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"Of course the first thing I looked for was the fire watch stone. And of course it wasn't there yet."

When @CSeydel mentioned To Say Nothing of the Dog a few days ago, it inspired me to look back at the Oxford time travel series, and I found this book of short stories as part of the series I hadn't read yet.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

I love Connie Willis's novels, but this collection of short stories was a mixed bag. I did enjoy very much the title story, “Fire Watch“, featuring her Oxford time travellers.

This is my #1985 entry for the #192025 challenge. @Librarybelle

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Am not usually a big short story fan. I find that if I lose focus for even a short time, I can never really get back into the story because it‘s too short. I‘ve missed too much. So, as usual, I didn‘t follow more than half the stories. A few were ok, but overall, I wasn‘t a fan. Something I did like was that she had a short introduction to each story. I liked many of those better than the stories!

It's always hard to rate a book of short stories... a couple of these I absolutely loved, a few more I liked, a couple were meh, and one left me feeling ill. So I'm giving it a 3.5 stars. The titular story is set in the Oxford Time Travel world and deserved 5 stars, but I'm going with my average for the whole book.

Third book I've read by Willis. Her speech at the Hugo Awards three (?) years ago was also a thing of beauty.

Her writing has such a characteristic empathy for people. Her characters want to be good people and help others. Yet such tragedy.

Not a very enthusiastic pick because I really didn‘t like some of the stories (loved a few of them). 3 out of 5 stars.

Getting to the end of Fire Watch. The titular story is still our favorite