Rating: 
Summary: Laugh out loud funny
Review: This is a great book, and I highly recommend it. It is laugh out loud funny. It is an easy read, with questionable "science" but tons of character (I mean the book has character, not that the characters are well developed). I think you will find that the comments on trend setting and following, the direct comparison of human behavior to that of sheep, and the charicature characters (like "Flip"), a little enlightening and VERY amusing. Good airplane reading. Easy to pick up and put down during a trip or when you are busy.
Rating:
Summary: Great Stuff
Review: This is a great book by a great writer. Connie Willis is great at dropping you into complicated situations with complicated characters, yet by the end of the story everything is clear and it has all paid off. This is a story about scientists, statisticians, and most importantly the stupidity of working in the corporate world. It is also laugh-out-loud funny. I can not give it a higher recomendation.
Rating:
Summary: Bellwether
Review: I am not a big fan of science fiction in general, but this book I couldn't put down. It is both humorous and fascinating, especially for enthusiasts of chaos theory or fads. The narrative voice and realistic characters add the humor. I definitely recommend this book. Word Ninja
Rating:
Summary: Great science fiction by one of SF's best writers
Review: When I was writing about Iain Banks and how he is one of my favorite authors, I started to make a list of who the others were. Long time followers of my comments could probably identify them better than I can, but here goes: Jonathan Carroll, P.G. Wodehouse, Tom Holt, Iain Banks, Tim Powers, Philip K. Dick, and Robertson Davies (Davies being the most recent addition). I looked at that list and knew something was wrong, and it did not take me more than a minute to identify the problem--where were the women? A problem? At least somewhat. I've never been one to totally segregate my reading, nor one to feel it a necessity to be the model of diversity in my reading choices, but I knew that I was over-looking someone. My top ten novel and short story lists both contain work by women (A.S. Byatt, Octavia Butler, and James Tiptree, Jr., to be exact), but although I like these individual works, I was not a "fan" of any of them in quite the same way as my male list. At the time I pondered it, and let it drop. One chapter into Bellwether, as the grin slowly grew on my face, I was reminded of my previous exercise. For I am a fan of Connie Willis--I would donate my time to design a web site for her, to write an article about her, or conduct an interview and transcribe it. Not only is she one of the finest writers that the field has ever had, but her ideas are always interesting and the stories often amusing. Take the case in point. Sandra Foster is a scientist for HiTek, Inc. studying trends and fads (things like Pet Rocks and Hula Hoops), trying to determine the causal relationship. The fad problem is a stickler, but Sandra's real nemesis is Flip, a true Gen X slacker who, in her role as mail clerk (or interdepartmental assistant) is the foil of the best laid funding plans. This is comedy writing at its finest. Willis manages to combine wordplay, cynicism, juxtaposition, running gags, ironic detachment, sarcasm, misunderstandings, and physical humor in a short 247 pages (the leading, or space between the lines, and font size are great enough here that I suspect Bellwether to be close in length to novella rather than novel). But what keeps the story interesting is the concept of trends and chaos--the mixture of public obsessions with scientific theory. Bellwether is great science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A lot of fun!
Review: Connie Willis rarely ever disappoints and this book is one of her funniest---light, clever and a quick read. Save an evening to read this as you won't want to put it down once you've started it. In Bellwether, Willis brings together a sociologist studying fads and a chaos theorist (who seems immune to fads). Both work for a nameless faceless corporation which seems to thrive on chaos itself---even as it searches for a way to control and manipulate its workers. The main characters are wonderful as always (as always, Willis has created a wonderful heroine---a mix of savvy and naivity). But it is her minor characters who keep you laughing--Flip, the assistant who makes everyone's lives a nightmare, the mothers at a birthday party for pre-schoolers who are driven by discipline fads, and even the faceless and nameless Management. Don't miss out on this!
Rating:
Summary: The Gentle Skewer
Review: Ms. Willis has done it again! This time she takes on research science as Mammon, trendiness as the bankrupt betrayal of independent thinking and management fads de jour. As a management consultant, I roared with laughter at her genteel but merciless portrayal of wholly inept, unimaginative and doom-to-failure Management. It is in her character of Flip, however, that Ms. Willis delivers a character who is a cross between a uberslacker and deus machina. Fun, easy, literate reading. More, please!
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Summary: Chaos, Fads and Old-Fashioned Romance
Review: Connie Willis combines her love of chaos theory, science, literature and screwball comedies into an entertaining romance set in the world of high-tech research. Sandra Foster is a sociologist researching fads, and Bennett O'Riley studies chaos theory at a commercial research insitute called Hi-Tek. When the incompetent and outrageous departmental assistant, Flip, misdelivers a package and fails to hand in a research funding form on time, she sets off a chain reaction of events that forces Drs. Foster and Bennett to combine their studies into one. As the remaining scientists at Hi-Tek try desperately to figure out how to win the coveted but mysterious Niebnitz grant, Foster and Bennett try to study information diffusion in higher mammals. Unfortunately, the only higher mammals on which they can get their hands are a flock of sheep, which bear a surprising resemblence to the people who inhabit Dr. Foster's day-to-day world. In the process of trying to find out why people behave as they do, Drs. Foster and Bennett rediscover their love of science and discover their love for each other. Along the way, they are helped out by the strangely competent Shirl, who no one else wants around because she smokes, but who seems to understand science, sheep, and perhaps a whole lot more. Connie Willis successfully conveys a joy of science and literature, while wryly looking at the trials and tribulations of trying to be trendy and successful. It's hard to describe this melange of sheep, Barbie dolls, personal ads and science adequately, but if you like intelligent and literate humor with a touch of romance, this book is for you.
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Summary: More Fantasy than Science Fiction???
Review: Wonderful, funny, "works on multiple levels," romantic, escalating. Characterization, romance, and plot sneak up on you in a comfortably structured, seemingly meandering way. A fairy tale in scientific clothing. Thanks to Connie Willis for working hard to write cheerful fare without apology. Already read the book, exhausted Willis's backlist, and looking for new authors? If you liked this book for its intelligentsia romance, try Freedom & Necessity by Brust & Bull and Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. For its light tone and the way threads come together, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart.
Rating:
Summary: Dilbert Meets Sociology and Chaos Theory
Review: What a great book. Ms Willis has achieved a fun, lighthearted, very readable novel that obviously entertains, and pokes fun at Management, fads, and fashion. On a larger scale it just pokes fun at the human race in general. Connie really deserves a great deal of credit for the research that went into this one. Each chapter, thirty or so, is begun with a one or two paragraph synopsis of some fad from its birth to its death (if it died.) Each of these little stories is charming if not outright hilarious. It sports a fun plot where Sandy is researching how fads get started. She is tormented by the same office ignorance that you and I face daily, and she deals with the same idiots in her social life that you and I do. Yes the ending is a little Hollywoodish, but this work was not meant to be a War and Peace. It's just fun. Deal with it. I think it's a stretch to call this science fiction. Other than it being about scientist, there are really no elements that would fit it into this category. That does not indicate any disappointment, but is does concern me that categorization could frighten off a significant number of readers who would otherwise just adore this book. It was enjoyable enough for a five star rating, but the lack of any deeper meaning or prompting for introspection requires that I give it the highest rating possible for fluff. I love cotton candy, but it is after-all, insubstantial.
Rating:
Summary: So true, it almost hurts to laugh
Review: Similar to her other book "To Say Nothing of the Dog" the humor in this book may not be for everyone. Not the dry Brittish humor of "Dog", this book will appeal to anyone who finds humor in the weirdness in everyday life and people in it. What really cracked me up was hearing that duct-tape really IS a fashion statement in some places (read the book - wink, wink).
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