This book, about half-way through, does something one may not do half-way through a novel, and then continues, unabashed. I adore it.

Ugh. I'm sorry, Connie, I like what I've read by you in the past, but I don't think this relationship can go any further. You have some neat ideas, and granted, Doomsday Book was amazing, but dammitall, your writing style is just too unimodal for me. Every single one of your books seems to be filled with this frantic energy of characters rushing around in a frenetic frenzy for several hundred pages; after a while, it just gets tiring. After the three books I've finished, it's just gotten old.I l...

I will repeat my original review of this book here:I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend this novel. You will most likely wind up staying up all night to find out how it ends, and I also don't think it's healthy to hold your breath so long as I did while caught up in the final chapters.This is a brilliant, deeply engaging, philosophical piece of neuroscience-fiction that manages to ponder the Big Questions while maintaining an easy conversational style, numerous moments of both tears and l...

I can’t believe I read this whole book. I swear, every time I picked it up, someone had added another 25 pages to it. I thought about bailing at around page 100, and then again at page 200 and even at page 300! But I loved Doomsday by this same author, and couldn’t bring myself to give up on this one. It’s about near death experiences and the Titanic; how can that combination fail to be interesting? In fact, the story was interesting, but the book was too long by about 200 pages—-mostly due to r...

The premise of this book is interesting. Dr. Joanna Lander, a psychologist, specializes in studying near-death experiences. She teams up with a neurologist, Dr. Richard Wright (which was really distracting for me because I kept thinking of the mid-20th century African American author--this character is nothing like that Richard Wright) who has developed a way to manufacture near-death experiences (NDEs) using drugs. When their volunteer test subjects all disappear for various reasons, Joanna dec...

2.5 stars. Connie Willis combines the idea research into near-death experiences (NDEs) with dreams of the Titanic disaster. A doctor develops a drug that simulates NDEs, and psychologist Joanna Lander starts repeatedly using this drug to attempt to confirm the reality of NDEs and the afterlife. Every time she takes the drug, she ends up wandering the decks of the Titanic, trying to stop the disaster. What is the meaning of this? This book has some really intriguing ideas and an interesting twist...

I was trying to not give so many 5 star ratings this year, but after having thought a bit about „Passage“ I fear I have to go for another one of the highest ratings.The novel bears the same typical Connie Willis trademarks of characters missing one another through bad timing, trying to hide from other characters, non functioning equipment or a misleading environment (in this case it is a labyrinthian design of a hospital with corridors ever so often blocked because of repair and/or being painted...

This book made a grown man cry. Granted, deferring to my partner, 'grown man' may be too strong a word, but you get my point. I'm usually cold-hearted and cynical, but Connnie Willis knows how to press my teary buttons.At the time of first reading this I had a great lecturer called Joanna who fit the description of the main character to a tee, leaving me emotionally invested in the story more than the average reader.Moving away from me sobbing like a baby, this is classic Connie Willis. Magnific...

Passage by Connie Willis - 600-page SF novel taking place some years hence in and around Mercy General Hospital in Denver, Colorado and featuring a pair of pronounced SF elements: 1) there's another new hard drug on the street that makes users crazy and violent, and 2) there's also a new medical procedure that uses specific chemicals to simulate an NDE (Near Death Experience). It's this second SF element at the heart of Ms. Willis' gripping novel. Passage is a doorstop (the audio book is nearly

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and beca

haven't read a book that knocked the breath out of me like this one did in approximately, like, an eon. cerebral, intensely emotional, + passages of airtight suspense. i feel like i raved about the last willis book i read, too. didn't i? (my account's nifty already-read backlog tells me that i indeed did.) yes, the author could've shaved off a hundred pages or three, and the har-har elbowed joke of a supporting character cast (all! of them! stereotyped to the last dotted i and crossed t!) got pr...

This book is kind of a beautiful mess. I can think of few other authors with the equal ability to drive me absolutely insane and keep me reading, usually with a lump in my throat. This is my third Connie Willis novel. To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of my favorite books of all time, a comedic farce wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a sci-fi novel. It is probably too long and a lot of the plot relies on misunderstandings, miscommunication, missed connections and narrative dead ends. Doomsday Book

"Passage" is a remarkable work from a remarkable author. I've read it at least twice and it still blows me away. Willis treats the great question of what happens when we die with humor and sadness. Her treatment of the subject of dementia rang especially true. I had visited my grandmother in the nursing home (many, many miles away) when she was very far gone with senile dementia. She was completely unaware of her surrounding. Some of the things she was saying were eerily echoed in "Passage." I h...

I went to the library to check out Willis' Doomsday, but this was the only Connie Willis book available...There's a reason for that. It was awful.The plot plods along and, as mentioned before, the running gags are not only referenced too frequently, but they don't lend anything worthwhile to the story. The cafeteria's always closed, hallways are constantly being painted, Joanna never remembers to eat lunch but Richard's lab coat is magically a vending machine, poorly written comedy ensues... yea...

Dr. Joanna Lander is a psychologist collecting first-hand accounts of NDEs -- near-death experiences -- at a Denver hospital. Frustrated by new-age Mr. Mandrake, who keeps getting to patients ahead of her and polluting their accounts with leading questions and suggestions, Joanna eagerly joins forces with Dr. Wright, who is experimenting with simulating NDEs. However, finding volunteers who meet the criteria is tough, and keeping them is even harder. Joanna decides she should be a subject hersel...

This book left me reeling- it forces you to confront your own mortality. When I finished the book, I literally just laid on my bed with my eyes wide open. I suggested it to a friend, but she it found it "too difficult" to get into. If you're up for a deeply moving experience, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Connie Willis excels at meshing humorously satirical commentary on interpersonal relationships with insights into the human condition that are so true they almost hurt. In 'Passage,' Joanna Lander is a researcher at a large hospital investigating near-death experiences. Her work is complicated by the difficulty of interviewing people who are near-death, but especially by the new-age charlatan who insists on being considered her colleague, Dr. Mandrake. Much of Joanna's time consists of trying to...

I landed on a 4-ish stars (maybe 4.25?), partly because of things that aren't exactly the book's fault, like how aspects of it just feel adorably dated. I also find that even when I love a Connie Willis book, there is a distance with character feelings especially when it comes to romance. Which is fine! But I find myself filling in a lot of the gaps, re: the shipping and man the books would just be perfect with more depth to character feeling/romance...I actually started this two years ago and t...

It would be fair, I think, to say that Connie Willis has a formula. Take a well educated 30ish year old trying to solve an unsolveable scientific mystery. While trying avoid an incredibly annoying coworker/family member/etc, they meet a similarly inclined professional of the opposite sex who they join forces with. Armed with a general disdain for the absurdities of contemporary society and a somewhat uncanny knowledge of classic literature, they spend several hundred pages trying to piece togeth...

First things first: This is a spoiler-free review. And if you're considering reading "Passage," don't read the Wikipedia article about it first; that article includes in passing a spoiler for the most significant plot twist in the book, about three-quarters of the way through the tale."Passage" focuses on two researchers (Joanna Lander and Richard Wright) of near-death experiences (NDEs), on their subjects and friends (especially a sharp-as-a-tack nine-year-old cardiac patient, Maisie, and Joann...