Talk:A Voyage to the Moon (Tucker novel)/GA1

GA Review

Passed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:11, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 23:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a go at this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

There's no need to cite the Synopsis, as the book itself is the citation. It's standard practice for book articles to have the thing without explicit citations. I certainly don't see the point of having multiple citations for many of the sentences.
- The synopsis I have written was based on secondary sources rather than the primary source, so it seems appropriate to cite those sources (I'll note that WP:PLOTREF says If all or most of the summary has been derived not from the work itself but from a comprehensive plot summary in a reliable secondary source, citing that source is recommended as a convenience to readers.). Where multiple sources are cited for the same sentence, it's likely to be because they verify different details (in the first sentence New York resident Joseph Atterley goes on a voyage around the world following the death of his wife, one of the sources verifies "New York resident" while the other verifies "following the death of his wife", for instance). TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is sometimes described as the earliest US story of interplanetary travel,[5][12][14][17][27][28][29] – excessive citations?
- I can see why someone might think it excessive, but I think a high number of citations is necessary for balance reasons—this being something of an exceptional claim that is also immediately contradicted afterwards. It's a fairly common belief that it is the first. TompaDompa (talk) 13:54, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, the quotebox by Neil Barron makes the earliest-US-story claim too. Given the text, we need to say something in the quotebox about that (i.e. Barron is wrong about the point), or the "initial American venture" bit could be elided "...".
- Difficult to elide it when Barron says there are three things to take note of. Hm. I added a note about Barron being mistaken. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe gloss Bleiler as a scholar of science fiction.
- Done. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I note in passing that the list of Tucker's works in his article sometimes includes his name and sometimes doesn't. Nothing to do with this review.

The quotation in 'Later' should be followed by a citation ... sooner rather than, er, later.
- Done. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful to have a 'See also: Utopia' link at the top of the 'Utopia' section.
- Done. Also added a link to Utopian and dystopian fiction. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a strong Utopian trend in later science fiction. Has any critic or scholar identified the book as a forerunner of that trend?
- Not that I can recall, no. Adam Roberts discusses utopias a fair bit in The History of Science Fiction starting with Thomas More's Utopia (1516), and traces how the tradition developed through the centuries that followed. Roberts barely discusses this book at all, and never in a utopian context. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
netting Tucker $100 – which is what in modern terms?
- I really should have added an inflation template in the first place. Oh well, I have added it now. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
vacuum ... void – I take it these two terms are being equated here; it might be as well to make this explicit?
- Done. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Much of 'Edgar Allan Poe's "Hans Pfaall" (1835)' consists of two very long sentences (the last two). Perhaps they could be split up a bit.
- Split the first one. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can we hear briefly what Tucker satirises in the thought of E. Darwin, Godwin, Lavater, Jeffrey? Even a very brief gloss based on the book's text would be useful, not least as it would clarify the critics' remarks in the rest of the paragraph.
- Added a couple of examples. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Why don't we have the title page in the infobox? There is a scanned book at Internet Archive... in fact, why don't we have a link to that in Ext links as well. The title page even has Tucker's very faint signature, how nice, a signed copy.
- Added. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The early photo of Tucker is properly licensed. We should have the date, 1845, in the caption. The image should be |upright.
- Added. TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
J.L. Hilton's multiple literary traditions[32] feeding into the novel would make a nice diagram which would give an inviting overview into the 'Analysis' section. I'm always willing to help with graphics...
- That's a good idea. Why don't we do that after wrapping this up? TompaDompa (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:10, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

The sources that I spot-checked verify the claims made from them.

Summary

Well there's very little wrong with this interesting article, so I've only found a few minor issues and made a couple of suggestions. I look forward to seeing it as a GA very soon. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.