The Best of Connie Willis (2 page)

Stories about robots and time-travelers and aliens, and stories about the cold equations of the physical universe and the hidden costs of technological advance, about the endless difficulty of determining what a human is—and how to be one. Science fiction in all her infinite variety, spread out like a feast in front of me.

And the stories were
good
. These were, after all, short stories and novelettes and novellas being written by authors at the height of their powers. Nowadays, science-fiction writers tend to think of the short story only as a way to get their foot in the publishing door or as a practice run for the three-volume trilogy they
really
want to write, and after they sell that first novel, they tend not to write any more short stories.

But back then very few science-fiction novels were being published (they were
really
days of dark oppression), and
everybody
, from the talented beginner to old hands like Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl, was writing for the magazines. Including Heinlein, who I was thrilled to find was also in the collections, with gems like “They” and “All You Zombies”—and my favorite, “The Menace from Earth.”

These were people who really knew how to write, and I reaped the
benefit, reading classics like “Evening Primrose” and “Nightfall” and “Vintage Season” and “Ararat.”

Even in this exalted company, some stories stood out as exceptional. One of them was “Lot,” by Ward Moore, which starts out seeming to be a simple tale about a dad packing the family car for a trip and turns into a horrific (and all-too-possible) nuclear nightmare, a story that managed to embody not only the loss of civilization but the loss of our humanity, and one that has reverberated in my mind ever since I read it.

A second standout was Philip K. Dick’s “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” a story about a man in cold sleep traveling to a far distant planet who keeps dreaming his arrival. It deals with an entirely different kind of nightmare, one in which we can no longer tell what’s reality and what’s a dream.

But my favorite had to be Bob Shaw’s “The Light of Other Days,” a simple little tale about a couple driving out to the country on a summer afternoon to buy a piece of window glass for their apartment. It somehow managed to dissect marriage, loss, grief, and the bitter knowledge that technology can be a two-edged sword, all in the space of a few thousand words.

I had had no idea stories could
do
stuff like this.

I’ve always considered myself incredibly lucky (the “chance” thing again) that I discovered those collections when I did. Heinlein was great, but novels devoted to blasting through space and discovering planets infested with multieyed monsters didn’t have all that much to say to me, and that was what most of the science-fiction novels in my library were about. And the movies were even worse. (We were still
years
away from
Star Wars
.)

With only
Daring Rangers of the Sky
to read and
Attack from Venus
to watch, my infatuation with science fiction might have proved shortlived. But through the brilliance of Bob Shaw and Philip K. Dick and all those other writers, I’d glimpsed what science fiction could be. So I kept reading, discovering Samuel R. Delany and J. G. Ballard and
James Tiptree, Jr., and Howard Waldrop and a host of other brilliant writers, and falling more and more in love with the field. And I started writing stories of my own.

Well, maybe not entirely my own. When I look back at “A Letter from the Clearys,” I can see how much it owes to Ward Moore’s “Lot.” When I reread “Fire Watch,” I see the impact of Heinlein and his hapless heroes on me, and in “Even the Queen” and “At the Rialto” the influence of his breezy style and bantering characters.

But it’s not just those two authors. They
all
influenced me. They taught me all sorts of techniques I could use in my stories—the onionlike layered revelations of Daniel Keyes, the understated ironies of Kit Reed, the multiple meanings Shirley Jackson could cram into a single line of dialogue. More important, they showed me that a story didn’t have to be all flash and pyrotechnics (though they taught me how to do that, too). They showed me that stories could be told simply and straightforwardly—and have hidden depths.

But mostly they made me fall so madly in love with their stories that I wanted to be just like them, so madly in love that I’ve written science-fiction short stories for more than forty years—and am still writing them.

This year I was honored to be awarded the Grand Master Nebula for my work and my life in science fiction. It is fitting that the award is named after Damon Knight, who wrote several of my favorite short stories in those Year’s Best collections, including “The Country of the Kind” and “The Big Pat Boom,” and I’d like to think I got the award as much for the stories you’ll find in this volume as for my novels.

In my acceptance speech I thanked all of the writers and editors and agents who’ve helped me along the way, and I concluded with this:

I couldn’t have done any of the things I’ve done without them, and in a sense, when you read this collection, you’re reading their stories as well as mine. At least, I
hope
a little of them has rubbed off on me. Because they were truly the year’s—and any year’s—best. And when my stories are comic and tragic and about everything from Thomas More to Christmas carols, from murder to exasperated mothers, I’m following firmly in their footsteps. And they were following firmly in Shakespeare’s.

So, enjoy! And then, when you’ve read all these stories, go read Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” and C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and Kit Reed’s “Time Tours, Inc.” and Theodore Sturgeon’s “A Saucer of Loneliness.” And all the other wonderful, wonderful stories of science fiction!

There was a letter from the Clearys at the post office. I put it in my backpack along with Mrs. Talbot’s magazine and went outside to untie Stitch.

He had pulled his leash out as far as it would go and was sitting around the corner, half-strangled, watching a robin. Stitch never barks, not even at birds. He didn’t even yip when Dad stitched up his paw. He just sat there the way we found him on the front porch, shivering a little and holding his paw up for Dad to look at. Mrs. Talbot says he’s a terrible watchdog, but I’m glad he doesn’t bark. Rusty barked all the time and look where it got him.

I had to pull Stitch back around the corner to where I could get enough slack to untie him. That took some doing because he really liked that robin. “It’s a sign of spring, isn’t it, fella?” I said, trying to get at the knot with my fingernails. I didn’t loosen the knot, but I managed to break one of my fingernails off to the quick. Great. Mom will demand to know if I’ve noticed any other fingernails breaking.

My hands are a real mess. This winter I’ve gotten about a hundred
burns on the back of my hands from that stupid woodstove of ours. One spot, just above my wrist, I keep burning over and over so it never has a chance to heal. The stove isn’t big enough and when I try to jam a log in that’s too long that same spot hits the inside of the stove every time. My stupid brother David won’t saw them off to the right length. I’ve asked him and asked him to please cut them shorter, but he doesn’t pay any attention to me.

I asked Mom if she would please tell him not to saw the logs so long, but she didn’t. She never criticizes David. As far as she’s concerned he can’t do anything wrong just because he’s twenty-three and was married.

“He does it on purpose,” I told her. “He’s hoping I’ll burn to death.”

“Paranoia is the number-one killer of fourteen-year-old girls,” Mom said. She always says that. It makes me so mad I feel like killing her. “He doesn’t do it on purpose. You need to be more careful with the stove, that’s all.” But all the time she was holding my hand and looking at the big burn that won’t heal like it was a time bomb set to go off.

“We need a bigger stove,” I said, and yanked my hand away. We do need a bigger one. Dad closed up the fireplace and put the woodstove in when the gas bill was getting out of sight, but it’s just a little one because Mom didn’t want one that would stick way out in the living room. Anyway, we were only going to use it in the evenings.

We won’t get a new one. They are all too busy working on the stupid greenhouse. Maybe spring will come early, and my hand will have half a chance to heal. I know better. Last winter the snow kept up till the middle of June and this is only March. Stitch’s robin is going to freeze his little tail if he doesn’t head back south. Dad says that last year was unusual, that the weather will be back to normal this year, but he doesn’t believe it, either, or he wouldn’t be building the greenhouse.

As soon as I let go of Stitch’s leash, he backed around the corner like a good boy and sat there waiting for me to stop sucking my finger and untie him. “We’d better get a move on,” I told him. “Mom’ll have a fit.” I was supposed to go by the general store to try and get some tomato
seeds, but the sun was already pretty far west, and I had at least a half hour’s walk home. If I got home after dark I’d get sent to bed without supper and then I wouldn’t get to read the letter. Besides, if I didn’t go to the general store today they would have to let me go tomorrow and I wouldn’t have to work on the stupid greenhouse.

Sometimes I feel like blowing it up. There’s sawdust and mud on everything, and David dropped one of the pieces of plastic on the stove while they were cutting it and it melted onto the stove and stinks to high heaven. But nobody else even notices the mess, they’re so busy talking about how wonderful it’s going to be to have homegrown watermelon and corn and tomatoes next summer.

I don’t see how it’s going to be any different from last summer. The only things that came up at all were the lettuce and the potatoes. The lettuce was about as tall as my broken fingernail and the potatoes were as hard as rocks. Mrs. Talbot said it was the altitude, but Dad said it wasn’t, either, it was the funny weather and this crummy Pikes Peak granite that passes for soil around here. He went up to the little library in the back of the general store and got a do-it-yourself book on greenhouses and started tearing everything up and now even Mrs. Talbot is crazy about the idea.

The other day I told them, “Paranoia is the number-one killer of people at this altitude,” but they were too busy cutting slats and stapling plastic to even pay any attention to me.

Stitch walked along ahead of me, straining at his leash, and as soon as we were across the highway, I took it off. He never runs away like Rusty used to. Anyway, it’s impossible to keep him out of the road, and the times I’ve tried keeping him on his leash, he dragged me out into the middle and I got in trouble with Dad over leaving footprints. So I keep to the frozen edges of the road, and he moseys along, stopping to sniff at potholes, and when he gets behind, I whistle at him and he comes running right up.

I walked pretty fast. It was getting chilly out, and I’d only worn my sweater. I stopped at the top of the hill and whistled at Stitch. We still
had a mile to go. I could see the Peak from where I was standing. Maybe Dad is right about spring coming. There was hardly any snow on the Peak, and the burned part didn’t look quite as dark as it did last fall, like maybe the trees are coming back.

Last year at this time the whole peak was solid white. I remember because that was when Dad and David and Mr. Talbot went hunting and it snowed every day and they didn’t get back for almost a month. Mom just about went crazy before they got back. She kept going up to the road to watch for them even though the snow was five feet deep and she was leaving footprints as big as the Abominable Snowman’s. She took Rusty with her even though he hated the snow about as much as Stitch hates the dark. And she took a gun. One time she tripped over a branch and fell down in the snow. She sprained her ankle and was frozen stiff by the time she made it back to the house. I felt like saying, “Paranoia is the number-one killer of mothers,” but Mrs. Talbot butted in and said the next time I had to go with her and how this was what happened when people were allowed to go places by themselves, which meant me going to the post office. And I said I could take care of myself and Mom told me not to be rude to Mrs. Talbot and Mrs. Talbot was right, I should go with her the next time.