Talk:The Sheep Look Up

Final, climactic sentence of the book

This article is generally pretty awesome, but the problem I'm having is this: whenever I recommend this book to someone, s/he immediately looks it up online, finds this page as (usually) the first result, and reads this article, which reveals the final, climactic sentence of the book. It's a great sentence, and it has a great deal of impact when the reader encounters it on the last page of the book; that impact is definitely reduced by having this "spoiler" here and knowing the ending in advance. I understand that it's important to include something about how the book ends. My question is, do we really think it's necessary to include the final sentence verbatim in this article? Or, is there a precedent for including a sort of "Spoiler Alert" in an article, to avoid ruining a book for someone? I am interested to hear from others who have actually read both this book and this Wikipedia article. Thanks. Tamarleigh (talk) 15:14, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, I wonder why there is a word inserted into that final sentence. The sentence is "The wind is blowing that way." but in this article it is "The wind is blowing [from] that way." I think that the article would be better if the sentence were not quoted in the article at all, but at least if it's going to be in the article, I think the article would be better if the sentence were actually quoted verbatim, without adding a word. I believe the sentence was meant to be read as written. The wind is blowing that way. It's a play on words. I think it weakens the article to introduce this bracketed word, as though the original sentence contained an error of ommission. Thoughts? Tamarleigh (talk) 15:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the ambiguity in the original is probably intentional, and the quote should be verbatim. Reify-tech (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Policy is not to add "spoiler alert" warnings, but in this case, adding the final line looks really egregious to me. I'd happily take it out. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for responding. I also had the fun of clicking the Thank button for the first time on Wikipedia, to Thank the user who removed that sentence from the article. I didn't even know we had a Thank function, but when I saw that action on the History page, I felt immediate gratitude, so having a Thank button right there enabled me to express that gratitude almost instantaneously. Yay for Wikipedia! Thx again. Tamarleigh (talk) 10:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a page for John Brunner on Wikiquote. I added some quotes there, including that particular sentence. I think that is the appropriate place for it. Tamarleigh (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Quotes on Wikiquote

My question now becomes, how do we link from this article to the wikiquote page containing quotes from this book? I figured out how to link to the John Brunner page, but then the little wikiquote box doesn't mention quotes from this book, just from its author. I am hoping someone, someone with more wikicuity (is that a word yet? should be...) than I, will find a way to add the appropriate wikiquotes link to this article, linking to the "The Sheep Look Up" section of the John Brunner page on wikiquote.

I added a link as "See also" but I know there must be a better way to do this. So if you're reading this and you know a way to do it better, please change it so that the link to wikiquote is in some kind of wikiquote button or whatever. Thank you! Tamarleigh (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

A more descriptive plot section

I really like this book and so I felt that the plot summary that was here was disappointing. It was far too vague and left out too many critical details. So I created a new section that gives out a decent summary of the events in each chapter. I also renamed the "plot summary" as "setting" and filled in some specific details about things like "don't drink" warnings, the rise of antibiotic resistant infections, and a mention of Prexy. I think it allows people who don't want to read the whole book to get the gist of it.