Rating: 
Summary: good stories that made me think
Review: So of course I'm glad this one is back in print. She is hands down my favorite fantasy/science fiction author and her short stories are a wonderful introduction. I hope if you love these stories you also read Lincoln's Dreams, Doomsday Book, and Promised Land (a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire plot in a Ray Bradbury landscape?). Have fun.
Rating:
Summary: It would be a crime for any of her books to go out of print
Review: So of course I'm glad this one is back in print. She is hands down my favorite fantasy/science fiction author and her short stories are a wonderful introduction. I hope if you love these stories you also read Lincoln's Dreams, Doomsday Book, and Promised Land (a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire plot in a Ray Bradbury landscape?). Have fun.
Rating:
Summary: She makes it look easy
Review: The Blued Moon has to be read to be believed. I tried reading this out loud to my wife, and I couldn't get the words out was laughing so hard, CRYING I was laughing so hard.Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors. This book of shorts shows several different styles, and they're all worth a read. But the Blued Moon is worth the price of the book all by itself.
Rating:
Summary: She makes it look easy
Review: The Blued Moon has to be read to be believed. I tried reading this out loud to my wife, and I couldn't get the words out was laughing so hard, CRYING I was laughing so hard. Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors. This book of shorts shows several different styles, and they're all worth a read. But the Blued Moon is worth the price of the book all by itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Great title story; others in this volume disappoint
Review: The first story in this collection shares its title with the book: "Fire Watch". That story may be the very best short science fiction work I have every read. Besides being a good story, there is depth to the ideas about history and life which go far beyond the plot. Having had such a wonderful experience with the first story, I found myself sorely disappointed with the rest in the volume. The other stories struck me as very odd with much less depth. Most were so odd in fact, that I did not get anything else out of them.
Rating: 
Summary: A mixed bag of early stories - better work is available
Review: This is a collection of short stories by one of the most original thinkers in the entire science fiction genre. In the destined-to-be-a-classic "Fire Watch" a time-traveling history student gets too involved while studying the London Blitz. Other top-notch entries include the shocking "All My Darling Daughters" which describes an off-planet boarding school that teaches young men a unique lesson in relationships, "A Letter from the Clearys", a sad and moving tale of post-apocalyptic America, and "The Sidon in the Mirror" which tells the tragic story of a drifter who copies the personality traits of others. Each of these stories is powerful, pointed, and offers a unique vision of some aspect of life in the future. A little less intense, but still of very good quality are "Lost and Found" which invokes the Second Coming, "Daisy in the Sun" showing how life goes on, even with extinction hanging over us, and "Samaritan" which describes a minister who must make a difficult decision about a church's trained orangutan. Each of these stories is sure to do more than merely please. Rounding out the collection, Willis offers "Service for the Burial of the Dead", about guilt and loss and a lover who dies too soon, "The Father of the Bride", a silly addendum to a classic fairy tale, "And Come from Miles Around" wherein a mother observes the observers at an eclipse (but no one else does), "Mail-Order Clone", an inane tale of a customer who is dissatisfied with his mail-order purchase, and "Blued Moon" a truly unique story showing how a chemical company's discharge has bizarre effects on human behavior. Many of this last group are intended to be humorous, and perhaps shouldn't be classified as science fiction at all, but most are at least entertaining. Fans of the author will be very pleased with this collection. Those new to Willis may find these stories impressive, but not overpowering enough to convince them to start on one of her brilliant (but admittedly lengthy) novels. This is unfortunate, since such masterpieces as To Say Nothing of the Dog and The Doomsday Book are among the best that contemporary fiction has to offer.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag of early stories - better work is available
Review: This is a collection of short stories by one of the most original thinkers in the entire science fiction genre. In the destined-to-be-a-classic "Fire Watch" a time-traveling history student gets too involved while studying the London Blitz. Other top-notch entries include the shocking "All My Darling Daughters" which describes an off-planet boarding school that teaches young men a unique lesson in relationships, "A Letter from the Clearys", a sad and moving tale of post-apocalyptic America, and "The Sidon in the Mirror" which tells the tragic story of a drifter who copies the personality traits of others. Each of these stories is powerful, pointed, and offers a unique vision of some aspect of life in the future. A little less intense, but still of very good quality are "Lost and Found" which invokes the Second Coming, "Daisy in the Sun" showing how life goes on, even with extinction hanging over us, and "Samaritan" which describes a minister who must make a difficult decision about a church's trained orangutan. Each of these stories is sure to do more than merely please. Rounding out the collection, Willis offers "Service for the Burial of the Dead", about guilt and loss and a lover who dies too soon, "The Father of the Bride", a silly addendum to a classic fairy tale, "And Come from Miles Around" wherein a mother observes the observers at an eclipse (but no one else does), "Mail-Order Clone", an inane tale of a customer who is dissatisfied with his mail-order purchase, and "Blued Moon" a truly unique story showing how a chemical company's discharge has bizarre effects on human behavior. Many of this last group are intended to be humorous, and perhaps shouldn't be classified as science fiction at all, but most are at least entertaining. Fans of the author will be very pleased with this collection. Those new to Willis may find these stories impressive, but not overpowering enough to convince them to start on one of her brilliant (but admittedly lengthy) novels. This is unfortunate, since such masterpieces as To Say Nothing of the Dog and The Doomsday Book are among the best that contemporary fiction has to offer.
Rating:
Summary: An Opulent Collection of the Wild and Weird
Review: This is an excellent collection of stories by one of today's premier writers of speculative fiction (I use the term advisedly as some of these stories cross the border from science fiction to fantasy and most unusual horror). The opening story, "Fire Watch", really belongs in the same universe as her Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, dealing with a time traveler in London during the Blitz. Very effective, with a well realized main character, it explores what the real purpose of life is under the pressure of either trying to change or preserve the past. The best story here may be "All My Darling Daughters", which presents a boarding school of the future that will surprise and shock. Written in a futuristic teen slang that takes a little time to get used to (and is quite a departure from Willis' normal style), its investigation of [adult content] morals and abusive 'fathers' provides much food for thought. The story is strongly anti-male without crossing the line into being a feminist tract, with a fair dollop of Willis' trademark satire. Disturbing and all too believable. "Sidon in the Mirror" is an odd combination of science fiction and horror. From a starting point of call-girl house located on the surface of a star, it travels an unusual road through murder, love, and true desires for death as it follows a being who, by nature, ends up becoming a 'copy' of someone in his close circle of acquaintances. Very different, but I did feel the ending was a little too pat. "Samaritan" explores an area investigated by several others, such as Heinlein's "Jerry Was Man" and Orson Scott Card's Lovelock, about where the line should be drawn between animal and human. As usual, Connie brings her own viewpoint to this idea, and does so in quite an effective manner. "Service for the Burial of the Dead" definitely crosses the line into fantasy/horror, but regardless of the genre, Willis knows how to write a tale that will engross and force the reader's participation - in this case, in a most spine-tingling manner. "Mail Order Clone" deals with a man who orders a clone of himself from a magazine ad, and has a definite funny side as it explores gullibility, bureaucracies, and domestic relations. "Daisy in the Sun" will take a bit of effort to follow, as for much of the early part of the story things do not seem to be very logical - in fact much of it feels very dreamlike, with a dream's lack of consistency. "A Letter from the Clearys", while well written, follows too closely to some by now clichéd ideas. "And Come from Miles Around" is too slight an idea to be really effective, but makes for a decent quiet read. "Blued Moon" is, for my money, the weakest story in the book, dealing with happenstances of coincidence gone wild, under the influence of an artificial blue moon. Here I'm afraid Willis tried too hard for the slapstick and the crazy within her satirical outline, but this was the only story in the book that I thought really failed. Overall, Willis demonstrates, in story after story, a great understanding of human nature, from its best attributes to its embarrassing foibles. She can be funny, poignant, ethereal, biting, demanding, and gritty, but she is always entertaining and worth reading.(...)
Rating:
Summary: Glad this has been reprinted!
Review: This wide-ranging story collection is THE gift I give to friends when they wonder aloud whether imaginative literature can BE literature; it's both "sf" and "terrific writing." If you have read Willis' other work, this is her FIRST collection; the story "Fire Watch" was written before _Doomsday Book_ and has the first appearance of Kivrin. In addition to the Hugo-winning stories ("FW," "Clearys") _FW_ has many other treasures. Not everyone likes them all; "Sidon" is the one I can't figure out, while "Lost & Found" is my favorite, a haunting, standout story.
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