Talk:Sphere (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is part of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the General Project Discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Tasks you can do: Novels WikiProject Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss) → Please help with tagging articles! This WikiProject now includes "Novels", "Novellas", "Novelettes" and "Short Stories" of narrative form! Critique (Featured Article): None current - "7 achieved / 2 removed" Review: Erast Fandorin Improve: Nineteen Eighty-Five • Vathek • Enderby Outside • The Runes of the Earth • The Giver • Crown of Shadows • More... Create: Black Cocktail • Blackthorn Winter • London, 1850 • The Fatal Eggs • More... Novel without Infobox (auto list): many novel articles do not have an infobox - and need one (auto generated list) - may need expansion of article too A new policy proposal has been started and this is to be seen at Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles, please take a look at these and comment. This is a vital subject and all editors should consider the implications. These are NOT active yet, but could have wide reaching consequences. Please contribute your views. Our Collaboration Department is continuing with one more title Waverley (novel) for the current month. Get collaborating on the article and also look at nominating other titles to be considered. Pages that only exist as redirects: Men at Arms changes

The plot seems quite similar to The Lathe of Heaven.

Also Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I have tried to add it in the article, but some guy keeps deleting it.

I'm not sure who you both are (sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~); that automatically gives your User name or IP address, and adds the date and time), but while it's OK to speculate about sources and likenesses here, to do so in the article offends against Wikipedia policy. That's why I deleted the sentence in question. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:08, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

But if you can find existing criticism of the book that says it owes something to Solaris you could place this view in the article; though you should probably cite your sources.--Mongreilf 08:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Grammar 2 name? 3 Artifact 4 Horrible plot hole 5 *clears throat* 6 Interpretation section 7 similarity

[edit] Grammar

-Straightened out a few grammar errors. I think that's the worst of it. And who ever heard of squids? that's like mooses!Revpfil 15:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] name?

Beth is called "Halpern" on top of the article and "Halperin" at the end - I don't remember which one is correct though (clem 23:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC))

"Halperin" is given at the film page and on IMDb, so I've changed the first occurrence. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

That may be, but I have a copy of the book in front of me, (page 22 in my copy) and it's "Halpern". Thus I've changed it to reflect this inconsistency (similar to Johnson vs. Goodman). To the end of Norman's last name, the article on the movie says: "starring Dustin Hoffman as Dr. Norman Johnson". Interesting, but I haven' seen the movie. If you want to dispute either case, there's plenty of talk page. HereToHelp 22:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Artifact

Let me know when artefact is the de facto spelling in a country with the highest GDP, love Scapermoya 07:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Mel Etitis is insisting on being contentious about the spelling of artifact. The simple fact that wikipedia's own article on the word "artefact" redirects to artifact, not the other way around, is precedent enough to make my edit valid. He wants to play editing tennis without discussing it. I am going to go with the OED and Wiki on this, not to mention the fact that artifact is the accepted spelling in America. Call it typical American arrogance, but I am willing to discuss this. Scapermoya 23:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English suggests, by way of example, that articles about British books should be written in British English, so perhaps we should use American English for Sphere--Mongreilf 12:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Horrible plot hole

Is it worth mentioning that despite all the talk in the novel about the team needing to decompress slowly or die horribly once they reach the surface, they apparently have no problems taking their helmets off inside the ship when it's unambiguously confimed in the book that it is "Earth's atmosphere" in there? - Ifitmovesnukeit 17:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Also it seems highly unlikely that under military jurisdiction Barnes would have let Harry escape unnoticed to the sphere. I mean come on--crap like that was happening throughout the book. And then sometimes characters use faulty logic, like when Beth concludes that because that which is unknown to us is more likely to be perplexing (disputable), we are more likely to be perplexed when confronted with it than horrified. But she ignores that human beings often act irrationally.

Also, I don't have the book with me right now, but I just finished reading it yesterday (read it in entirety over the weekend), and overall it seems like Chricton was lazy with the delivery toward the end, and that at times he wrote with Hollywood in mind. This book was certainly a page turner, but by the time you put it down you wince at all the fluff, meaningless narrative you had to wade through to uncover some lame-ass supposition that humans have dominated the playing field over other lifeforms because of their ability to "imagine."

MondoManDevout 23:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] *clears throat*

Attention sci-fi writers: STOP MAKING OUTLANDISH PREDICTIONS ABOUT AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY BY CERTAIN DATES!! It's impossible to take seriously any proposition which states that humans can conceivably travel through black holes by 2047. And no, this isn't hindsight. Chricton's an idiot for thinking it even in the late 80's. The space program had by that point already lost much of its momentum, and NASA has yet to pick it back up to anywhere near Space-race levels. Of course, some of you neglect that in the records they find in the ship, the date's actually written as "8/5/43."

The crew assumes this means August 5, 2043, which is a stupid assumption. But Chricton has pretty much let it stand that yes, it was supposed to represent 2043. Therefore he's a dumbass.

MondoManDevout 01:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interpretation section

Whilst I enjoyed reading it, the Interpretation section appears to be solely original research. It cites no sources and was added in it's entirety by an anonymous editor on September 8th 2006. I believe it should be removed. --- Trench 02:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, sure, but doesn't belong in Wikipedia, and is unsalvageable in this respect. All gone, and OR tag removed. EldKatt (Talk) 21:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I entirely agree, but if you don't mind, I'll link the diff so it's easily accessible to those who wish to view it after reading this discussion. MeekSaffron 18:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] similarity

When I finished reading the book, in 2002, I thought that it shared a LOAD of similarity with "Stargate" the movie and "The Abyss". Especially the "rag tag" group of volunteers who explore new alien things. I think they're rip-offs. However, I did find the topics of psychology and human emotions interesting, but what really, really made the whole thing suck was the whole time-travelling humans bit. Aliens I could imagine could pull this kind stuff off at least. Although, the usage of the sphere as a self-retrospective plot driver was good.