Talk:Off on a Comet

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Mention "Splinter"?
Seems like it might be worth mentioning a recent novel based on this called Splinter by Robert Adams, but I wouldn't know how to put something like that in the way the article is now. --74.75.145.125 (talk) 04:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Why? Anyone can claim their writings are a sequel to Verne. Unless there's evidence that this author is in the same league as Verne, his book isn't worth a mention here. And he's not off to a great start—the evidence below is that he's a mile off. --Zaqrfv (talk) 07:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Adam Roberts/Solaris Books edition
The Adam Roberts (2007) version is incorrectly claimed (based on Roberts' own claims) to be a slightly edited version of the Frewer translation. In fact, it's edited from the truncated Parke edition; the key evidence being that Part II, Chapter III (Chapter XXVII in Roberts) was included in Frewer (contrary to Roberts' claims) but deleted by Parke. Roberts' new translation of this chapter oor—inparticular, he changes the size of the solar system by repeatedly mistranslating ‘lieues’ as ‘miles’, rather than ‘leagues’. This reeks of translate.google.com, and is an inexcusable mistake for someone claiming to be inspired by Verne's work.

Am updating the text accordingly. Will also add a link to the scanned copy of Frewer's translation (Scribner edition) on archive.org. --Zaqrfv (talk) 07:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy
The book relies on the knowledge of astronomy of the day and while diameters, distances from the sun and such are generally accurate (though annoyingly distances are given in leagues, as in lengths of 3 miles), ages of the planets and such are wildly inaccurate. The coldest possible temperature of space is given as -70C whereas reality is -273C, which no one would have survived.(84.236.152.71 (talk) 23:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC))