PASSAGE

Passage was one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. I’m on a Connie Willis kick—in 2006 I’ve read everything by her I could get my hands on, starting with To Say Nothing of the Dog and continuing with Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, Fire Watch, and now Passage. Sadly, this is the bulk of her ouevre—I’ve got one novella left on my list and then I have to sit around waiting for her to write another book. Though classified as “science fiction,” most of her books (except some stories in Fire Watch) don’t deal with space or aliens or apocalyptic futures. She writes almost obsessively about researchers (historians or scientists) trying doggedly, desperately to figure things out; she builds excruciating suspense as she takes you step by step through the frustration of the research process, as her characters endure confusion and missed connections and unhelpful leads and mistaken theses and dead ends. In her books, history is something alive, a reality that impinges on contemporary life (whether through time travel, dreams, visions, or as a metaphor); it is full of disaster (the Blitz, the Plague, the Civil War, the Titanic) and heroism and death. These are the kind of books I wish I could write, full of allusion and real drama.