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Fire Watch

"Fire Watch" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Connie Willis. The story, first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in February 1982,[1] involves a time-traveling historian who goes back to the Blitz in London, to participate in the fire lookout at St. Paul's Cathedral.

The protagonist has 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 in the protagonist's own time.

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 while time-traveling in the 14th century.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 92
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780962172595
  • Genres
  • fiction, fantasy, historical
  • Release date
  • 2010