Subject: Review: "Uncharted Territory" by Connie Willis

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 08 Apr 1997 18:15:11 GMT

"Uncharted Territory" by Connie Willis
		A Postview, copyright 1997 p-m agapow

A collection of a novella and two short stories: "Uncharted Territory" -
Finn and Carson are two famous and daring explorers, charged with charting
a new planet.  But the reality is somewhat different, with them
squabbling, hamstrung with a eager but ignorant new partner, a soap opera
being made of their life, technology smugglers and an obsessive
non-interference policy.  "Fire Watch" - a time traveller arrives in
London during the Blitz, to save St Paul's from incendiary bombs and
saboteurs.  "Even the Queen" - in an age where women routinely refrain
from menstruation, an harassed judge struggles with family politics after
her daughter joins a regressive cult.

Connie Willis is always enjoyable, if now perhaps a little predictable.
If you've read "At the Rialto" or "Remake" or, to a lesser extent "The
Doomsday Book," then "Uncharted Territory" will feel very familiar.  This
is not to say that it is derivative or a rehash of her previous work, but
that her style is fairly established.  There a lot of good things about
her style: a quiet and dry humour, a dab hand at characterisation and an
honesty as well.  The last being illustrated in the title story by natives
trying to sell their own planet out from under their own feet, thanks to
the "hands-off" exploring power.

But there is a sense that Willis tells her stories for the twist in the
tail, the big hook or joke or shaggy dog line at the end.  Where the story
is extended, as the title novella is, the strain starts to show.
"Uncharted Territory" isn't a bad story, but is a little long for the
destination it finally arrives at.  Those looking for hard science will
also be a little disappointed, as they will in any Willis work.
Technology is just a background detail to her and the characters and the
world more important ingredients.  Actually the entire novella could be
short-circuited by use of modern satellite surveying techniques, but so
what.

Far shorter and much punchier is "Fire Watch," featuring some gloomy and
realistic bombing raid scenes.  Shorter again and giving even more bang-
for-buck is "Even the Queen," where dialogue and details are tossed
rapidly past the reader.  One ends up with the weird situation where the
centre piece of the collection is outshone by the successively shorter and
more auxiliary pieces.

Perhaps a little slight, perhaps a little overlong, "Uncharted Territory"
is still great fun.  Enjoy it guiltlessly over your next holiday.
[***/interesting] and a Howard Hawks comedy on the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Connie Willis
%B Uncharted Territory
%I Hodder and Stoughton
%C London
%D 1994
%G ISBN 0-450-61748-3
%P 218pp
%O paperback, Aus$12.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]
"There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."