Wikipedia:Peer review/New Wave science fiction/archive1

New Wave science fiction

I've listed this article for peer review because I just completely restructured and rewrote it.

Thanks, Johncdraper (talk) 14:19, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Could you clarify the following?

The British and American New Waves overlapped but were different. Judith Merril, "whose annual anthologies were the first heralds of the coming of the [New Wave] cult,"[4]:105 writing in 1967 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction contrasted the SF New Wave (which she here terms 'The New Thing') in England and the United States.

It quoted someone, but unless I look at the reference I do t know who it is quoting. Also I’m uncertain why the material being quoted is important.

I’m still going over it now. Fascinating article, overall the structure seems sound (so far!), seems well researched and I can see a lot of hard work has gone into it. I’ve made a few small copy edits to clarify some things, but nevertheless I find the prose engaging though haven’t read the whole thing so far. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 15:17, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I had a stab at changing this, but not sure I quite got it right. Can you see if this edit is accurate? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 15:26, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I just fixed the Merrill ref and moved it to Authors and works section. Johncdraper (talk) 15:54, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: can we get a one line description of “New Wave fabulism”? I am completely unclear what this is... - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if we should expand out the following:

The concept of a 'new wave' has been applied to science fiction in other countries, including in Arabic[8] and Chinese[9][10] science fiction.

That would be fascinating... - Chris.sherlock (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Working on it. Johncdraper (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Comments from Vanamonde

Thanks for working on this article; I've written about a few examples of new wave SF, and so I might be a little close to the topic; feel free to discuss any of my suggestions.

• Hard vs soft science; I don't know that this term should be used in the lead, given its history of pejorative use and the fact that new wave exponents sometimes did not like it. I'd spell out what they mean, and treat the terms with appropriate context in the body.
• If dangerous visions is considered the best example only in the US, is it worth mentioning in the lead?
• Is there information available on the origin of the term in US SF?
• I think your usage of quotes is a little too high. Quotes are necessary, of course, but I'd say that their use should be entirely restricted to passages that cannot be paraphrased; whole paragraphs, such as the quote from Le Guin in "History", can almost always be reworked.
• Adding to my first point; I think the description section needs to include the importance given to social sciences and life sciences in new wave sf; it's a prominent difference.
• More broadly, I'm wondering if combining the description and history sections would be worthwhile; because the meaningful part of the history is how themes and content and style changed over time, which is substantively the same as "description", and may indeed provide an easier structure to handle that material.
• There are a lot of instances where you say that New Wave SF was different from what came before, or a reaction to it, or a movement away from, or equivalent; many of those could use some elaboration, because having once said that it was different, it isn't especially useful to the reader to reiterate that without details as to how it was different.
• I think a little more fleshing out is required of the term vis-a-vis geography. It seems to me there's a divergence between the term "New Wave science fiction" and the phenomenon generally referred to as New Wave science fiction; and the article needs to make the distinction clear, particularly with respect to fiction from countries outside the US and the UK. I'm also skeptical of the suggestion that the New Wave was restricted to these countries; it may have been as a general pattern, but unless I'm far off the mark, Canadian, Australian, and likely European authors were also participants. I fully acknowledge I'm talking off the top of my head here, but at the very least, some careful qualification may be necessary.
• The section titled "decline" doesn't cover a decline as such; it's also unclear if the implied decline is a reduction in the importance of the features of new wave writing, or an assimilation, or a shift in what was considered mainstream, or something else. My understanding is that it is a combination of the latter two.
• As above, I think the "authors and works" should also be folded into a much more substantial history section; a list of authors and works is difficult to define inclusion criteria for, and it's also unlikely to be exhaustive.

Thanks again for working on this; my comments are largely based on my reading of literature about 1970s authors, but I haven't consulted sources before posting this, so feel free to push back on anything. These are general suggestions only, because you're clearly still developing this. Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 21:29, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Do you want to just go ahead and make appropriate changes as you see fit? I mean, I didn't create this, and I certainly don't WP:OWN it, so feel free. Re quotes, I agree; you should check what it looked like before I arrived... Johncdraper (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: If I had the time I would, but this requires a level of engagement with the sources I do not have time for at the moment, sorry. I know you don't own the article; I offer these comments because I assume you're interested in continuing to work on it; but they're suggestions only, and they're not a criticism of the work you've already done. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)