Talk:The Thirteen-Gun Salute

Title

 * Support. Unnecessary disambiguation. grendel|khan 21:25, 2005 May 6 (UTC)
 * Neutral to Don't Move Some of O'Brian's titles require disambiguation and it seems reasonable to have a certain consistency in the page titles with the added (novel) after all of them. Given that I am not completely set on that. Dabbler 23:05, 6 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Can an editor remove the hyphen from the title of this page. Thx Ivankinsman 10:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Arfter checking the title of the original "First edition" I agreed with the move and made the change. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  11:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Locations?
The principal Malay locations - Pulo Prabang, and the temple at Kumai - are presumably fictitious, but if anyone can add some comment on their possible originals it would be interesting. --Vvmodel (talk) 21:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Characters
Some very minor points here. Jack's wife should surely be named as Sophie Aubrey, not Williams (her maiden name); and Crabbe (a very minor functionary) should be included with Loder and Johnstone. --Vvmodel (talk) 21:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Reviews, quality of
If you can find other reviews, please do. The ones I find are considered editorial reviews, not from blogs, which Wikipedia rejects even if the blog writer is notable. I hunt for the newspaper reviews, and for the long form of excerpted reviews on the W. W. Norton web site, but those are elusive so far. If there are other reviews, I do not know where to find them. Christopher Hitchens did an interesting review of the movie, in which he made comments on the books, and I included him where I could. As I am re-reading the series, I found none of the articles had any reviews. One or two articles have a list of places to find reviews, but no quotes from the reviews, so not very interesting or informative. I am not sure what you mean by "spammy" but it does not sound like a compliment. What intrigues me is finding no British reviewers, which became clear with Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove, where all the reviews are of The Truelove, the title in the US. --Prairieplant (talk) 19:34, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, the quality of the reviews is fine. My concern is the way they've been presented: the lead-in to each review makes it sound like they're universally positive, and the excerpts from the reviews are also entirely positive. These are very fine books, but the reviews could be presented more evenly IMO. Nick-D (talk) 19:47, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, the reviews are positive, very positive when I find longer articles in newspapers. I think I found only one review of one book that was not wholly positive, but even that was relative, saying that of the books in the series, that particular one (not this specific novel, but Post Captain, and a more recent review), the reviewer saw it as having poor plot structure (broken-backed), but then went on to praise it anyway. Whoever did not like these books when they were printed or re-issued, is not yet evident. Nor do I find more recent reviews, besides the author Jo Walton. I give the Kirkus Review in its entirety, as they are generally one paragraph. The others, I excerpt what they have to say on the specific novel, as so many reviews, up to this novel, want to talk about the whole series, which is more suitable for the article on the whole series. I could not find any reviews for a couple of the novels to this point in the series; I do not know if no reviews means lukewarm and do not bother to write it, or more simply that I have not found the reviews yet. In the middle of the series, when it caught the attention of Norton, some reviews are essentially, here is the next instalment, enjoy. There are no real reviews for the first book in the series, Master and Commander, not that I could find. So there is a sequence of short remarks, not making for a very good Reviews section. I am not the sort to write like a reviewer myself; I do not have that literary background that is sometimes found in the Wikipedia articles on Agatha Christie novels, where one book about her works could be counted on for a negative review of most all the books she wrote. These articles get C Class ratings, even without Review sections, which is puzzling to me. I was told by several editors that the Reviews are more important than the plot summary for a good rating. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:16, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Cover art
So why does the cover art of what is stated to be the first edition quite clearly show the title with a hyphen? Something is wrong somewhere ... --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:01, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I think that the caption is wrong and the image is not that of a first edition cover. The cover painting and layout is identical but the first edition does not have a hyphen according to other images I have seen on line. Dabbler (talk) 12:16, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * This link shows a first hardback edition W. W. Norton cover from 1991, with no hyphen in the title http://www.eveningstarbooks.net/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=2645 . This audible edition (what is that, exactly?) is for sale on amazon, showing no hyphen, Simon Vance narrating http://www.amazon.com/The-Thirteen-Gun-Salute/dp/B000KRMTCK . This site shows an image of the Collins 1969 hardcover first edition with no hyphen. https://www.peterharringtonbooks.com/obrian-patrick/the-thirteen-gun-salute/74857/ Would any of these images be suitable for fair use in this article? I do not know how to write those fair use forms up for Wikipedia -- I tried once and got stuck in questions whose answer I did not know. I love the cover of this book, as it shows the crew of one of the smaller vessels rowing hard to pull HMS Diane off a dangerous lee shore on an island, a scene in the novel. They succeeded. --Prairieplant (talk) 06:01, 24 June 2015 (UTC) --Prairieplant (talk) 07:02, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Title DOES HAVE A HYPHEN
I see some dispute about whether the title is "Thirteen-Gun" or "Thirteen Gun". The 1st edition dustjacket, and some later edition covers, had no hyphen. But notice that all of these had one word per line. It is common to omit punctuation at line ends in cover art. E.g the book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey: no colon on the cover and poster art. For books, cover art is not definitive for titles; artists and designers often screw around with them ( I speak from personal experience, you are lucky if the author's name is spelled correctly). You must look at the title page.

After some digging around I found this page with images of the cover AND the title page of the first edition. Dustjacket art no hyphen; but the spine of the book and the title page have a hyphen. QED. And the same in any later edition, omit hyphen in some cover art, always hyphen in the text. Please change the title of the article. I will try to change what I can, I expect I will be reverted by someone who thinks I am a vandal.123.208.4.161 (talk) 05:27, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. The title has a hyphen - easily checked - and accordingly I have moved the article to the correct title. --Pete (talk) 05:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Only took 12 years to revert this... I have corrected refs on some related pages also. 123.208.4.161 (talk) 06:08, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tidy. You did the research. Most book images show only the cover page, but once you'd made the point, it was easy enough to find a first edition title page image. Moby-Dick is a similar case, though not quite so good a read. --Pete - Surgeon's Mate (talk) 06:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Telstra Anonymous and Pete. That was bugging me as well. Eric talk 09:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Wreck of the Alceste
Thanks for taking a look at that addition regarding the possible connection between the wrecks of the actual Alceste and the fictional Diane. I was skeptical about it myself, but got pulled in and decided to fix the slapdash writing and look for better sourcing, albeit only in Google Books. Can you elaborate on your comment in the primary source tag? I don't follow your question "What source makes this link to 1817 article?" Eric talk 13:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia wants a source that observed that this real life event might be a model for the event in the historical fiction novel. The source should be published in a book, journal or newspaper. When it is the observation of an editor, Wikipedia calls it Original Research and does not want that in the article. Is that clearer? I think the link is to WP:OR. —Prairieplant (talk) 04:07, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks, I see what you mean now, at least re the observation. Not sure I get what you mean about the link being to original research. Well, maybe or someone will be inspired to look for a better source. Eric talk 04:22, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Finding a link to a record of a historical event and then judging the event to have inspired an event in the book, both of those actions are what would be considered Original Research by the editor. Is that clearer? Having the link to the historical event does not justify keeping the text in the article; another published source, one that links this novel to that historical event, is what is wanting. Clearer? --Prairieplant (talk) 06:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I get what you're saying now. I didn't realize that would be considered OR as well. I have no attachment to the material remaining in the article, just wanted to see if I could improve the sourcing. Eric talk 13:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)