This is a great example of how Connie Willis takes an idea and can tie several things that are relevant into it.

Without giving too much away this is the first time I ever thought about how things start.

Very quick read and very entertaining and interesting. ( )

What do chaos theory and sheep have in common? They both are of the utmost importance to this fabulous, fabulously light and funny SF-novella by Connie Willis, which is easy to read and soon to finish and - absolutely deligthful. ( )

How can I not love a book in which the main character checks out lonely library books in order to prevent them from being discarded? Bellwether is an un-sciencey science fiction. It's set in the mid 1990s, and is already hopelessly dated, which is amusing for the SF genre. Bellwether may not be Connie Willis' best novel, but it is consistent with her main themes of encouraging people to think for themselves, read high quality literature, and use their turn signals. Lots of fun. ( )

This was just as well-written, funny, and flat-out delightful as To Say Nothing of the Dog. I only like To Say Nothing... better because it involved the Victorian era and had slightly more literary allusions. Bellwether is told from the point of view of Dr. Sandra Foster, a statistical researcher trying to discover how fads get started. A series of seemingly unlucky events lead her to team up with a chaos theorist, and the two of them must battle incompetent assistants, mind-numbing corporate bureaucracy, and the truly ridiculous fads sweeping American society. My favorite parts were the laugh-out-loud satires of contemporary culture and the little tidbits of scientific knowledge (specifically the anecdotes of how certain breakthrough discoveries occurred). I loved it and would recommend it to anyone.

I loved this book and read it in one day. It’s about fads and chaos theory and sheep and the idiocy of corporate America all wrapped into one very amusing package.

Dr. Sandra foster works for Hy-Tek, where her attempt to make a breakthrough discovery about the cause of the hair-bobbing fad of the 1920s is constantly thwarted by the latest acronym from Management, incomprehensible paperwork, and an inept and very annoying office assistant named Flip. Sandra meets Dr. Bennet O’Reilly, who works in Hy-tek's biology department, and is immediately fascinated by him because he seems to be completely fad-proof. Maybe if she can understand why he is immune to fads, she thinks, she will gain insight into what causes them in the first place. Sandra is a very likeable protagonist. She is able to maintain a sense of humor despite being surrounded by people who have fewer original thoughts than the sheep she and Dr. O'Reilly end up studying together. Sandra is also quite optimistic; she never gives up on doing small things that she hopes will make the world a better place. For example, she regularly checks her favorite books out of the library so that they will not be removed from the collection.

I found Bellwether to be a quick, upbeat read with a lot of humor. Connie Willis hasn't disappointed me yet. ( )