Talk:Planet Stories

Comments

Added Planet Stories information announced today by Paizo. Completeblank 00:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the URL of Galactic Central's Web page with publication data and covers, currently http://www.philsp.com/data/data235.html#PLANETSTORIES , is a moving target. The target page number keeps going up as more data is added to other pages and they get split up. Not sure what can be done about it. Ahasuerus 23:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

I deleted the following section: Some covers featured the iconic and (presumably) impossible image of a woman in space, wearing a bikini and space helmet. In this Planet Stories was following the lead of its competitor Startling Stories, whose frequent cover artist Earle Bergey pioneered this imagery and is cited as the inspiration for Princess Leia's slave girl costume in Return of the Jedi.

The reason for the deletion is that, on perusing a complete collection of Planet Stories cover art, I find that the number of covers exactly matching the description "a woman in space, wearing a bikini and space helmet" is precisely zero. RandomCritic 16:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

As you say the wording was incorrect. However, I think something along those lines could be put back in. This cover, for example, is close to the intent of the deleted material, and has been widely reproduced. Scantily-clad women certainly feature heavily on the covers, which wasn't true of all the competing magazines. Mike Christie (talk) 18:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

To do

Notes as I edit the article:

• Clean up dangling ref info in publication history section
• Ref last para just added; add page number for Clareson ref
• Add info about Philip Dick starting his career in Planet

-- Mike Christie (talk – library) 03:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Note on cover copyrights

I've searched the online copyright indexes and none of the covers appear to have had their copyright renewed, so they are all in the public domain. Mike Christie (talk – library) 22:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

However, a separate search on Google eBooks for the copyright listings shows the following issues:

• v1/#9 Winter 41
• v1/#2 1942 Feb, which doesn't make sense -- it probably means the Spring 1942 issue but that was 1/10, not 1/2, and wasn't dated February
• v1/#11 Summer 42
• v1/#12 Fall 42
• v2/#1 Winter 42
• 8109, 19385, 19386, 30222, 40715. I have no idea what these mean.
• v2/#2 March 43
• v2/#3 May 43
• v2/#4 Fall 43
• v2/#5 Winter 43
• 7686, 18650, 29554, 40701. I have no idea what these mean.

These are from the original copyright registrations, so I don't think this means they are under copyright. The relevant Google Book is "Catalog of copyright entries: Periodicals, Part 2" for 1942 and 1943. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:38, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Poul Anderson edits reverted

I've just reverted the recent additions related to Poul Anderson. I've no objection to mentioning Anderson, who was a prominent author, but we need a secondary source that mentions him as a notable contributor. If we have that it would be easier to mention the Flandry stories, but I don't think we should; we don't give this much detail to most of the well-known authors mentioned in the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

• The Dominic Flandry series is a major element of Poul Anderson's work as a whole, he continued working on it and adding to it for twenty years, and it induced him to drop one Future History and replace it by another. It seems to me that the fact that this series had its origin in "Planet Stories" is significant. In fact, the page as it stands now mentions Anderson only in connection with his publishing "Duel on Syrtis" which is no way as significant for Anderson's overall career.Blanche of King's Lynn (talk) 14:36, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

  I'm willing to agree that it might be significant that it started in Planet Stories, but for us to add that to the article it would be best if we had a source pointing that out. A quick look through some references and through Google Books doesn't find anything; do you have access to any sources on Anderson that discuss the origin of the series? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:50, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

  I have a copy of the 1985 "Agent of the Terran Empire" which collected these and other stories. The copyright note in the front page states:"'Tiger by the Tail', Planet Stories, January 1951, Copyright 1951 by Love Romances Publishing Co., Inc." Does that count as a source? Blanche of King's Lynn (talk) 12:41, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

  Actually, when I first saw that copyright note I was puzzled by the "Love Romances" part, but I found the explanation on this page: "At the end of 1939 Fiction House decided to add an sf magazine to its line up; it was titled Planet Stories, and was published by Love Romances, a subsidiary company that had been created to publish Fiction House's romance titles". Blanche of King's Lynn (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

  I found this copyright notation on the website of Baen - [1] Blanche of King's Lynn (talk) 22:03, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

  There's no need for a source saying Anderson published "Tiger by the Tail" in Planet Stories, though if we do want to cite that I can cite it directly from the magazine itself. What I think we need is a book or article that says that the publication in Planet is a significant event. For example, the article mentions Anderson's "Duel on Syrtis", because Mike Ashley, who is an sf historian, comments on it in Transformations, one of his books about sf magazines. Wikipedia is based on secondary sources, meaning books like Transformations, rather than primary sources (i.e. the magazines). Have you seen any articles in reliable sources about the Flandry series? An article about the series might well be a usable source for our purposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:59, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

  I have taken up searching for a suitable reference (I sometimes have a few other things to do...) and came up with the following from the "Fantasy Literature" website [2]: "Poul Anderson was a prolific author in fantasy, science fiction and historical fiction.(...) In science fiction Anderson is probably best known for his work in the long running Technic civilization setting. Between 1951 and 1985 Anderson wrote countless novels and stories in this universe." The 1951 referred to is "Tiger by the Tail", published in "Planet Stories" - the very beginning and foundation of this whole conspicuous part of Poul Anderson's oeuvre, which in fact includes not only Dominic Flandry but also the extensive Nicholas van Rijn stories and various other works placed in the same universe . I think this amply justifies a one-sentence mention in the Planet Stories page. Blanche of King's Lynn (talk) 16:19, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

  I'm not entirely convinced. The source itself is a website which is often not the best kind of source. I agree it says the series is notable, but we can source that without the website; several good references I have say so. The question is whether to mention the beginning of the series as a notable event when the sources don't make a point of it. I think it might be OK, but I've asked another editor, Ealdgyth, who is very experienced on sourcing issues, to weigh in. Let's see what she thinks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:28, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

  I'm not seeing that the website is a reliable source by Wikipedia standards. It seems to be a self-published review site by folks who aren't experts. This isn't to say that its not a good site for using personally, but it's not going to meet Wikipedia's sourcing standards. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

  I'm in the school that says this is not a reliable source for an assertion such as this. Do no published substantial sources, from Trillion Year Spree to papers in Extrapolation, make such an assertion? Because JustSomeGuy'sBlog.com doesn't make it. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Notes

Why are there both Notes and Footnotes, and how is a reader supposed to keep them apart? Would it not make more sense to just have one section of footnotes? Kirschkuchen (talk) 11:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The notes are for comments that don't belong in the main text, but which provide some extra information or context. The footnotes are just bibliographical references. The reason to separate them is so that a reader can see if it's worth bothering to check the footnotes; as a reader I like this approach because I know if the footnotes is [a] or [b] it's worth taking a look, whereas if it's [1] or [2] it's just going to give me a source.

By the way, I've moved this section to the bottom of the page; that's the usual approach in commenting on talk pages, so that people can easily find the most recent comments. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)