Connie Willis's D.A. could stand for Dreadfully Abbreviated
Written: Feb 13 '08 (Updated Feb 13 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: clever take on a common sci-fi plot
Cons: over before it’s begun
The Bottom Line: Is it a good thing that this novelette leaves you wishing there was more?
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| Greatpilgrim's Full Review: Connie Willis - D.A. |
At the library’s new book display, a slender hardback only a little larger than the average pocket PC leapt out at me. The name of the author rang a bell – Connie Willis writes quirky sci-fi and speculative fiction and has won Hugo and Nebula awards – and the dark-hued cover was appealing in a low-budget futuristic way; but I’ll admit, it was the compact size that appealed to me the most. So I’m not sure how much right I have to complain about getting exactly what I asked for – an unintimidatingly short read.
D.A. begins at Winfrey High where Theodora Baumgarten is minding her own business as the school’s requisite against-the-flow misfit, quietly avoiding the Academy fever that has seized the rest of the school. She couldn’t care less about joining the IASA space program, unlike Coriander and all the other application-crazy students who have been trying to make themselves as attractive as possible to the admissions program. So when the student body is summoned to attend the announcement of the new inductee to the space Academy, Theodora is the last person in the school – possibly in the country – that anyone expects to be chosen, least of all herself. Before she can file an official complaint, Theodora finds herself not only the newest recruit but a full-fledged space cadet launched into orbit. As Star Trek has so plainly taught us, resistance is futile…unless your best friend is a hacker (like Theodora’s highschool ally Kimkim and her mad info retrieval skills) and you yourself are a devious free-thinker not afraid to buck the system.
Clocking in at 77 pages (including a few oddly photoshopped B&W illustrations) with double-spacing and lots of blank space on the page, this book definitely qualifies as a novelette (i.e. a story under 17,500 words according to the SF Nebula Awards website). It can be read at light speed - I finished it in about 15 minutes – making it an attractive choice for those who don’t have much time for a long involved novel.
Told in confidential first-person narration by Theodora, the screwball story is tight and minimal with a limited number of events, though in the course of solving the mystery Willis throws out brief diversionary observations along the way (like the mention of a fellow cadet dragooned into service, Jeffrey Griggs, who’d be “perfect” for Theodora but who never materializes). It’s not the plot itself that is so inventive, however, but the sci-fi (and academic) conventions, parodied and rejected in a light-hearted manner. Remember how badly Luke Skywalker wanted to go the imperial Academy in A New Hope ? This kind of blind zeal for acceptance into an elite training program, regardless of the intent and principles of said training, is scorned by the cynical heroine, who works with her grounded hacker friend in subverting the system and figuring out why the IASA needs to coerce any new recruits when there are millions of students dying to take a crack at Academy life. Yet Theodora herself is a little close-minded, so rabidly anti-establishment are her views, and I was glad to see this addressed too by the end of the novelette.
In fact, I was finding the story so intriguing that I was caught off-guard by the abruptness of the conclusion and left wishing the story had been fleshed out into a larger work. Usually leaving the reader wanting more is a good thing – better certainly than wishing a story would have ended a few hundred pages ago – but in this case I think there was enough content in D.A. to warrant a longer, fully-fledged sci-fi novel, with more tension and development of the ironic themes in the story. I also would have liked a few more establishing details of Earth’s current culture and the time/technological evolutions in which the story is set. Again, this is unusual for a sci-fi novel; usually I skip over the technical details, but Connie Willis left me curious about the world she has created and hoping vainly for more illumination on the scientific conventions that dictate the plot.
As short as the story is, I thought the small cast of characters were very boldly drawn and sympathetic, though languishing from the same cry for elaboration as the plot. I would have liked to get to know Theodora over the course of a whole novel; Willis really nails her teenaged skepticism while keeping her likeable. I occasionally rolled my eyes at the dialogue in D.A.– no teenager actually uses slang like “incred” – but I also liked the down-to-earth, snarky tone of Theodora’s narrative and the edginess of her extremely gifted friend Kimkim. This attitude (and the emphasis on information hacking) gives the story a cyberpunk feel even though the story is only half set on Earth.
Not exceedingly complex, Connie Willis’s style nevetheless is a step and a half above what can reasonably expect from the sci-fi genre. With language that young adults would certainly find accessible, D.A. also is smartly written enough that adults shouldn’t condemn it solely to the YA shelf. Little touches like naming the spaceship the Robert E. Heinlein and poking fun at the proliferation of acronyms in sci-fi novels add a dimension of depth to the shortness of the story, without crossing into the realm of silliness that authors like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett typify. This isn’t so much a parody as a satire of sci-fi’s conventionality and lack of creativity, so its humor stays subdued and quirky, and very tasty it is too.
Indeed, the only reason I knocked two stars off of D.A. is for its excessive brevity. Like a Helpful review at Epinions that could use some embellishment, this novelette is worth reading if you don’t mind the questions it leaves you hanging with. If there weren’t so many chapters, this might have worked well in one of Connie Willis’s short story collections; as it is, this hardback book starts at $20.00 used or new. I enjoyed reading my library copy, and I recommend that you seek it out at yours; but it’s too insubstantial to merit a place in one’s home collection unless you are a diehard Willis fan. (No, not THAT Willis! :)
D.A.
Author: Connie Willis
Publisher: Subterranean Press (June 25, 2007)
Pages: 80 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1596061200
ISBN-13: 978-1596061200
For great sci-fi stories, I also recommend...
The Martian Chronicles
Recommended:
Yes
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Greatpilgrim
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