A Lot Like Christmas

August 28, 2017
SFWA Grand Master Willis (Crosstalk) offers up a hearty helping of Christmas cheer with sprinklings of mystery and magic in this reprint collection, drawn from over 30 years of work. She begins by describing her love for all things Christmas and her thoughts on what constitutes a proper Christmas story. The stories all have a similar tone of romantic comedy mixed with speculative fiction. Many also weave in Willis’s holiday-entertainment preferences, so “Miracle” features the original Miracle on 34th Street (which she prefers to It’s a Wonderful Life) as well as the Spirit of Christmas Present (one of many references to her beloved Dickens). “All Seated on the Ground” imagines a first contact with aliens in which carols are the keys to communication. The Holy Family appear via time travel or dimensional warping to be initially unwelcome again in “Inn,” and modern-day magi travel from the East in “Epiphany.” There’s unexplained snowfall in “Just like the Ones We Used to Know” and a Christmas murder that riffs on Conan Doyle, Christie, and Poe in “Cat’s Paw.” There are androids and Rockettes, Christmas decorations, newsletters, and much more folderol with happy endings all around. This is a perfect stocking stuffer for Christmas-celebrating fans of Willis’s humorous SF.

August 15, 2017
A collection of Christmas stories with just the right blend of sugar and spice.Willis (Crosstalk, 2016, etc.) has strong opinions about Christmas, from the perfect Christmas movie to watch (not It's a Wonderful Life) to what's wrong with most Christmas stories: they're "improbably sentimental and saccharine." The good news is that Willis has avoided falling into that trap with this book of stories, an expanded version of Miracle and Other Christmas Stories (1999). "Miracle" and "deck.halls@boughs/holly" deliver a pleasantly old-fashioned screwball-comedy tone, complete with romance. In "Adaptation," a story that deftly balances heartfelt emotion and satire, a divorced father yearning to spend Christmas with his daughter encounters the Spirit of Christmas Future--working as a bookstore clerk. In another story that's part satire, part romantic comedy, the narrator of "All Seated on the Ground" struggles to figure out why alien visitors to Earth have responded to a Christmas carol when nothing else has gotten through to them. Some stories, such as "In Coppelius's Toyshop," strike a darker tone or tackle the issue of faith directly, as in "Epiphany." Not all the stories hit--the pod-people premise of "Newsletter" is both too mean-spirited and not pointed enough to work--but those that do are sweet and sharp, whimsical and heartfelt, funny and warm, just like the Christmas stories, movies, and TV episodes Willis recommends at the end of this volume. Fans of Willis' gently comic speculative fiction will love this collection, and it will also appeal to readers looking to get into the holiday spirit.

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October 15, 2017

Willis (Crosstalk) gifts readers with an expanded, updated edition of her previously published Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, which includes five new pieces and lists of suggested Christmas viewing and reading. Whether the story features the Spirit of Christmas Present (the gift kind, and the here-and-now kind), artificial intelligence that seems like a real girl, or aliens from another planet, these tales all manage to restore at least some of their characters' festive spirit or serve up justice. VERDICT There are a few blasts from the past in the previously published selections as characters use "the Net" and make "Xerox" copies, but overall this collection of wryly funny, off-kilter stories offers an excellent alternative to the usual sentimental holiday fare while still reflecting Willis's love of Christmas.

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