Talk:The Sacred Band of Stepsons

This talk page is appearing on several search engines. Consensus please for automatically archiving this page!
I have read the archiving guidance and looked at Mizzabot and Cluebot and I would like Mizzabot to archive this page every fifteen days since this talk page is appearing both on AltaVista and Yahoo and heavens knows where else. The rules say I need consensus. If nothing else, the page is too long. I can (probably) follow the directions, achieve the automated process, but I need consensus. OrangeMike, Marcuss AA, others, do you agree this page should be archived rather than appearing as it is on search engines? Or can you remove it from search engines? Or is it okay as is?Harmonia1 (talk) 16:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just added code to keep this page from being indexed by search engines; this is quicker and easier than setting up an archive; also, this talk page is too short for archiving to really be needed yet. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  19:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much, Orangemike.Harmonia1 (talk) 19:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

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Heldreth claim
The claim that Lillian Heldreth, in her article "Speculations on Heterosexual Equality: Morris, McCaffrey, Le Guin", asserted that Morris's Sacred Band stories "introduced" somehow "sexuality as a topic in fantasy" is apparently spurious. First of all, it's unlikely, given the 1986 publication date, that the essay (which doesn't seem to be available online), addressed the just-beginning "Sacred Band" series; and the online comments about it suggest it addressed Morris's "Cream Dancer" sf trilogy (or, perhaps also, the Silistra series); it's of course hard to see how fiction centered on "an elite homosexual war-band" of males fits into an analysis of "heterosexual equality." Second, and more important, the assertion would be preposterous. "Sexuality in fantasy" didn't begin in the 1980s with Morris; it easily goes back (in English) to Cabell's Jurgen in the 1920's, even by the most casual analysis. Even if we construe the claim as relating only to homoerotic content, Morris's stories are predated by Diane Duane's Middle Kingdoms novels, most conspicuously by Chip Delany's Neveryon sequence (to say nothing of the borderline-straddling Dhalgren or of the earlier The Tides of Lust), much-discussed and much-reviewed; by Silverberg's early 70's Book of Skulls, by Farmer's late 60's A Feast Unknown, further back in Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. . . and that barely scratches the surface. Essex House shouldn't go unmentioned, or the Roy Cohnish antics in Berger's Arthur Rex. In the unlikely event that Heldreth made that claim, and it's not a bit of ersatz synthesis from the unreliable editor Harmonia1, it's a fringe opinion, not reflecting any widely held critical view, and doesn't belong in this article. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Grammar
"OtherRealms reviewer Chuq von Rospach described Beyond Sanctuary as 'By far the worst book in the series so far, readable only by Thieves' World completists and addicts'. Von Rospach gave Beyond the Veil three out of five stars, and Beyond Wizardwall as well, stating it 'is significantly better than its predecessors, and it shows a polish that I haven't seen before.'"

This is so incompetently written as to leave readers unsure as to what Chuq was advocating. If you can't explain what he meant clearly, drop the references. At present they add nothing to the article. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 00:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Tags
Just for records sake. I added the tags to this article because it has several problems. Here is my edit summary: "Added unreliable sources and factual accuracy disputed tags. I marked 3 sources as being being unreliable. One of the sources is a fiction book! Also, this page received the most amount of editing by a now banned user who was known for POV and misrepresenting sources. The lead paragraph [is] weird and contains some dubious text. Unsurprising considering the subject matter of the article."

Tags should not be removed until problems are fixed. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 01:13, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

An attempt at addressing Unreliable Sources
Here is my edit summary: ''I removed two unreliable sources, and added a review sourced from Black Gate, which has a Wikipedia page. I also removed some of the material up front about the original story being republished, which did not seem to add a lot to the article.''

I have not edited much in the past, so I would appreciate another party to do a review of the edits and remove the unreliable sources tag. -BillBarnhill (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2020 (EST)