Talk:The Worm Ouroboros

Film Rights

Wrote this on the Ouroboros page before realizing there was a page for the novel; these are notes that I'd incorporate into the text but have to cut-paste them somewhere for later stitching in: The story is set on a mythical Mercury, akin to Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-fictional Barsoom (Mars), but more pre-Raphaelite than Tolkienish or pre-Raphaelite in quality and style of prose; reminiscent of the Gormenghast Trilogy, also. Central to the story is the summoning of The Worm Ouroboros by Gorice XII, King of the Witches, thereby bringing about his own demise and the succession of Gorice XIII, who is one of the main characters of the novel.

And just wondering who, if anyone, owns the film rights . . . . or is it tangled up in litigation like the works of Burroughs and Leiber?Skookum1 06:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The text of the novel is posted on the Internet (click on the first external link) as if it was in the public domain. If there is somewhere to go and buy the film rights please let me know. It might be a very good investment.Steve Dufour 18:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC) p.s. You have one too many Gorices, you meant to say Gorice XI, who was killed in a wrestling contest, and Gorice XII, the last of the line who summoned the W.O. one too many times.

I'm not completely certain about the expiration of Eddison's copyright. He died on August 18th 1945, and this may have meant the 50 years, which used to be the limit, had expired before the law (in Britain anyway) was changed to 70 years. I've never found an exact statement of the law here so this may be a total red herring Agingjb 10:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Since the Public Domain issue was brought up here: The only thing this page sites as a reason for this novel being in the P.D. for the US is the digital etc. act, and the fact that it was published before 1923. Well, it was never published in the US before 1923 and there's nothing in the Digital act that makes this book P.D. in the US. I hope this error is corrected soon.

Everything published anywhere prior to 1923 is in the public domain in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Update: The first US edition was published in 1926, so the novel confidently entered the public domain in the US in 2022 (1926+95+1). Where the limit is now death+70 years, the copyright terms confidently ended in 2016 (1945+70+1) even if it could be argued that they actually expired after 50 years. Therefore, no one controls the "film rights" anymore; everyone has the right to adapt the work into a film or anything else (though active trademarks would still affect how the adaptation could be advertised). — Subvisser5 (talk) 15:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Comparison with LOTR

Must so much of the article deal with the comparison to The Lord of the Rings? I was going to go to the article on Eddison himself and change the first sentence to, "E.R. Eddison was not J.R.R. Tolkien." That seems to be what he is most famous for. (I did stop myself just in time.)Steve Dufour 04:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC), a fan of both.

Yeah, I moved all that to its own section. It really doesn't belong in the introduction. rewinn 21:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

sentence cut out

I cut out:

"It should be pointed out that the recurrence is not exact; the situation is not exactly that of the opening, the restored king of Witchland is now Gorice XII, and minor Demons and their allies killed in the war are not revived; but we are in no doubt that a sequel, had it been written, would have continued Eddison's vision in the same style."

It's really just someone's opinion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.137.100.21 (talk) 00:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

I won't quarrel with the removal of my comment. However, the part of my sentence before the second semicolon is an accurate summary of the situation at the end of the book - it is not a exact recurrence. The clause after that semicolon is indeed just my opinion, and was correctly removed Agingjb 07:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Worm Ouroboros Cover.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 09:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Comparison to US politics

Do you think it might be a good idea to mention how the characters in the book can be related to figures in US politics? For instance Gorice XI and XII to Bush 41 and 43? Or Brandoch Daha to Barack Obama? Maybe Juss to Al Gore? Corund and Prezmyra to Bill and Hillary? And Gro to George Stephanopoulos? ;-) Steve Dufour (talk) 04:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If so we might see a real "October Surprise". :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 15:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's just stupid. Gorice XII is a lot smarter than Bush 43 and Gorice 41. Also Bush 43 isn't seven feet tall with a habit of wearing black cobra-skins over black chain mail. Although that would have been interesting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.125.84.188 (talk) 12:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It's been some years since I last picked up the book, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Corund who wrastled Gorice XI to death. —Tamfang (talk) 19:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

While such a comparison would amuse me very much it is scarcely encyclopedic and therefore doesn't belong in wikipedia. Please do blog about it; I'd love to read it. And I'm pretty sure it was Goldrys Blusco who wrastled Gorice XI; that's why his successor Gorice XII cast the Big Spell to have some sort of supernatural thingy kidnap him, setting a lot of the book into motion. rewinn (talk) 05:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

One could also relate Witchland, the great empire that dominates most of the world = United States; Demonland, the fierce, proud, mountainous country the stands up to Witchland = Iran; Goblinland, Demonland's friend and neighbor = Afghanistan; then the Goules must be the USSR; Pixieland = Saudia Arabia; and the Folliet Islands = the United Arab Emirates —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.183.241.153 (talk) 07:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That's kind of scary! Steve Dufour (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Seemed to me that Gro's bashing of Demonland to the Red Foliot reminded me of America bashers who blame all the ills of the world on the Demons and not the real trouble makers (Witches). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.16.154 (talk) 16:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Editing problems: browser?

I've had a couple of peculiar editing problems, e.g. [1]. Switching from Chrome back to firefox seems to have worked but I don't know if Chrome really was the problem. rewinn (talk) 06:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you have Chrome set to use another encoding, like maybe UTF-16 for some reason? --Thnidu (talk) 19:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I am proposing merging the character articles here as a list. The articles themselves do not seem to possess any particular notability for the characters (it's not inherited from the main article) and consist solely of descriptions of the plot, which sometime overlap. There is nothing to give an "out of universe" view for any of these characters and a quick google search didn't seem to bring anything to light either. Alastairward (talk) 19:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

That is certainly an acceptable way to preserve the information if separate articles are considered overkill. But if that is the precedent, I fear it would precipitate the merger of many, many more articles under the Category:Characters in written fantasy. Probably the majority of these do not have "out of universe" notability, and only a few, such as Tarzan and Gandalf would survive. Or perhaps those with incarnations in multiple media should be preserved, while those appearing only in the original written work should be merged. Goustien (talk) 06:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be an idea, the overlap between multiple media (if noted in secondary sources) would help with an understanding of the characters themselves. The characters concerned in this merge proposal could be rounded up and kept to a single list, with a brief description of each, as they concern one book only. It would help to have a secondary source to add some sort of analysis, rather than just quote the book itself heavily. Alastairward (talk) 10:45, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

"worship"

... the gods worshipped have the names of deities from Greek mythology.

Is there any concrete sign of worship rather than of use of their names for expletives and allusions? —Tamfang (talk) 09:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Sophonisba prays to them in chapter 28. Schwerdf (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a shrine of Zeus in the Mezentian trilogy, I believe... AnonMoos (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

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Pop Culture anyone?

Any interest in a pop culture snippet noting that the homage in naming one of the World of Warcraft bosses Ouro - a giant worm?-- 04:04, 30 December 2011‎ 23.16.1.36

Could just be to Ouroboros in general... AnonMoos (talk) 04:09, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

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Plot overly descriptive?

I don't know this work at all, and can't speak to its following or relevance. There is a lot of detail in the entire article, specifically, the plot section. I was considering adding a Overly Detailed template, but wanted to see if anyone else had an opinion. For example, the plot sections discusses framing techniques, there is a lot of detail on multiple characters and events, and the use of the phrase "with a blare of trumpets" definitely comes across very strong. CaptainAngus (talk) 02:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

That's a tough call. According to WP:NOVELPLOT, "400 to 700 words are usually sufficient for a full-length work, although very complex and lengthy novels may need a bit more." This summary is currently 923 words, which is clearly long, but it's actually quite a good summary. The book is over 500 pages and episodic. The only low-hanging fruit would be to tighten up the mention of the framing story, which I can do but that's saves probably 50 words. [Done - summary is now 854 words.] Any other changes are likely to be little more than random deletions. I couldn't do anything close to this good. (I read the book, but years ago.) I wouldn't dispute an "overly detailed" tag, but I doubt that it will result in a better summary.

Re the "blare of trumpets", I don't begrudge it. This is a moment that's unique in literature. Dan Bloch (talk) 06:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

@Danbloch: Hey, this is great! Appreciate the response. I'll have to go pick up the book at some point. :) CaptainAngus (talk) 01:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

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Morunasaurus

American herpetologist Emmett Reid Dunn named a species of South American lizard Morunasaurus groi, after the character Lord Gro.

And after the Moruna, a region in … er, which country? Impland? —Tamfang (talk) 23:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Surprisingly enough, yes. You can search for it in the ebook. Dan Bloch (talk) 23:40, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

But it looks like it's been grouped in with another genus since then. Morunasaurus groi is now Enyalioides groi. Dan Bloch (talk) 23:45, 19 June 2023 (UTC)