Connie Willis Books In Order

Publication Order of Oxford Time Travel Collections

Publication Order of Oxford Time Travel Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Isaac Asimov's Anthology Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Connie Willis is one of the established American authors who likes to write her novels based on the fantasy and science fiction genres. She has won numerous prestigious awards for her particular works, including 7 Nebula Awards and 11 Hugo Awards. Author Willis is believed to have won more prestigious than any other author. The most recent novel for which she won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in the category of the Best Novel is the 2010 novel titled ‘Blackout’. She has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame of science fiction in the year 2009, as well as named as the 28th Grand Master of the SFWA in the year 2011. A number of other books written by author Willis are based on the social satire, comic, and time travel genres. She was born on December 31, 1945, in Denver, Colorado, The United States. Author Willis completed her graduation in the year 1967 from the Colorado State College, which has now been renamed as the Northern Colorado University. She obtained her degrees in the subjects of Elementary Education and English. As of today, she lives in Greeley, Colorado, along with her husband named Courtney Willis. Her husband is a former physics professor at the Northern Colorado University.

The couple has a daughter named Cordelia. The first story written by author Willis was published under the title ‘The Secret of Santa Titicaca’, which was released in the year 1970. She continued to work on 7 more similar stories before going on to complete her debut novel titled ‘Water Witch’. Author Willis wrote the novel in collaboration with author Cynthia Felice and it was published by the Ace Books in the year 1982. Till that time, Willis was working as a teacher. But, right after she received a grant of National Arts Endowment in 1982, she resigned from her teaching job and decided to become a full time author. The Scholar Gary Wolfe has described author Willis as an erstwhile superstar of the science fiction conventions. As an author, she has written some of the funniest stories in the field. He has also said about her that she is a woman of a greater gravity and complexity than what is reflected by her personal popularity.

Most of the writings of author Willis give the hint that she is a writer full of considerable gravity. The writing style of author Willis is like that of a comedy of manners. The protagonists depicted in her novels are mostly beset by the single minded people who tend to pursue illogical agendas. Some of those agendas include attempt for organizing a bell ringing session during a deadly epidemic or frustrating efforts in analyzing the near death experiences by feeding words in the interviewees’ mouths. Some of the other stories written by author Willis try to explore the hard sciences, which also follow the classic tradition of science fiction. One of her books titled ‘The Sidon in the Mirror’ describes the interstellar and interplanetary romanticism of the early 1930s and 1940s. The successful books of author Willis have helped her to win numerous major awards and also become one of the most honored authors of the science fiction genre during the 1980s and 90s.

The Oxford Time Travel series written by author Connie Willis consists of 4 novels and one novella altogether, which were published between the years 1982 and 2010. The first novel of this series is titled as ‘Doomsday Book’. It was released by the Bantam Spectra publishers in the year 1992. The setting of the plot of this book is done in The United Kingdom, and it features the lead character in the form of Kivrin. At the start of the novel, it is shown that Kivrin is trying to prepare an on-site study of a deadly era of the history of humanity. She finds this task to be as simple as getting inoculations for preventing the deadly diseases of the 14th century, or inventing an alibi to a lonely female traveler. For the instructors of Kivrin in the 21st century, it was like careful monitoring and painstaking calculations of the rendezvous place where she was to be received. However, a crisis situation arises strangely, which causes the linking of the past and the future. Due to this, Kivri gets stranded in the bygone age and all her fellows begin to rescue her desperately. At such a time of fear and superstition, Kivrin finds out that she has become an angel of unlikely hope during the darkest hours of the history, even though she had barely come of age. With the help of the descriptions in this book, author Willis has tried to explain about her understanding of the human nature’s universalities. This way, she has tried to explore the everlasting issues of suffering, evil, and the undying spirit of humanity.

The next book in ‘The Oxford Time Travel’ series was published under the title ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’. It was released by the Bantam Books in the year 1998. The plot of this book is also set in The United Kingdom and features the important characters in the form of Ned Henry and Verity Kindle. As the story of this book begins, it is depicted that Ned Henry desperately needs to rest. For a long time, he has been time traveling and shuttling between the 1940s and the 21st century in order to search one of the Victorian atrocities known as the bishop’s bird stump. This task has been assigned to him as a part of a huge project for restoring the famous Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed in an air raid by the Nazi’s around a 100 years ago. In the meantime, another time traveler named Verity Kindle brings back a thing from the past inadvertently. Due to her actions, the balance between the past and the present seems to have been disturbed. As a result, Ned Henry is required to shuttle back to the Victorian era in order to help Verity Kindle make the things right as they were initially. This way, he not only needs to save the big project from getting destroyed, but also to prevent the history from getting altered permanently. Similar to the initial book of the series, this book too went on to become extremely successful. It also received a wide range of appreciations and praises from the critics as well as from the readers all over the world. The immense success not only helped author Willis to establish herself as a noteworthy author, but also motivated her to focus on developing the plots of a few more interesting time travel novels in her writing career.

One Response to “Connie Willis”

1. toledo dudley: 2 years ago

   love your books! am trying to find a copy of the Doomsday Book for one of my grandsons.Your last book- the one where the young girl was trapped during the black plague was a bit much for him i think.Ive read all your time travel books. ill have to try your other types now. thank you for some reeally interesting reading.

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