Summerbook #4: The Road to Roswell

By -


 The Road to Roswell, by Connie Willis

This was such a fun read!  Connie Willis is now in her 80s, and this is her last novel to date, published in 2023.  I've had a copy waiting to be read for a while now.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but what I got was Willis reveling in chaos and many of her usual trademark strategies until everything comes together in a precarious but satisfying ending.

Francie is headed to the wedding of her college roommate/BFF's wedding in Roswell.  Serena has a penchant for odd guys, and this one is a UFO nut.  Francie considers it her job to figure out if Serena really wants to marry him or not, and back her up either way.  So she arrives in Roswell in the middle of a UFO festival and rolls her eyes at the crowds of people who believe in alien abductions, since those are obviously not real.  So she's quite surprised when an alien does, in fact, abduct her.

This alien looks kind of like a tumbleweed and is totally silent, communicating by pointing out the window at where he(?) wants to go.  He's also very very fast.  Can he understand what Francie says?  She's not sure.  But they hit the road in Serena's car and, since the alien grabs anyone who sees him, there is soon a motley crew of people driving across Nevada, trying to figure out what Indy, as they name him, even wants.  We have Wade, a cute and cheerful con-man, Lyle the conspiracy nut, Eula May the sweet gambling granny, and Joseph the RVing cowboy film fan.  As this company bounces around empty desert roads, Francie and Wade work on communicating with Indy and sometimes each other.

It was really a fun romp.  I haven't spent hours glued to a fun new book for a long time, so it was just what I wanted.


Comments

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

Summerbook #9: The Deorhord

By -
Image
The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary, by Hana Videen This followup to The Wordhord was a lovely read.  Videen uses her wordhord format to write a bestiary, explaining how medieval people loved to used animals as examples of Christian ideas.   Plus I always enjoy learning about Old English words, because they are often cognate with both modern English and with Danish.  Deor (animal), which in English evolved into deer , is also related to Danish dyr  (animal). Videen has sections of everyday animals, 'wonder' animals (such as elephants), creatures that especially symbolized good and evil, and just plain mysteries.  The good animals are the lion, deer, phoenix, and panther, and the evil ones are the whale, snake, dragon, and wolf.  The mysteries are usually taken from Alexander the Great's writings about his conquest of India; one sounds kind of like a crocodile, except that it has a head like the moon and also crocodiles were well-known.  Another...
Read more

Tristran

By -
Image
Tristran , by Thomas of Britain One of the earlier versions of the Tristan and Isolde tale is one by "Thomas of Britain," who was probably writing for the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  It's all rather fuzzy, but the clues seem to point that way, and certainly Thomas was writing for a courtly audience who expected certain things out of the story.  This divides Thomas' story from the earlier Beroul, who is known as 'primitive' in contrast. This tale of Tristran and Ysolt only survives in fragments.  There are about 50 pages of material, and they start with the story already well underway.  Tristran is living in the wilderness alone, after King Mark's suspicions got to be too much.  In a truly strange addition, Tristran has life-like mechanical statues made of Ysolt and Brangvein (and their dog!).  He keeps them in a cave, which he visits to lament his awful fate.   Before long he marries Ysolt of the White Hands, and Thomas includes a long lament o...
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he ...
Read more