Connie Willis: Impossible Things (American English language, 1994, Bantam Spectra)
American English language
Published Jan. 1, 1994 by Bantam Spectra.
Impossible Things is a collection of short stories by Connie Willis, first published in january 1994, that includes tales of ecological disaster, humorous satire, tragedy, and satirical alternate realities. Its genres range from comedy to tragedy to horror. Three of the stories are Nebula Award winners, and two of these also won Hugo Awards. Like her novel Bellwether, the stories In the Late Cretaceous and At the Rialto explore aspects of scientific research. Like All Seated on the Ground, the story Spice Pogrom involves first contact with an intelligent alien species. Like the two-part novel Blackout/All Clear, the story Jack involves life during The Blitz. The stories Ado and Winter's Tale both refer to William Shakespeare, while Time Out, like her time travel novels, explores the nature of time.
Speculation from another era, these are all well-written, stylistically and structurally varied, and struggle to get past their prompt or conceit or timewarp. Oddly, "Spice Pogrom" was my fave.
