Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalvan series

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. but a further discussion focused on a possible Merge can occur on article talk pages. Liz Read! Talk! 23:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kalvan series[edit]

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Kalvan series (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - (View log | edits since nomination)
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Seems like a non-notable book series. Effectively unreferenced (one footnote to an article by the books author) entry about a fictional universe - the book series gets a single sentence, 99% of the content is plot summary WP:FANCRUFT. My WP:BEFORE failed to locate anything, pings on the talk page also failed at producing anything useful. At best I can recommend redirecting this to Paratime series (although that page is no better and will likely end up here shortly, after I do my BEFORE for it), or safer, John F. Carr or H. Beam Piper. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, and Literature. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Might this be the occasion to split out an H. Beam Piper bibliography article? It seems to take 2/3rds or more of the present author's article. Jclemens (talk) 06:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • OPPOSE -- On Talk:Kalvan series, the deletion proposer has consistently refused to say what his plan is for closely-related articles which would be affected by the deletion of this one. It seems that he doesn't want to bother to devote any thought to the matter, which as far as I'm concerned, indicates sufficiently that this deletion proposal was not done for the purpose of improving Wikipedia. AnonMoos (talk) 17:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems you don't understand the purpose of Wikipedia, or deletion process. Removing fancruft that fails WP:GNG improves the project. The few articles that link here will get the link removed by a bot (some of them likely need to be deleted too as part of the same fancruft series). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You did not use the word "fancruft" on Talk:Kalvan series, and you refused to even consider the idea that content was split between closely-related articles, and that there might need to be some rebalancing if this article were to be deleted, with no reason given for this refusal. I drew my conclusions accordingly. AnonMoos (talk) 07:41, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - If this were to be redirected, I would think that John F. Carr would be the appropriate target. While the first book in the "series" was written by H. Beam Piper, there was no actual "Kalvan series" until Carr started writing the sequels twenty years later. The actual list of books, which is pretty much the only part of this current article that would be worth keeping, is already present at Carr's article as well. Nearly all of this current article is overly detailed plot information, and I am not finding any real coverage on the series as a whole (or even much on the individual books I did quick searches on). But, as these are older books, I'll wait to see if anyone can dig up some paper sources discussing it before "officially" recommending a Redirect. Rorshacma (talk) 00:05, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Most of it is actually background information on the world of the Kalvan timeline, largely taken from Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (though certain details were filled in and expanded in the later books), not plot information in the sense of a detailed recounting of events... AnonMoos (talk) 03:54, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, that is what I was referring to. I did not mean it was entirely plot information as in "its a summary of the events of the books in chronological order", I meant "its entirely in-universe descriptions of plot elements from the franchise", which would be considered "summary-only descriptions of work" at WP:NOTPLOT. Rorshacma (talk) 15:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • So it's a fancruft fork too... lovely. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is NOT a fork, since the info was taken mainly from the 1965 published novel "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen", and NOT from the Wikipedia article on "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen"! Did you even bother to look at any of the closely-related and connected articles before proposing the deletion of the "Kalvan series" article?? All available evidence at this point indicates that you did not bother to look at them... AnonMoos (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        Please stop with your WP:AGF violations. Also, please familiarize yourself with WP:GNG/WP:NOTPLOT/WP:ALLPLOT. Wikipedia articles that are just plot summaries are, well, not encyclopedic and hence, need to be deleted. This is pretty simple. If you want to save this, please improve the article by adding reception and/or analysis based on reliable sources (magazines, scholarly works, etc.). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:24, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I consider the fact that you didn't even visit most of the closely-related articles and aren't willing to devote any mental effort to the closely-related articles to be tantamount to bad faith in the context of this deletion nomination. Your nonsensical gibberish "fork" allegation certainly did nothing whatsoever to persuade me of your good faith, nor did the most recent tendentious biased comment you added to Talk:Kalvan series discussion page. AnonMoos (talk) 06:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
    1. Major, Joseph T. (August 1993). Lovisi, Gary (ed.). "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" (PDF). Paperback Parade. No. 35. Gryphon Publications. pp. 72–99. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-07-16. Retrieved 2023-07-16.

      The article notes on page 73: "As his legacy to science fiction, he left a just completed novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Fans were gratified to see Piper returning to his established "Paratime" series, his tales of the Paratime Police who protect their time-line from discovery of the means by which they exploit other time-lines for the resources necessary to sustain their exhausted resource-sparse home. This story of a policeman from Rambo country ... quickly became famous; then as contracts expired and the book fell out of print, a lost classic."

      The article notes on page 74: "Control of the Piper estate fell into the hands of Jerry Pournelle, who, back when he was actually writing his own books, wrote very much in the style of Piper. It's not surprising, therefore, that Pournelle should want to continue the stories. ... The continuation of the Lord Kalvan story, however, was passed to Pournelle's associates John F. Carr and Roland Green."

      The article notes on page 78: "We now fast-forward some twenty years, to the year of 1985. Heartening and joyful news came from Ace Books: they released Great Kings' War by John F. Carr and Roland Green, the long hoped-for sequel and continuation to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. There had been hints that the things to come to Kalvan after the events of the earlier book might not all be good, above and beyond the requirements of having enough conflict to make a worthwhile novel. Not only does Kalvan's introspection at the end (Chapter 19, Section 2) give some hints of problems to come, but in a letter he wrote to Campbell Piper himself said as much ... Great Kings' War begins with a nasty description of a nasty winter, but the nasties tossed Kalvan's way by Lytris the Weather Goddess are nothing as to the nasties tossed by Styphon the Gunpowder God. Or, anyway, his mundane followers."

    2. "Piper, H Beam". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 2023-01-16. Archived from the original on 2023-07-16. Retrieved 2023-07-16.

      The entry notes: "A second distinct sequence, the Paratime Police/Lord Kalvan tales, most of which were published originally in Astounding, are assembled as Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (November 1964, November 1965 Astounding as "Gunpowder God" and "Down Styphon!"; fixup 1965; vt Gunpowder God 1978) and Paratime (coll 1981). The series was continued in Great Kings' War (1985) and Siege of Tarr-Hostigos (2003), both by Roland Green and John F Carr; the latter also edited The Worlds of H. Beam Piper (coll 1983) and presented his work in other contexts. As a series of Alternate-History variations linked by the eponymous Time Police, the sequence showed Piper in perhaps excessively argumentative vein, the alternate-world structure allowing him great latitude to express his political feelings. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen remains the most successful and enjoyable of all these tales."

    3. Silver, Steven H (2004). "Kalvan Kingmaker". SF Site. Archived from the original on 2023-07-16. Retrieved 2023-07-16.

      The review notes: "John F. Carr has set himself a difficult task with the novel Kalvan Kingmaker, and it is one at which he is only partly successful. The novel is a continuation of the Lord Kalvan stories written by H. Beam Piper. These tales, which grew out of Piper's Paratime Police stories, follow a Pennsylvania state trooper into a world in which North America was colonized from west to east and only bears a geographical resemblance to the North America of our own world. Carr does an excellent job of capturing Piper's style and stories in his world, but... ...but Kalvan Kingmaker is not just a sequel to Piper's widely-read stories. It is also the sequel to Carr's own continuation, Great King's War (written with Roland Green). Because Great King's War sets up the action for Kalvan Kingmaker and has been out of print for more than a decade, much of Kalvan Kingmaker is spent providing some of the information readers need in order to follow the labyrinthine plots in the novel."

    4. Hellekson, Karen (2001). The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. pp. 52-53. ISBN 0-87338-683-3. Retrieved 2023-07-16 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes: "H. Beam Piper's Paratime sequence of stories is collected in Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) and Paratime (1981), both of which are made up of short stories or novelettes originally published in science fiction magazines from the late 1940s until 1965 (Piper killed himself in 1964). John F. Carr and Roland J. Green wrote several sequels to Piper's Lord Kalvan stories, including Great Kings' War (1985) and "Kalvan Kingmaker" (1989). I do not discuss these two texts. Paratime is simply Piper's term for parallel worlds. Lord Kalvan tells stories about Calvin Morrison, a police officer presumably from our world who accidentally gets caught in a Paratimer machine that dumps him into a parallel world, where his superior knowledge and abilities allow him to quickly become an important ruler. The Lord Kalvan stories are about an unsavory theocracy, Styphon's House, that controls the manufacture of gunpowder and thus rules a low-technology world; Piper tells how Kalvan beats the theocracy. The stories in Lord Kalvan and Paratime all take place in the same reality: one time line has discovered the secret of moving from one parallel world to the next, and these Paratimers exploit all the other time lines to support themselves."

    5. D'Ammassa, Don (June 2001). "Kalvan Kingmaker". Science Fiction Chronicle. Vol. 22, no. 6 #213. ISSN 0195-5365. Retrieved 2023-07-16.

      The review notes: "Considering the comparatively small amount of work that he produced during his lifetime, H. Beam Piper has an enviable following. Among his more popular creations was the Paratime series, and more specifically the adventures of Calvin Morrison, a one time police officer who becomes a ruler in an alternate reality. Now John Ford returns to that universe and that character for a new chronicle, a direct sequel to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Although the armies of the theocracy have been defeated, the church remains a powerful force."

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow the Kalvan series to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 11:14, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cunard Hmmm. Interesting. That said, at minimum, a merger with Paratime series would makes sense, unless you think the sources sugges those two series both have stand-alone notability? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am open to a merger of Kalvan series and Paratime series as there is a lot of overlap but am not familiar enough with the two topics to know whether there are good reasons to keep them separate. Cunard (talk) 06:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cunard Since right now it looks plausible this article (Kalvan series) will be kept, could I trouble you to do a source review for the Paratime series and present the findings on the talkpage of that article, to inform us if merge is a good idea or if that other series has stand-alone notability separate from this one? Right now I still feel that one page about those two series will be enough. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cunard -- Much thanks for adding solid facts in place of Piotrus's sometimes problematic and tendentious edits. Unfortunately, my skills are simply not in the area of bibliography, but I can appreciate the work of those who do have such skills. I'm not absolutely opposed to merging this with "Paratime series", but it should be kept in mind that the Kalvan timeline is just one world within the Paratime multiverse (though since the 1980s, I guess it could be said that the Kalvan tail has been wagging the Paratime dog). AnonMoos (talk) 23:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Joseph T. Major in the linked PDF file really didn't like the Kalvan sequels, but he mentioned a "Hostigos Con, held in Lord Kalvan Country at Penn State on June 10-12, 1988" (which I never knew about), that might add to the series' notability... AnonMoos (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP as the Kalvan series is a clear and distinct series of books by several authors over several decades, but it is separate enough from the Paratime series, focusing specifically on one timeline in particular. The page could certainly be improved (I took the liberty of merging a condensed version of Kalvan (Calvin Morrison) into a new "Characters" section of the page), but that doesn't justify deleting the page when the series exists and has been referenced in independent, reliable sources as listed above. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 04:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting to consider new sources in the discussion and also the suggestion of Merge that was buried here in the comments. It doesn't look like there is support for straight-out deletion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 05:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Responding to Piotrus (talk · contribs)'s request above, the Paratime series has received significant coverage in reliable sources. Both the Kalvan series and the Paratime series are notable. I express no opinion about whether Paratime series and Kalvan series should be merged or kept separate under the "editors should consider how best to help readers understand it" standard from Wikipedia:Notability#Whether to create standalone pages. The guideline notes:

    When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how best to help readers understand it. Often, understanding is best achieved by presenting the topic on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so; at times it is better to cover a notable topic as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context (and doing so in no way disparages the importance of the topic). Editorial judgment goes into each decision about whether or not to create a separate page, but the decision should always be based upon specific considerations about how to make the topic understandable, and not merely upon personal likes or dislikes.

    Here are sources about the Paratime series (which I am also copying to Talk:Paratime series):
    1. Hellekson, Karen (2001). The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. pp. 52-61. ISBN 0-87338-683-3. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes: "H. Beam Piper's Paratime sequence of stories is collected in Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) and Paratime (1981), both of which are made up of short stories or novelettes originally published in science fiction magazines from the late 1940s until 1965 (Piper killed himself in 1964). ... In "Time Crime," the Paratime Police investigate a cross-belt Paratime slave trade, fixing the home time line of the slaves by close hypnotic questioning of the captured slaves, ferreting out which slaves came from a world where a woman killed herself and which came from a world where she was captured alive. ... The stories in Paratime do not focus on any one alternate world but explore a number of them; my favorite is "Last Enemy," which takes place in the Akor-Neb civilization, a Second Level civilization in which reincarnation is a fact. ... Piper's Paratime works, like Poul Anderson's Time Patrol works discussed in chapter 7, create worlds policed by a force charged with protecting its own identity and keeping that identity secret. The culture that created the Paratime Police exploits the alternate time lines it can reach, treating these other worlds as endless sources of raw materials and other resources while upholding strict codes that do not allow anyone to reveal the secret to others. ... Piper discusses the simultaneity of the people inhabiting the worlds only briefly; in "Police Operation," a guard examines Verkan Vall's blood under a microscope to make sure he is the right Verkan Vall. ..."

    2. Fletcher, Marilyn P.; Thorson, James L., eds. (1989). Reader's Guide to Twentieth-century Science Fiction. Chicago: American Library Association. p. 461. ISBN 0-8389-0504-8. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes: "The Paratime series has for its settings some parallel time-line to Earth in which a civilization is based on Mars. The Martians are descendants of terran colonists who have had to survive after a nuclear war destroys Earth. The survivors discover the "Ghaldron-Hesthor Transposition Field" which facilitates travel between parallel time lines (hence the name para-time, or paratime). This leaves a lot of room for playing "what if" history, in which Piper shows himself to be an expert, recombining historical events and coming up with new and fascinating variations of what might have happened if.... Whether a story is part of the Paratime or Future History series, Piper's plots rely on the self-sufficient human."

    3. Barron, Neil; Barton, Tom; Burst, Daniel S.; Hudak, Melissa; Meredith, D. R.; Ramsdell, Kristin; Schantz, Tom; Schantz, Enid (2002). What Do I Read Next?, 2000: A Reader's Guide to Current Genre Fiction, Volume 2. Detroit, Michigan: Gale. p. 813. ISBN 0-7876-3392-5. ISSN 1052-2212. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes: "Summary: All of the stories in Piper's Paratime series lare collected in this omnibus volume. The Paratime Police travel through time to prevent anyone from changing the course of history. Generally they find discrepancies and have to act to restore the original time track. The stories were originally published between 1948 and the 1960s."

    4. Rogers, Alva (1964). A Requiem for Astounding. Advent:Publishers. pp. 163–164. ISBN 0-911682-08-2. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes on pages 163-164: "H. Beam Piper, in the July issue, began his popular Paratime series with a novelette, "Police Operation." ... "Police Operation," and the other stories in the series had to do with a highly organized and complex police force operating in paratime, across probable time lines. The primary purpose of the paratime police is to police the multidinous probable time lines at all levels in an effort to keep them separated and unknowing of each other and if, as occasionally happens, something or someone from one time line appears in another the Paratime Police show up to take care of the problem as quietly as possible, and to take corrective action to restore reasonable normality and to provide an acceptable explanation of the event."

      The book notes on page 164: "The Paratime Police stories were entertaining tales not intended to be taken too seriously which provided one possible answer to such Fortean mysteries as unexplained disappearances, strange visitations, apparent violations of natural physical laws, etc. Piper admittedly got his idea for the Paratime Police from Charles Fort: "...there may be something in the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough for whatever, somewhat in the nature of minds, human beings have-or that, if there be occult mischief makers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to divert suspicions from themselves, because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and in orderly, or organized fashion." (Charles Fort: Lo!)"

    5. Espley, John L. (Summer 1980). "H. Beam Pipier: An Annotated Biography". Extrapolation: 172, 175–177. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The article notes on page 172: "The majority of Piper's stories are represented in the Paratime Police series and one Future History series. The Paratime Police stories have the theme of parallel worlds. Piper used this theme to answer some of the unexplained phenomena described by Charles Fort. The Future History stories are the description of the rise, fall, and rise again of galactic civilization. Using this background, Piper wrote some of his most memorable stories and books."

      The book notes on pages 175-176: ""Last Enemy." Astounding, August 1950, pp. 5-60. The last enemy is death. A Paratime Police story in which Verkan Vall has to rescue a scientist investigating reincarnation. Since reincarnation is a proven fact, death holds no fears and assassination is an honorary profession. ... "Police Operation." Astounding, July 1948, pp. 8-35. The first of the Paratime Police stories. There is a large amount of explanation about the Paratime theory with a minor plot concerning Verkan Vall hunting for an extraterrestrial animal in an alternate world where it is unknown. ... "Temple Trouble." Astounding, April 1951, pp. 6-34. A Paratime Police story in which the exploitation of the alternate world is controlled through the organized religions. The plot is concerned with conflicts created by the decline of the Paratime-supported religion."

      The book notes on page 177: ""Time Crime." Astounding, February and March 1955, pp. 8-49, 85-131. A serial concerning the Paratime Police discovering the existence of a large criminal organization of their own First Probability Level people. 1053"

    6. Foote, Bud (2003). "Escape into Paratime: H. Beam Piper's Alternated Pennsylvanias". In Slusser, George; Barricelli, Jean-Pierre (eds.). Genre at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Fantasy. Riverside, California: Xenos Books. p. 172. ISBN 1-879378-48-5. Retrieved 2023-07-22.

      The book notes: "In the very next year, however, Piper began work on a concept of multiple presents which was totally to dwarf the modest trilineal system of "Time and Time Again." Though he was to work at the paratime concept through four short stories and a novel fixed up out of three others' over a period of sixteen years, the scheme seems pretty thoroughly developed in 1948 in the first paratime story, "Police Operation." Some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, Piper's scenario has it, the Martians, having exhausted their planet with overpopulation and over-industrialization, colonized Earth, which was occupied by no life higher than ape-men. All the possible results of this colonization have come to pass, on one level of probability or anther; and all these levels of probability, the number of which Piper fixes at 10100,000, are equally real."

    7. del Rey, Lester (1979). The World of Science Fiction, 1926-1976: The History of a Sub-Culture. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 112, 172, 324. ISBN 0-345-25452-X. Retrieved 2023-07-22.

      The book notes on page 112: "In July, H. Beam Piper began a series of stories with "Police Operation," based on an assumption that time not only goes forward and backward but also sidewise; beside our world are an infinity of other worlds in which events have not proceeded quite the same. Those nearby are almost identical, but those farther away differ greatly. One world has learned to traverse through this "paratime" and to exploit other worlds and cultures. But in doing so, the rulers must police all the worlds and prevent any accidental discovery of the secret by others. This permitted Piper to use almost any setting or culture for his background without step- ping out of his basic situation, and the stories were usually excellent."

      The book notes on page 172: "And in August, H. Beam Piper had a Paratime story, "Last Enemy," in which a world gains positive proof that any man can be reincarnated. It is one of Piper's best stories."

      The book notes on page 324: "Paratime: H. Beam Piper's universe in which time extends not only forward and backward, but crosswise, with many earths lying side by side, like pages in a book. Each earth differs slightly from the others; thus a panorama of histories is available for exploiting by those who can travel through paratime."

    8. Thesing, William B. (1981). "H. Beam Piper". In Cowart, David; Wymer, Thomas L. (eds.). Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 8: Twentieth-century American Science-fiction Writers. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Gale. pp. 70–71. ISBN 0-8103-0918-1. Retrieved 2023-07-22 – via Internet Archive.

      The book notes: "In about half of these short stories Piper develops the "paratime" concept with special emphasis placed on the necessity of policing across alternate worlds. Piper's paratime idea is based on the imaginative conception that there are at any given instant (not in the future or in the past) lateral time dimensions-worlds of alternate probability parallel to our own. Although there could conceivably be an infinity of such worlds, in his stories Piper posits the existence of five, which he calls Time Levels. Lateral time-travelers, then, make corresponding shifts in time. "Police Operation" (1948) alternates between descriptions of an adventurous hunt for an elusive monster and explanations of the various levels of time-travel. In "Time Crime" (1955) the paratime police search out criminals who attempt to meddle with the timetracks. Alternate historical outcomes during the Napoleonic Wars are the focus of "He Walked Around the Horses" (1948). The two stories "Gunpowder God" (1964) and "Down Styphon!" (1965) were expanded to form 'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965)."

    Cunard (talk) 23:40, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Cunard Thank you. Looking at the first set of references and quotes you provided here few days ago, each and every singe one of them mentioning the Paratime series, I think merge and redirect to Paratime, which we could then expand with the sources you found, would make the most sense. @Rorshacma, as you commented before most refs were posted here? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 00:47, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I have no objection with Paratime series being the target for the Redirect/Merge. But any actually Merging from this article would be pretty light though, as, again, almost the entire bulk of this article is just in-universe plot information. The information from the sources found by Cunard in this AFD can be integrated into that article, though, of course. Rorshacma (talk) 02:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Cunard -- Thanks again. However, the person who wrote the following sentences was rather confused, or didn't even bother to read the book, so that source should definitely not be used! -- "The Paratime Police travel through time to prevent anyone from changing the course of history. Generally they find discrepancies and have to act to restore the original time track." -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (still holding previously-stated position of keep) Regarding the similarities/differences between the Paratime series and the Kalvan series, I think it's fair to compare their relationship to the relationship between the Nantucket and Emberverse series – both are related series, with several overlapping elements, but each tells a distinct story with a different primary focus. Similarly, the Paratime series focuses on the Paratime Police at large, while the Kalvan series focuses on one particular timeline. Both the Nantucket and Emberverse series have their own pages, so there is precedent for related series to still have separate pages. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 05:34, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am okay with keep or merge to Paratime series. It's clear that both series meet GNG, but also that Kalvan is heavily dependent on Paratime. It seems likely a merged article could serve readers better, but someone with more knowledge may know better. I'm willing to use Cunard's sources to add a proper "reception" or similar section near the top of each, perhaps followed by heavily editing down the in-universe description, or at the very least updating the tagging. —siroχo 07:39, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Siroxo That would be great (improving articles). My reading of the sources found by Cunard suggests that they are primarily about the Paratime series, with only passing mentions of the Kalvan subseries, hence my preference for a merge. I don't mind being proven wrong, if one's (yours?) reading of the sources suggests both entities have stand-alone notability and it can be shown in their respective reception series. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:43, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Editors appear to be cohering around merge, but relisting as consensus could be clearer and there has been very recent discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, signed, Rosguill talk 21:43, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep without merging. As Imperator3733 has noted, two series in the same semi-shared fictional universe can have their own articles. As someone who has read stories in both series, IMO they are sufficiently distinct enough to keep separate. The Lord Kalvan series is set in one specific alternate universe, while the Paratime series ranges all around. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:22, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge with Paratime series. The sources listed here establish the notability of Paratime and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, but the Kalvan series just seems to ride on their "fame"; the in-universe differences are irrelevant here. Condense to provide WP:DUE weight, then it can certainly be covered on WP as part of a larger article. – sgeureka t•c 14:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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