Where are we at all? And whenabouts in the name of space?

When Dante entered the abject world of hell, it was Virgil, a classical poet who accompanied him and explained its mysteries. In a similar retro gesture, it is James Joyce, as opposed to William Gibson or R.U. Sirius, whom I adopt as my guide to cyberspace. Part of Virgil's appeal for Dante was ancestral, for he had previously taken a journey into the underworld in The Aeneid. As we continue to forge a brave new electronic frontier that goes by the name of cyberspace, Joyce seems a most appropriate guide. He too has been there before, and Finnegans Wake is my Aeneid, since it embodies the convergence of paperspace and cyberspace. [Introduction]