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You have to fiddle it a bit to get it to scan (metrically, that is), but I defy anyone to read All Seated on the Ground without having his or her head flooded with Christmas carols, whatever the season. (Well, anyone living in the West, where you can't avoid the carols regardless of your religious belief or lack thereof.) Older Daughter - now ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beccadelarosa - is downstairs atm, hard at work on her first post, which will contain 23 things you don't know about her. Younger Daughter is also downstairs, also hard at work, but on a much less fun English essay (the task was just to write 'the definitive essay', which will be 'really good' and can be used for other questions for the Leaving Cert exam. ?? My oh-so-humble is that that smacks of a teacher running out of ideas but still wanting to give them yet another essay over the weekend). I have apparently failed entirely to convince her that you cannot get a 98% on your last history essay - only teacher comment 'How do you do it?' - and be told you're a genius by said teacher after Christmas exams - and be unable to write essays, be they ever-so-English-instead-of-History. O.D. joined me in the attempt, but that didn't do it either. (Y.D. also has an LJ, but says it's all 'rubbish' and 'teen pretentiousness', so her user name cannot be shared.)
The two Connie Willis books are All Seated on the Ground and D.A., both of which I read in January. I tried to order D.A. back in early December, for a gift, and in fact had the order accepted, and was all pleased to have managed to find a copy before the very limited print run disappeared, only to be told that it wasn't going to happen after all. This frustrated me at the time, but now that I've read both, I think was fortuitous. The whole brigade of avid Connie Willis fans will have been expecting pretty much what they got from All Seated on the Ground, which is a beautiful Subterranean Press hardcover publication of a novella-ish length story, which could have been published in a good SF magazine. (Duh! Just checked and it was in Asimov's. Oh well. Still glad to have this one.) I loved it. LOVED it. Like all the best things about "Miracle" and "Newsletter" rolled into one, with a wonderful disapproving aunt, aliens who have apparently arrived on earth to do nothing but glower at everyone, and - well, if you've read any Connie Willis funny-and-cheerful stuff, you'll be unsurprised by the resolution of 'All I Want for Christmas is You'. There's social and even some political satire too, of course. I couldn't begin to pretend that this would be a good value for money introduction to Connie Willis, but it lifted my spirits more effectively than a spritz of artificial Christmas tree fragrance, and I could easily see it becoming an annual Christmas reread.
D.A., on the other hand - well, same price, only a bit over half the length, and -- Y.A.? Most Connie Willis seems to me wonderfully Y.A.-friendly, though I might have been somewhat over-influenced by my two who loved her from an early age. As a story in a Y.A. anthology it might work well, perhaps, though I'm not entirely sure about that either. Haven't entirely sorted it out but I think I felt that there was too much reliance on a very clever twist or bunch of twists at the end - the teen certainly pulls a fast one on everyone at the top level of authority. With help from her best friend. And that's appealing, but it also might feel a bit clever author pulling fast one on teen readers, possibly. Certainly if most of the payoff comes in the last few pages of a 76 page book, it's not a lot of reading satisfaction. Can't say what 'D.A.' stands for without spoiling the twist a bit, though others may have seen it long before I did, and it's also difficult to discuss the point of the satire in the story. No matter how much I agree with the ideology I saw in the story, I did feel that the lack of really engaging story made it seem more just a cleverly delivered message than writing that's anywhere near Connie Willis at her best.
While waiting for the next one of those to come along, I'll read whatever I can get my hands on, and hope it's as enjoyable as All Seated on the Ground...
beccadelarosa - is downstairs atm, hard at work on her first post, which will contain 23 things you don't know about her. Younger Daughter is also downstairs, also hard at work, but on a much less fun English essay (the task was just to write 'the definitive essay', which will be 'really good' and can be used for other questions for the Leaving Cert exam. ?? My oh-so-humble is that that smacks of a teacher running out of ideas but still wanting to give them yet another essay over the weekend). I have apparently failed entirely to convince her that you cannot get a 98% on your last history essay - only teacher comment 'How do you do it?' - and be told you're a genius by said teacher after Christmas exams - and be unable to write essays, be they ever-so-English-instead-of-History. O.D. joined me in the attempt, but that didn't do it either. (Y.D. also has an LJ, but says it's all 'rubbish' and 'teen pretentiousness', so her user name cannot be shared.) The two Connie Willis books are All Seated on the Ground and D.A., both of which I read in January. I tried to order D.A. back in early December, for a gift, and in fact had the order accepted, and was all pleased to have managed to find a copy before the very limited print run disappeared, only to be told that it wasn't going to happen after all. This frustrated me at the time, but now that I've read both, I think was fortuitous. The whole brigade of avid Connie Willis fans will have been expecting pretty much what they got from All Seated on the Ground, which is a beautiful Subterranean Press hardcover publication of a novella-ish length story, which could have been published in a good SF magazine. (Duh! Just checked and it was in Asimov's. Oh well. Still glad to have this one.) I loved it. LOVED it. Like all the best things about "Miracle" and "Newsletter" rolled into one, with a wonderful disapproving aunt, aliens who have apparently arrived on earth to do nothing but glower at everyone, and - well, if you've read any Connie Willis funny-and-cheerful stuff, you'll be unsurprised by the resolution of 'All I Want for Christmas is You'. There's social and even some political satire too, of course. I couldn't begin to pretend that this would be a good value for money introduction to Connie Willis, but it lifted my spirits more effectively than a spritz of artificial Christmas tree fragrance, and I could easily see it becoming an annual Christmas reread.
D.A., on the other hand - well, same price, only a bit over half the length, and -- Y.A.? Most Connie Willis seems to me wonderfully Y.A.-friendly, though I might have been somewhat over-influenced by my two who loved her from an early age. As a story in a Y.A. anthology it might work well, perhaps, though I'm not entirely sure about that either. Haven't entirely sorted it out but I think I felt that there was too much reliance on a very clever twist or bunch of twists at the end - the teen certainly pulls a fast one on everyone at the top level of authority. With help from her best friend. And that's appealing, but it also might feel a bit clever author pulling fast one on teen readers, possibly. Certainly if most of the payoff comes in the last few pages of a 76 page book, it's not a lot of reading satisfaction. Can't say what 'D.A.' stands for without spoiling the twist a bit, though others may have seen it long before I did, and it's also difficult to discuss the point of the satire in the story. No matter how much I agree with the ideology I saw in the story, I did feel that the lack of really engaging story made it seem more just a cleverly delivered message than writing that's anywhere near Connie Willis at her best.
While waiting for the next one of those to come along, I'll read whatever I can get my hands on, and hope it's as enjoyable as All Seated on the Ground...
