Talk:Sword and planet

Does John Russell Fearn's "Mars Quartet" belong in this genre? Answer: No, the Fearn books are more like bad Van Vogt pastiche, with body/mind transfers and UFOs, violating all physical laws. Very bad.

Changed "Eric John Stark series" to "Skaith series"; first, because only the Skaith books (Ginger Star, Hounds, Reavers) actually form a real series, and the other Stark stories are barely connected with them (except for the hero having the same name); second, because only the Skaith books, being basically fantasy set on another planet, qualify as "Sword and planet" stories, while the other Stark stories are really space opera/planetary romance. RandomCritic 17:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Added some minor entries to the list, obviously making it less "select", but why be select when you can be complete? I haven't been able to track down publication dates for all of these books.

I also suspect that many of the names listed are actually pseudonyms. If they aren't, they ought to be. RandomCritic 18:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

selected reading list? selected by whom? Blueaster 00:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

"Why be select when you can be complete?" Because you will never, ever write a complete list of works in a genre as broad and ambiguous as this one? 68.230.8.181 (talk) 10:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

This page seems to duplicate much of the content of the Planetary Romance page. Should the pages be merged? Or, should the substantive content from this page be moved to Planetary Romance and this page redesigned as a list of Planetary Romance/Sword and Planet books? AusJeb 19:12 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Totally. Silverwood (talk) 09:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

Do you think it qualifies?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I should think that Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon is an example of sword and planet, as is Manly Wade Wellman's novella Sojarr of Titan, from the March 1941 issue of Startling Stories. Neither are part of a "series", though, and it seems like you've set that up as an (I think somewhat odd) criteria for the genre.

I don't want to step in on your page, but I thought I'd forward those two titles for your consideration. Iquander (talk) 08:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

• None of this is supposed to be about the opinion of what one editor or another thinks qualifies as belonging to this genre, but what reliable published sources think belongs here. If no published sources actually say, "Such and Such is an example of sword and planet," then Such and Such should not be mentioned here. We are not the arbiters of what is an example of what, we are parrots of what others have said is what (and I mean that with no disrespect to parrots). KDS4444 (talk) 07:34, 22 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

"The phrase appears to have first been coined in the 1960s by Donald A. Wollheim, editor of Ace Books, and later of DAW Books at a time when the genre was undergoing a revival." Appears to have been? Either it was or it wasn't -- the term should have a definite provenance, if the reader is not to wonder whether this is just some ad-hoc genre label that really doesn't deserve treatment in an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.62.47 (talk) 04:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

it seems that the comic book series 'storm' by don lawrence should fit right in —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.92.117.233 (talk) 20:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

This, and the Trigan Empire. Added. 2A01:E34:EF75:CCE0:35BB:8DF9:3CBA:6750 (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I just looked at the page out of curiousity, so I don't think I'm qualified to decide what should stay and what should go, but the ToC looks awful and the list takes more space than the article.

Overhaul anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.223.199.128 (talk) 20:23, 28 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

"the term should have a definite provenance, if the reader is not to wonder whether this is just some ad-hoc genre label that really doesn't deserve treatment in an article."

I stumbled across this page and am baffled by its existence. In light of the other comments on this page, I am, in fact, baffled by its continued existence. In a lifetime of reading SF, I've never heard of the term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.132.153.221 (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Morgaine Cycle, CJ Cherryh's first-published series, is a definite example of the S & P genre--in fact, I arrived at this page from that of the meta-series to which the Morgaine Cycle later came to belong, the Alliance-Union universe, as S&P was used to describe the Morgaine Cycle and one other sub-series. I don't have the time at the moment to scare up publishing dates and get the formatting right, but may do so later. If anyone else is willing to add it to the list I'll thank them profusely.YarLucebith (talk) 07:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

Is "Glory Road" an example?

Drsruli (talk) 05:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Planetary romance is by far the most common term for this genre. Google Ngrams doesn't even register "sword and planet". I see a merger has already been suggested above. I propose to make this into a redirect to planetary romance in a few days, if there are no objections. I don't see much here that's worth keeping; it's mostly either unsourced or just a list of works, again unsourced as to their genre. I'll leave a note at Talk:Planetary romance too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'll just note for the record that Gardner Dozois treats the terms as synonymous in the foreword to Old Venus (see here), as does the book Wanderer am Himmel: Die Welt der Planeten in Astronomie und Mythologie. TompaDompa (talk) 02:25, 8 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Mike Christie I agree that the articles are poorly referenced and overlap, but I think AfD and/or a proper merge template with few months of discussion would be a proper venue. I did a quick BEFORE and sources I see (GS, GB) suggest those term are synonymous, so I'd tentatively support a redirect with merge to planetary romance (since SFE doesn't even have an entry on "sword and planet", but only on pe: [1]). I am less sure about no need for merging. There is analysis here, possibly WP:ORish, but possibly reusable - and this article "looks" better than the other one (pe). You should elaborate on why you think that "I don't see much here that's worth keeping". Yes, unsourced is against WP:V and OR, but best practice would be to try to verify the claims here, rather then nuke them. If the claims here are roughly correct, the reader may be better served with what we have (after merging) than a shortened version. And yes, I know that verification is a lot of work, which is why often TNT approach is good too. But unless one can show that the current text has errors or is obvious OR, I am not convinced redirect and hiding the current text in the history is best. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:05, 8 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@AusJeb and @Silverwood who briefly commented on the merge above looong ago. Ping some folks who took part in similar old discussions at the other page: @BPK @RandomCritic (main author of the s&p article), @RLetson, @Lembit Staan (main author of the pr article). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:12, 8 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

That's fair. I will wait for other comments here, and may also do some expansion of the planetary romance article first, which should be possible based on the SFE3 entry. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Time permitting, I'd like to help with verificaiton of the content here, but my time is a bit scarce these days, so it may take some time. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the link! Naïvely, this page looks like it's saying that Sword and planet is just a more restrictive version of Planetary romance; seems a bit pedantic to keep it.

Formally: there are no hits on JSTOR for "sword and planet" ([2]); the Wikipedia Library has eight hits ([3]); I only checked 1, 2, 3, and 7; none used it as more than a one-off term. Hard to see how "Sword and planet" can pass GNG. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 10:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Looking into this term, it seems like the overlap between the two genres is very large but they are not strict synonyms. I think a relatively complete merge is in order. I don't think a straight redirect would suffice. Also, given what I've found so far, I think it's likely we could dig up sources for GNG on this alone but it might take a lot of work -- or some attention from a researcher like Cunard ;) The output of that sourcing would still influence whether it was better to have one or two articles. Here's some sources that make use of the term:

• Publisher's Weekly uses the phrase "planetary romance/sword and planet novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs" [4]
• Library journal uses the term without definition in a review [5]
• In a Space Science Reviews journal article about the planet Venus, the terms are treated roughly the same: [6]
• A 2021 anthology edited by Christopher Ruocchio bears the name Sword & Planet and makes no mention of planetary romance
  • Analog had a review of this in Feb 2023, that referenced the genre by name, but not "planetary romance"

As always, if a merge is the consensus I'm willing to undertake it. I'll wait until consensus develops and any current verification/expansion slows down. Ping if needed. —siroχo 01:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

It should probably be noted that the Space Science Reviews article linked above cites the Dozois source I mentioned a couple of days ago for these terms (and so it is not an additional independent source, if that matters). TompaDompa (talk) 02:10, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Siroxo That was my initial impression, but having looked at this article further since (although not as deeply as I'd like due to time issues) I am concerned about OR. The content here seems "useful" but not necessarily corrrect or veriable, making merge problematic. See some particular issues below. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Those first three clearly aren't significant coverage, but the anthology has a brief introduction which might be. I think it's a bit of a reach, and it doesn't seek to distinguish sword and planet from planetary romance; all the works it mentions are listed in the SFE entry for PE.

This might count: [7], but the last two entries are the Dozois Old Mars and Old Venus anthologies. The former uses "interplanetary romance" but not "sword and planet"; the latter states that they're synonymous. Overall, I don't see anything to imply that they're meaningfully different.

There are a few books/series around described as "sword and planet" and a 2017 anthology called Sword and Planet (not the Ruocchio), but that doesn't seem to have an introduction or anything. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't be surprised if the existence of this article on Wikipedia has helped expand usage of the term, and if some of the examples you found come from this. That's can only be speculation, of course. Piotrus, what more would you want to see before an AfD? I'm tempted to remove even more unsourced material, but that would leave almost no text, so perhaps it would be fairer to AfD it in its current state. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think you're right. I'm trying to be as fair as possible here, but I feel I'm scraping the barrel. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

At the very least there are several pre-wikipedia references to the term as a type of story/work.

[8][9][10][11][12][13]

Suffice it to say, some decent amount of this article is definitely not OR, It seems pretty likely that some is OR. It's currently a bit difficult to determine what is what because it's hard to view a large enough piece of some of the sources. It's even harder to determine if there is SIGCOV. I'm less adept with unearthing archives but I may give it a shot at some point. I may just take a rough pass with the snippets I have to try to source some more of it. —siroχo 19:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

You may be right re WP:CITOGENESIS, although it's hard to prove. I am fine with AfD at any point. For now I'd be fine with redirect (SOFT, with history being preserved) since we have several sources that treat it as a synonym. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

While the term may have grown more popular due to Wikipedia, I don't think it rises to the level of WP:CITOGENESIS, thankfully, given the number of pre-Wikipedia-article references that exist. —siroχo 06:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I agree. Perhaps we could add a couple of sentences to planetary romance saying that sword-and-planet is a closely related term, citing a couple of these sources? I think that would be sufficient to argue that this page could be converted to a redirect. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Right. We pretty much have a consensus to do here, well participated. I won't insist on an AfD since effectivel what we have here is a merge-like discussion, but I still feel that from a technical best practice perspective we are a bit in the gray zone as the article has not been templated with an AfD or merge notice telling passerbys we are discussing it's fate here. An AfD could be held right now, pinging all participants here, and clearly saying we have several people advocating merge/redirect and (I think?) nobody clearly objecting. What do you think? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 23:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Fine with me to make it an AfD. Go ahead, or I'll do it tomorrow if you don't. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:59, 12 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Since you started this, I'll let you handle it if you don't mind :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:00, 13 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

OK; will do it shortly. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:30, 13 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Our article claims "The phrase appears to have first been coined in the 1960s by Donald A. Wollheim". I couldn't verify it. The best I have is the doctoral thesis here that states in a footnote: "Donald A. Wollheim, editor of the first such anthology, Swordsmen in the Sky (New York, Ace Books, 1964) is rumoured to have coined the term, though the back cover of the anthology uses the term ‘sword-and-wonder’.". The thesis, sadly, does not cite a source for this "rumour", and I can't help but wonder if the source of this informaiton is not Wikipedia... (the claim was added to the article by an IP in 2005). That said, doctoral thesis are seen as reliable oer WP:THESIS so... attribute to that source with changing the languag eot less definitive - from appears to might have been perhaps? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:36, 9 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

What would you think of starting by eliminating the list of works? There's not a single reference for the list, and I suspect it was created by some who pulled examples from their own reading. Most if not all could certainly be described as planetary romances, and I would think that would be sourceable, but I would be surprised if there are any references for these as "sword and planet". I tried searching Google Books for books that used the phrase but found nothing non-fiction that looked helpful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:57, 9 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Per MOS:TRIVIA and WP:V, all unreferenced content, particularly lists, can be removed. I'd not object to this - go ahead. Having looked a bit closer at this article (although I only had time to try to verify few facts, not most of the content here), OR is definetly a problem - the text appears "useful" but if it is ORish, well... Wikipedia is no place for it. Bottom line, my concern is technical - I don't like bold deletion by redirecting; getting consensus at AfD (where I certainly would support SOFTDELETE approach and preserving history in the redirect) seems a better practice. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:29, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

OK, I took out the list. I cut an image for space reasons, and I also took out the fantasy navbox as not closely enough related. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:03, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

The article claims: "Stories in the sword and planet genre fall primarily into two chronological classes... The first includes the stories of Burroughs himself and his early imitators, of whom Otis Adelbert Kline was the most significant... second and larger group includes authors who began to write Burroughs pastiches from the mid-1960s to early 1970s. Such authors included Lin Carter and Michael Moorcock."

So far I failed at finding a source to confirm this. It reads nice, useful, etc. but it may be WP:OR :( _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)Reply