When Balliol College’s Medieval department contrives to send young historian Kivrin back to 1329, several things happen at the same time which causes her to land in the Oxford countryside at Christmas in 1348 instead – just in time for the plague to arrive. In a classic Connie Willis twist, Kivrin (who is inoculated from the plague) arrives at her destination just as a fever is overtaking her. A fever that she contracted in 2054 which is about to spread like wildfire throughout Oxford in 2054. What that fever is and how it is happening is a mystery that requires several hundred fascinating pages to solve. So, while Kivrin is fighting for her life in a medieval village, her friends in Oxford are fighting for theirs. 

With this recipe in mind, she has been writing Christmas stories for years and has pulled them together for this collection of short stories. All of them are deeply human while also being about everyday people. All of them deal with some aspect of humanity that needs the kind of transformation that only the Christ of Christmas can bring. And all of them end well even if it is unclear, while you are reading, how that can possibly happen. But, signature Connie Willis, all of them have a sci-fi twist of some kind as well. And that makes them more unpredictable and, frankly, more fun. 

To Say Nothing of the Dog is pure delight. Connie Willis’s writing is elegant and refined. But it is also deeply informed by theatre and movies. And so what we have is a very witty, entertaining, and creative story that whisks the reader out of reality and into a delightful comedic drama that could only be set in the Victorian English Countryside. Equal parts ridiculous and brilliant, I have enjoyed reading again and again over the years. 

When Irish-American Briddey Flanagan’s relationship with her co-worker Trent starts to get serious, Trent insists that they undergo this procedure, allegedly so that she will be able to sense how much he loves her when he proposes. Briddey’s crazy and intrusive Irish family is dead-set against Trent and this trendy untested technology. But, Briddey goes through with it anyway. 

Sandra Foster is a scientist at HiTek corporation and studies fads. Specifically, she is working on the science of how and why trends or fads get started, what disrupts them, and possibly, how they can be manufactured by those who wish to nudge culture for good or for profit. Sandra is smart, likable, and very funny. Her snarky comments about ridiculous people and things give me a vent to my own frustrations about the ridiculousness of so many things in our modern culture. 

I read this 1,400-page story last summer and then again this winter. I missed my friends in WWII England, and I needed to visit them again. I am sure I will revisit once more before the year is out. This story really was that wonderful for me.