Talk:Mars in fiction

Variant title - which one to use?

Regarding Umiński's W nieznane światy. It had ~10 editions, from third or so the title changed to Na drugą planetę. Which one to use? (No wiki article yet, I'll translate my entry from pl:Na drugą planetę eventually). Also, which date do we prefer? Magazine publication or book publication? 1894 vs 1895 for the record. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:41, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Definitely prefer the original publication date. My intuition says to prefer the title used by the original edition, but I suppose if later sources typically refer to it by the other title we should use that one? TompaDompa (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I think source usage vary (and, sigh, at least one "reliable" soruce I found had an error claiming those were seaprate works, and calling the one with the later title a "sequel"). Btw, when you say original date, do you mean magazine or book? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Whichever came first, which in this case is the magazine. Likewise, H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds was first published in 1897 as a serial and then in book format in 1898, and should be referred to as an 1897 work. There are some cases where it's not quite that simple, and I think those have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. For instance, George Griffith's A Honeymoon in Space was first published as the serial Stories of Other Worlds in Pearson's Magazine in 1900 before being published in book format under the title A Honeymoon in Space in 1901, but the serial was substantially abridged (not the novel expanded, mind you – the magazine version left out material that had already been written) so I've opted to refer to it as a 1901 novel. Something like John W. Campbell's Islands of Space (which we discussed recently at Talk:Warp drive/Archive 1#date of story), which was published as a serial in 1931 but not published as a book until a quarter of a century later in 1957, is probably more appropriately referred to as a 1931 work than a 1957 work – even though the book version was "extensively edited" according to our article. Fix-up novels should in my opinion always be explicitly labelled as such and given the date of the fix-up publication rather than that of the original stories (which may have been written across a fairly long period of time). TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Image of canals

Perhaps something from commons:Category:Martian canals may be of use? Note subcategories (Lowell's work). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:45, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

We currently use File:The_American_Museum_journal_(c1900-(1918))_(17539936613).jpg (the FAC raised copyright questions about File:Lowell_Mars_channels.jpg that I sidestepped by replacing it). It's in the "Nostalgic depictions" section, however; I didn't want to have both the Sagan quote and an image in the "Canals" section so as not to overcrowd it, and I prioritized the quote (easier to find another spot for the image than for the quote). TompaDompa (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Should we split Martians?

The trope of Martians (life on Mars in fiction) might have stand-alone notability. If split, this topic could be then shortened here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly notable, though that of course does not necessarily mean that covering it in a separate article is the best approach (WP:PAGEDECIDE). I don't think we should shorten the part of this article that deals with that aspect of the topic as I think it is WP:PROPORTIONATE (but then I would think that, wouldn't I?), but creating a new article and writing even more about it is of course an option. I'm inclined to think the current approach is probably the best one at least for now, but I'm open to suggestions. TompaDompa (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that expanding this even further in a dedicated article would be preferable to shortening anything here. Just wanted to highlight that Martians (or Martian (alien)?) is an article that needs to be created one day. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:29, 4 June 2024 (UTC)