Category talk:Science fiction books

The following discussion comes from Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. The consensus seems to have been that there are plenty of science fiction books that are not novels. Wikipedia's books categories do not in general reflect this; some work or further examination may be required. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 00:12, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Science fiction books

Redundant (should be Category:Science fiction novels), created by mistaken analogy with Category:Fantasy books which I am going to try moving to Category:Fantasy novels. --Phil | Talk 16:46, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

• I think books makes more sense than novels. A book of short stories would not fit in the novel category. DCEdwards1966 18:23, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
• Agreed. Not all books are novels. The definition of novel varies([1])—it has some connotations that are not always appropriate for the books that ought to fall into that category. (I feel very unfortable calling The Lord of the Rings a novel for some reason.) By the most general definiton, a novel is a long(ish) work of narrative fiction. "Science fiction books" already implies a long(ish) work of narrative fiction (since it's a fiction genre). Novel is unnecessarily specific here. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:16, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Object to delettion. Agree with above; "books" is a better term. The "novels" category shouldbe might a subcategory of the "books" one and contain only novels, maybe? --Whosyourjudas (talk) 01:50, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Object, for reasons already given. SF anthologies and reference books, for example, would fall under the books category despite not being novels. -Sean Curtin 02:56, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Keep this category, make Category:Science fiction novels a subcategory along with Category:Science fiction anthologies, Category:Science fiction reference books, if such categories are required (and they should be!). Grutness 04:34, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Would like to revise description(s)

I would like to revise the category description for Category:Science fiction books & sf-book-stub to read: "This category is for articles about [science fiction] books which are not novels - for example, anthologies, [short stories, novellas], etc." and leave "reference works" out of it. Maybe refer users to Category:Literary criticism. Any comments? ♥ Her Pegship♥ 04:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there already exist Category:Science fiction anthologies and Category:Science fiction short stories. This leaves Category:Science fiction books as a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit into the sf book subcategories of novels, anthologies, short stories, and short story collections. Not much left EXCEPT novellas and reference works. But instead SAYING "reference works" I would say "nonfiction works about science fiction," which is more inclusive. MakeRocketGoNow 17:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You're right - it's the Category:Science fiction books stubs that needs the revise - I can reword the description and make the stub category a sub-cat of all 3 of the cats you mention. Thanks for your comment. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 17:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

nonfiction & fiction separate now, please?

We now have Category:Science fiction studies which includes SF journals. It seems that this would be a good time to sort out the nonfiction works here. The category name possibilities seem a little awkward to me but not as awkward as having "Category:Science fiction books" in "Category:Non-fiction books". Some possibilities:

• Category:Science fiction studies (but that will eventually need to be further categorized)
• Category:Works of science fiction studies
• Category:Science fiction studies literature
• Category:Science fiction studies publications
• Category:Science fiction reference books (not all n-f books are reference)
• Category:Works of science fiction criticism (not all n-f books are criticism)

Thoughts? --lquilter 05:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)