Bellwether

Love the book, irritated with the nookbook

I love Connie Willis's stories and her voice, Bellwether is no exception. But I was completely irritated with the number of typos in the nook version. It was distracting, irritating and made me wish I'd just bought the paperback instead. Kudoes to Ms Willis on another great book, -5 pts to whoever created the ebook for poor proofing.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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moderately entertaining but very flawed

This is an attempt at a Katherine Hepburn/Spencer Tracey romantic farce. The Hepburn character is a sociologist researching fads. This circumstance affords Ms. Willis the opportunity to skewer various fads circulating in the mid nineties. One problem is that Ms. Willis and her heroine define 'fad' very loosely and arbitrarily: for example, a running theme is that legislation which prohibits smoking in public places is a pernicious and monumentally unjust fad--smokers with persecution complexes will be sympathetic, the rest of us simply annoyed. Another problem is that, unlike her Tracey character, whom she exalts for his imperviousness, Ms. Willis is herself very susceptible to insidious fads of language: I found one 'hopefully' pretending to mean 'I hope', two 'oxymoron's used incorrectly (an oxymoron is by definition not just any contradiction in terms, but a deliberate literary device), and one 'just that' (a perfectly correct but obnoxious rhetorical mannerism prevalent in the mid eighties). Overall, the prose is glib and perfunctory. The climax and denouenent of 'The Bellwether' are predictable, unconvincing, unsatisfying, and forced.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Bellwether is incredibly entertaining

Bellwether was not at all what I expected it to be. It is classified as science fiction, but what that implies to me is a futuristic setting and/or cutting edge technology and/or robots and/or space travel, yadda yadda. There was science in Bellwether, but the science was explained so that a liberal arts major, such as myself, could easily understand it. The story sucked me in and I loved reading it. The parts about chaos theory as related to fads were fascinating. The characters were interesting and the book was very funny in parts. I recommend Bellwether highly.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Great book!

I love this book, my wife loves this book, her best friend loves this book. Everybody that we've recommended this book to has enjoyed it.

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I enjoyed this book!

This was an easy and fun book to read. There was a great deal missing. I'm not sure just what. Something about it seemed strained, unnatural, not genuine. Lots of potential here but no real satisfying whole. I am left wanting to know what will happen. I honestly wanted this book to last a great deal longer so I would gladly have read 800 pages. It ended much too abruptly. I did not want to put it down. Why such a moderate rating? Itch?

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Fun Book

Some of Willis's shorter novels are not her best efforts, but this is really a gem. It's aromp through why people do what they do, fads and views and it's really a hoot. It's fun and engaging especially if you have no idea what a bellwether is!

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so-so

Let's be clear: There is no reason to fault a science-fiction writer for not writing science fiction, but there is every reason to fault a novel that purports to be about science and isn't. If you want an exciting, light, very readable book that makes you feel you are taking part in an important scientific discovery and teaches you something about science without taxing your powers of concentration, read Watson's 'Double Helix'. (It may comfort you to know that some consider 'Double Helix' as much fiction as 'Bellwether'. I can't say, but if 'Double Helix' is fiction, it is certainly better fiction.) The anti-anti-smoking tract obtrusively interlaced into the plot (such as it is) of 'Bellwether' is not funny or witty or even believable. The author's protagonists, the one a sociologist, the other a scientist (though the author seems insensible of the distinction) are portrayed as non-smokers who are not the least bit discomfited by close-range cigarette smoke. Here's the straight dope, smokers: If any such persons exist in real life, they are strange physiological freaks. Want to be honest? Next time don't ask, 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Ask either, 'Are you a smoker too?' or, 'Will you suffer my smoking mutely?'

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Great book with spectical on Psychology

I read this book three years ago and loved it! Now I am in a psych class at high school and I have found ways to relate the book to many sociocultural influences of behavior. Its great.

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