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Albeit the term "avatar" was used by the first to mean a graphical representation of user at Habitat, I believe Snow Crash is the first novel where the concept of avatar is fully developed, with detailed descriptions of avatars in cyberspace (metaverse). Is this true? If so I can add to the main entry. Cheers, MarioGuima 12:17, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Can we get some verification for this=> "L. Bob Rife (based on L. Ron Hubbard)" ??? Dustin Asby 09:14, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Like many postmodern novels, Snow Crash has a unique style and a chaotic structure which many readers find difficult to follow. It is crammed full of subtle references to geography, politics, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, history, and computer science, and its rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading.
This paragraph is a little too POV for a WP article. I would have edited it a bit for POV-ness, except that it's just plain wrong: how many people had to read the book four times to get it? You don't need a companion volume to understand this --- it's not exactly the computer age's Finnegan's Wake or Gravity's Rainbow. jdb ❋ ( talk) 00:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just to point out, I wrote that sentence. I was introduced to Snow Crash through a large college seminar that covered a wide range of American literature (long story). I have always been a science-fiction fan from a young age (although at the time I had only read a little cyberpunk) and I fell in love with the book right away, but even then it wasn't until my second reading that I noticed all the funny little details that Stephenson packs in. Most of the people in the seminar were not science-fiction fans and kept whining at every class at how the book was boring, unreadable, chaotic, impossible to understand, incoherent, etc. The instructor ended up having do a lot more lecturing as opposed to discussion for Snow Crash because few people in the class understood the book well-enough (even after multiple attempts at reading it) to hold a coherent discussion about its themes and underlying implications.
And in case you're about to retort that most people in most colleges are idiots, I should point out that this was at the most prestigious public university in the United States (guess which one). So the average IQ of these people was a bit higher than your average community college student. Of course, my alma mater ranks at only between 20 and 25 on the U.S. News & World Report ratings, but I doubt the population of the universities that ranked even higher (the Ivy League) could be considered representative of the world English-speaking population.
The point I'm trying to get across is that WP is for a general intellectual audience, not just hard sci-fi fans who take computer jargon and cyberpunk style for granted. Keep in mind that most people's idea of science fiction is simple, linear, childish fantasy stuff like what Anne McCaffrey writes (I am specifically thinking of The Ship That Sang series). Most people, once they finish their mandatory English requirements in high school, never get around to reading contemporary writers like Philip Roth or Milan Kundera who love to screw around with the reader's sense of time and location.
So, I think it's fair to imply in the article that Snow Crash is a bit harder than the garbage that passes for bestsellers on Amazon nowadays.
-- Coolcaesar 03:34, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm. It's been a week with no reply from Jdb. I'm putting my passage back in for now.
-- Coolcaesar 00:17, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed your reply. If you want to put it back, OK -- it sounds like you've spent more time considering this issue than I have. But please rephrase it to use more NPOV language --- "crammed full of subtle references" and "rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading" are phrases appropriate for a dust jacket or PublishersWeekly blurb, but not an encyclopedia article. thanks, jdb ❋ ( talk) 01:38, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yo everyone: This page is NOT a general overview of the cyberpunk genre. This is an article about Snow Crash. We already have a cyberpunk article just for cyberpunk in general. Therefore, we should NOT have a separate list of cyberpunk authors on this page. Most of those novels on the list aren't even remotely similar to Snow Crash in style or subject matter (e.g., Darwin's Radio).
There was a similar problem over in the Judge article two months ago, where we had a list of famous judges that partially duplicated List of judges. Now the Judge article simply has a link to List of judges. That's the way to do it. The point of hypertext is to say it once and link to that text and not repeat the same thing ten times.
Come on, people, this is a hypertext encyclopedia, not a paper encyclopedia! It's not that hard.
If someone doesn't come up with a good reason for why we should have a separate list here, I'm getting rid of it in a week (or less).
-- Coolcaesar 04:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, to avoid a violation of the 3RR, I am formally raising an issue. I can't believe I have to state the obvious.
First, I traced the source of that poorly written garbage about Enki in the article. It was brought in by user Mirv at this edit on 6 September 2005[ [1]], from the Enki article, where it was introduced by user 70.179.255.248 at this edit [ [2]] on 21 July 2005.
Now, here are the defects in that passage which justify why it should go (now I feel thankful for the weekly passage-and-response critique exercises that are mandatory in California middle school English classes):
(1) Unencyclopedic style. Stream-of-consciousness style is grossly inappropriate for an encyclopedia, especially when it appears to be coming from the consciousness of a five-year-old with an apparent inability to focus.
(2) Paragraph and sentence length is too long. Only insanely difficult European philosophers like Hegel write paragraphs and sentences that long. Modern English style as formulated by Strunk and White in Elements of Style is short and concise.
(3) First-person voice. This has been debated again and again on the Manual of Style talk page, and the consensus was to stay away from it unless there is a clearly demonstrated need. It sounds unencyclopedic and too often allows writers to sneak in original research in violation of the No original research policy.
(4) Disorganized. Rewriting this mess would take too much time. I estimate that at a minimum, this would have to be broken into 5 separate paragraphs and all sentences would have to be split in two if not three. The disorganized structure of the passage requires significant reordering; probably over half of all sentences would have to exchange places. Do you have the time and energy to do that? I have better things to do like prepare for the massive reorganization of the Lawyer family of articles I have been planning for a month (see Talk:Lawyer and Talk:Juris Doctor).
(5) Even if it's relevant, it's too much information and probably non-notable. Relevance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for info to stay on Wikipedia. This is in-depth information more appropriate for a Cliff's Notes book, not casual Web users looking for a light, general treatment of the subject.
Of course, if you have the time, skill, and energy to rewrite the passage into something coherent that actually fits with the rest of the article, feel free to do so. Otherwise, I'm taking it out in another week. -- Coolcaesar 03:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
In the book, does he ever describe how users of Metaverse terminals input commands or movements? Someone on Slashdot mentioned that he never actually describes the input method, and left it to the reader's imaginations. I know he describes the VR visual display system in detail, but I can't recall him ever escribing how the users actually controlled their avatars, unlike in Gibson's Neuromancer and other CP books. I don't have a copy to look through at the moment. Identity0 05:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a copy of the book in front of me, and I don't think he actually does address this. I have to admit it's bugging me. While I do like the idea of the VR being projected directly onto the retina instead of plugging in via some sort of brian port (as is more common in cyberpuck), without any way to tell how they're actually controlling their avatars a lot of the scenes in the metaverse just frustrate me. How are they sword fighting, for starters? Is the "greatest swordfighter in the world" merely pressing the a button really fast? (12 May, 2006)
In the acknowledgement he mentions something about some pictures he made for the book, but never made it to print. Does anyone know if these pictures are available?
I'm proposing that Da5id and Juanita Marquez be merged with this article. The fiction notability guidelines suggest that these characters probably don't warrant their own article, and it makes sense to put them here. While both characters are important, neither is really important or widely known outside this work of literature. – Mipadi 13:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone else think the "important characters" section is getting a little fat? Someone just added "Roadkill," who has about 4 lines in the book. MFNickster 15:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and merged the characters. I think some of the "important characters" could still be removed, though. It might also be a good idea to expand the information on the main characters, and perhaps give each one a header so that they can easily be linked to from other articles (if a writer wants to directly link to Da5id, for example). – Mipadi 15:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that part needs to be cleaned up or not, since I have never read the book cited. the poster uses the term "appears to be" and "openly racist", which in my opinion violates NPOV as well as appearing unverifiable. However, I admit that I don't have the guts to edit this myself because of the sensitivity of the topic and inability to cite this one properly. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.99.158 ( talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 Aug 2006 (UTC)
I find it highly unlikely that Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was inspired by Snowcrash. Did Cyan (creators) ever state that anywhere? The only similarity that exists between the two works, is that Uru lets the user interact in a MMO environment. Uru's theme is based on the earlier Myst series games which are very far removed from Cyberpunk.
I propose this is maybe changed to using 'Second Life' as a reference, as this is much closer to the concept of the Street and the Metaverse. Interestingly enough, the concept of virtual real estate and its value and trade is realy evident and publicised in 'Second Life'. Add a reference to that? -- Vanillaflava 16:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There was a recent edit that changed the time period of the novel from the "end of the 20th century" to the "early 21st century". Is there really a definitive time period for the novel? I've read it numerous times, and just finished re-reading it, and there are no dates given, so is there any concrete way to ascertain the time period? I always got the feeling the novel did take place around the end of the 20th century (but in a "fractured timeline" as noted in the article), not the early 21st century. – Mipadi 19:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: I think the previous information should be retained. Juanita's info might be longer than that of the other characters, but I think there was some good information that was removed. All the info there was merged from Juanita Marquez, and I think it's interesting and relevant to the book and this article. It should be replaced, but since two edits have been reverted, I thought I should get the input of other editors before reverting again. – Mipadi 23:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Other than the fact that they are both computer programmers, what is the basis of this comparison? Meier is a relatively common last name... Venicemenace 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Deleted. -- Kjoon lee 05:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Two days ago someone changed the name from Hiroaki to Hirohito. Apparently some references on the web show Hirohito as the full name of Hiro. According to my paperback ISBN 0-553-56261-4, it is Hiroaki, on page 89. Fred Hsu 03:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
The article includes "The setting is a near-future dystopian version of Los Angeles...". However, it then goes on to describe several things which are anything but dystopian, as dystopia has it. Is there any grounds to describe this as dystopian by Wikipedia's definition? Or is Wikipedia's definition wrong? If neither, this has to go. Notinasnaid 21:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The term "ruling class" is not present anywhere in Snow Crash. If you want to convey the idea presented in the book of a global elite, the wording needs to be changed. Also, the phrasing was grammatically incorrect. 04:14, November 24, 2006 Salvor Hardin
I did not write that phrase, but I restored it last time, because I felt that its removal took away something from the article. Perhaps the wording needs to be changed, but simply removing a phrase is not the right thing to do. Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC) See actual text
Also, why did you remove the word "chaotic" from "Set in a chaotic world with a political-economic..."? The book describes an extremely chaotic place, don't you agree? Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Mhm... I don't agree. But perhaps I am wrong. I had never though I would ever get into wiki edit war, and I won't. So I'll leave it at that. Fred Hsu 15:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I added an entry for Bedford in the "Important characters" section a while back. I thought it would be removed any day. But it wasn't. While Bedford never actually appeared in person in the novel, his church is a central player in this novel, connecting Rife to the glossolalia movement. Perhaps we should have a separate section for "Important franchises" in addition to the "characters" section. In the new section, various franchises and their relationship to one another can be illustrated... Fred Hsu 20:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Just read this book recently and realized that its probably the first use of the word "metaverse", which I kept hearing as a way of describing what Second Life is among academics. On some level the word means something similar to Gibson's "cyberspace" but with a greater connotation of a simulated "space" rather than an information-based environment, positioning it as maybe the "cyberspace" of the 21st century as people move towards more literal MMO metaphors for online interraction. All that to say that maybe there should be mention in the article of the origin of the word being the book, as the word is gaining importance. Jeremyclarke
under #Literary_significance_and_criticism
there are unbalanced quotes starting at:
Michaels further contends that this basis - "
and the grammar in much of this section is confusing
Is there some reason why that section is almost entirely dominated by the ramblings of a lone literary critic, with only a pittance of reference to anything else? There's a serious lack of anything resembling balance to this sections coverage, and it reads like someone using it as their personal soapbox. -- 72.14.99.199 03:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Gwern, you didn't write the section on Michaels (I did). But we are on the same page in terms of it being the only serious source of criticism available.
Raven claims to be angry with the world because of nuclear testing on the Aleutians. Was it real? Do we have an article on that? If so, please link to it from the article. -- 84.20.17.84 08:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
When Hiro is chasing Raven in the Metaverse; Raven explains exactly how he will exact revenge for his father's murder; Raven's plan may illustrate the view that America exists entirely in the intellectually elite (aka the hackers). If this is a common interpretation of the aforementioned event then a more eloquent representation of this thematic undertone should be integrated with the plot summary section. I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 15:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I snipped this from the L. Bob Rife article, which is now redir'd here:
L. Bob Rife was born in 1948, probably in Odessa, Texas. There he played fullback in high school for Permian High (the school featured in Friday Night Lights). He was on the second-string Texas all-state team in his senior year before going on to Rice University on an academic scholarship and majoring in communications. He then became a television sports reporter in the Houston area and after two years of this went into the communications business with his great uncle, a financier with ties in the oil business.
For five years Rife's activities were consisted of expanding his business throughout the United States until he began giving vast amounts of money to religious organizations and the archeology, astronomy, and computer science departments of his own university in Bayview, Texas, Rife Bible College. Shortly after, Rife was also expanding his fiber-optics market into East Asia after forcing the Japanese to let him in and expand his ever growing monopoly.—Preceding unsigned comment added by JosephBarillari ( talk • contribs) 5:55, 10 March 2005 (UTC)
He's also a thinly guised parody of L. Ron Hubbard, particularly The Barge / Sea Org.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.197.239.92 ( talk • contribs) 17:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I noticed that someone else keeps deleting the "reason" section without explanation, and while I disagree with the way they went about it, I definitely see where they're coming from. Why should a gun that only appears for the latter part of the book get a whole big section when Hiro, the main character, only gets two sentences? If we're going to take this article into the realm of detailed descriptions, I don't think that Reason should be the place to start. Why doesn't the Metaverse have its own section if we're giving Reason such a big chunk of this article? Cheesechimp 02:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I personally like the "reason" section, but I think that the "notable tech" section ought to /all/ be linked off into it's own section (and it would be nice to see some more info added, for example, on the motorbike/skateboard, the gargoyles, the librarian/earth, ng's-car/pizza-car, etc.) -- tcplee : Tue Sep 25 13:41:44 CEST 2007
The statement "The initial operating system needed a software patch, as it crashed in the field during Hiro and the Mafia's assault on the Raft. The weapon was new and had not yet been rigorously tested in the field." Is only one possible interpretation. To my reading, the book was intentionally vague on the subject, and it was possible that the gun failed because it was affected by the Snow Crash virus, just like Hiro's bike. I suggest that all such interpretation is removed, or add an admission that this is not strictly in the text of tho book. -- Kisses, 209.21.65.28 20:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
A tangential blurb contrasting thematic characteristics in Snow Crash with Nietzsche-ian philosophy (specifically the existence of the ubermensch) would be fascinating to read... I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 14:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Hiro is not equal to hero
Protagonist is equal to protagonist
Perhaps those who suggest the main character is aptly named "Hiro Protagonist" because he is both the hero and the protagonist are implementing a "new" literary character analysis technique; duck typing is a better way to go on this one (and by "this one" I mean all literary analysis). Based on thoughtful interpretation of Snow Crash, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hero at all; self interest is the hero in this novel. To make my point salient to all those in the audience: Based on thoughtful interpretation of the novel, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hiro at all; self interest is the hiro in this novel. I am willing to reinforce this claim with evidence; but I will only present this evidence if this viewpoint is challenged.
In fact, to indulge in unsupported speculation, I believe that Hiro was not spelled Hero for a reason: to suggest that Hiro is defintly not the hero [a character trait that could be evidenced by Hiros' actions in the novel]. To further indulge in speculative analysis, the juxtaposition of a misspelled word and a correctly spelled word, in the context of a proper name, may cause the reader to ponder the misspellings raison d’être... more often than not. 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 20:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I have Snow Crash in audiobook format, and the name is pronounced "David." I believe that is the correct pronunciation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.41.51.3 ( talk • contribs)
there's also a j4ck —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stentie ( talk • contribs) 14:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Can someone rewrite the plot summary? It is *far* too confusing. Generalcp702 user talk 00:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the reference to the novel "also centering on pit bull terriers being good pets", which is quite inexact. There are pit bulls in the book, but they hardly would be defined as important, even if one of them plays a relevant part before the end. And certainly the novel does not make emphasis in pit bulls being good pets; just a comment that the one YT and her boyfriend found was nice and friendly.
BTW, I'm not sure the bit about unanswered questions does belong on the article, either (surely there are dozens of unanswered questions of that caliber). But I'll leave it to others to remove, if necessary. -- Lektu 21:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I concur with your view that the novel did not center on pit bull terriers. The issue of Y.T.'s relationship with a pit bull terrier (who later became a Rat Thing) was only a minor part of the larger theme of whether machines or flesh are superior. The more important representative aspects of that theme include Y.T.'s initial in-the-flesh meeting with Ng, and the final confrontation with Raven, where Uncle Enzo thought to himself that he would rather have a good soldier with polished shoes and a 9mm pistol, as opposed to all of Ng's fancy machines. -- Coolcaesar 23:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
The pitbull did save her life at the end of the movie as well as killing several villains. The story included point of view and *internal monologue* of Y.T.'s old pitbull as well. -Thodin
Put it on the "Important characters" section, then. There's no doubt that Fido is a character of certain relevance, as the ending shows. But that does not make true the comment I removed. The book does not try to defend the position that pit bull terriers are good pets, and the fact that Fido is a pit bull (as opposed to, let's say, a fila brasileiro or a gos d'atura) is totally irrelevant. -- Lektu 22:33, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I was wondering if The Librarian in this novel should have an entry, primarily so that it can be referenced from the disambiguation page [6] and also for its similarities to things like Everything2 and/or Wikipedia itself. TimHare ( talk) 04:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I removed the {{unreferenced|section}} tag and replaced it with {{Importance-section}}, which I personally think is more appropriate. The current text is essentially referenced in the book itself and, like a plot summary, shouldn't require citations. What's missing is the context, an explanation of why these technologies are notable. If we can't find such material, I think the entire section should go. Just my $0.02. Wyatt Riot ( talk) 11:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This section may contain information not
important or relevant to the article's subject. (June 2009) |
I Want to add a separate page for Hiro —Preceding unsigned comment added by AthurDent ( talk • contribs) 10:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days.-- Oneiros ( talk) 01:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Refactoring looks like a lot of work for what it would gain, and could be contentious. If you find the volume here troublesome Archiving is a conservative and simple solution. However, the volume of talk here does not need anything close to the 60 day turnover. You could set at at 2 years and still archive most of the discussion. Dankarl ( talk) 18:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
In the statement- Some critics have considered it a parody of cyberpunk[6][7] Neither of the citations validate the statement "a parody of cyberpunk". Nitpyck ( talk) 07:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
The sentence Franchising, individual sovereignty and automobiles reign supreme doesn't work. Only one person/entity can reign supreme. Also anyone reading this and expecting a world ruled by cars will be sorely disappointed. I'd change it if I knew what it was trying to say. Nitpyck ( talk) 05:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Franchising, individual sovereignty and private vehicles reign (along with drug trafficking, violent crime, and traffic congestion).
I took it out- Hiro's living in a storage shed kind of undercuts booming. And thanks for the fix. Nitpyck ( talk) 19:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
I would consider doing the following things:
A fellow Stephenson fan, Sadads ( talk) 15:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm a Stephenson fan too, but I'm skeptical about Case Western Reserve's claim that his book popularized the term (how did they measure that?). Please see my note here. Twang ( talk) 19:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I tagged the article as not having a neutral point of view. It's cool that lots of people do like this book a lot, however somehow a person who doesn't know it gets kind of blown away by all the enthusiasm. How about tweeking the article a little so it's more for the non-fan? Jaque Hammer ( talk) 04:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Albeit the term "avatar" was used by the first to mean a graphical representation of user at Habitat, I believe Snow Crash is the first novel where the concept of avatar is fully developed, with detailed descriptions of avatars in cyberspace (metaverse). Is this true? If so I can add to the main entry. Cheers, MarioGuima 12:17, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Can we get some verification for this=> "L. Bob Rife (based on L. Ron Hubbard)" ??? Dustin Asby 09:14, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Like many postmodern novels, Snow Crash has a unique style and a chaotic structure which many readers find difficult to follow. It is crammed full of subtle references to geography, politics, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, history, and computer science, and its rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading.
This paragraph is a little too POV for a WP article. I would have edited it a bit for POV-ness, except that it's just plain wrong: how many people had to read the book four times to get it? You don't need a companion volume to understand this --- it's not exactly the computer age's Finnegan's Wake or Gravity's Rainbow. jdb ❋ ( talk) 00:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just to point out, I wrote that sentence. I was introduced to Snow Crash through a large college seminar that covered a wide range of American literature (long story). I have always been a science-fiction fan from a young age (although at the time I had only read a little cyberpunk) and I fell in love with the book right away, but even then it wasn't until my second reading that I noticed all the funny little details that Stephenson packs in. Most of the people in the seminar were not science-fiction fans and kept whining at every class at how the book was boring, unreadable, chaotic, impossible to understand, incoherent, etc. The instructor ended up having do a lot more lecturing as opposed to discussion for Snow Crash because few people in the class understood the book well-enough (even after multiple attempts at reading it) to hold a coherent discussion about its themes and underlying implications.
And in case you're about to retort that most people in most colleges are idiots, I should point out that this was at the most prestigious public university in the United States (guess which one). So the average IQ of these people was a bit higher than your average community college student. Of course, my alma mater ranks at only between 20 and 25 on the U.S. News & World Report ratings, but I doubt the population of the universities that ranked even higher (the Ivy League) could be considered representative of the world English-speaking population.
The point I'm trying to get across is that WP is for a general intellectual audience, not just hard sci-fi fans who take computer jargon and cyberpunk style for granted. Keep in mind that most people's idea of science fiction is simple, linear, childish fantasy stuff like what Anne McCaffrey writes (I am specifically thinking of The Ship That Sang series). Most people, once they finish their mandatory English requirements in high school, never get around to reading contemporary writers like Philip Roth or Milan Kundera who love to screw around with the reader's sense of time and location.
So, I think it's fair to imply in the article that Snow Crash is a bit harder than the garbage that passes for bestsellers on Amazon nowadays.
-- Coolcaesar 03:34, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm. It's been a week with no reply from Jdb. I'm putting my passage back in for now.
-- Coolcaesar 00:17, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed your reply. If you want to put it back, OK -- it sounds like you've spent more time considering this issue than I have. But please rephrase it to use more NPOV language --- "crammed full of subtle references" and "rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading" are phrases appropriate for a dust jacket or PublishersWeekly blurb, but not an encyclopedia article. thanks, jdb ❋ ( talk) 01:38, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yo everyone: This page is NOT a general overview of the cyberpunk genre. This is an article about Snow Crash. We already have a cyberpunk article just for cyberpunk in general. Therefore, we should NOT have a separate list of cyberpunk authors on this page. Most of those novels on the list aren't even remotely similar to Snow Crash in style or subject matter (e.g., Darwin's Radio).
There was a similar problem over in the Judge article two months ago, where we had a list of famous judges that partially duplicated List of judges. Now the Judge article simply has a link to List of judges. That's the way to do it. The point of hypertext is to say it once and link to that text and not repeat the same thing ten times.
Come on, people, this is a hypertext encyclopedia, not a paper encyclopedia! It's not that hard.
If someone doesn't come up with a good reason for why we should have a separate list here, I'm getting rid of it in a week (or less).
-- Coolcaesar 04:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, to avoid a violation of the 3RR, I am formally raising an issue. I can't believe I have to state the obvious.
First, I traced the source of that poorly written garbage about Enki in the article. It was brought in by user Mirv at this edit on 6 September 2005[ [1]], from the Enki article, where it was introduced by user 70.179.255.248 at this edit [ [2]] on 21 July 2005.
Now, here are the defects in that passage which justify why it should go (now I feel thankful for the weekly passage-and-response critique exercises that are mandatory in California middle school English classes):
(1) Unencyclopedic style. Stream-of-consciousness style is grossly inappropriate for an encyclopedia, especially when it appears to be coming from the consciousness of a five-year-old with an apparent inability to focus.
(2) Paragraph and sentence length is too long. Only insanely difficult European philosophers like Hegel write paragraphs and sentences that long. Modern English style as formulated by Strunk and White in Elements of Style is short and concise.
(3) First-person voice. This has been debated again and again on the Manual of Style talk page, and the consensus was to stay away from it unless there is a clearly demonstrated need. It sounds unencyclopedic and too often allows writers to sneak in original research in violation of the No original research policy.
(4) Disorganized. Rewriting this mess would take too much time. I estimate that at a minimum, this would have to be broken into 5 separate paragraphs and all sentences would have to be split in two if not three. The disorganized structure of the passage requires significant reordering; probably over half of all sentences would have to exchange places. Do you have the time and energy to do that? I have better things to do like prepare for the massive reorganization of the Lawyer family of articles I have been planning for a month (see Talk:Lawyer and Talk:Juris Doctor).
(5) Even if it's relevant, it's too much information and probably non-notable. Relevance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for info to stay on Wikipedia. This is in-depth information more appropriate for a Cliff's Notes book, not casual Web users looking for a light, general treatment of the subject.
Of course, if you have the time, skill, and energy to rewrite the passage into something coherent that actually fits with the rest of the article, feel free to do so. Otherwise, I'm taking it out in another week. -- Coolcaesar 03:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
In the book, does he ever describe how users of Metaverse terminals input commands or movements? Someone on Slashdot mentioned that he never actually describes the input method, and left it to the reader's imaginations. I know he describes the VR visual display system in detail, but I can't recall him ever escribing how the users actually controlled their avatars, unlike in Gibson's Neuromancer and other CP books. I don't have a copy to look through at the moment. Identity0 05:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a copy of the book in front of me, and I don't think he actually does address this. I have to admit it's bugging me. While I do like the idea of the VR being projected directly onto the retina instead of plugging in via some sort of brian port (as is more common in cyberpuck), without any way to tell how they're actually controlling their avatars a lot of the scenes in the metaverse just frustrate me. How are they sword fighting, for starters? Is the "greatest swordfighter in the world" merely pressing the a button really fast? (12 May, 2006)
In the acknowledgement he mentions something about some pictures he made for the book, but never made it to print. Does anyone know if these pictures are available?
I'm proposing that Da5id and Juanita Marquez be merged with this article. The fiction notability guidelines suggest that these characters probably don't warrant their own article, and it makes sense to put them here. While both characters are important, neither is really important or widely known outside this work of literature. – Mipadi 13:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone else think the "important characters" section is getting a little fat? Someone just added "Roadkill," who has about 4 lines in the book. MFNickster 15:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and merged the characters. I think some of the "important characters" could still be removed, though. It might also be a good idea to expand the information on the main characters, and perhaps give each one a header so that they can easily be linked to from other articles (if a writer wants to directly link to Da5id, for example). – Mipadi 15:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that part needs to be cleaned up or not, since I have never read the book cited. the poster uses the term "appears to be" and "openly racist", which in my opinion violates NPOV as well as appearing unverifiable. However, I admit that I don't have the guts to edit this myself because of the sensitivity of the topic and inability to cite this one properly. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.99.158 ( talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 Aug 2006 (UTC)
I find it highly unlikely that Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was inspired by Snowcrash. Did Cyan (creators) ever state that anywhere? The only similarity that exists between the two works, is that Uru lets the user interact in a MMO environment. Uru's theme is based on the earlier Myst series games which are very far removed from Cyberpunk.
I propose this is maybe changed to using 'Second Life' as a reference, as this is much closer to the concept of the Street and the Metaverse. Interestingly enough, the concept of virtual real estate and its value and trade is realy evident and publicised in 'Second Life'. Add a reference to that? -- Vanillaflava 16:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There was a recent edit that changed the time period of the novel from the "end of the 20th century" to the "early 21st century". Is there really a definitive time period for the novel? I've read it numerous times, and just finished re-reading it, and there are no dates given, so is there any concrete way to ascertain the time period? I always got the feeling the novel did take place around the end of the 20th century (but in a "fractured timeline" as noted in the article), not the early 21st century. – Mipadi 19:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: I think the previous information should be retained. Juanita's info might be longer than that of the other characters, but I think there was some good information that was removed. All the info there was merged from Juanita Marquez, and I think it's interesting and relevant to the book and this article. It should be replaced, but since two edits have been reverted, I thought I should get the input of other editors before reverting again. – Mipadi 23:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Other than the fact that they are both computer programmers, what is the basis of this comparison? Meier is a relatively common last name... Venicemenace 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Deleted. -- Kjoon lee 05:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Two days ago someone changed the name from Hiroaki to Hirohito. Apparently some references on the web show Hirohito as the full name of Hiro. According to my paperback ISBN 0-553-56261-4, it is Hiroaki, on page 89. Fred Hsu 03:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
The article includes "The setting is a near-future dystopian version of Los Angeles...". However, it then goes on to describe several things which are anything but dystopian, as dystopia has it. Is there any grounds to describe this as dystopian by Wikipedia's definition? Or is Wikipedia's definition wrong? If neither, this has to go. Notinasnaid 21:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The term "ruling class" is not present anywhere in Snow Crash. If you want to convey the idea presented in the book of a global elite, the wording needs to be changed. Also, the phrasing was grammatically incorrect. 04:14, November 24, 2006 Salvor Hardin
I did not write that phrase, but I restored it last time, because I felt that its removal took away something from the article. Perhaps the wording needs to be changed, but simply removing a phrase is not the right thing to do. Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC) See actual text
Also, why did you remove the word "chaotic" from "Set in a chaotic world with a political-economic..."? The book describes an extremely chaotic place, don't you agree? Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Mhm... I don't agree. But perhaps I am wrong. I had never though I would ever get into wiki edit war, and I won't. So I'll leave it at that. Fred Hsu 15:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I added an entry for Bedford in the "Important characters" section a while back. I thought it would be removed any day. But it wasn't. While Bedford never actually appeared in person in the novel, his church is a central player in this novel, connecting Rife to the glossolalia movement. Perhaps we should have a separate section for "Important franchises" in addition to the "characters" section. In the new section, various franchises and their relationship to one another can be illustrated... Fred Hsu 20:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Just read this book recently and realized that its probably the first use of the word "metaverse", which I kept hearing as a way of describing what Second Life is among academics. On some level the word means something similar to Gibson's "cyberspace" but with a greater connotation of a simulated "space" rather than an information-based environment, positioning it as maybe the "cyberspace" of the 21st century as people move towards more literal MMO metaphors for online interraction. All that to say that maybe there should be mention in the article of the origin of the word being the book, as the word is gaining importance. Jeremyclarke
under #Literary_significance_and_criticism
there are unbalanced quotes starting at:
Michaels further contends that this basis - "
and the grammar in much of this section is confusing
Is there some reason why that section is almost entirely dominated by the ramblings of a lone literary critic, with only a pittance of reference to anything else? There's a serious lack of anything resembling balance to this sections coverage, and it reads like someone using it as their personal soapbox. -- 72.14.99.199 03:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Gwern, you didn't write the section on Michaels (I did). But we are on the same page in terms of it being the only serious source of criticism available.
Raven claims to be angry with the world because of nuclear testing on the Aleutians. Was it real? Do we have an article on that? If so, please link to it from the article. -- 84.20.17.84 08:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
When Hiro is chasing Raven in the Metaverse; Raven explains exactly how he will exact revenge for his father's murder; Raven's plan may illustrate the view that America exists entirely in the intellectually elite (aka the hackers). If this is a common interpretation of the aforementioned event then a more eloquent representation of this thematic undertone should be integrated with the plot summary section. I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 15:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I snipped this from the L. Bob Rife article, which is now redir'd here:
L. Bob Rife was born in 1948, probably in Odessa, Texas. There he played fullback in high school for Permian High (the school featured in Friday Night Lights). He was on the second-string Texas all-state team in his senior year before going on to Rice University on an academic scholarship and majoring in communications. He then became a television sports reporter in the Houston area and after two years of this went into the communications business with his great uncle, a financier with ties in the oil business.
For five years Rife's activities were consisted of expanding his business throughout the United States until he began giving vast amounts of money to religious organizations and the archeology, astronomy, and computer science departments of his own university in Bayview, Texas, Rife Bible College. Shortly after, Rife was also expanding his fiber-optics market into East Asia after forcing the Japanese to let him in and expand his ever growing monopoly.—Preceding unsigned comment added by JosephBarillari ( talk • contribs) 5:55, 10 March 2005 (UTC)
He's also a thinly guised parody of L. Ron Hubbard, particularly The Barge / Sea Org.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.197.239.92 ( talk • contribs) 17:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I noticed that someone else keeps deleting the "reason" section without explanation, and while I disagree with the way they went about it, I definitely see where they're coming from. Why should a gun that only appears for the latter part of the book get a whole big section when Hiro, the main character, only gets two sentences? If we're going to take this article into the realm of detailed descriptions, I don't think that Reason should be the place to start. Why doesn't the Metaverse have its own section if we're giving Reason such a big chunk of this article? Cheesechimp 02:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I personally like the "reason" section, but I think that the "notable tech" section ought to /all/ be linked off into it's own section (and it would be nice to see some more info added, for example, on the motorbike/skateboard, the gargoyles, the librarian/earth, ng's-car/pizza-car, etc.) -- tcplee : Tue Sep 25 13:41:44 CEST 2007
The statement "The initial operating system needed a software patch, as it crashed in the field during Hiro and the Mafia's assault on the Raft. The weapon was new and had not yet been rigorously tested in the field." Is only one possible interpretation. To my reading, the book was intentionally vague on the subject, and it was possible that the gun failed because it was affected by the Snow Crash virus, just like Hiro's bike. I suggest that all such interpretation is removed, or add an admission that this is not strictly in the text of tho book. -- Kisses, 209.21.65.28 20:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
A tangential blurb contrasting thematic characteristics in Snow Crash with Nietzsche-ian philosophy (specifically the existence of the ubermensch) would be fascinating to read... I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 14:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Hiro is not equal to hero
Protagonist is equal to protagonist
Perhaps those who suggest the main character is aptly named "Hiro Protagonist" because he is both the hero and the protagonist are implementing a "new" literary character analysis technique; duck typing is a better way to go on this one (and by "this one" I mean all literary analysis). Based on thoughtful interpretation of Snow Crash, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hero at all; self interest is the hero in this novel. To make my point salient to all those in the audience: Based on thoughtful interpretation of the novel, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hiro at all; self interest is the hiro in this novel. I am willing to reinforce this claim with evidence; but I will only present this evidence if this viewpoint is challenged.
In fact, to indulge in unsupported speculation, I believe that Hiro was not spelled Hero for a reason: to suggest that Hiro is defintly not the hero [a character trait that could be evidenced by Hiros' actions in the novel]. To further indulge in speculative analysis, the juxtaposition of a misspelled word and a correctly spelled word, in the context of a proper name, may cause the reader to ponder the misspellings raison d’être... more often than not. 71.224.60.238 ( talk) 20:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I have Snow Crash in audiobook format, and the name is pronounced "David." I believe that is the correct pronunciation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.41.51.3 ( talk • contribs)
there's also a j4ck —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stentie ( talk • contribs) 14:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Can someone rewrite the plot summary? It is *far* too confusing. Generalcp702 user talk 00:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the reference to the novel "also centering on pit bull terriers being good pets", which is quite inexact. There are pit bulls in the book, but they hardly would be defined as important, even if one of them plays a relevant part before the end. And certainly the novel does not make emphasis in pit bulls being good pets; just a comment that the one YT and her boyfriend found was nice and friendly.
BTW, I'm not sure the bit about unanswered questions does belong on the article, either (surely there are dozens of unanswered questions of that caliber). But I'll leave it to others to remove, if necessary. -- Lektu 21:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I concur with your view that the novel did not center on pit bull terriers. The issue of Y.T.'s relationship with a pit bull terrier (who later became a Rat Thing) was only a minor part of the larger theme of whether machines or flesh are superior. The more important representative aspects of that theme include Y.T.'s initial in-the-flesh meeting with Ng, and the final confrontation with Raven, where Uncle Enzo thought to himself that he would rather have a good soldier with polished shoes and a 9mm pistol, as opposed to all of Ng's fancy machines. -- Coolcaesar 23:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
The pitbull did save her life at the end of the movie as well as killing several villains. The story included point of view and *internal monologue* of Y.T.'s old pitbull as well. -Thodin
Put it on the "Important characters" section, then. There's no doubt that Fido is a character of certain relevance, as the ending shows. But that does not make true the comment I removed. The book does not try to defend the position that pit bull terriers are good pets, and the fact that Fido is a pit bull (as opposed to, let's say, a fila brasileiro or a gos d'atura) is totally irrelevant. -- Lektu 22:33, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I was wondering if The Librarian in this novel should have an entry, primarily so that it can be referenced from the disambiguation page [6] and also for its similarities to things like Everything2 and/or Wikipedia itself. TimHare ( talk) 04:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I removed the {{unreferenced|section}} tag and replaced it with {{Importance-section}}, which I personally think is more appropriate. The current text is essentially referenced in the book itself and, like a plot summary, shouldn't require citations. What's missing is the context, an explanation of why these technologies are notable. If we can't find such material, I think the entire section should go. Just my $0.02. Wyatt Riot ( talk) 11:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This section may contain information not
important or relevant to the article's subject. (June 2009) |
I Want to add a separate page for Hiro —Preceding unsigned comment added by AthurDent ( talk • contribs) 10:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days.-- Oneiros ( talk) 01:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Refactoring looks like a lot of work for what it would gain, and could be contentious. If you find the volume here troublesome Archiving is a conservative and simple solution. However, the volume of talk here does not need anything close to the 60 day turnover. You could set at at 2 years and still archive most of the discussion. Dankarl ( talk) 18:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
In the statement- Some critics have considered it a parody of cyberpunk[6][7] Neither of the citations validate the statement "a parody of cyberpunk". Nitpyck ( talk) 07:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
The sentence Franchising, individual sovereignty and automobiles reign supreme doesn't work. Only one person/entity can reign supreme. Also anyone reading this and expecting a world ruled by cars will be sorely disappointed. I'd change it if I knew what it was trying to say. Nitpyck ( talk) 05:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Franchising, individual sovereignty and private vehicles reign (along with drug trafficking, violent crime, and traffic congestion).
I took it out- Hiro's living in a storage shed kind of undercuts booming. And thanks for the fix. Nitpyck ( talk) 19:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
I would consider doing the following things:
A fellow Stephenson fan, Sadads ( talk) 15:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm a Stephenson fan too, but I'm skeptical about Case Western Reserve's claim that his book popularized the term (how did they measure that?). Please see my note here. Twang ( talk) 19:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I tagged the article as not having a neutral point of view. It's cool that lots of people do like this book a lot, however somehow a person who doesn't know it gets kind of blown away by all the enthusiasm. How about tweeking the article a little so it's more for the non-fan? Jaque Hammer ( talk) 04:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)