Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis

I recently reread parts of Miracle and Other Christmas Stories (New York: Bantam, 2000) by Connie Willis, a gift from one of my daughters (Thanks!). (for more on Willis, see this unofficial web page; Wikipedia article) Willis is one of the best science fiction authors of our time, and, I believe, has more Nebula and Hugo awards than any other author, living or dead. Her writing is probably more accessible to people who don't generally read science fiction than that of most other science fiction authors. I think everybody ought to read her Bellwether, which is short, but her best book is Doomsday Book, which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The first of these is about fads, and how they get started. The second is about time travel to the Middle Ages. Her books give a great amount of ordinary, and often frustrating, ordinary detail about what the characters are experiencing. Willis is at least respectful of Christianity. There is, for example, a monk who is a great example of unselfish devotion to God and others in Doomsday Book.

Miracle is a collection of stories. I won't consider all of them, but will muse briefly about two.

"Cat's Paw" relates to environmental ethics. It supposes that a wealthy woman is trying to integrate apes into human society. The apes have implanted vocal apparatus, and are able to read. They actually prove their "worth" to the narrator, who had some doubts, in a most interesting way (I won't give away the plot -- there certainly is one). The Christmas aspect is that this story takes place in an English country mansion, at Christmastime, but there isn't a lot about Christmas. Some of the stories are much more intimately related to various aspects of Christmas, however, and, as is typical with Willis, they include lots of frustrations for her characters, about the office party, or about getting gifts, or about finding a husband.

Here's a quotation from one of the stories:
They had never recognized Him. Isaiah had plainly predicted a virgin who would bring forth a child "out of the root of Jesse," a child who would redeem Israel. But nobody had thought that meant a baby in a stable.
They had thought he was talking about a warrior, a king who would raise an army and drive the hated foreigners out of the country, a hero on a white horse who would vanquish their enemies and set them free. And He had, but not in the way they expected.
Nobody had expected Him to be a poor itinerant preacher from an obscure family, with no college degree and no military training, a nobody. Even the Wise Men had expected Him to be royalty. "Where is the king whose star we have seen in the east?" they had asked Herod. "Epiphany," pp. 233-288, in Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. New York: Bantam, 2000. Quote is from p. 270.

This story has many quotations from the Bible, and characters look to the Bible for guidance. The only thing I will say about the plot is that it concerns a preacher who believes he has had a revelation about Christ's second coming.

In some cultures, Christmas hasn't come yet, and in others, there are twelve days of Christmas, so this should still be within the deadline.

Thanks for reading.