Talk:Variable Star

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[edit] Book is out.

The book is in stores, and the article has been updated accordingly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nagle (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Whether to put "borrowings" into own section

JimDouglas has suggested putting the names of the works Robinson borrowed from in making the plot into its own section and deleting them from the plot summary, to make it flow smoother. I oppose. Two reasons. First, a list of novels and whatnot, just by itself, doesn't really convey how much, and what, was borrowed. Second, if someone adds, say I Will Fear No Evil (as an example) to the list, it is hard to evaluate whether it is so Suggest leave as is.--Wehwalt 20:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about it, which is why I left the basic structure intact. In reading it the first time, it seemed like the plot section couldn't quite decide if it should describe the book or enumerate the Heinlein references. There are other references that I didn't even try to add because I couldn't find a logical place to shoehorn them in:

• Leslie Lecroix, financed by Harriman Enterprises, was responsible for the first moon landing; there's a Harriman City on the moon.
• Tombaugh Station has been bugging me...I'm certain it's a Heinlein reference, but I can't quite place it.

'The Runt' gets lost in a space suit on a field trip from Tombaugh Station in a short I can't remember the name of right now. --Baylink 21:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• And a counter-example...on page 77, Spider refers to space travel during the time of the Prophets; I'm certain that this is inconsistent with the Future History.

Slightly off-topic, but I really wish they'd included all of Heinlein's original notes as an appendix. It's not clear from what Spider says in the appendix exactly where Heinlein's notes stopped.

BTW, now totally off-topic: On page 63, Spider refers to Main & Hastings as the most upscale ("tony") part of Vancouver. Today, that's the middle of the downtown eastside; it's crawling with heroin addicts, prostitutes, and assorted street people. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 21:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe Spider is pretty familiar with Vancouver, so I expect the comment is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The story is set several centuries from now, remember. Plenty of time for gentrification! --Michael K. Smith 16:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, I wikilinked Charles Sheffield, as that's undoubtedly the reference Spider was going for. But I'm sure he was also thinking of Captain Aaron Sheffield of the New Frontiers. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 21:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't Tombaugh Station the lunar outpost that Kip, Peewee and the Mother Thing were heading towards? I also spotted the LeCroix reference but like you, I threw up my hands. I wonder if Robinson ever made a timeline.

There was some space travel during the time of the Prophets as the Moon and Venus were already settled. For example, Lazurus gets offplanet after the Families' Meeting of 2012. It was, however, very small, from the comments we have, and the US played no part in it.

I agree with you both on the notes question and on Vancouver. But look, twenty-five years ago, Gastown was rundown. Now it is upscale. Things come and go.

Unless we can think of some way of conveying the large number of works that Robinson is referring to in some manageable way, I would suggest we leave it more or less as is.--Wehwalt 21:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Works for me...I'm sure others will weigh in soon. (I specifically avoided looking at this article until I had time to read the book; just finished last night.)

Also, did you find any of my changes that bothered you? I deleted some references that seemed a bit out of place (moving sidewalks in Asimov's novels). And of course, the starship in Orphans of the Sky is the Vanguard; New Frontiers is Methuselah's Children. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

(Followup) I think you're right about Tombaugh Station. I thought it might be Have Space Suit—Will Travel, but I wasn't seeing it in a quick scan. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 23:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

No, the edits were fine. I think the sidewalks were closer to Asimov's books than to the "Roads" which must roll. Robinson plainly didn't limit himself to Heinlein, judging by the autodocs. I think that as long as we have enough indisputable references to Heinlein's books in the article, we have done all that can be expected from a WP article. This is not a concordance. Good catch on the starships. Are we meant to believe that in this universe, AJ Libby returned from space, married well, and got out just before the last trump? In which case, we can think Lazarus finally gets his!!--Wehwalt 23:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Spider worried too much about compatibility with the Future History...he created a weird hybrid universe that's more or less our own (with the addition of Harriman Enterprises), then uses 9/11 as one of root causes of Nehemiah Scudder. I didn't think the 9/11 references served the book well, but I'm sure others will differ.

I didn't link to The Roads Must Roll because in the Future History timeline, rolling roads died out in the 20th Century.

Oh, BTW: Read the last three paragraphs at the bottom of page 305. That's not Slipstick Libby! (As far as I can tell, the Howard Families don't exist in this universe.)

The article itself also states that the Howard Families don't exist in this universe, but I'm not sure why it makes that assumption; absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence, beyond the differences in the New Horizon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.155.6.117 (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

And one more Heinleinesque reference...Yoji Kondo makes an appearance on page 174; he also appears as a character in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 23:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Touché. Certainly would be out of character for him. Although maybe in this universe, he got some balls, rather than losing his . . .--Wehwalt 00:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need any more info about the book. This is a turkey that Heinlein didn't finish for good reason. It's like Verne's Paris in the 20th Century, a bad book by a great author. Verne showed the manuscript to a few people, all of whom agreed it was awful, then put it in a safe and forgot about it. Recently it was discovered and published. A century later, it still sucks. --John Nagle 05:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Forced to agree. Very strained plot. Oh yeah, Joel's shares were not even worth the selling, but now become enormously valuable when the ship reports in. Confederate Bonds had a market value well into the 20th century, and Czarist bonds throughout the century. You think those shares wouldn't be worth something? And what sort of father, trying to provide for his son, puts most into such a speculative investment anyway? Also, a smarter solution would be for each colony to board the ship and wait in the planet's shadow (it would take some fuel, but should be possible) until the wave has passed. And are they going to survive on sterilized planets, anyway?--Wehwalt 21:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If "borrowings" refers to the parenthesized names of novels, then there's no question in my mind that they should be taken out entirely. The book more or less fits into the Future History; noting every correlation is unhelpful, and looks silly and unencyclopedic, IMO. The ones under "Setting" make sense, but the rest are just goofy. A lot of the little parenthesized comments are more like attempts at amateur literary criticism than anything that belongs in an encyclopedia article. I've taken out all the parenthesized references in the plot section.--24.52.254.62 00:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll reserve judgement on most of those changes. For now, I've just corrected two inaccuracies that I corrected once, and which you just reintroduced. The stream-of-consciousness thing does not mark this book as non-Heinlein; I Will Fear No Evil is loaded with it. And I reverted bisexuality to the more general sexuality. Heinlein couldn't get away with any hint of sexuality in the Scribners juveniles. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Neither is an inaccuracy. I Will Fear No Evil is describing an internal monolog between two consciousnesses inhabiting the same brain; that has nothing to do with the literary technique of stream of consciousness. The part about bisexuality, as I originally wrote it, was not referring specifically to 1955 juveniles but to juvenile novels in general; somebody else changed that later. In any case, casual drug use, referred to approvingly, is not something that publishers put in juvenile fiction today. Ditto with the fact that the sex is often promiscuous, often comes without any emotional consequences, and that all of that is referred to approvingly. --24.52.254.62 02:36, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the original wording was that bisexuality was unacceptable in youth fiction even in 2006, which is untrue...you oughtta see the stuff my 15-year-old niece reads. My point about stream of consciousness was that it wasn't completely foreign to Heinlein. The remaining two points -- profanity and punning -- clearly and unambigously mark this as a Spider Robinson and not a Robert Heinlein. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It's all in the way it's handled. Publishers love to see important social issues and controversies dealt with earnestly in YA titles. What they won't accept, even today, is the type of treatment Robinson did in this book, where drugs and promiscuous sex are described as just plain fun. The way the bisexuality is handled, with just a casual reference to it that implies it's normal and socially accepted, is not at all what a publisher, even today, would allow in a YA. Bisexuality, if it occurred, would have to be a Major Theme, and it would have to be treated with Great Sensitivity.--24.52.254.62 02:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Example: Gossip Girl. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, you've got me there -- excellent counterexample :-) I guess I'm out of date.--24.52.254.62 02:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The book doesn't clearly fit into the Future History, as I've noted above. I'm hoping to get a chance to ask Spider about the weird hybrid universe in this novel at a book reading/signing here in Vancouver next Sunday. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like we have a real issue of disagreement at this point. The parentheticals are still in the "Setting" section.--24.52.254.62 02:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Imbalance, overly long plot summary

The article is IMO severely unbalanced at this point. It consists mainly of an extremely long and overly detailed plot summary. That's just not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. I think the plot summary should be edited down to something like 1/4 of its current length.--24.52.254.62 02:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but it seems to be a systemic issue in all of the R.A.H. novel and short story articles (and possibly in other fiction articles on Wikipedia). I'm not sure that an encyclopedia article that's simply a point-by-point regurgitation of the plot is really the best approach. But we should probably review them all as a group; the style and structure ought to be internally consistent. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree about the need for consistency, and in any case, it's just not practical to require consistency of that kind, because that's not WP's strength; WP is a massively parallel project. I think there's also a difference between this book and the other Heinlein books. If you take a book like Stranger, or Starship Troopers, you have a massive amount of criticism that's been written about them, so you can write an article that isn't original research, uses verifiable sources, is fairly long, and doesn't just consist of a plot synopsis. That's not the case with Variable Star.--24.52.254.62 02:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Stranger and Starship Troopers are probably the most prominent books, and have received the most attention from multiple editors. Several others are mostly plot summary: Red Planet (novel), Between Planets, I Will Fear No Evil. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

What else do you want to write about? It hasn't made the bestseller list. There hasn't been time to see if it is going to win (or even be eligible for) a HUgo or Nebula. Let me know.--Wehwalt 03:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I've gone through and put { { Plot } } templates on all the Heinlein novels that seemed to me to have this problem. IMO it was roughly half of them. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how many managed to be fairly lengthy without consisting of long plot synopses.--24.52.254.62 03:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and taken a whack at the disproportionately long plot synopsis. I've also added a { { Plot } } template, which is clearly made for articles like this.--24.52.254.62 03:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Since you have a history of editing with some consistency and some attachment to Heinlein's work, I encourage you to register an ID and use it. It is free and easy and not a burden. You will get more respect. I almost went through and reverted all your plot tags, but being cautious, I investigated first. Hu 05:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that fixing the plot summaries would be much better than making all the book articles look ugly by adding {{plot}} to the top of them. I don't think it will encourage anyone to fix the plot summaries. --Pmsyyz 11:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Pmsyyz. Go do it and then other editors will judge if it was done well. That is how WP works. It annoys me when someone says "oh, there is a problem" and doesn't offer a solution. Get on with it.--Wehwalt 11:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes from a book reading

You don't get a lot of time to ask questions at a Q&A session and a book signing, but I managed to ask a few:

• Spider doesn't want Heinlein's original notes to ever be released. He wants readers to "see Heinlein on every page", as opposed to picking out the Heinlein parts from the Spider parts. And he thinks the notes would be used to criticize Heinlein (I guess because they're just rough scraps of notes; his reasons weren't clear). I'd be interested in knowing if Bill Patterson is considering including the notes as part of the Virginia Edition.
• The plot twist in the middle was not in the original outline (I managed to get that much out of him). Although I would have guessed as much anyway...I can't see Scribner's in 1956 putting out a juvenile with that sort of event in it.
• The plot twist did originate with Heinlein, though. Heinlein mentioned it in a phone conversation to Spider as a plot he'd considered 30 years earlier, which Campbell rejected out of hand as too pessimistic.
• Spider didn't make any effort to smoothly fit the story into the Future History universe; he was really just trying to fit in as many references as could logically be shoehorned into the story. But (he said) you could consider it to be one of the "sheaf of related universes" (i.e. the multiverse or World as Myth).

I know this all counts as original research, but I thought it might be of some interest to whoever reads this article. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. At a reading. I was wondering.  :-) It's in timeline 2; LeCroix was the first man on the moon, so either it's an offshoot, or anythhing FH related needs to be evaluated in that light. I'm not too worried about tone; I'm sure that will settle out by the end of the month or so... I just don't think it's all that great a synopsis, myself.

I'll probably take a crack at cleaning it up a bit more, but not until I have a copy in hand, which probably won't be until this weekend (Thank ghod for Borders :-). Overall? Good book, some weak spots; clearly exactly what it purports to be: Spider writing Heinlein's novel. Will I pay hardcover prices for it? Damn sight faster than Clancy.  :-) Thanks, Jim, for the pointer. --Baylink 21:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

But then again, it's not in timeline 2 because it includes 9/11, it doesn't include the Howard Families, the Interregnum of the Prophets lasted 150 years (as opposed to 75), the New Horizons returned decades later than it did in the FH, etc. (Spider also mentioned that the Ganymede of Variable Star has a different gravity than the Ganymede of the FH, as Heinlein quoted the figure that was believed accurate 50 years ago.) -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 21:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct; we live in timeline 3, by inspection.
--Baylink 04:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

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