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Listen, Listen
hardbound book
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
1 person is currently reading
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About the author
Kate Wilhelm
275 books447 followersKate Wilhelm’s first short story, “The Pint-Sized Genie” was published in Fantastic Stories in 1956. Her first novel, MORE BITTER THAN DEATH, a mystery, was published in 1963. Over the span of her career, her writing has crossed over the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and magical realism, psychological suspense, mimetic, comic, and family sagas, a multimedia stage production, and radio plays. She returned to writing mysteries in 1990 with the acclaimed Charlie Meiklejohn and Constance Leidl Mysteries and the Barbara Holloway series of legal thrillers.
Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit, Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.
Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.
Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction.
Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.
Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit, Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.
Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.
Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction.
Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 28, 2013
A collection of novellas, each quite odd and genre-bending.
In "The Winter Beach," a middle-aged historian is recruited to spy on a reclusive scientist who may be killing other promising scientists. The scientist cultivates her friendship, and eventually the historian starts questioning her handlers' motives. Has a sf twist I saw coming quite a ways away, and some beautiful descriptions of the forests of Oregon. Spoilers for the sf:
A boy sees something he can't explain in "Julian," and it shapes him into a strange man who eventually forms a cult around the experience. The way the experience is framed, first as something fairly normal to be skimmed past, and only later is the full weirdness revealed, was a very cool narrative choice.
"With Thimbles, with Forks and Hope" follows a retired detective and his wife, who try to save a man from a woman who has a strange power over him. Another spooky examination of reality and memory not coinciding.
"Moongate" was probably my least favorite, because I never quite got what was going on and it went on a bit too long. But again, it features ordinary people coming across something they can't rationally deal with, and the ways their brains try to explain it and remember it.
The collection finishes with a great speech given by Wilhelm in 1980, in which she discusses the various ways in which humans still aren't great at finding objective truth (from mysteries of chemistry to legends that prove to be truer than we'd assumed) and then says, "'I am asking, What actually do we mean by reality, and are we stuck with the one we have?...We are more than simple animals using sophisticated tools...We are something new on the earth...We can change reality.'"
In "The Winter Beach," a middle-aged historian is recruited to spy on a reclusive scientist who may be killing other promising scientists. The scientist cultivates her friendship, and eventually the historian starts questioning her handlers' motives. Has a sf twist I saw coming quite a ways away, and some beautiful descriptions of the forests of Oregon. Spoilers for the sf:
A boy sees something he can't explain in "Julian," and it shapes him into a strange man who eventually forms a cult around the experience. The way the experience is framed, first as something fairly normal to be skimmed past, and only later is the full weirdness revealed, was a very cool narrative choice.
"With Thimbles, with Forks and Hope" follows a retired detective and his wife, who try to save a man from a woman who has a strange power over him. Another spooky examination of reality and memory not coinciding.
"Moongate" was probably my least favorite, because I never quite got what was going on and it went on a bit too long. But again, it features ordinary people coming across something they can't rationally deal with, and the ways their brains try to explain it and remember it.
The collection finishes with a great speech given by Wilhelm in 1980, in which she discusses the various ways in which humans still aren't great at finding objective truth (from mysteries of chemistry to legends that prove to be truer than we'd assumed) and then says, "'I am asking, What actually do we mean by reality, and are we stuck with the one we have?...We are more than simple animals using sophisticated tools...We are something new on the earth...We can change reality.'"
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May 28, 2024Each of the short stories in this collection has the protagonist receiving a chaste kiss on the forehead.
September 6, 2008
Had this sort of late-seventies ickiness about it, I can't really explain it. It gave me the creeps.
January 28, 2025
After having finished "The Clone" which Theodore L. Thomas co-wrote with Kate Wilhelm, I was getting worried. Wilhelm is a fantastic writer, who brings depth & psychological to her work. "The Clone" from 1965 was simply awful. I think Wilhelm hit her stride in the late 1960s/early 1970s and that's where some of her favorite works of mine can be found, like The Abyss, The Downstairs Room, The Killer Thing, The Infinity Box, Margaret & I, Somerset Dreams and Other Fictions, The Clewiston Test, and, of course, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.
This new book, "Listen, Listen" was better than The Clone, but not her best work. Still, a good book by Wilhelm is worth more than a great book by a lesser craftswoman. It contains three novellas, one novellete, and a speech she gave on writing science fiction.
The first novella, "The Winter Beach" (1981), is the Kate Wilhelm I know and love. A hint of science fiction but an abundance of psychology, philosophy and simply beautiful writing. "Julian" (1978) is a shorter novellete that's a great story for the most part, even with its weird ending. Still, wonderful craft at work.
The novella from 1981, "With Thimbles, with Forks, and Hope", didn't do anything for me. I didn't enjoy it and ended up skimming it. I think the next novella, "Moongate" from 1978, was even worse.
The concluding essay "The Uncertain Edge of Reality" from a talk she gave at a convention in 1980, was good. Nothing spectacular like Joanna Russ's essay collection "To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction" from 1995, but still an interesting read.
This new book, "Listen, Listen" was better than The Clone, but not her best work. Still, a good book by Wilhelm is worth more than a great book by a lesser craftswoman. It contains three novellas, one novellete, and a speech she gave on writing science fiction.
The first novella, "The Winter Beach" (1981), is the Kate Wilhelm I know and love. A hint of science fiction but an abundance of psychology, philosophy and simply beautiful writing. "Julian" (1978) is a shorter novellete that's a great story for the most part, even with its weird ending. Still, wonderful craft at work.
The novella from 1981, "With Thimbles, with Forks, and Hope", didn't do anything for me. I didn't enjoy it and ended up skimming it. I think the next novella, "Moongate" from 1978, was even worse.
The concluding essay "The Uncertain Edge of Reality" from a talk she gave at a convention in 1980, was good. Nothing spectacular like Joanna Russ's essay collection "To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction" from 1995, but still an interesting read.
May 29, 2015
--Complete Spoilers--
Listen, Listen is a collection of four near-future science fiction short stories, all of which are loosely related while not being connected to each other. All four feature time related themes, two about aging and time, and two about aliens blending in with humans. In the first story, The Winter Beach, a historian is recruited by an ex-CIA agent to spy on a reclusive scientist suspected of killing other scientists who are getting close to the secret of immortality. The main character befriends the scientist and his “hired muscle” (actually another scientist) who are both immortal and have been since they discovered it in Nazi Germany. They make her immortal as well but give her a drug to forget the memory of her talking to them and of them doing it, so that she doesn’t tell the ex-CIA agent. The second, Julian, is about a boy who sees an old lady turn into a young woman after absorbing water. He becomes obsessed with it and forms a cult, eventually he tracks down and kidnaps the lady who then reveals she is an alien using the human form to avoid a deadly disease for her race. In the third, With thimbles, with forks with hope, a detective and his wife take a one last case and end up trying to save a man who is being driven to suicide by a lady with strange control over peoples will. They get the man away safely but then are confronted by the lady on a fishing ship, she had been expecting the man to come here and commit suicide so she came to observe. We learn she feeds off of emotions, and what emotions more intense than those we feel in death?
The fourth, Moongate, out in the desert a group of friends experience strange things with an area of fenced off land where they travel through time by walking into the area. When the enter they are attacked by flying orbs of light that seem to only mess with your mind and memory as they lead you out of the area. They all make it home, and all are changed.
Who might be interested in this book? Why?
People who enjoy complex characters, mystery, and fictional stories set in a close future would like this book the most. The stories all use this feeling of mystery that requires you to temporarily suspend your belief of reality and question what’s real and what’s not. Being set only a few decades in the future (its actually in the past for us, the early 2000’s) makes everything more relatable and plausible. It has great character development that really shows you the many sides of a person, putting people in tough and unusual situations brings out how they work as a person and is very satisfying to see.
Overall Satisfaction
I thought it was very good collection of stories, it made you think deeper about everything around you and in the book as well as letting you become attached to the characters who could be real people in the real world at the same time as the reader. I really enjoy things that require deeper thought and changes your views as you read, it makes it very interesting at face value as well as introspection on what you would do. The characters being so believable makes you feel hurt when they do something unexpected because you felt you knew them well enough to predict what they will do, but then they act unexpectedly (as humans tend to do) and made you think differently about the character.
Listen, Listen is a collection of four near-future science fiction short stories, all of which are loosely related while not being connected to each other. All four feature time related themes, two about aging and time, and two about aliens blending in with humans. In the first story, The Winter Beach, a historian is recruited by an ex-CIA agent to spy on a reclusive scientist suspected of killing other scientists who are getting close to the secret of immortality. The main character befriends the scientist and his “hired muscle” (actually another scientist) who are both immortal and have been since they discovered it in Nazi Germany. They make her immortal as well but give her a drug to forget the memory of her talking to them and of them doing it, so that she doesn’t tell the ex-CIA agent. The second, Julian, is about a boy who sees an old lady turn into a young woman after absorbing water. He becomes obsessed with it and forms a cult, eventually he tracks down and kidnaps the lady who then reveals she is an alien using the human form to avoid a deadly disease for her race. In the third, With thimbles, with forks with hope, a detective and his wife take a one last case and end up trying to save a man who is being driven to suicide by a lady with strange control over peoples will. They get the man away safely but then are confronted by the lady on a fishing ship, she had been expecting the man to come here and commit suicide so she came to observe. We learn she feeds off of emotions, and what emotions more intense than those we feel in death?
The fourth, Moongate, out in the desert a group of friends experience strange things with an area of fenced off land where they travel through time by walking into the area. When the enter they are attacked by flying orbs of light that seem to only mess with your mind and memory as they lead you out of the area. They all make it home, and all are changed.
Who might be interested in this book? Why?
People who enjoy complex characters, mystery, and fictional stories set in a close future would like this book the most. The stories all use this feeling of mystery that requires you to temporarily suspend your belief of reality and question what’s real and what’s not. Being set only a few decades in the future (its actually in the past for us, the early 2000’s) makes everything more relatable and plausible. It has great character development that really shows you the many sides of a person, putting people in tough and unusual situations brings out how they work as a person and is very satisfying to see.
Overall Satisfaction
I thought it was very good collection of stories, it made you think deeper about everything around you and in the book as well as letting you become attached to the characters who could be real people in the real world at the same time as the reader. I really enjoy things that require deeper thought and changes your views as you read, it makes it very interesting at face value as well as introspection on what you would do. The characters being so believable makes you feel hurt when they do something unexpected because you felt you knew them well enough to predict what they will do, but then they act unexpectedly (as humans tend to do) and made you think differently about the character.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2008
A collection of four novellas from one of the best prose stylists in science fiction. Her writing is a rich lapidiary thing, one that creates a world within to book that feels as rich and as close as our own. Highly recommomended.
March 31, 2011
good collection of novellas and her GoH speech from N2
March 31, 2016
Good short stories, but some of them seem a little more verbose than they need to be. I will continue to read Kate Wilhelm. This book convinced me, but...I just know she is better.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews