D.A.

If you are an SF fan of a certain age, you remember the Heinlein "juveniles" -- books written for young readers that included good stories, appropriate messages (such as "think for yourself"), and definite, forward-thinking science fiction elements. Most of those stories stand the test of time, I think; certainly I loved every one, even when I read them as an adult. Connie Willis, whose science fiction and fantasy has made plenty of adults laugh and sigh, turns her attention to the same young audience in D.A. It's a very quick read for a grownup -- I zoomed through it in 40 minutes -- which makes the book pricey, if you judge it on a cost-per-page basis. (I got mine from the library. I recommend you do, too.) On the other hand, I have a 12-year-old grand-niece who probably wouldn't get through a long book, and I am very tempted to send her a copy at the next gift-giving occasion. The values imparted by our heroine are appropriate for the 8-to-12 reader (though I do wonder about the stink bomb...). Did I mention that it's entertaining? It is, very. To an adult, this is a chuckle; I suspect the references to annoying teachers and even-more-annoying classmates would be more powerful. I've read every word of Connie Willis's that I can get my hands on, and I admit that this isn't on the must-have pile. But I like this book, and I think it'd be a great way to turn a youngster onto science fiction.

Connie Willis' novelette D.A. is in the tradition of the best of Robert Heinlein's writings for "juveniles"...meaning that anyone over the age of 12 and under the age of death is going to find it a great read.

I'm probably too generous in giving this 4 stars, but it's fairly clever, mildly humorous, and an enjoyable read. And it IS a juvenile, after all. But I've read short stories that were longer. At best - perhaps - it's a novelette. Definitely too short to be a novella. And there's really only one character. The whole story is a gimmick, basically. Well, that's fine for a short story, I guess... But Connie Willis is one of my all-time favorite authors. When is she going to write another novel, like the superb "Passage" of 2001? And in the meantime, if she's going to write short fiction, why cheat her faithful readers by selling them as individually bound books? I wasn't very pleased when she did this with "Inside Job," her expensive 2005 novella, but it's really getting ridiculous with this book. "The Winds of Marble Arch" is supposed to be coming out in September, but that's a collection of short fiction - many (most?) of which have been published in previous collections. OK, yeah, I'll still buy it. She is, as I say, one of my very favorite authors. But I hate to be taken for a sucker. This... short story would make a nice little gift for a kid, but nothing more than that.

I may be a couple of (binary) orders of magnitude older than the target audience, but I found this short book every bit as good as Connie Willis at her best (e.g., Doomsday Book).

Witty, clever, frenetic. Good stuff. Classic Connie Willis. But more of a hardcover short story than a novel, so value for price is somewhat debatable.