Bellwether (novel)

Bellwether, is a 1996 science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1997.[1]

Bellwether
Cover of first edition (paperback)
AuthorConnie Willis
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
PublisherBantam Books
Publication date
1996
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages247 pp
ISBN0-553-37562-8
OCLC33078699
813/.54 20
LC ClassPS3573.I45652 B45 1996

Plot introduction

The main character, Dr. Sandra Foster, studies fads in Boulder, Colorado. Her employer, Hi-Tek, wants to know how to predict fads, in order to take advantage of this knowledge and thus to possibly create one. While Dr. Foster is extensively researching and analysing fads, Hi-Tek itself is swept by management fads. In addition, the Management wants one of its employees to win the mysterious Niebnitz Research Grant (the fictitious award is very similar to the MacArthur Fellowship's Genius Grant). Meanwhile, the employees struggle with chaos created by a self-centered administrative assistant. Willis uses humor to come to an unsettling conclusion.

Resolution

The scientists experiment with sheep, finding that their flocks are led by bellwethers, certain sheep which are "indistinguishable from the rest of the flock, only a little greedier, a little faster, a little hungrier." Analogously, fads are started by some persons among the crowd, who, even without realizing it, are a little ahead of the rest.

Willis also creates a subtle reworking of Robert Browning's Pippa Passes. Browning's work, which is explicitly mentioned in Willis's, tells the story of a cheerful girl named Pippa who in passing by folks in a village influences everyone to the good. In Willis's novel, the administrative assistant Flip likewise influences everyone, though not in a charming manner. Flip and Pippa are both diminutive names for Phillipa.

gollark: I could add the interpreter to <@509849474647064576>.
gollark: `L` - jump backward one instruction.
gollark: Can you post Lyric's Law? It appears to not be on the starboard.
gollark: Looping construct: jump backward one instruction (`L`)Branching construct: pick next instruction or previous instruction (`B`) - next if accumulator > 0, previous if accumulator <= 0.New branching construct: pick next instruction if user types `0` or previous if user types anything else (`N`)Making loop non-infinite: `E`, exits program if accumulator < 0.+1/-1 act on an accumulator initialized at zero (`+`/`-`)A program consists of a sequence of these instructions (first line) and arbitrary data encoded in base64 (second line) which is loaded into linear memory as bytes. These are executed left-to-right until the end is reached; when this occurs the direction of execution will be reversed.Infinite arbitrary data: command (`D`) to set accumulator to value of linear memory at position in accumulator.This language is called "HahaYourLawIsBad".
gollark: Hmm...

References
  1. "The Nebula Award Listing: SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY & HORROR BOOKS BY AWARD". WWEnd. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
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