Good articleTypewriter in the Sky has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 19, 2009WikiProject approved revisionDiff to current version
September 23, 2010Guild of Copy EditorsCopyedited
September 24, 2010Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 19, 2009.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the science fiction novel Typewriter in the Sky by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is set in the Caribbean during the 17th century?
Current status: Good article

Note on editing and Quality improvement project edit

Note: I'm permitted to edit this one (1) article with The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) as my mentor, per this motion from 02:45, 23 October 2015.

Thank you,

Cirt (talk) 08:54, 24 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Ordered within each sect by chronological date of publication edit

I've re-ordered the material within each sub-sect in the article by date of publication.

In places where each paragraph in a sect deals with a different thematic topic -- that paragraph is then ordered by date of publication, while each paragraph stands alone as its own theme within that particular sub-sect in the article.

This makes it easier and simpler to add more cited material in the future into each sect, just order it chronologically in that paragraph, in that sect, by date of publication.

In this manner, readers can trace the evolution of source commentary about the book chronologically over time.

Cirt (talk) 01:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Summarized article in lede intro sect edit

I've summarized the article's contents from body text in lede intro sect, per WP:LEAD.

This can be see at DIFF.

What would be most fascinating next would be to see if more sources mention or compare the story to later works, to potentially add to the Influence sect.

Will do some research on this in additional references.

Cirt (talk) 02:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Quality improvement effort quoted verbatim in press release edit

Update:

It appears the Church of Scientology itself appreciates the quality improvement effort on this article -- so much so they quoted verbatim from it in a press release (archived) about the 75th anniversary of Typewriter in the Sky :


  1. The 2015 press release liberally quoted, verbatim and without attribution back to Wikipedia, from the Wikipedia articcle Typewriter in the Sky from the Genres section of the article as of its state from October 2015 -- primarily from the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of this subsection.
  2. The press release (archived) is credited to Author Services Inc. (Galaxy Press is a label used by Author Services Inc. for secular and fiction works by the sole author it represents.)
  3. Author Services Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Church of Spiritual Technology.
  4. Religious Technology Center controls the use of the works owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology.
  5. Religious Technology Center was founded in 1982 by the Church of Scientology.

So it appears the Church of Scientology itself appreciates the quality improvement effort on this article.


The relevant paragraph from the press release, allowed to quote fully here on this talk page as both fair-use analysis and as the material is originally from Wikipedia itself under a free-use license:

“Typewriter in the Sky” remains one of Hubbard’s most celebrated titles. In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cite “Typewriter in the Sky” as an example of ‘Recursive Science Fiction,’ a subgenre described as science fiction about science fiction." It is additionally listed in “Fantasy: The 100 Best Books,” by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. In “Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 Great Fantasy and Horror Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps,” Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg write that “Typewriter in the Sky” is classed among stories published in Unknown which "still rank as some of the best fantasy produced in this century." Author David Wingrove notes in “The Science Fiction Source Book,” “His [Hubbard's] best work is outstanding within the pulp tradition: ‘Typewriter in the Sky’ is a fine fantasy about a man who gets trapped within a story written by a pulp writer." Writing in A Short History of Fantasy, authors Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James characterize the book as "The best of Hubbard's stories" and notes that it "is better seen as a rationalized fantasy." press release (archived)


The 2015 press release info:

  • Author Services, Inc. (December 24, 2015), Pulp Fiction Legends: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Recognizes L. Ron Hubbard’s 75th Anniversary of “Typewriter in the Sky”, archived from the original on April 14, 2016, retrieved April 14, 2016 {{citation}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

A most interesting development showing the Church of Scientology approves of this quality improvement effort to this article.

Cirt (talk) 04:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Text comparison edit

Wikipedia article Typewriter in the Sky - Genres subsection (October 2015) Author Services Inc. -- press release (archived) (December 2015)
In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cited Typewriter in the Sky as an example of the subgenre of science fiction – "Recursive Science Fiction", described as "science fiction about science fiction". In the work, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Gary Westfahl commented, "Recursive fantasy fiction – that is, a fantasy about writing fantasy – is scarce. Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in a Search of an Author (1921) offered a non-genre model." Westfahl noted that Hubbard's book was "an early genre example, perhaps inspired by Pirandello".

Typewriter in the Sky is well regarded within the genre of fantasy; it is listed in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin Harry Greenberg write in Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 Great Fantasy and Horror Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps that Typewriter in the Sky is classed among stories published in Unknown which "still rank as some of the best fantasy produced in this century". Author David Wingrove noted in The Science Fiction Source Book, "His [Hubbard's] best work is outstanding within the pulp tradition: "Typewriter in the Sky" is a fine fantasy about a man who gets trapped within a story written by a pulp writer". Writing in A Short History of Fantasy, authors Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James characterized the book as "The best of Hubbard's stories" and noted that it "is better seen as a rationalized fantasy".

“Typewriter in the Sky” remains one of Hubbard’s most celebrated titles. In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cite “Typewriter in the Sky” as an example of ‘Recursive Science Fiction,’ a subgenre described as science fiction about science fiction." It is additionally listed in “Fantasy: The 100 Best Books,” by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. In “Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 Great Fantasy and Horror Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps,” Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg write that “Typewriter in the Sky” is classed among stories published in Unknown which "still rank as some of the best fantasy produced in this century." Author David Wingrove notes in “The Science Fiction Source Book,” “His [Hubbard's] best work is outstanding within the pulp tradition: ‘Typewriter in the Sky’ is a fine fantasy about a man who gets trapped within a story written by a pulp writer." Writing in A Short History of Fantasy, authors Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James characterize the book as "The best of Hubbard's stories" and notes that it "is better seen as a rationalized fantasy." press release (archived)

Text comparison presented above. — Cirt (talk) 04:46, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply