The Winds of Marble Arch: Personal Correspondence and Travel Guides

Title: The Winds of Marble Arch (Personal Correspondence and Travel Guides)
Author: Connie Willis
Pub Date: 2007
Genre: Science Fiction; Short Stories
Nutshell: The second and third sets of short stories in the collection.

Each of these sections had two stories, so I combined them.

First, Personal Correspondence, which is comprised of "A Letter from the Clearys" and "Newsletter." Second, Travel Guides, which includes "Fire Watch" and "Nonstop to Portales."

"A Letter from the Clearys": Another teenage girl as narrator, this time in a post-apocalyptic future living somewhere around Pike's Peak. It centers around a trip to the post office and the letter she retrieves there.

"Newsletter": A humorous one, wherein people start acting entirely too nice around Christmas, and of course, there has to be something wrong.

"Fire Watch": This is a prequel to the Time Travel series, where some of the ins-and-outs of the program are detailed. It takes place in London, 1940, during the Blitz, which is also where the last two books also occur. The main characters from Doomsday Book are present, and Kivrin's trip to the Middle Ages may have already happened.

"Nonstop to Portales": An ode to sci-fi author Jack Williamson.

I enjoyed "Fire Watch," but I'm not nearly as interested in the Blitz as Willis obviously is, so it always takes a bit of effort to get through those. "Newsletter" was funny, and was probably my favorite so far.