Short Science Fiction Story Review Connie Willis Death On The Nile

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1993 – Gollancz Press - In the Time Is The Fire – Best Of Connie Willis Collection – Spoiler alerts Drawing inspiration from a number of literary and movie sources including the Agatha Christie crime novel of the same title. An American family are travelling to Egypt as tourists. The flight run into heavy turbulence and the central character is convinced that they will die. Even when the plane appear to level out safely, he imagines that he has died and that the plane i taking its passengers to Heaven or Hell. She remembers the old movie, Between Two Worlds, a real film about passengers on a ship unaware that they are in Purgatory awaiting final Judgement as to whether they will get to Heaven or Hell. Another character is reading the Agatha Christie novel while someone else endlessly quotes extracts from Egyptian travel guide book, especially regarding how the crypts of the pharaohs in the pyramids are illustrated guides on what to do to find the right places to go in the afterlife. Throughout the journey there ae hints that something is genuinely wrong. Egypt seems strangely quiet, and the pyramids are closer to the Cairo airport than described. Traveling around the Valley of the Kings the main character takes a wrong turn and separates from her family, possibly damned to a different fate in the afterlife than them. There is a creepiness and paranoia here as to whether the characters are dead or not and if Egyptian deities are manipulating their fate. Clever but a little over-saturated in pop-culture references. Arthur Chappell