Talk:R. A. Lafferty

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Categorization of fiction[edit]

I don't know how specifically, but it definitely should. I think it is akin to Gene Wolfe's and Jorge Luis Borge's, but I need to read more to find out for sure. So bloody hard to find though. -- Maru Dubshinki


His work[edit]

A bibliography of novels and short stories would be appreciated. --squadfifteen

Well, there is a fairly good bibliography in the external links section. But any such task would be herculean indeed. --Maru (talk) 21:15, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Chris Drumm published one in 1983, and another in 1991. I don't know how complete they are. Amazon has used copies of the 1983 version available.U.b.i.k. 03:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)U.b.i.k.[reply]

The "15:46, 19 October 2006" change by Gwern[edit]

First of all, what were those "75 words changed"? Comparing this changed version to the before version, I could detect no changes whatsoever besides the removed reference in the introduction (unless you call the confused, or at least confusing, moving-things-around 'change').

As for the removal of the reference... Was that really necessary? If some Wikipedia guide says that you shouldn't link to the same place twice, well, the reference would have pointed all potentially interested readers to the section "Quotations about Lafferty", which they may now fail to find, and content of which they likely fail to associate to statements made in the article, even if they don't fail to notice that the related quotation page exists (there's a difference between referring to a section and linking to a page, which is partly why I'm now putting the reference back). --88.148.149.48 19:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chill out; the majority of the 75 words were formatting tweaks. That was generated by an auto-edit summary tool. As for the duplicate Wikiquote 'reference', that should actually be including a few quotes if it is to be a real reference. As it is, it is surplus. --Gwern (contribs) 21:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies. I appreciate the time you take for making this article better. --John Schwa 20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's alright. I don't mind having quotes included in the article (after all, I helped compile a lot of them), but I don't like redundancy. --Gwern (contribs) 21:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Fall of Rome[edit]

I have not read this work, but if someone does not provide a convincing rebuttal of the following description by Mr. Eric Walker, the book shall remain in the non-fiction category:

"Lafferty also wrote an excellent non-fiction book, The Fall of Rome, an insightful history of the events leading up to that fall; Lafferty's thesis is that had just any one of a number of chancey events or personalities been only a little different, the person (Alaric) and the tribe (the Goths) that "sacked" Rome might well have ended up instead as its ruler, infusing new energy and leadership into the moribund Empire at a crucial moment, and so allowing it to endure for who knows how many centuries more. It is a book easy to read and follow, which many history books are not, and though written as a serious study still manifests Lafferty's snappy literary style. I recommend it even to those not normally interested in history. (The same book was later republished under the title Alaric: The Day the World Ended, presumably to make it sound enticingly like more Lafferty fiction; the reference to the world "ending" the day Rome definitively fell is indicative of Lafferty's attitude, that it was a catastrophe, a needless catastrophe, for civilization.)" 1

--John Schwa 16:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I visited my friendly local library which carries a copy and read most of a chapter and the book cover. It is never described as a novel, and what I read was definitely history, albeit stylized extrapolated psychologically focused history. --Gwern (contribs) 23:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the confirmation. John Schwa 13:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, this book was panned by historians - one example: "... And he does not take advantage of the vast documentation available on the subject to tell the whole story ... Such details as are given are occasionally erroneous and based upon an uncritical use of sources ... A generally unsatisfactory account of one of the great historical enigmas." While the writing has a certain flair, it doesn't stand up to critical analysis by academics. The source for the quote is from a fan blog - not acceptable as a Reliable Source.50.111.23.144 (talk) 13:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of works[edit]

Would it be possible to make the publication information of each work visible only when placing the cursor over the title or link of such work, or something like that? The list isn't very user-friendly at present. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.148.149.48 (talk) 17:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I'm afraid not, not yet anyway. My current long-term plan is to slowly write articles for each book, and when the article exists, move all the existing bibliographic information (and whatever I can dig out of WorldCat) into the book's proper article. I still have a long way to go, though. Past Master and Fourth Mansions still need full plot summaries, and The Reefs of Earth, The Devil is Dead, The Fall of Rome, The Flame is Green, etc. aren't even started yet. --Gwern (contribs) 18:24 11 December 2006 (GMT)
Oh, all right. That'll be pretty difficult, though, if you're planning to analyze the books as well (see my comments on the Fourth Mansions discussion page)... 88.148.149.48 00:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Books in Print[edit]

Why not remove the whole section if it may not contain the appropriate links? The inspired act would scarcely make the article more unhelpful: the so inclined would no doubt be able to acquire whatever titles are available, without the scant help of the bereaved list (save perhaps My Heart Leaps Up, which can currently be obtained only from Chris by ordering it from him via e-mail ( http://members.aol.com/cdrummbks/ ). 88.148.149.48 04:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of style tweaks needed[edit]

There were a couple of spelling errors.

There were lots of capitalization errors in book and story titles.

Many book titles were not italicized.

There were a number of unnecessary links.

The reference to St Raphael needed linking.

The passage on Lafferty's Army service needed a rewrite. (Run-on, ungrammatical sentences.)

--Rich Rostrom 05:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Military Rank[edit]

How could he be a First Sergeant while serving as a Staff Sergeant? They are two separate ranks. Staff Sergeant is an E-6, while a First Sergeant is an E-9. Perhaps the writer meant that he was a First Sergeant serving in a staff position, which is something entirely different from "Staff Sergeant." Sir Rhosis 03:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stroke and stop working[edit]

how can he stop working in 1980 when he published some book after that date? --Fungo (talk) 19:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that Lafferty at any time had several books and stories written, but not published. I think the article lists more than 1 still unpublished novel. This makes sense to me, since Lafferty was never particularly marketable. --Gwern (contribs) 19:49 10 July 2008 (GMT)

LAFFCON 1 -- Feast of Laughter[edit]

Per Swanwick: [1]

I started to add to the ELs, but there are already way too many! --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:47, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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ChatGPT[edit]

I don't know if this is worth noting, but in "Slow Tuesday Night," he describes a text editor that functions like ChatGPT. (I can't find any online discussion of this.) Kdammers (talk) 04:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. That's a great story, one of my favorited of his. But no ChatGPT analog comes to mind. --Pete Tillman (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2023 (UTC), longtime Lafferty fan[reply]
Here's the story. Judge for yourself: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618249203/9781618249203___2.htm Pete Tillman (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"To write works of philosophy one used the flexible outlines and the idea indexes; one set the activator for such a wordage in each subsection; an adept would use the paradox, feed-in, and the striking-analogy blender; one calibrated the particular-slant and the personality-signature. It had to come out a good work, for excellence had become the automatic minimum for such productions." Maybe I should have written "functions a bit like," instead. Still . . . Kdammers (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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