What: Intrigued by my fervent recommendations of To Say Nothing of the Dog and Blackout/All Clear (see below), but don't want to commit to 500+ pages without knowing what you're getting into? There are worse places to start than here, with Connie Willis's breezy take on herd mentality and corporate culture.
The main players in Bellwether are Sandra Foster (a fads researcher), Bennett O'Reilly (a chaos theorist), Billy Ray (a convenient provider of sheep), and Flip (a very inconvenient force of nature).
Comparable to: As she does in To Say Nothing of the Dog, Willis throws many disparate threads of knowledge together in such a way that you start thinking of Robert Browning, chaos theory, genius grants, trust exercises, flagpole-sitters, and Far from the Madding Crowd as inextricably and irrevocably linked together.
Opening lines: "Hula Hoop (March 1958–June 1959) — The prototype for all merchandising fads and one whose phenomenal success has never been repeated."
Representative quote: "The only thing I was aware of was that Flip had thoughtfully crumpled each clipping into a wad before stuffing them into the trash can, and that there was no way I could get them all smoothed out tonight, and, as a result, I was not only oblivious to the first event in a chain of events that was going to lead to a scientific discovery, but I was about to miss the second one, too. And the third."
You might not like it if: You've already read To Say Nothing of the Dog and are looking for something on that scope. Or at least for something that involves time travel.
How to get it: Buy it or borrow it. It's in print and also Kindle-able.
Connections to previous Wreckage: Blackout/All Clear (Gift Idea #1) is Connie Willis's latest success, but To Say Nothing of the Dog (Rec. #100) is still the most beloved one.
[Originally posted 1/21/12.]
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