Talk:Mission Earth (novel series)

Plot Summary Improvements
Hello Wikipedians,

I recently finished a complete reread of Mission Earth, a series I really enjoyed many years ago and enjoyed even more this time through. I took a look at the plot summary here, which is...rather wanting, to say the least.

I am drafting a plot synopsis myself while the series is still fresh in my mind. I want it to actually be possible (at least in principle) for my synopsis to be "the" Wikipedia synopsis for the series and not to get severely cut or outright rolled back e.g. due to length, so I thought I should speak up here first to get advice.

One main concern I have is that the edit summary for the most recent major revision to the plot section of the article says "Trimming the plot section to meet the 700 word limit." I can't find reference to such a limit in Wikipedia guidelines, except that films are recommended to have a 400 word to 700 word summary. (But obviously this isn't a film.) Is there an actual specific restriction on plot summary length for novels? Shouldn't that apply to each individual book, though?

The overall structure I am planning for the plot summary is to tell the crux of the story setup (which is really about Lombar Hisst's plot to overthrow the Voltar government), and then write a brief plot summary for the key events in each novel. Obviously I can't do all of this in 700 words. That would be just 70 words per novel even if I left out the overall story setup!

Although the story is lengthy and the divisions between volumes may not be obvious, there are actually clear differences in themes; the various volumes have distinct targets for their satire. (Drug use, the court system, sexuality, finance and the banking industry, news media, are each dealt with in separate volumes, to name a few of the targets of the satire.) Getting into an actual analysis of the different themes, or even attempting to summarize them, would probably (?) fall into "original research" and I would tend to avoid it unless advised otherwise here; but I mention this aspect as a supporting reason why I think a (brief) plot summary for the key events in each individual volume would be appropriate, rather than just lumping the whole series together and trying to summarize it as a whole.

Actually, comparing this article to the article for "A Game of Thrones" (the book), perhaps I'm being overcautious? The plot summary for that novel is almost four times the length of the Mission Earth plot summary. Judging from the archived talk page, perhaps the only reason for that is a dearth of Wikipedia editors who are personally fans of Mission Earth? Actually, a section on the cast of characters is probably a good idea as well and I see such a section for other series/books. I'm happy to put in the work of actually writing the content but as I'm new to Wikipedia editing I don't want to make a bunch of wasted effort, so I'll wait for some feedback first on my ideas/comments above.

LibreBumblebee (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Authorship
Has there been any comment about the possibility that the later books might not have been written by Hubbard ? Or at least "finished" by others ? -- Beardo (talk) 23:15, 11 April 2022 (UTC)