Talk:Stand on Zanzibar

message: I think we need to pay more attention to that comment that the room-mate is an analyst. In fact Brunner called him a synthesist and spent a fair amount of time describing what he did. I'll come back when I can and edit the entry myself, but in the meantime there are a few web pages available to draw from with descriptions etc and I think it's important to draw the distinction. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.50.164.147 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 6 February 2006.
:I agree.  As a sometime analyst myself (for various clients in Big Pharma), I can say that in both industry and academia analysts are narrowly focused, and not synthesists in the free-ranging Donald Hogan sense at all - the very opposite, actually. An analyst works in one field of knowledge, and doesn't professionally wander off into other fields - he consults other analysts in fields he doesn't specialize in to do what Brunner has Donald Hogan do himself.  In fact, "synthesis" is actively discouraged in most industries, because the pitfalls of decisions based on nonspecialist analysis horrify corporate lawyers.
:Buckminster Fuller may have been such a synthesist (although he seemed to me to be more of a unspecialized engineer), but he worked largely on his own time, or from sporadic grants.  Pity he never got much money from the geodesic dome concept that he gave the world, which is immortalized in the "Fuller Dome" over Greater New York in Stand on Zanzibar.  Esther Dyson may be such a synthesist; please note that she also lives from entrepreneurial activity (her own venture capital fund) and writing, not government or institutional sponsorship.
:I do admire the way in which Brunner has the Federal Government choose its own synthesists - look for the malcontents who spend all their spare time in the university library, take too many out-of-syllabus electives, and constantly complain about how narrow their degree programs are.  As a pre-med who scheduled nuclear science, drama and radio production, algebra, chemistry and zoology in the same semester to my faculty advisor's consternation, I used to PRAY for a summons to my dean's office so that I could go to work learning everything there was. (sigh) loupgarous (talk) 20:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Room-mate

message: :Image:StandOnZanzibar(1stEd).jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:StandOnZanzibar(1stEd).jpg

message: What is the deal with the structure section?  It repeatedly references the "dos passos"guy for no reason ("As in the work of dos passos is a worthless comment), has a wonky, abnormal construction, and is unnecessarily verbose.  It looks like the work of a fan of the book who has no fucking idea how to construct a useful article.  I would edit it, but frankly, it seems uselss and needs to be removed totally.
:Not responsible for the structure section, but I can't say I see what your beef is (which might suggest that you 'do not entirely grasp' (to paraphrase you) how best to make a useful contribution).  The structure of SonZ is decidedly abnormal for 60's sci-fi, so some explanation of what it is and why it is, and what its antecedents were is called for.  Perhaps, though, the explanation misses a trick at a deeper level (why the structure?); the Dos  Passos technique inherently requires the reader to build up the story (and a growing awareness/critique of the society in which the story is taking place) by sticking together apparently unrelated snippets.  One of the main characters is a 'synthesist' ; and their role is to spot underlying trends by sticking together apparently unrelated snippets [a job I fancied when I read the book, and am still looking for].  So one would suspect (or I did when I read it 40 years ago and was bowled over by it) the structure and the content of SonZ are linked (sort of) which is (a) neat (b) a much more 'literary' effect than your average 60's sci-fi bothered with.Rjccumbria (talk) 00:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference to John Dos Passos's "USA" is relevant as the most popular previous book to use the Innis Mode of narration, along with Robert A. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land."  If you need to know what the Innis Mode is, Brunner explains it in the first few pages of SoZ.loupgarous (talk) 23:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The structure section sucks 

message: Removed this from the article and bring it here for discussion:
:The central question asked at the end of the book was posed by one of the characters, Chad C. Mulligan, when he said, "Norman, what in God’s name is it worth to be human, if we have to be saved from ourselves by a machine?" The question here refers to the machine Shalmaneser, a super-computer owned by General Technics. As the two major plot lines intertwine we find that mankind's hope of breeding out violence in subsequent generations has been lost. While it might be possible for man to achieve and implement a limited solution, Norman House suggests that the problem be handed over to Shalmaneser and solved.
:The reader will however have great reservations about House's proposal, as there are several "Utterances of Shalmaneser" separating sections of the novel, and even within context, it is quite clear that the Supercomputer, while certainly sentient, is also equally psychotic in personality. Entrusting the fate of humanity to it is an endeavour fraught with peril.
:John Brunner has often espoused the view that entrusting the fate of humanity to a single system inevitably results in such disaster, and therefore the argument is consistent within his work.
::This is naught but unreferenced speculation and interpretation, thus inappropriate for the article. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 18:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Using the utterances of a character in a novel as an indication of how the author feels on a subject is a perilous game.  Especially in an Innis Mode narrative where the author doesn't really speak through any particular character (I once made the mistake of identifying Robert A. Heinlein too closely with "Jubal Harshaw" in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and was upbraided sharply - and correctly - by other members of an online discussion group).loupgarous (talk) 23:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy 

message: The original text reads "The Philippines are under attack from neighboring Yatakang..."
Actually, in the book, the author writes that the Philippines are under attack from "Chinese aquabandits" possibly based in Yatakang, and in many other places states plainly that the war isn't with Yatakang, but with China.  Yatakang is a socialist dictatorship, and loosely allied to China but not, as far as I can tell from Stand on Zanzibar, a combatant in the conflict between the US and China.  Why would Donald Hogan be admitted into Yatakang as a journalist if the US and Yatakang were at war?  In fact, why would there be direct flights between Ellay and the capital of Yatakang if the US and Yatakang were at war?
So I have changed the text to read: "The Philippines are under attack from China... ", the only statement which can be supported by the text of Stand on Zanzibar loupgarous (talk) 19:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Phillippines are under attack from.... 

message: Copied this from the current article:
James Blish, however, received the novel negatively, saying "I disliked everybody in it and I was constantly impeded by the suspicion that Brunner was not writing for himself but for a Prize. . . A man of Brunner's gifts should have seen ab initio that U.S.A. was a stillbirth even in its originator's hands".[6]
I don't understand the "U.S.A." reference in the second part. Did someone misquote Blish or take something he wrote out of context? Was Blish writing about a different book? As far as I know Brunner never wrote one called U.S.A., nor was Stand on Zanzibar known by that title. Amvros (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: No, he's referring to the John Dos Passos trilogy U.S.A., the structure of which SoZ is loosely based on. BMK (talk) 02:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Blish's comments 

message: "Stand on Zanzibar" is featured in http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190509-the-1968-sci-fi-that-spookily-predicted-today
2601:8A:C100:84CC:F842:29D4:175B:B3B7 (talk) 22:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  BBC Article of 10 May 2019