The Road to Roswell

Description

A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe—some of which may actually be true—from the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of Blackout and All Clear

“An absolute blast with abundant humor, copious references to old westerns, and . . . a delightful, intergalactic twist on the romantic comedy.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.

Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.

But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is. 

Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?Paise for Connie Willis

“A novelist who can plot like Agatha Christie and whose books possess a bounce and stylishness that Preston Sturges might envy.”—The Washington Post

“One of America’s finest writers . . . Willis can tell a story so packed with thrills, comedy, drama and a bit of red herring that the result is apt to satisfy the most discriminating, and hungry, reader.”—The Denver Post

“A wit with a common touch who’s read more great books, and makes better use of them in her work, than two or three lit professors put together.”—Newsday

“A national treasure.”—San Antonio Express-News

“Willis can tell a story like no other. . . . One of her specialties is sparkling, rapid-fire dialogue; another, suspenseful plotting; and yet another, dramatic scenes so fierce that they burn like after-images in the reader’s memory.”—The Village Voice

“Willis’s fiction is one of the most intelligent delights of our genre.”—Locus

“[Willis’s] six Nebula Awards and ten Hugo Awards confirm her eminence in speculative fiction, but her versatile range and forthright wit wouldn’t be out of place in the literary mainstream.”—Publishers WeeklyConnie Willis is a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She has received seven Nebula awards and eleven Hugo awards for her fiction; Blackout and All Clear—a novel in two parts—and Doomsday Book won both. Her other works include Crosstalk, Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Terra Incognita, The Best of Connie Willis, and A Lot Like Christmas. Willis lives with her family, a bulldog, and a cat in Colorado. She has visited Roswell a number of times but has never seen a single alien, except on T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers, magnets, and cookie jars. Connie Willis is currently working on a new Oxford historians time-travel novel set at Tintern Abbey, Westminster Bridge, and Oxford.Chapter One

Paul: Yeah, well, you’re killin’ yourself. A friend can’t be worth that.
Hogy: Well now, how would you know? Did you ever have one?

—The Virginian

Serena wasn’t in the airport waiting area when Francie got off the plane in Albuquerque, but a man carrying a sign reading FIRST CONTACT COMMITTEE—WELCOME TO THE UFO FESTIVAL was.

UFO Festival? Serena hadn’t said anything about a UFO festival going on at the same time as her wedding. Maybe it’s not in Roswell, Francie thought hopefully. But of course it was. Where else would a UFO festival be?

And as if to confirm that, here came two guys in Star Trek uniforms and Spock ears, hurrying up to greet a third in a silver unitard and a gray alien mask with large black almond-shaped eyes and no nose.

Thank goodness I didn’t succeed in talking Ted into being my plus-one for this wedding, she thought. Or worse, Graham. She’d tried to talk somebody, anybody, from work into coming with her so Serena wouldn’t try to fix her up with someone, but when she’d told them where the wedding was, they’d all said no.

“Roswell?” Graham had said. “The place with all the UFO nut jobs?”

“Why is it in Roswell?” Ted had asked. “Does your friend live there?”

“No, she lives in Phoenix. They’re just having the wedding in Roswell.”

“Why?” Graham said. “Why would anyone in their right mind go to Roswell?” and she’d been forced to tell them that Serena was marrying one of those selfsame UFO nut jobs, at which point both of them had not only refused to be her plus-one but told her she was crazy for going herself.

“I have to,” she’d told them. “Serena asked me to be her maid of honor, and she’s one of my very best friends. She was my freshman roommate in college. We have a special bond.”

“A special bond?” Graham had said. “What are you, Sisters of the Traveling Pants or something?”

“No,” she’d said defensively, “but I owe her a lot. She saved my life when I was a freshman,” and tried to explain how, when she’d arrived at college in Tucson, knowing no one, homesick for New England, and shocked by the heat and barrenness of the Southwest, Serena had kept her from getting on the first plane home. She’d shown her around campus, introduced her to people, taught her what tumbleweeds and javelinas and saguaros were, and convinced her there weren’t any rattlesnakes on campus (which would definitely have sent Francie screaming back to Connecticut). And when Francie’s high school boyfriend had broken up with her two weeks later, Serena’d sat with her while she’d sobbed, told her “he wasn’t right for you at all,” and generally patched her back together.

“She’s been a terrific friend,” Francie said. “Sympathetic, funny, and—”

“And out of her mind if she believes all this aliens-from-outer-space garbage,” Graham had said. “I don’t know about you, but it’s my policy to avoid nut jobs, old roommates or not.”

Ted nodded. “I had a roommate my sophomore year who believed birds were spying on him. You don’t catch me going to his wedding.”

“She isn’t a nut job,” Francie protested. “She’s just a little . . . ditzy, and inclined to go along with what her boyfriends think.”

And she has terrible taste in men, Francie added silently. Worse than terrible. When Francie first met her, Serena had been dating a kamikaze BASE jumper who’d wanted her to dive headfirst into the Grand Canyon with him, and her taste hadn’t improved since then. She’d dated a gun-stockpiling survivalist and a breatharian, who believed you could survive on air and positive thinking, and been engaged to a soul shaman and a stormchaser.

“All the more reason not to go,” Graham had said. “You’ll just be condoning her marrying this guy.”

Ted had nodded. “Definitely complicit. Unless you’re going because you want to talk her out of it,” and Graham had pounced.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re going out there to pull one of those dramatic ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ numbers, aren’t you?”

She’d insisted she wasn’t, but they hadn’t believed her and had refused to listen when she’d tried to explain that she wouldn’t have to talk Serena out of it—that Serena always came to her senses and started having second thoughts herself. That’s what had happened with the stormchaser. “He thinks tornadoes are an adventure, like The Wizard of Oz or something,” she’d told Francie, “but they’re dangerous! And he expects me to drive straight into them with him!”

All Francie’d had to do was stand there while Serena talked herself out of it and called the wedding off. But to have that happen, Francie had to be there to listen to her doubts and assure her she was doing the right thing. Serena counted on Francie to be her sounding board and her backup, to rescue her from making a terrible decision just like she’d rescued Francie so many times. “Friends are supposed to help each other, aren’t they?” Francie had asked Ted and Graham.

“Yeah, but there are limits,” Ted had said. “What if next time she decides to marry a serial killer and you talk her out of it and he comes after you?”

“She is not going to marry a serial killer.”

“My advice is to tell her something came up and you can’t come,” Graham said.

“Yeah, tell her you broke your leg or something,” Ted added.

“I can’t do that. I can’t just abandon her. She needs me.”

“Okay,” they’d said, “but don’t come crying to us if this turns out to be a complete disaster.”

Which it very well might, she thought, looking around the waiting area. Where was Serena? She’d specifically said she’d be at the airport to drive Francie down to Roswell. “That way we’ll have a chance to talk,” she’d said, and Francie had taken that as a sign Serena was already having second thoughts. So where is she?

Francie texted, Where R U?

No answer. Maybe she thinks we were supposed to meet at baggage claim, Francie thought, shouldered her carry-on, and went down the escalator to see if Serena was there.

She wasn’t, but a number of people going to the UFO Festival were, and yes, the festival was in Roswell, because their T-shirts all said so, and as if that wasn’t enough, they were all talking about a UFO sighting that had happened on Monday night.

“Where?” a woman in a silver minidress and green body makeup asked.

“West of Roswell. Just outside Hondo, near those big red-rock buttes,” one of the T-shirt guys said.

“I don’t remember any red-rock buttes near Hondo,” the green woman said.

“I don’t know, that’s just what they said. It was on UfosAreReal​dotnet.”

Francie texted Serena again, checked the other luggage carousels, and then walked outside to see if she might be waiting in her car.

She wasn’t. Francie went back inside to the baggage carousel in case she’d missed her somehow, checked her texts, and then called Serena. “Where are you?” she said when Serena answered.

“In Roswell,” Serena said, sounding harried. “I’m so sorry about this. I intended to be there to meet you, but we’ve had all kinds of problems, and I still have to pick up your dress, and it’s a complete zoo here with the festival and the town getting ready for the Fourth of July and everything, so I asked Russell’s best man to pick you up. His name’s Larry. He’s perfect for you.”

I doubt that, Francie thought. Serena’s taste in guys for Francie was as bad as her own choices in boyfriends. At her almost-wedding to the stormchaser, she’d tried to fix Francie up with a ghosthunter who spent his time in ghost towns with an EMF detector, looking for the ghosts of outlaws and claiming he’d collected their ectoplasm. Which was why Francie had been so desperate to bring a plus-one with her.

“Larry’s totally hot,” Serena was saying. “He’s six foot two and really interesting to talk to. He’s had three close encounters and been abducted twice. He wrote a book about it—The Survivor’s Guide to Alien Abduction.

“So where’s he supposed to meet me?” Francie said, scanning the baggage claim for someone tall, dark, and handsome, but the only people waiting for their luggage were three teenagers in Star Trek uniforms and Spock ears. “He wasn’t abducted again, was he?”

“No,” Serena said, “but there was a possible sighting two nights ago that he had to go check out.”

Oh my God, I am so glad Graham and Ted refused to come, Francie thought. I would never hear the end of it.US

Additional information

Weight	10.8 oz
Dimensions	0.8400 × 5.4900 × 8.2400 in
Imprint	Del Rey
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780593499870
ISBN-10	0593499875
Author	Connie Willis
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC027250, FIC028090
Subjects	science fiction novels, sci-fi, science fiction books, roswell, romantic comedy, relationship books, romance novels, sci fi books, good books for women, funny books, science fiction and fantasy books, rom com books, romantic comedy books, alien abduction, science fiction books for adults, connie willis, Connie Willis books, aliens, comedy, romance, love, humorous, romance books, summer reading, science fiction, science fiction romance, relationships, beach reads, FIC028090, love story, FIC027250, Summer reads, gifts for men, gifts for women