Finding Miracle while sorting was, well, a miracle. As I have stated (repeatedly) I think Connie Willis is just this side of godly when it comes to her writing. When I flipped over the box and looked at what had fallen out I grabbed it and stared so long that Ruin13 had time to ask me what I had found. Since I had just recently harassed her enough to finally read To Say Nothing Of the Dog, she knew how very valuable a find this was.

Miracle And Other Christmas Stories is only available at Christmas time (can’t understand that.) Last year I attempted to get it as a Christmas gift. This year I didn’t leave it up to chance and breathlessly anticipated finishing the book I had been reading so I could dig in.

Unfortunately for me, this is no Impossible Things. In Impossible Things there are 11 stories, 7 of which are my absolute favorite. It makes sense if you understand the caliber and depth of Willis’ storytelling, when she’s at the top of her form, where she seems to spend most of her time.

She is not at the top of her form here. We are offered 8 stories, 2 of which are prime Willis, 1 is ok and the other 5 are half baked at best. But I feel a guided tour is in order.

Introduction
Willis seems to know she isn’t at her best with this collection and sets about explaining how difficult it is to write a Christmas story that isn’t a cheap rip off of the nativity, It’s a Wonderful Life, or a Christmas Carol. I think she means this as a warning.

Miracle
Main character’s sister accidentally sends her a spirit. The Spirit of Christmas Present (as in ‘gift,’ not ‘now.’ I find it helps if you repeat with the correct pronunciation.) Through the annoying help of the Spirit she gets what she really wants for Christmas even though she didn’t know she wanted it. The dialogue sparkles. There are lots of satirical, sharp points made. Unfortunately, the story never quite crosses the finish line. Some where near the end you can almost hear Willis saying "oh cr@p, how am I going to end this thing?"

Inn
Mary and Joseph get lost on the way to Bethlehem and end up in a church a couple days before Christmas in modern America. Overlooking the fact that Jesus wasn’t actually born in December, this story still doesn’t make it. There are some quite funny scenes of a poor choir member trying to hide the holy parents from the assistant minister who thinks they are just homeless people.

In Coppelius’ Toyshop
Total jerk of a man gets trapped in a display in a toy store, apparently forever. The toy store is wonderful and the man is a very good jerk, but he never gets any kind of redemption. Maybe he’s waiting for an Easter story.

The Pony
Psychiatrist watching her niece open gifts and talking about how people never get what they really want because they don’t ask for it when suddenly everyone starts getting what they really want. This story ends with a large gift being delivered for the psychiatrist who once asked for a pony for Christmas. Hmm. It’s big enough to be a pony. My question here was, what did people do when they finally got what they really wanted? Did the tomboy niece who got the doll suddenly realize she liked ruffles and tea parties? Did the patient with the ruby necklace realize that her mother was never going to be happy no matter what she got? What did the psychiatrist do with the pony? There’s a story here, but it’s not this one.

Adaptation
I did like this one a little. It’s about a bookstore clerk who is slowly being deprived of his daughter by his ex-wife and starts meeting the ghosts from A Christmas Carol. It still doesn’t have a satisfying end, but the setting and the ghosts almost make up for that. Especially if you work in a bookstore.

Cat’s Paw
This is an old fashioned murder mystery after the fashion of an Arthur Conan Doyle knock off. Christmas was thrown in as an after thought.

Newsletter
This one was prime Willis. Aliens are taking over the world right before Christmas and our heroes must stop them. Or should they. The aliens are making everybody really nice and polite. I found two things about this story very, very funny. One, it requires an alien invasion to make people act civilized at Christmas time. Two, when the heroine needs to do research in a bookstore with an unhelpful, unfriendly, unknowledgeable staff, where does she go? BARNES & NOBLE! It’s not just because they’re the competition, I just never liked B&N. And ever since the day I asked for a phone book and the book seller looked it up in the computer I haven’t had any confidence in their staff either. Newsletter is still one of the best ever, including the stories in Impossible Things.

Epiphany
The premise of Epiphany sounds like a bad joke, but it’s a good story. A minister, a biologist and a retired English teacher head West looking for the Rapture. Lots of really meaty scripture and some X Files over tones. I think it could have been twice as long without suffering (maybe they could have ditched Cat’s Paw and the Pony.)

I won’t not recommend Miracle because the last two stories are really good and Adaptation isn’t bad, but I would check it out of the library if I were you. And then just read those three stories. The rest is just too frustrating.


Recommended: Yes