storytelling.

Dog, however, chooses a lighter road. It is a comedy of manners and situation, and it's a love story and an adventure story.

Ms. Willis deftly handles all facets of her tale equally well and succeeds in making the reader want more after the last page is turned.

She also does not subject the reader to a lot of exposition, instead allowing the story to fill in the reader's knowledge gaps naturally. This requires the reader to be on his toes, especially at the beginning where we are thrust into the story without any explanation. It is several pages, in fact, before we are clear on just what is the "bishop's bird stump."

This is an excellent read - summer or winter - and an accessible one to those who are new to science fiction or who generally don't like SF.