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Book Review: The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis
When a woman who doesn’t believe in aliens comes to Roswell for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding, she’s shocked to find herself abducted by an alien and driving all over the southwest at his tentacled bidding.
Summary:
When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.
Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.
But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is.
Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?
Review:
Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of my favorite scifi/romance/comedy reads of all time (review). I’m also a huge fan of the American Southwest, so when I heard about this book, it went on my wishlist immediately. (Shout-out to my siblings-in-law for the birthday present). This was definitely a rollicking, feel-good read, which was just what I needed.
Francie is a fun main character. Jumping right into her being at the airport on her way to a wedding she wants to help her old college roommate see is probably a bad idea builds up the identification and empathy right away. Who among us hasn’t had a friend in a questionable relationship? She doesn’t believe the alien stuff of everyone else at Roswell, but she’s kind about it. (She doesn’t go around calling them names in her head).
When she is abducted by an alien who looks like a tumbleweed who can’t speak but can only force her to drive with his tentacles and gesturing seriously in the direction he wants to go, I was hooting. What a fun idea for an alien species Indy is! I also like how the crux of the issue between humans and Indy is the difficulty in communication. Unlike a lot of scifi, he doesn’t just show up with a translator. Communication is a big problem and leads to a lot of comedic situations (including the, ahem, abduction). I was particularly fond of how Indy keeps semi-accidentally adding more people to his collection of abductees due to miscommunication.
The American Southwest is lovingly depicted from the glorious sunsets to the shocking vast emptiness, not to mention the overwhelming situation that is Las Vegas (right on down to an Elvis impersonator). Dusted on top of these depictions are quotes from various westerns (including a lot from one of my favorites, Support Your Local Sheriff). Movie westerns and how they reflect (accurately and inaccurately) the American Southwest are cleverly added via a character who is obsessed with them.
So I loved the setting, the plot, Francie, and Indy. The humor wasn’t quite working for me in the way it has in other books of hers, though. It didn’t ever bother me it just didn’t tickle my funny bone. That didn’t matter, because the book was still feel-good for me. But it did keep it from rocketing up to new favorite territory. There is also one infuriating scene where Francie is trying to get in touch with other people without Indy hearing and she, bafflingly, calls and leaves voicemails rather than texting. I just cannot think of a single person Francie’s age I know who would ever default to calling and not texting in a regular situation, let alone one where you want to not be overheard. (I mean, you can even text 911 these days….) I understand for the point of the plot that calling needed to happen but then we needed a reason for it. Maybe Francie’s texts wouldn’t go through. Maybe she lost her smartphone in the airport and had to borrow her friend’s old flip-phone. Something. This is a minor quibble though in a book that was generally a delight.
Overall, this a feel-good scifi read with a dash of romance and a very lovable alien. Perfect for scifi lovers wanting an escapist read or romance readers wanting a no spice read with a dash of something different.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 405 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Gift
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Book Review: Bellwether by Connie Willis
Summary:
Sandra Foster studies fads and their meanings for the HiTek corporation. Bennet O’Reilly works with monkey group behavior and chaos theory for the same company. When the two are thrust together due to a misdelivered package and a run of seemingly bad luck, they find a joint project in a flock of sheep.
Review:
This was given to me eons ago because of how much I love To Say Nothing of the Dog (review) by Connie Willis. This book has a similar sense of humor that definitely kept me entertained but the plot and backstory that ties it all together didn’t hit quite the same loved it nerve with me.
I loved seeing a book set in the mountain range area of the country (Colorado to be precise). I feel like this doesn’t happen often enough in books. I also found there was a real nostalgia quality to the book because it was first published in 1996 and set in its own time-period, so the whole thing just screamed 90s nostalgia to me. This played in well to Sandra’s fad studies. It gave the book a good reason to notice and talk about the fads, and this held up well over time. What originally was a “oh look at this silly thing people are doing right now” became “hey remember when West Coast coffee was first a thing?” I also really appreciated that a social science was featured at the core of a scifi book. Not just that but a scientist of a science deemed more important and sciencey (chaos theory) ends up working with her and respecting her research and its methods. Super cool.
While I thought the research study was cool, I wasn’t as huge of a fan of the competition to receive the grant of a lifetime plot. I appreciated Sandra working to save her job, but the big grant loomed overhead from the very beginning like a deus ex machina. Sandra’s disdain for her coworkers wanting to ban smoking from the building as a fad really didn’t translate well over time. This wasn’t a fad; it was a public health policy, and it rubbed me wrong every time Sandra implied it was like the whole are eggs good or bad for you debate. Second-hand smoke is just bad for you, and unlike a coworker eating an egg, it can actually impact your health if you’re around it. I’m sure it was funnier in the 90s but it didn’t work so well now, and it honestly made me dislike Sandra a bit.
Overall, scifi fans looking for a humorous plot with a female lead, an unusual focus on the social sciences with a dash of 1990s nostalgia will enjoy this book.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 248 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Gift
Counts For:
Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge
Book Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Summary:
Ned Henry is a time-traveling historian at Oxford, who has unfortunately been assigned to Lady Shrapnell’s quest to recreate an historic church. For the last…god knows how long, he’s been searching for the bishop’s bird stump in the 1940s. He finds himself suffering from time-lag and is promised a vacation in Victorian England where Lady Shrapnell can’t find him. Of course, the Oxford historians need him to take care of one teeny tiny little incongruity caused by fellow time-traveling historian, Verity, who just so happens to be as beautiful as a naiad. Of course, that could just be the time-lag talking.
Review:
Wow. Wow. I literally hugged this book multiple times as I was reading it. I love it that much. You know that old Looney Tunes cartoon with the abominable snowman who finds Bugs Bunny and then scoops him up and rocks him saying, “I will hug him and love him and squeeze him and call him George” ? If I was the abominable snowman, this book would be my Bugs Bunny.
It is incredibly witty in that highly intelligent manner that expects you to be educated to get the joke. Multiple references to classic literature, historic events, and more tossed around as quips and comparisons to events characters are currently going through. It also features the put-upon hero, Ned, who maintains a good sense of humor about the whole thing in that lovely self-deprecating way that makes me wish the character could pop out of the book and be my best friend.
Additionally, I love history as long-time readers of this blog know. History was one of my two majors in university. I was the 7 year old girl who sat around watching war movies and PBS documentaries. I also love scifi. Hence, the entire concept of time-travel is one of my all-time favorite things, and Willis handles it so intelligently and beautifully! I love that time travel is something only the academics do since everyone else finds it dull once it’s discovered they can’t loot from the past. It makes so much sense! I love the implication that non-academics are quite happy with shopping malls while Ned and Verity go traipsing around through the past navigating a world distantly related to our own. One of my favorite moments is when Ned discovers that Victorians actually used exclamations like “pshaw” that are found in Victorian novels. It’s a historian’s dream come true!
Finally, a significant portion of the storyline revolves around cats. Adding an extra layer of awesome to this is the fact that cats are extinct in the future, so Ned has never encountered one before. He makes the initial mistake of thinking cats are like dogs. Any cat lovers, I’m sure, can envision the hilarity that ensues from this little thought process. Also, seriously, Willis clearly understands animals perfectly. The mannerisms of the cats and the bull dog, Cyril, are written to a T.
Put together humor, time travel, history, and animals, and this is the perfect read. If you enjoy any one of those things, but definitely if you enjoy more than one of them, you absolutely must give this book a chance. I haven’t loved a book this much in years, and I just….I just want to spread the love. I also want to go re-read it right now.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
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