Talk:Sandkings (novelette)

Spoiler complaint
This article must be labelled as a SpoilerGrijalvo 09:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

❌ No, it must not. Please see WP:SPOILERS. Thank you. (Titled this section so as to respect talk page structure.) DBaK (talk) 08:23, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

The Plot Summary is Inaccurate
It sounds like someone took the plot summary from a t.v. version. I read the original 1979, Omni magazine edition (although I've read it once or twice in anthologies since then) and at the end, the protagonist does NOT encounter a cabin filled with bipedal beings wearing his face, but rather is captured by a group of bipedal Sandkings, who drag him to their Queen, which is shaped like his head ie., he is about to be fed into a giant version of his own mouth. That's how the story actually ends, as opposed to the summary provided in the article. Hopefully, someone will correct that error. I may get around to it myself, but I'd like to re-read "The Sandkings" before I start editing the content of the plot summary. I know my recollection is fundamentally correct, but after all these years, I don't really feel qualified to re-write a faulty plot summary. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 08:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but your recollection is inaccurate. "The story ends: He screamed because of the others, the little orange children who came crawling out of the castle, and watched impassively as he passed. All of them had his face." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.208.140 (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I should also like the plot summary to be returned to its expanded version. The drop in quality is quite frankly a little of a disgrace —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.150.236.86 (talk) 18:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Two (or more) different versions?
I have just read this tale in an anthology edited by Orson Scott Card. Just after beginning to read it, I recalled having read it several years ago in a magazine lent to me by a friend. But, after having read it in the anthology, I had the impression that the the version I had read in the magazine ended differently, though I couldn't remember the details. The version in the anthology does end as commented by 207.38.208.140, but I don't know how it ended in the magazine; I think it was very different (not only with the minor difference stated by KevinOKeeffe. Does anyone have the original story at hand? (I must also say that I have only read both versions as translated in Spanish). Ignacio González (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Simpsons episode
Any citation for this? I note the article on the Simpsons episode makes no reference to this novelette; my own impression is that it's a parody of a Stanislaw Lem short story from The Cyberiad but don't have that book in hand to confirm. 98.218.23.114 (talk) 15:17, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe The Simpsons episode was directly inspired by a Twilight Zone episode. The idea of a miniature, fast-growing world probably first appeared in Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" in 1941. 24.89.220.62 (talk) 04:10, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Update: I checked the commentary track and the writer says it's based on the Sturgeon story. 24.89.220.62 (talk) 05:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Novelette: major or minor
Someone changed "Sandkings" to Sandkings and I have, for now, changed it back. But it's a novelette and we know that this is not a very clear definition ... so is this actually a MOS:MAJORWORK (italics) or a MOS:MINORWORK (double quotes)? There is a lot of stuff in the MOS - do we have a definition that helps, or can we reach a consensus here, or what? best to all, DBaK (talk) 08:17, 22 May 2021 (UTC)