Wikipedia:Peer review/Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)/archive1

Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)

This article is a self-nomination on my favorite book. I provided the summary and the recent theme section, and I would like to know if there is any other information that should be added to a book article like this one. I tried to keep the summary manageable and relatively concise, while not leaving out significant plot details (although I did leave out some side events). The analysis/theme section is new and a bit short, and I'm wondering if and how I should elaborate on it. My main question is: Is this article too short, and if so, what information do I need to add to make it a featured article candidate? Breed Zona 16:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ _t 17:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Compare with articles in this category:WP:FA#Literature.Kaisershatner 17:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Length is generally not a hard criterion for FA status. You will need citations. You might start by looking for sources that analyze the work and include them to support the statements you've made in the analysis section. Kaisershatner 17:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'm having a bit of trouble with the "popular culture references" section. How do you know all of those allusions are to the Bradbury work? I suspect that like Bradbury, they are all alluding to Shakespeare.Kaisershatner 17:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I believe that some of the references allude directly to this novel, including the South Park episode (if you read the article, it has a plot very similar to Something Wicked) and the Needful Things reference too. Most of the other references were added by other people, and are difficult to justify. I'm going to make a few minor fixes to the spelling and dates by automatic suggestion.

Your modification of the lead paragraph is well done. But I'm still concerned about the length of the summary and on what the theme section needs help on, if any. I'll begin looking for additional external references to the novel. Breed Zona 17:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, can you also please check if my summary on the image description page is correct? The last thing I want to do is to screw up this article's chance at featured-article status because of a faulty image disclaimer. Breed Zona 17:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Overall a good start, but if you want to get to FA with this I think you need to get to a library and look up some things. It needs more about how it came to be written, critical reception (from 1962), etc. Bradbury writes about his own work and the Wikipedia article on the film version gives two references that should be useful (both books, one by Bradbury). There are two refs to the novel by Bradbury himself on his web site: here and the entry before it. It seems there should be more reviews available from 1962 (New York Times, Kirkus, or maybe in a SF magazine). As a fairly major fantasy author, I imagine there are more books on Bradbury and his works than the book cited in the film article. The movie is mentioned in the lead paragraphs but not discussed in the article itself. Bradbury may well have given interviews for the movie that discuss the book, and a brief section comapring the two would probably be OK (especially since Bradbury wrote a screenplay for the movie). Finally, (agreeing with the previous comments) I think the pop culture section needs to be very carefully done and referenced. The Shakespeare quote is much more likely to be the source of many of these items than the novel. Unless there is a source saying it is alluding to the novel (or very specific examples can be given that show this without a doubt) I would not include it. I also like the novel very much. I always wondered (violating WP:NOR here) if the Smashing Pumpkins song "Disarm" was referring to the novel "I used to be a little boy, so old in my shoes, and what I choose is my choice, what's a boy supposed to do?" and especially "I send this smile over to you". I never found anything to confirm that, but also never looked too hard. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 15:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you very much, Ruhrfisch! I appreciate any comments made on my work. I'm right now in the process of putting all the information about how the novel came to be in its own section, with more references. Since there's a separate article on the film, though, I won't allude much to it in the book article, except when it's directly relevant. Thanks again for taking your time. Breed Zona 00:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I've moved much of the lead into a new "Background and Origins" section, with a more detailed description of Bradbury's encounter with Mr. Electrico, and added two more references to the Analysis section with the aid of Questia. Guess I learned something new too -- I never thought of Something Wicked as a gothic novel, although I do now. Breed Zona 02:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Looks good and you are very welcome - I find it best to (re)write the lead after the article is pretty much done. I also had not thought of it as a gothic novel, but can see that too. My thought was more that the film is more recent and it may be possible to find comments about the book from when the film came out more easily than from when the book itself was originally published. Take care, Ruhrfisch 03:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• The popular culture section needs to be rewritten into prose, away from its listy nature. LuciferMorgan 05:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Really? It needs to be? The popular culture sections I saw in other articles were all arranged by lists, but maybe that's because they had a lot of items. Still, I guess that since there's only a couple of items here, that it would be better to write in prose format, so I'll go back and do that sometime later (translation: when I don't feel so lazy). Thanks for pointing that out. How should I improve the critical reception section, by the way? Breed Zona 23:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)