Science fiction ≠ fiction about science

As always, spoiler alert

I finished an actual, honest-to-goodness new book, start to finish, in order and everything, and wasn't disgusted with it halfway through; let praises ring. 

What was this novel? Bellwether by Connie Willis, a nice enough little book about a fad researcher, a rancher, a ridiculously sub-par office assistant named Flip, and a chaos theorist. The passages about the proliferation of jargon-heavy paperwork and acronym-laden staff meetings in a corporation made me giggle, as well as cringe. ("What this world needs is more love and less paperwork." - Pearl Bailey. Amen, sister; I couldn't agree more.) The chapter-stating snippets about various fads were entertaining: my favorite was the bit about coffehouses, which "[s]pread to London (1652), Paris (1699), Boston (1675), Seattle (1985)". The characters were interesting enough for the 247 pages in which they needed to be entertaining, and the plot fresh and unexpected enough that I didn't devolve into trope rage/angst.  All in all, a fine read. But. 

But. 

Somewhere, the publishers got their wires crossed and categorized this little novel as "science fiction." I was originally going to blame the library genre stickering system[1], but nope, it's right there printed on the spine: Science Fiction. 

Now, perhaps I have mistaken ideas about what constitutes science fiction, but based on the criteria set out by Wikipedia[2], this book is not sci-fi. Fi about sci, yes. The genre "sci-fi", no. Wikipedia's criteria (have some or all of the following): 
1. Setting: future, alterna history
2. Outer space
3. Aliens, androids, mutants, etc. 
4. "Futuristic or probably technology"
5. Futuristic-sounding science, like time-travel or FTL
6. Dystopia, evil big-brother type governments
7. Paranormal abilities
8. Interdimensional travel

Yep, that's about what I think of. So when I read the book jacket which says "[W]hat better animal [sheep] to illustrate both chaos theory and the herd mentality that so often characterizes human behavior?," I was thinking wormholes, subliminal messaging and mind-altering drugs that force people into complacently following the latest trend, manufactured by an evil alien corporation who is simply using the human race as an experimental subject pool[3]...not at all what this was. 

An amusing, off-the-beaten-path, nice look into what was popular in the early 90s read. Not science fiction. Oh well. 

xo, 
Devo


[1] You know, the ones that look like this; I'm glad to now know that they're standardized. 

[2] The source of all truth; if nothing else, the source of all crowd-sourced truth, which may be more applicable here, anyway

[3] Like unto the evil music corporation in Josie and the Pussycats