Talk:"All You Zombies—"

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.
	This article needs an infobox template! - see Novels InfoboxCode or Short Story InfoboxCode for a pattern
	This article is supported by the Short story task force, which deals with short story articles
	This article is supported by the Science fiction task force, which deals with science fiction novel articles
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 • (Novels, Novellas, Novelettes & Short stories) Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss) → Please help with tagging articles! Critique (Featured Article): A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events - "10 achieved" Wikipedia wide peer reviews: no reviews currently Novels WikiProject Peer reviews : Master and Commander Improve: The Body in the Library • Furies of Calderon • Wolf Brother • The Monk • The English Patient • Bones of the Moon • More... Create: Dover Beach • Black Cocktail • Blackthorn Winter • London, 1850 • 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 Our Collaboration Department is continuing with one more title Adam Bede for the current month. Get collaborating on the article and also look at nominating other titles to be considered. The new article Fictional locations now exists - as a companion article to Fictional characters - but it is still a stub and could do with plenty more imput to improve it. Another new article A Taste for Death (P.D. James novel)‎ now exists - but it is also still a stub and could do with plenty more imput to improve it. A new Infobox exists to support the growing number of "Short Story" articles that are tagged as part of the project - take a look at it and comment on it's talk page. I would suggest we use it for "Short Stories and "Novelettes" and leave the main "Book infobox" for "Novels" and "Novellas". New hitlists added to the main worklist. List of literary works with eponymous heroes List of literary works with eponymous heroines Pages that only exist as redirects: Men at Arms changes

Contents 1 Title? 2 Page moved but content unchanged? 3 The title (yet again) 4 I took out this apparent original research added by User:Wellspring 5 Neutral Wording?

[edit] Title?

OK, what's the official version of the title of this story? Is it:

• "All You Zombies"
• "All You Zombies..."
• "-All You Zombies-"
• "All You Zombies-"
• "All You Zombies-

or what? Certainly, including the double quotes in the article title goes against the Wikipedia manual of Style (although double quotes are used around short story titles within articles) -- unless, of course, there's some special reason for including them. -- The Anome 23:12, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

They are part of the title. Same thing as Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Captain Wacky (talk • contribs) 08:54, 25 February 2006 UTC.

In my copy of The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag it's given variously as

• "All You Zombies"
• "-All You Zombies-"

It was originally published in F&SF in 1959, but I know what issue. Lefty 01:52, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

Err -- "don't know", I mean. Lefty 04:53, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

[edit] Page moved but content unchanged?

The page moved from "—All You Zombies—" to "All You Zombies—", but the article itself still includes both the beginning and ending mdashes. I don't know which punctuation is correct, but whichever one it is, we should be consistent between the name of the page and the text in the page. --Psiphiorg 20:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What the hell? If the consensus is for "—All You Zombies—", then the article belongs there! "All You Zombies—" doesn't seem to be right, and I can't find any consensus on that one (without the first dash)... I tried moving, but the other page exists. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 16:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The title (yet again)

So what is the official title?

My copy of The Best of Robert Heinlein 1947-1959 lists it in the table of contents as All You Zombies (no quotes, no dashes), but the first page of the story shows it as "--All You Zombies--".

My copy of The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathon Hoag lists it in the table of contents as "All You Zombies" (with quotes, but no dashes), but the first page of the story shows it as "--All You Zombies--".

James Gifford's Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion gives the title as "All You Zombies--".

In a letter to Lurton Blassingame excerpted on page 156 of Grumbles From The Grave, Heinlein refers to it as "All You Zombies" (in quotes, no dashes). (As casual correspondence, though, I'm not sure that this reference counts.)

How did we settle on "All You Zombies--"? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The best reference sources on the net appear to show that the title in the original magazine used the mdash style at the end & not the begining of the title (ie. "All You Zombies--"). The article is now consistant to that form. There is inconsistency of subsequent use - but the "first edition" is the one to quote. If anyone has access to that edition of the magazine they could check for us. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 12:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I took out this apparent original research added by User:Wellspring

"An alternative explanation for this final line is that the narrator is reminiscing about his love for two unique and pivotal characters from his life: his older male lover and his young female paramour. Although both of them are actually the narrator himself, he has experienced each as if they were another person. In effect, the man has met himself three times, each time as a stranger. In this interpretation, the story becomes a metaphor for the alienation of the self from one phase of life to another."

[edit] Neutral Wording?

"Here Heinlein is indulging in yet another of his trademark themes, that of solipsism." This is not what I would call "neutral" wording. I have rephrased it--replacing "indulging in yet another" with "revisiting one"--to remove the pejorative tone. Thanks. 75.73.21.101 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Sergei Alderman