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Lawyers in Hell

Lawyers in Hell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Non-notable brand-new book. Orange Mike

• Keep. Notable because continuation of award winning series (Nebula for "Gilgamesh in the Outback" by Robert Silverberg) Contains stories by award-winning author (C. J. Cherryh).Dburkhead

• Delete - not notable, fails WP:NBOOK. ukexpat (talk) 01:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Retain

  Non-notable brand-new book. Orange Mike

  By this definition the seventh book in the Harry Potter series would have been non-notable, as would any brand new book published. I think that you need to come up with a better argument because I could extend that argument to include every new television show, every new movie, every new song, etc. even if they are by an established artist with an excellent track record. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 01:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • reply - most of them are in fact not notable and don't get articles. In the case of the Potter book, it had been discussed at great length in reliable sources for some time before its appearance; heck, even our belovéd Dave Langford published a book speculating on what the 7th Potter book would contain! And this new book doesn't inherit notability merely by containing a stories by notable authors, any more than I become notable because I've been mentioned in book dedications by Harlan, by Fred Shapiro, and by award-winning author C. J. Cherryh, or because I was in FAPA with SilverBob. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
    • I think this argument overstates the reach of NOTINHERITED; there is a difference between notability by mere association and notability by incorporation. Publishers "inherit" notability from the notable books and authors they publish, for example, as do magazines, and it's fair to conclude that sometime books do "inherit" notability from the authors who write them, in whole or in part. As NOTINHERITED notes, the principles involved are weakest when applied to creative work, where notability is often more accurately described as shared rather than inherited.Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Retain This book is a continuation of the Heroes In Hell series, one of the most popular series in the history of science fiction and fantasy. The original series contains 12 books with stories by highly notable authors such as Janet Morris, Robert Silverberg, C.J. Cherryh, Greg Benford, Bill Kerby and many others. "Lawyers In Hell" contains stories by several of the original authors. Please remove the deletion notification from this article. Thank you. Hulcys930 (talk) 04:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • "one of the most popular series in the history of science fiction and fantasy"??? --Orange Mike | Talk 13:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. This is book 13 of the Heroes in Hell series that includes works by notable and award-winning authors, including C. J. Cherryh and Robert Silverberg. Regarding the topic of inherited notability, WP:NOTINHERITED is a guideline, not policy, and it states "notability of a parent entity or topic does not always imply the notability of the subordinate entities". In other words, in some cases notability is inherited. —Bruce1ee 06:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Delete as it fails to cross any one of the thresholds outlined in Notability (books). Just a few solid critical reviews in third-party reliable sources would be enough to save the article. Surely a book by a notable editor in a notable series has generated at least this minimum level of press attention, no? - Dravecky (talk) 07:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Retain Latest entry of a notable series, contains stories by several notable authors (Janet Morris, Chris Morris, CJ Cherryh, Michael Williamson, among others.) Luke Jaywalker (talk) 09:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Merge Series is definitely notable, but most entries for the individual books are either stubby or just tables of contents. Suggest merging the content of all the books' articles into Heroes in Hell. Yunshui (talk) 10:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Retain * This is a notable book written and edited by a notable author as defined by Misplaced Pages. Cordova829 (talk) 13:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Delete Does not meet the Notability criteria for books:

1. Lawyers in Hell is not the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works serving a general audience.
2. The book has not won a major literary award.
3. The book has not made a significant contribution to a literary movement, motion picture, or art form.
4. The book is not the subject of instruction at schools.
5. The book is not historically significant because it was published in 2011.
6. (The book is also not inherently notable because it is part of an anthology. Sorry.)

Also, I noticed that all 13 of the other books also fail for the very same reasons. They are all single-sentence, unsourced stubs with the chapter information. The books in the series are already provided on the book series page:

• Heroes in Hell
• Gates of Hell
• Rebels in Hell
• Kings in Hell
• Crusaders in Hell
• Legions of Hell
• Angels in Hell
• Masters in Hell
• The Little Helliad
• War in Hell
• Prophets in Hell
• Explorers in Hell

In my opinion, these should all be deleted together as similar pages, because the relevant information can already be located at Heroes_in_Hell. I Jethrobot (talk) 16:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Retain * A book that contained a story by a notable author, where the story was published elsewhere, might not be notable. An anthology that contained a single new story by a notable author might not be notable. An anthology in a popular shared universe that contains multiple stories by multiple notable authors--stories that will appear nowhere else--is notable. The editor is widely known and respected and for the stories that are by unknowns, these people are her up-and-coming talent picks and that's what makes them interesting. People read anthologies to get some guaranteed stories by authors they know, and to get a look at the fresh talent picked out by an editor they know. If Lawyers in Hell doesn't qualify as notable, nobody's anthology does. (Julie Cochrane) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ip: 140.98.210.243 (talk • contribs) 15:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • reply - "Julie", you've made a case why this book might be reviewed in Locus, but you've clearly never read our standards on why a book would have an article here, since none of your reasoning addresses Misplaced Pages standards. Most new books never get articles in Misplaced Pages, and that's as it should be. (You've clearly also never read "up and coming next big thing", which addresses your fallacious reasoning as it applies to this discussion.) --Orange Mike | Talk 17:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. On the wiki-technical level, the only legitimate choices seem to be keep, merge, and redirect; there's no basis for deletion, since it's an installment in a notable series and a legitimate search term. That said, the individual articles are quite dreadful, and even for the most notable installments, aren't really in shape to stand alone. Several of the individual books were rather widely reviewed, both in the genre and general press (as often noted in these discussions, book reviews are notoriously difficult to GSearch; at least one volume here was reviewed the the national newspaper The Christian Science Monitor), and the overall series title turns up several hundred GBooks hits, with a significant number neither spurious nor trivial (lots of sifting required, though). Therefore, I'd propose merging all thirteen stubs into the main article, preserving the article histories, with no prejudice against later spinning out individual volume articles provided they include the standard bibliographical data and at least one nontrivial, volume-specific example of substantive commentary or a non-trivial review. It's a simple fact of life that a book series like this one, which has been dormant for more than 20 years, is going to be documented mainly in offline print sources. If the previous volumes were consistently well-documented, this would fall under the standard in WP:OSE calling for preservation of full article sets for well-defined classes when most members are notable (or as it's sometimes phrased, an encyclopedia should be encyclopedic); but the poor quality of the related articles makes that standard inapplicable here. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you note where these sources are? And I'm not sure why you initially suggested keep when you really seem to propose merging the individual pages. I also disagree that deleting the page is not legitimate. It does not follow and of the criteria above for individual books. The anthology might be notable (pending some references on its page), but it does not follow that all its books are uniquely notable. I Jethrobot (talk) 19:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Keep with a backup strategy of Merge Couple of points I'd like to make:

1. The original call for deletion by Orange Mike is invalid. Misplaced Pages guidelines clearly express it is not enough to just call for deletion, you have to give a reason why. "brand-new book" is an invalid reason. Other new books have been considered notable, so as a criteria the mere fact of newness is insufficient -- as is the mere assertion of non-notability. This is not the first time I've seen this poster call for deletion without providing a valid reason, and I wish he'd stop doing things in this incomplete manner.

2. ukexpat states the new book fails all the criteria of Misplaced Pages:NBOOK. This is a valid reason, but I don't think its an accurate reason; though one would have to have familiarity with the emergence of the shared-world publishing model to realize that. I'd like to put forth that this book is notable because it is the reemergence and continuation of a series that passes criteria #3 of NBOOK. Namely, "3. The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement."

In this case my contention is that the book made a significant contribution to the art form "shared universe fiction" which is an evolution of fiction. Shared-universe fiction was essentially unknowingly invented by HP Lovecraft, perpetuated with comics, but enters modern mass market fiction (outside of comics) -- or at least was popularized -- with Thieves World (with the contribution of the HIH series' editor). Thieves world was, I believe (but need to verify) the first time since HPL that anyone took a shared universe literary approach grounded in short stories. Subsequently, Heroes in Hell established the longevity of the short-story shared universe model by demonstrating repeatable commercial viability (in fact mega-success -- something like 4 million copies in print); in essence, HIH perfected the short-story shared universe model under the stewardship and direction of this series' editor. Now the series that perfected -- or at least demonstrated the short-story shared universe model for fiction wasn't a flash in the pan -- has been re-started by its originating editor, the very editor who helped pioneer short-story shared-universe mass market fiction to begin with? Yeah. That's notable.

I also recognize that sources are needed to support these contentions, but that's not a "delete" that's a "give us sources" notation. Of course as Hullaballoo Wolfowitz points out, 20 years out of date means most sources are inherently offline and notoriously difficult to find. Finally, I also suggest someone needs to update the Misplaced Pages entry for shared universe fiction (Shared_universe) to include not just Thieves World but Heroes in Hell.

3. Dravecky points out that a "a few solid critical reviews in third-party reliable sources would be enough to save the article" but as Orange Mike points out it's "brand-new" so the criteria proposed is (unintentionally I'm sure) a straw-man. However point 2 above speaks to Dravecky's worry about the book not crossing thresholds. It does.

SUMMARY The articles do need work. No question. If they get that work, as Hullaballoo Wolfowitz points out, they and LIH should be retained under WP:OSE -- even if for no other reason (like the one I argued above). If they don't get the work in the required timeframe, I'd propose a merge as Yunshui and Hullaballoo Wolfowitz also seem to lean toward. User:knihi

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 20:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

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