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Bellwether

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Bellwether

By: Connie Willis
Narrated by: Kate Reading
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About this listen

Audie Award, Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2010

Pop culture, chaos theory, and matters of the heart collide in this unique novella from the Hugo and Nebula Award - winning author of Doomsday Book.

Sandra Foster studies fads and their meanings for the HiTek corporation. Bennett O'Reilly works with monkey group behavior and chaos theory for the same company. When the two are thrust together due to a misdelivered package and a run of seemingly bad luck, they find a joint project in a flock of sheep. But a series of setbacks and disappointments arise before they are able to find answers to their questions - with the unintended help of the errant, forgetful, and careless office assistant Flip.

©1996 Connie Willis (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Humorous Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Science Fiction Heartfelt Comedy

Critic Reviews

"Connie Willis deploys the apparatus of science fiction to illuminate character and relationships, and her writing is fresh, subtle and deeply moving." ( New York Times Book Review)
"Willis's story builds slowly but is realistic and engrossing." ( Midwest Book Review)
All stars
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long ago I had a boss who was very into chaos theory. I was doing mathematical modelling at the time and found his chaos spiel stupid. Chaos is interesting math and useful for explaining why things can't be predicted, buts people treat it like some mystical religion, and it isn't very useful for making predictions.

This book embraces the trendy cult of chaos with a guise of science which sat poorly with me. The bellwether effect may explain the origin of some fads, but I it's not the core of self organising systems.

on the other hand, the sheep were hilarious

ok but kinda faddish and scientifical

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Would you try another book written by Connie Willis or narrated by Kate Reading?

Hmmm. It was very predictable. The male in the story was underdeveloped. There was no opportunity to like him. And one of the other main characters (can't say as it would be a spoiler) was irritating. My sister loves this book, I didn't. So maybe I missed the charm.

Do you think Bellwether needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Please no.

Annoying antagonist

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I gave it away after an hour and a half. Absolutely nothing had happened and the constant spewing of fad data was incredibly tedious.

Boring

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