Talk:Always Coming Home

Napa Valley

I have been re-reading this book with great enjoyment - it's pretty clear from the maps and the physical description of the Na Valley that it is the present-day Napa Valley - also indicated by some of the place names (Kastoha = Calistoga; Telina = St Helena) - and according to Wikipedia there is an "urban legend" that the name "Napa" means "you will always come back" - providing a link to the title of the novel. I would like this information to be provide in the article but I don't have any references available apart from the book itself! Can anyone help? V1oletv (talk) 05:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

publication dates

Question - was the Bantam Spectra published in 1986? If so, I don't remember it. I got the paperback in 1987, and as far as I remember it was new on the shelves then, just released. Any concrete details? Scott1329m 18:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Scott, I have both editions, and checked the dates. The Bantam Spectra edition shows it was released in January 1986. It also states that the Harper & Row edition was released in October 1985. (added sections, so that my answer can be right below your question.)

Also added the H&R ISBN, and changed description. VikÞor | Talk 06:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I just added image of the first edition. VikÞor | Talk 06:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Time Travel Tenses

(Douglas Adams also delighted in inventing new verb tenses for time travel.)

What is the relevance of this parenthesis to an entry about ACH? Scott1329m 21:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

An encyclopedia, among other functions, serves to make connections between its entries. I came across a reference to the two authors and their time-travel verb-play a little while ago, and it stuck in my mind. (I have read both the relevant books --ACH and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.) The discussion was probably on a grammar forum and I have no source for it, alas. My contribution is a parenthesis, an aside, nothing more. Do you think its inclusion detracts from the article? BrainyBabe 13:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What detracted from the article was this statement near the beginning which seemed like a non sequitur because I don't know who Adams is or what his connection to ACH is. But ... the connection is an interesting insight into fantasy novels which are supposed to be in the far distant future and reference their near past. Dune has an appendix that does this, using calendar dates far into our future. I definitely think a sub-section later in the article ought to discuss this, and maybe even a separate article on language in these sorts of books. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time seems to go along with it, too, the way it references both our past and our future at the same time. (His line about not the beginning, but a beginning has to qualify.) I'm not familiar enough with the fantasy genre (especially after 1990!) and am not familiar with science fiction at all, so I don't know if there are more examples. But if there are, a main article could discuss, and have a category that includes all the books with examples. Scott1329m 14:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting ideas! I suggest we move the sentence under discussion to a separate subsection, and then later make that into an article in its own right, to which others can add examples. Does that seem reasonable? Unless you want to make the new article now, and I will add the two examples I know about. BrainyBabe 10:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

a separate subsection - sounds great! Scott1329m 14:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay; I can't always log on as often as I'd like. I've reconsidered. I think the subsection should be started within the science fiction article, and can then be hived off when a few examples have been collected. Could you add yours there? Then this article, and the one on Ursula K. LeGuin, can have links to it. BrainyBabe 07:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to use my examples, but I don't really have any interest in writing it - btw, there is also One Hundred Years of Solitude a time-bending novel that isn't fantasy, but when I read it a couple of years after reading ACH, it reminded me strongly of UGL's style. OHYOS is not a "fantasy" novel in the way ACH is, but time is portrayed in a fantastic way. Scott1329m 11:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Computer

Should be some explanation of the Yaivkach computer network and its associated TOK lingua franca... AnonMoos (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Science Fiction

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yannah98 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wakingtiger (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2022 (UTC)