"Fire Watch" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novelette by American writer

Connie Willis Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born December 31, 1945), commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards tha ...

. The story, first published in ''

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publicatio ...

'' in February 1982, involves a time-traveling historian who goes back to

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

in London, to participate in the

fire lookout A fire lookout (partly also called a fire watcher) is a person assigned the duty to look for fire from atop a building known as a fire lookout tower. These towers are used in remote areas, normally on mountain tops with high elevation and a ...

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gra ...

Plot

The narrator is a student historian from a future where historians use time-travel to study history directly. He had prepared himself to visit

St. Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

in the first century but instead gets sent to St. Paul's Cathedral in 1940. He develops a deep emotional attachment to the cathedral and is highly devoted to his role in defending it – especially due to his bitter knowledge that St. Paul's would survive the World War II bombings but would be obliterated in a terrorist attack nearer to the protagonist's own time.

Reception

The story won both a

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

and a

Nebula Award for Best Novelette The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to a science fiction or fantasy novelette. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,50 ...

Relationships to other Willis works

"Fire Watch" (1982) was included in Willis' short-story collections '' Fire Watch'' (1984) and ''The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories'' (2013). The idea of a time-traveling history department at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, introduced in this novelette, was also used in her later novels ''Doomsday Book'' (1992), ''

To Say Nothing of the Dog ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'': ''or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last'' is a 1997 comic science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It used the same setting, including time-traveling historians, which Willis explored in '' Fire Watch'' ...

'' (1997), and ''

Blackout/All Clear ''Blackout'' and ''All Clear'' are the two volumes that constitute a 2010 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. ''Blackout'' was published February 2, 2010 by Spectra. The second part, the conclusion ''All Clear'', was releas ...

'' (2010), as was the character of Professor James Dunworthy. Although Willis' writing of "Fire Watch" predates the production of ''Doomsday Book'' by about a decade, Kivrin Engle, the main character of ''Doomsday Book'', also appears as a minor character in "Fire Watch". The novelette references Engle's experience with the

Black Plague The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causin ...

while time-traveling in the 14th century.

References

External links

Text of the story
at

Infinity Plus ''Infinity Plus'' (sometimes stylized as ''infinity plus'' and ''infinityplus'') was a science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futu ...

* Science fiction short stories Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works Nebula Award for Best Novelette-winning works 1982 short stories {{1980s-sf-story-stub

Plot

Reception

Relationships to other Willis works

See also

References

External links