Talk:Reading suggestions
New Catagory?
...perhaps a new category could be created, like Category:Influences, since I think they were influenced by or influences of Terry Pratchett. --AutisticMajor 22:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought of making Reading suggestions a category including articles about such "foreigners"; it would avoid the presumption of knowing what anyone's influences were. Any other category suggestions? --Old Dickens 23:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Numbers
The author list looks tidier after alphabetically re-arranging them in order of surname. One little shame, though: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson are no longer in the 23rd position. Could it be possible to "tweak" things so they go to number 23? Anyone familiar with their writings will know why they should go here, even though the alphabetical ordering is slightly out...
and then Douglas Adams will have to be 42: it's going to get complicated. --Old Dickens 18:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC) ...and it'll need maintenance if there are additions before "M".
Oh, wow... just noticed. --AgProv 02:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I warned you. --Old Dickens 23:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Douglas Adams now firmly fixed at his correct home at no.42. --AgProv 14:24, 23 September 2011 (CEST)
- Um...it's at 43 I believe...ah well. We could put in a note asking people to just pretend it's 42 or something. --AnnieBudgie (talk) 11:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, dear. It's all AgProv's fault...One day I'll be dead and THEN you'll all be sorry. --Old Dickens (talk) 14:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Link Locations
I know C3POwen did a lot of work moving the links from the titles to the bottom of the entries but I actually preferred them the old way. What does every one else think? --Zdm 08:10, 3 November 2011 (CET)
- Me too. --Old Dickens 22:39, 3 November 2011 (CET)
- It also bugs me a bit that it wash't discussed on the talk page at all beforehand.--Zdm 07:49, 4 November 2011 (CET)
- Apologies. I've found that some talk pages do not always seem to generate a response, for whatever reason that may be. You're more than welcome to revert them, using the undo function. --C3POwen 18:06, 4 November 2011 (CET)
- That happens to everyone unfortunately, but I am going to undo that edit. --Zdm 03:38, 6 November 2011 (CET)
- Apologies. I've found that some talk pages do not always seem to generate a response, for whatever reason that may be. You're more than welcome to revert them, using the undo function. --C3POwen 18:06, 4 November 2011 (CET)
I just realized that because of AgProv's edits I can't just go back and undo C3POwen's edits; any advice?--Zdm 03:44, 6 November 2011 (CET)
Just before I go to bed: is it possible to selectively choose in History which edits you undo? Skip mine, and tick an earlier edit? If not, I don't mind losing my apercu about Piers Anthony, who by his own confession or boast is a "dirty-minded old man" (which is true, but there's dirty-minded and there's dirty-minded... I'm not into censorship or book-burning, but iI don't think I'll be reading Firefly any time soon...)--AgProv 04:11, 6 November 2011 (CET)
Some books should come with a this book describes practices which are by anyone's standards of morality somewhat illegal and antisocial in your jurisdiction warning...--AgProv 04:13, 6 November 2011 (CET)
- You can also go back to any previous version and then re-create whatever you want since. It's just more work. --Old Dickens 04:32, 6 November 2011 (CET)
Unfortunately when you try to selectively undo an edit it won't let you due to 'conflicting intermediate edits', so I will undo them and then recreate AgProv's work but I will wait untill I am less tired.--Zdm 06:08, 6 November 2011 (CET)
I just tried to undo AgProv's edits so I could get to C3POwen's, But I ran into some trouble and had to undo my undo. Can someone else try and see if they can figure out why it would let me undo the edits.--Zdm 08:18, 7 November 2011 (CET)
- It's getting complicated. I'd have to replace the page with the version of 18:43, 2 November 2011, then copy and paste the additions since. --Old Dickens 00:24, 8 November 2011 (CET)
- It has reached a point where it may be pointless to try to undo it. I'll just do it manually. --Zdm 00:38, 8 November 2011 (CET)
- Rocket98 to the rescue again...--Old Dickens 03:13, 8 November 2011 (CET)...oh, but we still have the duplicate Wikipedia links below. --Old Dickens 03:51, 8 November 2011 (CET)
- At this point I don't care about that as much, besides I had the idea that after the paragraph on the author we could have some external links to places like the authors website (if they have one), biographys and other information related to the author that isn't in their little description.--Zdm 04:12, 8 November 2011 (CET)
I left the links at the bottom since it isn't always obvious that the header is also a link.--Fhh98 04:58, 8 November 2011 (CET)
- You don't think the page is long enough? Zdm just restates C3POwen's reason for the original makeover, to which he objected. I'm confused. --Old Dickens 23:44, 8 November 2011 (CET)
- I realize that my comment was a little confusing, I'm sorry about that. What I meant was that we have the Wikipedia page about the author already linked to in the title so we could get rid of the links at the bottom but it would be nice to also have a link to the authors website as well. --Zdm 00:44, 9 November 2011 (CET)
Exit
Ray Bradbury isn't in here: probably too obvious...
Ray Bradbury taught us all about Mars and the magical events here at home that usually go unnoticed except by a few children. He taught me (although not enough others, sadly) to distinguish between labels and referents. He wrote a lot of good prose over more than seven decades.
I think he may be the last of the great group of sci-fi writers who began in the thirties but emerged after WWII as an elixir against the drab, unimaginative post-war existence. Old Dickens 02:31, 7 June 2012 (CEST)
More?
Should we include David Langford? He wrote the two discworld quizbooks, but he also wrote The Leaky Establishment, a book which Terry rated highly: "I'd rank this book alongside Michael Frayn's The Tin Men, another neglected classic. I've wanted for years to see it back in print. It is one of those books you end up buying several copies of, because you just have to lend it to friends. It's very funny. It's very real." He also said: "Dave Langford: Wit, slightly deaf person, raconteur and finest swordsman in all of christendom."--Stanley Howler 10:33, 8 June 2012 (CEST)
- If you recommend it, of course, that's what it's for. On the other hand, the page is getting very long: the index doesn't fit on one screen. A couple of articles are too long for "suggestions" and other entries may be too obscure and hard to find. What about splitting it into Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Straight sections (generating arguments over what's fantasy and what's sci-fi, of course)? Old Dickens 15:22, 8 June 2012 (CEST)
Newbie here (not to Discworld, which has been comfort reading for half my life or more, but to this wiki). Three authors' names occurred to me, not because TP ever mentioned them as inspirations but because they somehow fit in my mind on the same bookshelf with the others listed here. 1) James Blaylock, American writer of "bent reality" stories not as outrageous as Good Omens but in a somewhat similar mode, adapting grand historical/literary themes to a deceptively simple present-day prose. Not screamingly funny but often gently wry. 2) John Bellairs -- The Face in the Frost -- a vivid, idiosyncratic, and often very funny as well as very scary story about wizards. 3) Jeffrey Barlow, author of the hard-to-pigeonhole Western Lights novels which belong near Naomi Novik's Temeraire series in my personal L-space for their consistent, convincing period style. Again not as hilarious as Discworld, not as rich in in jokes and parody, but a very engaging Otherworld. It is merely coincidence that all these writers' surnames begin with B. I am not going through a long alphabetised list, really. --Tazling (talk) 03:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)