Every other month or so I pick up books by authors nobody has personally recommended to me, from whom I've read no books before, and ... in short, I know absolutely nothing about. With authors you know, you kind of develop some expectations, start finding patterns in their work, and unless the author is extremely gifted, after a few books everything sounds familiar; so this exercise helps me in keeping a fresh stock of books from which I don't know what to expect.
My first encounter with Connie Willis was on To Say Nothing Of the Dog, an enjoyable story of time traveling, chaos, love and the issues of dealing with an extremely demanding employer. It's one of those books that work a lot like a good spicy dish: you're left with a delicious after taste you don't want to lose, and even if you're fully satisfied you end up looking for more.
Which I did, by moving on to Bellwether, a story of a sociologist who's in a tear-your-hair-out situation having to deal with an incompetent self-absorbed assistant, tome-sized funding, a management-trend driven boss (all to familiar for people that have ever stumbled into a company managed by somebody who's all about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People today and Who Moved My Cheese tomorrow) and other mishaps, all while attempting to locate herself what causes trends.
While it's a shorter and much less filling read than To Say Nothing Of The Dog, Bellwether has a lot of good laugh-out-loud moments out of me on the less than two days it took me to gobble it up. Highly recommended, even if the cover price is a bit much for the page count. Take Dog out for a walk too, while you're at it.
Posted by Ricardo at July 31, 2003 12:44 PM