Talk:Literary Allusions in Turtledove's Work

Among those authors in need of sections who've occurred to me as I've gone through this, Marlowe, Rogers, Shakespeare, and de Vega remain to us. Marlowe, Rogers and de Vega should be simple enough. Though I originally suggested we do a page on Turtledove's Shakespearean references long before the idea for the Lit Allusions in general came to me, I tremble in fear at the idea of having to rack my brain for dozens of little bardolatries at this ungodly hour. (I'm getting a little old to get carried away like this so far past my bedtime.) I will declare an honest night's work done and take my leave. Turtle Fan 06:01, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

Biblical Allusions
Since this article has already turned into a fairly major undertaking, shall we go for broke by adding a section for Biblical allusions? Turtle Fan 19:38, March 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * At that rate, you might as well annotate each book generally. I don't object, I'm just wondering how practical this plan would be. TR 20:29, March 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Not even sure how I'd define a Biblical allusion. Someone saying something like "What a Good Samaritan you are" or "He's got the power to bind and loose" would belong there. A couple of Byzantines arguing over some tiny detail of their theology will you want to puke would not. How to get the former while avoiding the latter? That I don't know--and am not sure the former is interesting enough to justify all that activity, now that I lay it all out. (Wow! He said he would separate the sheep from the goats! Man, that's hilarious!)


 * Meh, let's table it till we get really good at regular literary allusions, at least. Turtle Fan 23:50, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

Pictures
I like the pictures and witty captions we've used in our other trivia pages, but as I look at this article, I don't see much room for wit. TR 16:08, March 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've thought of, and been bothered by, that. We've got a lot of pictures which we could use--any author who has his own article, and any author who used to have his own article but got it deleted, as well; when I delete articles I don't delete the files that go with them.


 * It would surely be a good idea to include these pictures; this fucker's turning out to be longer than my dick, and so many unbroken lines of text is anything but compelling. But clever captions? I can't think of any way to do those. Turtle Fan 19:21, March 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, putting up pics for aesthetic value will do. TR 19:35, March 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * If they're there inspiration for captions may eventually follow. "Look at (Margaret Mitch-)ALL these GWTW references! (taps mic) Hey, is this thing on?" Turtle Fan 19:52, March 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * On a completely unrelated note: Maybe we should shrink the pictures so they fit better within their sections. This way, we can get pics of every author we list. TR 03:29, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess we could. Hardly feels complete without pictures of Beverly MacDonald or John Fletcher. Turtle Fan 10:22, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried something with Asimov. Opinions? TR 14:26, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Let's keep "|thumb" in so the names will show up. Turtle Fan 16:09, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * There--That looks pretty good. The full size really do get to be overwhelming in that quantity, even on such a long article.


 * We should probably do this with the Inconsistencies as well. I think Ideas has few enough pictures that it can remain as is. Turtle Fan 16:19, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * It does look good. Going back to your earlier point about Beverly MacDonald--we might consider in some instances foregoing images of the author and instead using images of their literary work. For example, a picture of Peter Falk might make more sense than a picture of his creators. Obviously some of the authors who are themselves recognizable cultural icons should have their portrait posted (Poe, Steinbeck), but some the others--I couldn't pick Rodat out of a line-up, but a poster for Saving Private Ryan would tell me exactly why I should care about his inclusion. TR 17:07, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, good idea. Especially for sections which simlpy read "So-and-so wrote a book that a character mentioned having read." Some variety to the pictures would make the page more interesting to look at as well. Turtle Fan 18:04, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

Every picture now has a witty caption. Well, actual mileage may vary, but we've at least made the attempt. And many of them are now much less useful, if you don't recognize whom or what the picture is of. Turtle Fan 06:15, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

By the way, is there anything we can do about those gray lines under the section titles? I don't mean get rid of them altogether, but a lot of them cut across pictures and captions. Turtle Fan 06:15, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

L Sprague de Camp
Alphabetically, shouldn't he come between Burroughs and Campbell? I believe the de is unimportant in these cases. We've got de Vega bringing up the rear, for instance. Turtle Fan 23:57, March 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think so.


 * I guess you're right. I changed his position because the de Camp article has a default-sort at "D" If you still think so, I will change it back and change the article too. ML4E 19:39, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would assume the fact that he used a lower case d meant he considered C to be his real initial. (I have known people who used De or Del as part of their name, but they capitalized it.) The article should be corrected as well. Turtle Fan 20:07, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

Asimov
He also wrote the forward/intro of A Different Flesh, come to think of it. TR 18:31, March 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm--I didn't realize they were so close. I assumed Turtledove was just another young SF writer who had been inspired by Asimov and had caught a break in his magazine.


 * Both AoB and ADF were released in HC under the "Isaac Asimov Presents" banner, IIRC. TR 19:54, March 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Of all the stories I've read in Foundation's Friends, which is far from all of them I have to say, "Trantor Falls" feels like the most authentic, in terms of capturing the elements of a classic Foundation story. Among the original trilogy, anyway; others are written more in the style of Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, which I can do without. Though the writing style is undeniably Turtledovean, the story is Asimovian and would seem to fit into Asimov's enormous canon the most seamlessly of any of those stories. At any rate, it's my favorite of the collection. Turtle Fan 19:03, March 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * I suppose I shall have to read Foundation one of these days.


 * Oh, you must! It's wonderful stuff. You'll just fall in love with it right away. It's easy as hell to find and the most common edition is a nice, affordable Mass Market Paperback. Turtle Fan 21:09, March 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * I second that. I read them when Asimov's fourth Foundation book came out so I would know the story. I could do without that but the original trilogy was fantastic. ML4E 02:46, March 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking of intros--HT himself is providing an intro do a new book about our favorite president, TF. TR 19:54, March 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * TF? That would be Theodore Featherston would it? ML4E 02:46, March 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * TF is me. Since I've never been President . . . of anything, not even of a club that I once made up myself . . . I assume that's direct address.


 * Ah, right, I see that now, now that you mention it. I thought TR meant TR and made a typo so I tried to be funny. ML4E 03:12, March 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * For most of my life I've been wishing that people would refer to me by my initials--my real ones. No one ever has. It comes so easily to online folks, but I never use my real name. If I did you'd probably all just call me John. Maybe the next time I have the opportunity to invent a screenname I'll make a very long one that alliterates my real name. Turtle Fan 03:37, March 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Also I assume he refers to Lincoln. The only other POTUS of whom we've both expressed strong admiration is his namesake. Alternately, he might be using irony to suggest that Turtledove is writing about a President we both hate, but I can't think of anyone of whom we've both expressed strong negative opinions to each other. McClellan would come closest, but thankfully he got his ass kicked in the election. Turtle Fan 03:07, March 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I do refer to Lincoln. TR 14:55, March 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Is he now? That's . . . different. Should be interesting. Turtle Fan 21:09, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Doyle
Sadly enough, even though I read Earthgrip, I don't remember that story in any way, let alone the reference to "Silver Blaze". That was the story about the tree-dwellers, right? TR 21:03, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Inspirations
I read through this line by line in the interests of proofreading and of having a few chuckles to pass the time on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I was struck by how very many sci-fi/fantasy authors appear to have played indispensible roles in inspiring Turtledove's career (or at least how many he's credited as having done so). Anderson, Asimov, de Camp, Heinlein, Howard, Tolkein. . . . It almost makes me wonder whether they should get their own page? Turtle Fan 18:42, April 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * An "Authors Credited with Inspiring HT" page? That is probably worth doing.  TR 14:44, April 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * The thing is, the various sources which name these people each make it out as though their particular author were HT's single greatest influence. Surely they can't all be right.  But that's not really the issue.  An Inspiration page would be cool.  So Anderson, Asimov, de Camp, Heinlein, Howard, Tolkein. . . . I'm trying to think whether anyone else has been named. Turtle Fan 15:05, April 12, 2010 (UTC)

Interconnectivity!
Fun fact: Roland Emmerich, who will be directing the film adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, has asked Robert Rodat to write the screenplay.

Actually, I'm very concerned. Emmerich has said Foundation has to be a 3-D CGI fest on the model of Avatar because he "do[es]n't know how to do it otherwise." Really? Every character is human, so you don't have to whip up alien images (though that's certainly doable without CGI and 3-D; Star Trek and Star Wars figured it out decades ago, and their aliens look far more real than the NaVi, assuming you're not counting the half-assed aliens from TOS). The Mule is a mutant (or a Gaian, though I'm inclined to ignore Foundation's Edge) but his physical appearance is perhaps the most thorouhly described of anyone's and he looks perfectly normal (well, a little dumpier than most, but nothing that would require so much as prosthetic makeup, let alone be beyond the capabilities of costume designers altogether). Most of the battles, natural disasters, and flash-bang technological advances take place offstage. I'm having a hard time coming up with half a dozen scenes that would require significant special effects at all, and they're really insignificant scenes, or at least the elements that would require effects are.

The action in Foundation is intellectual. Most scenes are characters explaining ideas. Now obviously a visual medium would want to spice it up a bit, but the fact remains that Foundation should be approached as a historical fiction film, not as sci-fi. A faithful adaptation would resemble the former far more closely. Which is why I've got a sinking feeling it's going to be butchered. Turtle Fan 07:00, May 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * For an Emmerich take on historical fiction, see The Patriot. That won't help your sinking feeling, but sadly, I have no hope to offer when it comes to Emmerich TR 19:15, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * That was certainly not faithful to history, but do you know, I found it a lot of fun. Avatar was actually enjoyable, too, though I didn't give a shit about all the effects shots.  (For God's sake, who cares?)  The Patriot made a complete mockery not only of the history of Francis Marion but of the myth and lore.  Avatar was an original story.  (Well it was pretty thoroughly unoriginal, but it wasn't supposed to be an adaptation of something else.)  Mix and match them, throw in a little Saving Private Ryan from Rodat's influence--That last bit will help, but not enough.  This movie's going to suck ass, isn't it?  Goddammit. Turtle Fan 20:19, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Classical Mythology
All our talk of what to do with the Olympians got me thinking. We could surely write an extensive page on allusions from classical mythology. It would probably be longer than the Shakespeare and would need its own page. It would be somewhat difficult to fill, since we couldn't just do Search Inside like we did with Shakespeare; that's the same argument that grounded Biblical Allusions. However, allusions to classical mythology stand out more, and anyway we'd obviously know where to start looking: any story set in Greece or Rome of antiquity, or with mythical overtones, like "The Horse of Bronze" and "Miss Manners." Turtle Fan 05:41, May 14, 2010 (UTC)

Frank Herbert
I'm rereading Dune at the moment. Actually I'm only rereading it to a certain point, then I'll start reading the rest of it for the first time. I first started it some years ago and for some inexplicable reason I stopped reading it at some point. Most likely because something new and exciting came along. I'm sure I intended to go back and finish it eventually but I never did. Also, my copy has gotten lost, so I had to buy a new one. Oh well.

Anyway, HT's description (well, Straha's; smart of him to have a character who would naturally be prevented from understanding the details be the one to attempt an explanation) of the FTL technology aboard the Commodore Perry is vague as all hell: something about manipulating superstrings so that points which had been very far apart are briefly touching.

Now that description is compatible with what we know about the way the Spacing Guild works. But then, a very vague description is typically compatible with all sorts of things. It would be cool to have a Herbert allusion, but I wouldn't want to crawl so far out on a limb for it. Maybe if we had a slightly stronger reason to give Herbert a section, then tacked that on. Turtle Fan 23:20, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

E. Rice Burroughs
Burroughs was also mention in Days of Infamy in passing when Jim Peterson met a Burroughs fan and remembers that the author was presently living in Hawaii. I wonder if this reference could be mention in a separate page for Burroughs?--Drgyen 00:18, January 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, Burroughs was alive, and was indeed living in Oahu at the time. That is certainly a boost towards justifying an article.  TR 01:25, January 4, 2011 (UTC)

Spielberg
Actually, the raptors in JP were not Velociraptor but Utahraptor. Crichton had been a little vague on their species, I believe (and by the way, perhaps a Crichton section is also in order.)  Spielberg's people called famous paleontologist Robert Bakker during preproduction and asked whether the concept for Velociraptor held water. Bakker had to tell him that the real raptors were less than half the size. But he said "Cheer up, evolution can produce significant size changes very quickly." It so happened that while they were working on the movie someone discovered a new species of raptor that's quite close to the way Spielberg had them. However, they didn't change the script. Turtle Fan 01:45, January 16, 2011 (UTC)

Nonfiction
The addition of Tacitus has me thinking whether we should take him and the three or four other exclusive writers of nonfiction I noticed skimming the page and give them a separate allusions article. While the definition of literature certainly doesn't exclude nonfiction, it does stand out a bit in the general vibe of most of the page--even more so than the musicians, who are going to get their own page one of these days. . . . Turtle Fan 17:59, January 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we're probably right on the edge (if not over) with the addition of Nietszche of creating a nonfiction something.


 * Or alternatively, we could reorganize this page into fiction, non-fiction, plays and film/television (we have a fair number of those latter two as well) sections, and then retitle it as "Cultural references in HT's work" or something like that. TR 22:55, February 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * Ooh, I like the second option. It could even have a Music section, since it's looking pretty clear at this point that we're going to keep putting that one off ad infinitum. Turtle Fan 02:17, February 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * I do like that second option. It would put all the influences in one place but seems to be a better way to organize it. ML4E 00:41, February 3, 2012 (UTC)

T.S. Eliot
My comments on Eliot by Colleton are from memory. I am pretty sure it was him and not some other POV but I don't have copies of the RE books so if someone could verify it, I would appreciate it. Eliot was not mentioned by name but the lines about how the world ends were, if that helps with your e-search. ML4E 00:33, February 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * It's Colleton. His very last scene, too: DttE p 584. Turtle Fan 07:06, February 25, 2012 (UTC)

So what I wrote is accurate? If so, then I'll just add the page reference to the article. ML4E 18:41, February 25, 2012 (UTC)