So I am rereading the book and come across his Wiki entry again and Google him and it goes to Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubertus_Bigend which cites what it calls the "fictional Wiki entry" which is about half of the article and is there. So is it fictional? How PoMo can you get?

Seriously I love the parthenogenesis aspect of Blue Ant

If only he didn't look like Tom Cruise, however fortified, I would sooo have a crush on him.

I wonder exactly what additional references or sources they could possibly want.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
So I am rereading the book and come across his Wiki entry again and Google him and it goes to Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubertus_Bigend which cites what it calls the "fictional Wiki entry" which is about half of the article and is there. So is it fictional? How PoMo can you get?

When Spook Country was written and published, there was no actual Wikipedia entry for Hubertus Bigend, so, at that point, it was a fictional Wikipedia entry.

Therefore I created the original Hubertus Bigend Wikipedia entry on August 9th 2007 - it seemed to be an appropriately recursive good idea at the time.

You can see how this, or any other, Wikipedia entry has mutated over time, by looking at the Revision History page associated with the article i.e. in this case Revision History of Hubertus Bigend

One little noticed feature of such Revision History pages is that you can subscribe to an RSS or Atom syndicated newsfeed of the page - see the bottom of the left hand column.


@ IndividualFrog

There were originally some links, even to these discussion forums, but they have now been moved to the main Spook Country Wikipedia entry by someone else.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Memetic Engineer,

I'm such a slacker, that I finally got around to looking up the word spiv today.

OK, so it didn't exist prior to publication, but it is still an actual entry for Hubertus, which exists, on Wiki, which also exists.

For a fictional person.

I think it is the first character to have a Wiki citation in his own fictional space (SC) which then goes into the actual Wiki space.

Do you see my point? The level of recursion going on?

It's like some sort of detourment wqithout an original context which therefore makes it impossible but still, there it is.

quote:

Originally posted by Fashionpolice:
I'm such a slacker, that I finally got around to looking up the word spiv today.

Do all spivs wear spats?

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:

I think it is the first character to have a Wiki citation in his own fictional space (SC) which then goes into the actual Wiki space.

I believe so, if you mean Wikipedia space, rather than the more general Wiki space. There are several examples of fictional encyclopedia articles, and the cunning Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, which is itself a character in the radio series, novel, tv series, film etc. of the same name.

quote:

Do you see my point? The level of recursion going on?

It did cross my mind at the time
The Wikipedia article, of course, recursively cites the printed novel version as a reference source.

quote:

It's like some sort of detourment wqithout an original context which therefore makes it impossible but still, there it is.

For even more recursion look at Node Magazine which became "real" even before publication of Spook Country and which may actually now have more substance outside of the novel, than within it.

(N.B. this reveals Spook Country plot and character details which, may, or may not, be a problem to people who have yet to read the novel).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Memetic Engineer,

I've been looking at Node as I reread the book.