Talk:Unintended Consequences (novel)

Related reading link
The link I have added to the article,under related reading,is a story that was written on a pro-gun forum in the 90's.The Battle Of Jakes Better Business Forms is just like the book,please don't mess with it.Saltforkgunman 03:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

85.250.217.156 20:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC) No, it's really not. It's a bunch of low-quality, misspelled writing. You're better off linking to, say, Enemies Foreign and Domestic.


 * I agree that it is not up to the quality of Ross' writing, but it is related and has a right to be linked Exdmd 00:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Now this is cute. How did the hyperlink to the battleofjakes get blacklisted?Saltforkgunman (talk) 04:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Title change
Changed title to Unintended Consequences (novel), and redirected Unintended Consequences to Unintended consequence cause: I also fixed the internal links into the article. So no need to worry about people getting misdirected to Unintended consequence instead of this page. lk (talk) 14:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Unintended consequences (note the capitalization!) already redirects there.
 * 2) Most novels that share the name with another wiki page are labeled '(novel)'.
 * 3) Doesn't seem right to differentiate pages by plural form (most times plural forms get redirected)

Timothy McVeigh's comments under "Publication and Reception"
This has nothing to do with sales figures or publication figures. I removed it as it was simply put there to make the and it's author look radical and was obviously added with bias. Either put it under it's own section (with I might add Mr. Ross' response to this quote) or don't include it at all. --VXbinaca (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Added under new section with part of Mr. Ross's response.--Biophysik (talk) 01:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Tim McVeigh read "Unintended Consequences" AFTER he committed his crimes. Ross gets criticised and argues defensively that authors have no control over who reads their books, citing that the "only" book in Unabomber Kaczynski's cabin was Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" (since "authors have no control over who decides to admire their work" presumably Al Gore is no more responsible for Kaczynski's acts than Ross is responsible for McVeigh's, especially since McVeigh read "Unintended consequences" AFTER he was put in prison). Al Gore's book Earth in the Balance was found in Theodore Kaczynski's cabin; several passages were underlined with marginal notes, according to Washington Times, Inside Politics, June 16, 1996, at 16. Ross is wrong over the "only" book part: New York Times 15 April 1996 mentions the F.B.I. inventory of evidence found in the search of the cabin included "hundreds of books" including Paul Goodman "Growing Up Absurd" and Isaac Asimov's commentaries on the Bible (http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/16/us/cabin-s-inventory-provides-insight.html?pagewanted=1) so that would be a more relevant cite than the auction list used in the article (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0811062tedk10.html) since an auction of personal property to compensate the victims would probably not include material evidence in a criminal case. I don't see how that really undercuts Ross' argument: "authors have no control over who decides to admire their work" even tho' it weakens it. This is an overblown issue. Criticising Ross for something McVeigh did before he read the book is specious. Naaman Brown (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think anyone is criticizin Ross for something McVeigh did before he read the book. The criticism is that McVeigh's reaction to the book ("Damn! I should have done that...") shows that it has the power to influence people to want do exactly what the book condones and glorifies. But nothing in Gore's book can or should be rationally interpreted as a call to violence in the name of saving nature. Do you understand the difference? --Loremaster (talk) 19:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I see Ross' book as being like a lot of speculative fiction: a warning, in this case that an IRA-style resistence might be the unintended consequence of the unchecked tendancy toward thoughtless use of paramilitary law enforcement (Kent State, MOVE, Ruby Ridge, Waco). A crazy person might find it inspiring rather than warning but then some find "Catcher in the Rye" a call to violence. Talk about calls to violence, I read Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare in the 1960s but did not take to the hills. My gripe is that I would have both Che and Ross in the public library, but they pulled Ross off the shelf. Naaman Brown (talk) 20:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You may argue that Ross's book is nothing more than a warning in form of speculative fiction but critics argue that Ross meant it as both warning and a call to arms. Ultimately, on Wikipedia, our personal opinions don't matter. What matters is what critics say. --Loremaster (talk) 21:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * But who are critics? Regular people who have someone else publish thier thoughts on something. Worth no more or no less than anyone elses opinion, yet because they have the title 'critic' it is supposed to mean something more?63.163.213.249 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:50, 27 December 2011 (UTC).

Technique and Theme
Most novels are told in the form of a more or less chronological narrative focussed on the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) and the story is about the characters. John Ross' technique, alternating chapters of the stories of multiple fictional characters (some who meet and interact) mixed with framing narratives of historic events forming the context of the novel, is similar to the technique used by authors John Dos Passos and John Brunner. In his U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos told his story by mixing chapters in four modes: the stories of the fictional characters; newspaper clippings and song lyrics of their time; biographies of real historical figures; and autobiographic narratives. In Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner carried this method to an experimental level. These novels are ultimately not about the story of the characters: they are about the larger social commentary themes in the context developed by the framing narratives: the early 20th century development of American society (Dos Passos), possible technological and political responses to overpopulation (Brunner) and the impact of gun politics on civil liberties (Ross). Posted in talk for discussion and further research. Naaman Brown (talk) 12:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * John Dos Passos, U.S.A. (1938 trilogy of the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936) plus the prologue "U.S.A." (1938))
 * John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, Doubleday, 1968, ISBN 0-090919110-5.


 * That looks well-reasoned to me. With just a couple of reffys, that can and should get dropped into the article.  BobbieCharlton (talk) 13:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok.....
So, this is standard white supremacist BS. junk 137.188.108.54 (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2023 (UTC)