Subject: Review: BELLWETHER by Connie Willis

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 00:00:17 GMT

BELLWETHER by Connie Willis
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Though Willis has been saying at conventions that her next book would
be a time travel story set in the late 19th century, this is not that book.
Rather, this is a story set in the present, with statistician Sandra Foster
researching fads.  As part of this Willis, starts each chapter with the
description of a fad of the past: hula hoops, the jitterbug, diorama wigs,
etc.

     I say that this is the present for two reasons First, there is the
statement that it's Monday, October the second--which makes it either 1995
or 2000.  Second, the fads described as being current (Power Rangers, the
Lion King, and angels) are active now, but probably will have been
supplanted by the year 2000.  In fact, this isn't really a science fiction
novel at all, but more in line with Willis's other "social satires."  (Many
people have said that her "In the Late Cretaceous" is not science fiction
either.)

     One thing that adds to the realism in BELLWETHER is Willis's
description of how the corporate culture works, even in hi-tech
environments.  She ranks with Scott Adams (creator of the "Dilbert" comic
strip) in capturing the insanity of many corporate philosophies.  For
example, in a brain-storming session on objectives for "Guided Resource
Intuition Management," one person lists:

  1.  Optimize potential.
  2.  Facilitate empowerment.
  3.  Implement visioning.
  4.  Strategize priorities.
  5.  Augment core structures.

When asked by Foster how she did that so fast, she replies that those were
what she always wrote down.  I figure that this list alone will save me
hours at work.

     The problem with BELLWETHER is that while individual parts are funny
and pointed, the whole doesn't seem to go anywhere.  Willis writes very good
novellas, and for me this might have been better at that length.  As it is,
it seems drawn out--drawn out, mind you, not padded.  (They're not the same
thing.)  I like the writing, and I like the humor, and maybe I'm looking for
more point than a short humorous novel is supposed to have.  But when I
finished BELLWETHER I felt vaguely dissatisfied.

%T      Bellwether
%A      Connie Willis
%C      New York
%D      March 1996
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      trade paperback, US$11.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-37562-8
%P      256pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked] <==NOTE NEW ADDRESS
"People are worried about online porn on the Internet. It's the endless
`Who's better--Kirk or Picard?' threads that *should* scare them."
             -- Jim Mullen, _Entertainment Weekly_