Talk:Jack McDevitt

Untitled

I am working on a new page on McDevitt's "A Talent for War" and linking it here, as was done for "Ancient Shores" and "Standard Candles". I plan a reasonably full article. I'll have it ready in about two weeks. Any comments or suggestions?

--Simmaren 04:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The article on A Talent for War is underway. I added a link to it.

Simmaren 19:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

teeming?

"With The Engines of God (1994), McDevitt introduced the idea of a universe which was once teeming with intelligent species, but only contains abandoned artifacts by the time humans arrive on the scene. Although it was initially written as a standalone novel"

I have just finished reading this book. Key to it is that the universe is seen as NOT teeming with intelligent species. There are the monument-makers, Nok, Q..., humans and that's about it. I haven't changed the statement (yet) since it's possible that the teeming comes up in later novels. If this is the case, please so indicate. Other-wise, the statemetn should be changed. Another problem with the statement is that it can be understood as meaning that McDevitt was the first author to picture a universe teeming with smart species - He was not. Kdammers 10:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, and I have changed the statement to "once teeming with intelligent life ". Cheers, Pete Tillman 20:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I still think the line conveys an inaccurate impression. The issue is not "species" or "life" but "teeming". There's no indication there's any more or less life than before save the almost total reduction of the Monument Makers. What's lost in the novel's time vs. the past is just that - no Monument Makers making monuments. One of the more interesting things about it is that it's neither the Asimovian "all-human galaxy" nor the usual "swing a stick and hit an alien" universe. It's sparse.

Also, this: "Although it was initially written as a standalone novel,[citation needed]" - doesn't need a citation: it needs to removed as it's flat-out incorrect. There's more than one reference to "another story" of Hutch to be told in the future and the ending very much says "get ready for the sequel".

-- I stand sort of corrected. Here's your citation: http://www.sfwa.org/members/McDevitt/Omega-Comment.html - but I don't believe him. That book does not stand alone and, as I said, there are internal references from the narrative voice regarding future tales.

68.221.53.181 (talk) 18:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit request

I went through the article and did minor cleanup and copyediting.

Here's a sentence that needs work:

"McDevitt's novels frequently raise questions which he does not attempt to answer, and drop them in favor of other plotlines which are of more interest to the author." [last line, header para]

I think it's more accurate to say that he deliberately leaves ambiguities for dramatic and literary effect. See, forex, http://www.sfwa.org/members/McDevitt/Omega-Comment.html

Thoughts? Cheers, Pete Tillman 20:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, I edited this, and added a source and quote. Pete Tillman 21:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

written as a standalone novel

Towards the end of The Engines of God, there is a line that goes something like "if she was ever in a similar situation (which she would be, but that's another story)" which indicates that he intended to write sequels. Obviously I can't put this OR in the article, but can someone come up with a reference to support the assertion that he intended it to be standalone? --Closedmouth (talk) 03:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't made it down here when I put the link up above, but it's there in the "Teeming?" section. But I agree - there's nothing about the book that says "stand-alone" - only McDevitt's comment on the book. 68.221.53.181 (talk) 19:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• Polaris* was a Nebula 2005 *nominee* - two factual mistakes there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.21.151.205 (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Changed "universe" to "galaxy" in the interest of accuracy.

I reverted this change because I believe the universe is more accurate as a literally term see Fictional universe Suppafly (talk) 20:09, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Date of Birth

It's bugged me for quite a while that there's no day/month associated with the date of birth on this page (just because that seems like easy and necessary information for a biography), but I just figured that it wasn't publicly out there anywhere. I don't know if this is considered a credible source for wikipedia, but a post on the Facebook fanclub page (which is linked on his official website) has a post from Jack marking today (April 14) as his birthday. Is that good enough to use in the article? I literally made this account just to post this message, so I'm really not familiar enough with how wikipedia works. I just figured I'd put it out there and let the people who are more "in the know" use it.

Here's the Facebook page for quick reference https://www.facebook.com/jackmcdevittbooks

Lzpanzer (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll add it, looks like a direct facebook link is https://www.facebook.com/jackmcdevittbooks/posts/10152815946895662 Suppafly (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

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Bibliography

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates and tables for short stories, poems and/or book reviews. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. Feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 05:20, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

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