Inside Job

Inside Job is the 2005 Hugo Award winning novella by Connie Willis. Inside Job is a modern day paranormal mystery story with a generous helping of pop culture, literature, and movie references. Rob is a the publisher of a skeptic's magazine The Jaundiced Eye and a professional debunker. His job description is pretty much what it sounds like: he, and his staff of one, debunks claims of the paranormal. When his employee, more of a side kick, calls him about a new claim to debunk, Rob is brought into a mystery of the paranormal which might be more real than he could expect. While other reviews and descriptions have given away details of the plot which could entice a reader, there is something to be said for letting the novella surprise the reader. Inside Job offers up a fun and sometimes silly story about skepticism, Hollywood, fake psychics and the literary tradition (yes, Willis weaves all of this together in fewer than one hundred pages). References to noted skeptic and reporter from the early 20th Century, H.L. Mencken abound and this adds to the narrative. More specifically, Inside Job is somewhat built around Mencken's ideas as each chapter opens with a Mencken quote. Willis has written a fine, fun novella and without knowing what else was nominated for the Hugo that year, I can certainly see why Inside Job won. It's a good, fast, fulfilling read. The time investment is small, but now I want to read more of Connie Willis's work. That's the mark of a good book, no matter what the size. -Joe Sherry

When the hero in Heinlein's Glory Road meets the heroine, one of his less arousing impressions is innate grace, poise and perhaps dignity, such that no contortion could distract from her beauty. While Connie Willis is not (yet) the Empress of the known galaxies, and might perhaps even have an unflattering photo on her driver's license, even her least-wonderful work is still wonderful, rewarding the first reading but also the second and fifth. Your humble reviewer had never even read a romance, but a sub-plot and some dialog in To Say Nothing of the Dog opened my eyes. The leading lady of Inside Job may indeed be "too good to be true," but I found that aspect helped me to identify with the not-very-romantic hero. Perhaps "such a one could never love me" is part of the wonder, if you pull the last petal from the daisy on "she loves me," in marriage as well as fiction? BTW, "too good to be true" came from a comic strip in Asimov's Science Fiction - the gist of which is a librarian tormenting a patron, refusing to lend her his personal copy of Inside Job. His supervisor calls it "taunting" and he says "tantalizing" - but I found it tormenting that I had not kept my copy of the magazine where Inside Job first appeared. If the stated price for 100 pages seems to much for a first taste of Connie Willis, I'd suggest her Doom's Day Book, in a completely different key but my own nominee for a classic, a book so fine that folks will be reading it in a century or six.

This actually merits closer to 3 1/2 stars in my opinion, not because it isn't good -- it is -- but because this is territory Connie Willis has already mined before and done better, and because the work is really too slight to merit its own volume. As anyone who is familiar with Willis' work knows, Willis is a fan of movies (particularly screwball romantic comedies), literature, history and spiritualists, and she revisits all of that here to amusing effect. As usual, her writing is in the first person, with lots of witty and erudite diversions from the story as her narrator, a debunker of hack telepaths, faith healers and similar hucksters, tries to prove that a popular channeler of an ancient spirit from Atlantis is a fraud, while avoiding his feelings for his sidekick, a gorgeous actress turned fellow debunker, and still managing to find time to get in lots of clever literary references, particularly the work of H.L. Mencken. In the process, Willis manages to poke fun at pop culture and celebrity while at the same time delighting in them. If you've never read Connie Willis before, this is an entertaining introduction, but she's done the literary reference/fake spiritualist/can't-quite-get-it-together romance thing better in "To Say Nothing of the Dog," and her previous short stories, particularly "Spice Pogrom," have been a better working of the screwball comedy angle. Her award winning novella "The Last Winnebago" shows how great and moving she can be when she is in form, and while I liked this one, I can't help feeling as though I'd read it before. But hey, second-rate Connie Willish is still better than just about anybody else, so I can't not recommend it, I just can't help wishing this was as good and original as her best work. If you're already a fan, you'll probably enjoy this quick and easy read. If not, start with her longer work or one of her collections, and wait until this is repackaged in a longer volume with other work.

What a great suprise - I didn't know Ms. Willis had a new book out, and I found this one! Another pleasing suprise - the copy arrived signed and numbered. Make sure to check out "Passage", "The Doomsday Book" and "To Say Nothing of the Dog" if you haven't already!

I read this in tandem with Nicholas Sparks's TRUE BELIEVER, as both are about investigative reporters, professional debunkers, who encounter what seems to be the real thing at last. Those who have read and enjoyed Sparks's bestseller need to pick up this one for an alternate view. Connie Willis has penned a spoof of mountebanks in her own style, a funny, endearing take on the men and women who pretend to reach out to the "other side," whose shams and talk show promotions and "reality TV segments" adorn our culture yet today. Her protagonist debunks fake after fake, but is taken aback but a psychic who actually seems to be channeling the legendary debunker H. L. Mencken himself, against her will. This book is short, a special edition of her novella, but those who value Willis and those who value Mencken will all want to own it, and I predict that it will be one of the more highly sought after collectors items. FIRST EDITIONS MAGAZINE recently did a story on the values of Connie Willis's backlist, and if you have not yet seen it, you're missing something. The dustjacket on INSIDE JOB is dropdead gorgeous. A splendid job all the way around, outside and inside.