Review: Bellwether by Connie Willis

Bellwether by Connie Willis

Published : Bantam Spectra, 1996

Awards Nominated : Nebula Award

The Book :

“What makes something become a fad?  That’s the question Sandra Foster wants to answer through her research for HiTek Corporation.  HiTek’s bureaucratic atmosphere isn’t making her task any easier. Sandra is constantly derailed by overcomplicated paperwork, meetings, HiTek’s obsession with acquiring a prestigious grant and her supremely incompetent fad-following office assistant, Flip.

Thanks to a mis-delivered package, Sandra gets to know her fellow HiTek researcher Bennet O'Reilly, who works with monkey group behavior and chaos theory.  Sandra is initially interested in him due to his strange immunity to fads, but their acquaintanceship quickly moves towards a closer collaboration.  As their research spirals out of control, Bennet and Sandra search for the link between chaos theory, romance, fads, and a flock of sheep…” ~Allie

I’ve read a lot of Willis’ work, though this is the first book I’ve read outside of her time travel novels (Doomsday Book, Blackout/All Clear, To Say Nothing of the Dog).  Bellwether is definitely characteristic of Willis’ style, but it is also a light, silly romantic comedy.  This is also the third novel I've reviewed for the Grand Master Reading Challenge, hosted by WWend.com, a fantastic website I recommend highly for any fans of speculative fiction.  

My Thoughts :

Bellwether does feature scientists, but it doesn't really seem like a science fiction story.  I can’t help but wonder if it was simply labeled that way out of habit, since most of Willis’ work is science fiction.  Bellwether is mostly a light, satirical romantic comedy about fads, scientific discoveries, and office politics.  Willis’ familiar style is present here, as she draws humor out of obnoxious side characters, miscommunication, incompetence, and all the little frustrations that crop up in everyday life. Bellwether is more in the vein of To Say Nothing of the Dog than Doomsday Book or Blackout/All Clear.  It is by far the shortest and fluffiest Connie Willis novel I’ve ever read, but it was a very pleasant, light read.

   

Throughout the story, Willis includes little facts about real fads and circumstances around unexpected scientific breakthroughs.  I really enjoyed these inserts, though I think this attention to historical and recent-to-publication (1990s) fads dates the book.  It happens to be just the time period to invoke nostalgia for me, but I’m not sure how well this would fly with people who aren’t in my generation.  There are a lot of ‘current’ fads introduced in the novel as well. Most of these are believably ridiculous, but some of them seem unlikely to occur in our current times. I think that it is the nature of fads to become obsolete very quickly, and the fad-focused setting causes the book to be very much a product of its time.

Aside from the fads, there was a lot of satire of office culture.  Having dealt with bureaucracy extensively, I found this satire ridiculously stressful to read.  To ‘help’ their employees’ productivity, HiTek had constant meetings and workshops, and a lot of time was spent describing their required paperwork, which was so ridiculously complicated that it actually obstructed employee progress.   Included in this satire is also one of the major ‘obnoxious characters’, the office assistant Flip.  Flip is a trendy young woman who doesn’t really do anything useful, and instead seems to damage productivity everywhere she goes.  Sandra tries to make the best of things by befriending her, but this only makes her behavior worse.  I think many people who’ve worked in an office environment have probably been stuck at some point with someone as lazy and incompetent as Flip.   

Most of the plot featured Dr. Sandra Foster as she went about her daily life, attempting all the while to find the origin of hair bobbing.  This may sound boring, but I think that describing daily life in a light, humorous way is Willis’ forte.  Sandra goes through children’s birthday parties, cafes, libraries, and HiTek, observing everything with an eye towards fads and absurdities. The romance in the story is pretty obvious and predictable, but adorable all the same.  The conclusion was as chaotic and ridiculous as expected, and the whole story left me in a cheerful mood.  Bellwether is certainly a light read, but it was a lot of fun.     

My Rating : 3.5/5

Bellwether is a satire of fads and office culture and a romantic comedy, but it didn’t really seem like a science fiction story.  The story is much lighter, shorter and more carefree than many of Willis’ other novels, but her style was still here in full force.  There’s no time-traveling Oxford (as in Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, etc.), but her characters still come up against irritating minor characters, minor frustrations, and ridiculous bureaucracy.  The focus on fads, and some of the attitudes of the main characters, left the story feeling firmly set in the 90s, and it will likely feel even more dated to readers who haven’t lived through that decade.  The writing was light and humorous, the characters were likeable or likeably obnoxious, and the predictable eventual romance was very cute.  It may lack the depth and gravity of some of her other works, but Bellwether is a funny, cheerful book that made for pleasant light reading. 

Read-Along: Part One of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Today's post is going to be something a little different.  I'm participating in a read-along of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, hosted by Dark Cargo, @ohthatashley at SF Signal, My Awful Reviews, and the Little Red Reviewer.  I'm going to be reading 1/5 of the novel each week, and answering various discussion questions each Saturday.  What this means is...

Read-Along posts discuss a specific portion of The Lies of Locke Lamora and are therefore full of spoilers!  I will do a usual review post once the book is complete.

This week, I've read from the Prologue up through the Interlude titled "Locke Stays for Dinner" (an event which is much more significant than it sounds!).  I'm not sure what format I'll stick to for these discussions in the future, but for now I'll just list the discussion questions and my answers.

1.   If this is your first time reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, what do you think of it so far?  If this is a re-read for you, how does the book stand up to rereading?

This is my first time reading The Lies of Locke Lamora.  I've heard many great things about this series, and I've been meaning to read it for a while.  I'm glad to finally get started!  I like it very much so far.  I was afraid at first that Locke Lamora was going to be one of those perfectly skilled characters, who never encounter failure.  However, right from the beginning, Locke is forced to face the consequences of his carelessness and inexperience.  More than anything, I think that Locke is gifted with an abnormal amount of audaciousness, so he is willing to attempt wild schemes that would seem much too risky for an ordinary fellow.

2. At last count, I found three time lines:  Locke as as a 20-something adult, Locke meeting Father Chains for the first time, and Locke as a younger child in Shades Hill. How are you doing with the Flashback within a flashback style of introducing characters and the world? 

Everything has seemed pretty clear so far, so I don't mind the skipping back and forth in time.  I was surprised that I was equally engaged in the story of Locke's childhood and his adulthood. Usually, when a novel splits the narrative like this, I find myself drawn strongly to one story over the others.  In The Lies of Locke Lamora both Locke’s childhood and his adulthood hold their own secrets, and I am eager to see what happens next in both cases.

3. Speaking of the world, what do you think of Camorr and Lynch's world building? 

So far, I love it.  I don't yet know much of the world outside of Camorr, but I am really enjoying the level of detail lavished on Camorr.  There's the orphan-thief city tunneled under a graveyard, the glowing glass, the canals, the elaborate illegal system that supports the society, and so much more.  I also love the Gentleman Bastards and their lair.  I think world building is incredibly important in a story about a con-artist, and so far everything is thorough, interesting, and internally consistent.

4. Father Chains and the death offering. . .  quite the code of honor for thieves, isn't it? What kind of person do you think Chains is going to mold Locke into?  

A Gentleman Bastard, of course!  In the case of Locke's large death offerings, I think it was less about honor and more about cutting any murderous tendencies in the bud (even though Locke didn't mean to kill anyone).  I think he wanted to beat into Locke's head that taking lives has, and should have, consequences, even if you get away with it. 

5. It's been a while since I read this, and I'd forgotten how much of the beginning of the book is pure set up, for the characters, the plot, and the world. Generally speaking, do you prefer  set up and world building done this way, or do you prefer to be thrown into the deep end with what's happening?

I’ve read a lot of really good books that go with “throwing the reader in the deep end”, but I actually prefer this approach.  There’s enough character and plot that I’m definitely hooked, but I don’t have to spend my time memorizing references I don’t understand in hope that they’ll make sense later.

6. If you've already started attempting to pick the pockets of your family members (or even thought about it!) raise your hand.

I can't raise to that one.  I’m one of those people who suffer from vicarious humiliation, so I’m really dreading the moment when the Salvara couple finds out they’ve been tricked.  Characters like Locke stress me out, too, because you never know when they’re going to be found out in a lie. So for me, at least, the novel is giving me a firm feeling of “I could never do anything like that! Not ever!!”

Review: Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

Published : Gollancz/Bantam Spectra, 1988

Series : Book 3 of the Sprawl Trilogy

Awards Nominated : Hugo, Locus SF, and Nebula Awards

Warning:  This is the third novel of a trilogy, and it may include spoilers for the first two novels (Neuromancer and Count Zero). 

The Book :

“Enter Gibson's unique world--lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting--where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace.

Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer.

Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled... or even known.

And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes... or so they think.” ~WWend.com

I read Neuromancer many years ago, and read Count Zero for this blog last year.  The first two books have very little connection to one another, and can, I think, be read independently.  Mona Lisa Overdrive, on the other hand, brings back characters from both of the previous two novels.  Enough of the plot of the first two books is rehashed through dialogue that a new reader wouldn’t get too lost, but I think that it would be best to read this one after both Neuromancer and Count Zero.

My Thoughts :

Neuromancer was told from a single point-of-view, and Count Zero featured three main characters with disparate plotlines that converged in the end.  Mona Lisa Overdrive moves further in this direction, with 4 even more disparate plotlines.  I’ve enjoyed Gibson’s well-developed world (and cyber-world), all through the Sprawl Trilogy, and I think his writing style is getting more interesting with each novel I read. I also feel like the main characters in Mona Lisa Overdrive were some of the most complex, interesting characters I’ve yet seen in Gibson’s novels.  However, the plot of Mona Lisa Overdrive seemed a little muddled and over-complicated, and I didn’t really feel as though the four plotlines converged in a satisfactory way by the end.

Each of the plotlines in Mona Lisa Overdrive is connected in some way to events in the previous two books.  One main character, Angie Mitchell, was a major player in Count Zero.   Now, she’s a rich simulation star, and her boyfriend (Bobby, from Count Zero) has vanished.  In addition to coping with the stresses of stardom, she’s still dealing with the implications of her father’s meddling with her brain as a child. Second, there’s the ex-con Slick Henry, who reluctantly takes Bobby’s wired-in body under his protection.  Slick, whose character I believe is loosely based on the artist Mark Pauline, creates art in response to the psychological trauma inflicted by his bizarre prison sentence.

Third, there is Mona, an uneducated prostitute who looks strikingly like Angie.  She finds herself in the care of dangerous men who want to use that resemblance for their own ends.  Lastly, there’s Kumiko, a Yakuza boss’s daughter who has been sent to ‘safety’ in London while her father engages in gang warfare.  Kumiko, who is still trying to come to terms with her mother’s suicide, befriends Molly Millions (of Neuromancer), who is being blackmailed by someone off-screen.

I enjoyed reading about Mona, Slick, Angie, and Kumiko, but their stories didn’t have much momentum.  Mona’s story seemed to have the most tension, as she was stuck in a clearly dangerous situation that she didn’t fully understand.  However, all of the main characters, including Mona, seemed to be in something of a holding pattern.  I think there was just so much information to distribute and so much setting up to do, that it sort of seemed like all the characters were just waiting around for the eventual climax of the novel.   

When the novel’s climax did eventually come, and the four plotlines converged, it was a little bit of a letdown.  The ending was pretty entertaining and action-packed, and it was fun to see the characters from all three novels interact.  However, a lot of characters motivations (particularly the villains) didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Also, the relative time spent developing various characters throughout the story did not seem to accurately reflect their importance to the overall novel. Considering how convoluted the story was, I suppose it is unsurprising that the final knot seemed to have a few loose threads. Even so, Gibson’s interesting world and engaging characters still left me happy to have read Mona Lisa Overdrive.  

My Rating : 3.5/5

Neuromancer starts with four wildly disparate plotlines, and it also includes various characters from the previous two novels.  The four plotlines feature compelling main characters, but their stories never quite seemed to merge successfully.  The plot is interesting, but it is so unnecessarily complicated that everything seems to be bogged down by the weight of exposition. Some major plot points revolved around characters who were only briefly even present in the story, and whose motivations never made an awful lot of sense.  Still, I was glad to see Gibson’s gritty future society again.  It was fun to see characters I knew from previous novels, and the four main characters might be my favorite Gibson characters so far.  In the end, I’d say I liked this novel about as much as Count Zero, but for different reasons.