Spoilers for Fire Watch by Connie Willis
Ever since I read it, Fire Watch has been, more or less, my favorite piece of fiction. Of course the Oxford Time Travel concept in general is brilliant, but what I'm looking for is more in the emotional beats of the story. The biggest of those for me are the confrontation between Langby and the narrator on the roof, the final scene back in the protagonist's present(I am tearing up just writing this thinking of "they're back there in the past with no one to save them"), and the throughline of St. Paul's Cathedral and its later destruction(not to devalue Enola, either – her part in the story is only just behind those).
To give a more general idea of what I mean by each of these: the conflict between basically good people caused by a dangerous situation, the feeling of helplessness brought on by just being one person where and when you are, and the sense of not-quite-futility-but-close brought on by the destruction of the cathedral(bonus points for tying in real events as effectively).
Of course I don't expect to be able to order a story to my specifications, but I'd love to hear about anything that fits with even one or two of the emotional lines I've described, or similar ideas, or anything that just reminded you of Fire Watch. I'm looking for shorter formats to have something to read either between longer books or just while on a break from one, and because I think the novelette format was just right for Fire Watch itself. Of course Willis's other Oxford books are somewhere in my nebulous pile of future reads, but I feel like I have some other full novels I need to get through first.
Thanks in advance <3
by Ambisinister11