Talk:Sector General/GA1

GA Review

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Hi, I am reviewing this article for GA and am listing my comments below. (I may add some more later.)

Hi, Matisse, it's nice to hear from you again. --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Per WP:LEAD the lead should be a summary of the article. Topics mentioned in the lead should be elaborated on in the article. - eg "running gags are mentioned in lead, but no mention (that I could find), no examples and not description of relevance in body of article.
  • "running gags" is mentioned twice: "eating a bland-looking sandwich with closed eyes" (section "Difficulties of inter-species medicine") and Thornnastor's fascination with gossip (section "Regular characters"). I didn't want to over-use the term, and hoped that the comments about O'Mara's acerbic treatment of others including "latter-day Torquemada" would make the point - and the tactlessness of Kelgians, especially Naydrad. --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Could the list of "Stories" be moved to the end of the article, as having a list in the middle of an article seems disrupting and distracting.
  • Moved the list to the end as "Stories", headed by sentence "The Sector General series began as short stories published in New Worlds from 1957 onwards" and passage "Originally White intended to end the series with Star Healer (1985) ... psychological and theological issues of guilt and forgiveness rather than strictly medical ones." The passage "Sector General is a gigantic multi-species hospital space station ... which inspired The Genocidal Healer." remains where it is, with new heading "Background". --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Article organization: since this is a series of 12 books, I would expect a section entitled something like "General themes" and then maybe "Plot" if there is a sequential story that runs through the books. Some of this is under "Stories" but is is not clear how the sequence goes.

There is no sequential story that runs through the books. Hospital Station, Star Surgeon and Ambulance Ship are really collections of novellas, and the first 2 are referred to as "fix-ups" in commentaries. Apart from White's disgust with war (which is expressed quite fiercely at times) the main theme is simply the fascination of getting to know and co-operate with new intelligent species - this is really quite old-fashioned "sense of wonder" science fiction of the type that was most common in the 1930s to 1950s. <OR alert>IMO the only character that gets developed is Prilicla, which starts as a very diffident trainee and becomes capable of a devious sort of firmness as head of the Ambulance Ship's medical team.</OR alert> The only thing we ever find out about the relationship between Conway and Murchison is that Murchison (no Christian name, IIRC) has big boobs. --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• " Difficulties of inter-species medicine" - Why does this have a major section heading. In fact it is the only section heading other than "Stories". I cannot tell from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels how this is supposed to be handled.
  • It's the "engine" that drives the stories. Apart from the running gags about the risks of multiple personality disorder threatening doctors, it creates most of the plots and a lot of the social interaction, especially up to and including Star Healer. After that White introduces new perspectives but the difficulties remain, and social and psychological issues in inter-species medicine assume greater prominence. --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• Are you following Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)?
  • I don't think Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)'s suggestions would work well for a combination of short stories, fix-ups and works that were planned as novels (although often rather episodic). A Plot Summary would be disjointed and, as a result, rather long. The focus switches away fron Conway after the end of Star Healer. In any case the GA criteria are quite specific about what parts of MOS apply to GAs.

The writing is very clear and the "Critical acclaim" section is good. However, the organization of the article does not seem to be following any particular path. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Re "does not seem to be following any particular path", I've used every source I could find, and grouped the results in what I hoped was an informative manner. White regarded science fiction as a hobby rather than a business and did not promote his works aggressively (see James White (author) and its sources) - hence he was not a prolific author. His works do not fall into any the well-known science fiction categories (one source describes them as "hard science fiction", but at best that is only true relative to most of what was appearing in New Wave at the time), and his narrative techniques are very simple and conservative. As a result there's much less commentary on White's stories than on those of e.g. Robert Heinlein or Larry Niven or the "New Wave (science fiction)" writers (I remember seeing an article that said this), so it's hard to justify having many sections.

If you can suggest alternative arrangements of the content, I'd be interested. --Philcha (talk) 09:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• It is very well written. The heading "Difficulties of inter-species medicine" still hangs me up. Would you call it a main theme? Or "Inter-species medication theme", or "Medical theme" or "Theme"? Or "Main theme"?
• The stories can be read in any order and it makes no difference?
• Actually, the "Difficulties of inter-species medicine" section reads just like a plot. Would you object to calling it "Plot" or "Plot: Inter-species hospitla" or "Setting; inter-species hospital?

—Mattisse (Talk) 00:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

All but one of the paras in "Difficulties of inter-species medicine" is about consequences of practising inter-species medicine. The exception is the one about genders and sexes.

I've moved that exceptional sentence to section "Regular characters", where I think it works better by setting the scene for the use of "it" and for Thornnastor's gossip-mania.

Now that I've done that, "Difficulties of inter-species medicine" is about consequences of practising inter-species medicine and forms a set of cause-effect chains.

I think "Plot" would be the wrong title because there is no overall plot for the series, in other words major events in earlier books do not cause major events in later ones. For a comparison, Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 had multiple long-term plot threads (Babylon 5: the Shadow Wars; Centauran resentents at their relative decline, and their treacherous dealings with the Shadows; deepening relationships betwwen humans and Minbari;, etc. etc. I'll spare you Deep Space 9). The Sector General series is as episodic as as Star Trek or Star Trek: THe Next Generation - it does not even have Star Trek: Voyager's "how get back home?" long-term theme.

In the first 6 books the main character is Conway, and OK, he gets promoted and marries Murchison, but it does not form an extended bildungsroman the way the Harry Potter books do, because we never learn much about him (his past? his tastes, apart form Murchison? his hobbies?) and his character does not change noticeably apart from an increase in confidence.

The main themes noted by commentators on the Sector General series are White's pacificism and the complications generated by of interspecies medicine. White's pacificism is covered in sections "Background" and "Critical appraisal".

"Recurring themes" would be fairly accurtate, except that other recurring themes are mentioned in "Regular characters".

Would "Complications of interspecies medicine" or "Complexities of interspecies medicine" be a better title? --Philcha (talk) 10:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

• I will let you worry about it. I was speaking as a general reader who has no prior knowledge, and therefore would not know what to make of the heading. Meanwhile I will pass the article as GA, as except for that issue, the article is fine in my eyes. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Final GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): Well written b (MoS): Follows MoS

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): Well referenced b (citations to reliable sources): Sources are reliable c (OR): No OR

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): Sets the context b (focused): Remains focused on subject

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias: NPOV

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Congratulations! —Mattisse (Talk) 20:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)