{"id":1177,"date":"1999-03-02T08:36:18","date_gmt":"1999-03-02T08:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2012-04-25T08:37:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T08:37:18","slug":"to-say-nothing-of-the-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=1177","title":{"rendered":"To Say Nothing of the Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em>T<\/em><em>o Say Nothing of the Dog<\/em> by Connie             Willis<\/h3>\n<p>The most recent novel by Connie Willis drew a sizable             crowd. Seven people attended the discussion in person,             and two others submitted comments by e-mail. The book             in question is a time travel novel with the same basic             setup as Willis&#8217;s Hugo-winning <em>Doomsday Book<\/em>.             This time, a time-traveling historian is sent back to             Victorian England. He was so tired at the onset that he             never clearly understood his mission, so he spends much             of the book trying to figure out what he&#8217;s supposed to             do. Along the way, he stumbles into a series of             humorous romantic adventures reminiscent of the works             of P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, and Dorothy L.             Sayers.<\/p>\n<p>Several members of our group loved this book so much             that they were ready to award Ms. Willis the 1999 Hugo             before the votes are even cast. The writing style<!--more--> was             generally deemed technically excellent, and the             characters were quite human and well depicted. Many             reported laughing out loud while reading the book.             Those who&#8217;d previously read turn-of-the-century British             comedy particularly enjoyed the many references to             famous works like <em>Three Men in a Boat<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A few did not find the book as successful. One person             who did not like Victorian comedies in general felt             that this book had &#8220;too many words&#8221; and that it should             be labeled &#8220;Warning: British Humor.&#8221; Another person who             liked British humor felt that this book&#8217;s attempts at             comedy fell short of the brilliance of Wodehouse et al,             and made him want to set this book down so that he             could reread <em>The Code of the Woosters<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, Ms. Willis has delivered a noteworthy SF             novel. We may have disagreed about how much we liked             it, but it made for a lively discussion.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212; A. T. Campbell, III<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis The most recent novel by Connie Willis drew a sizable crowd. Seven people attended the discussion in person, and two others submitted comments by e-mail. The book in question is a time travel novel with the same basic setup as Willis&#8217;s Hugo-winning Doomsday Book. This time, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}