trash

9:52 AM

When proposing a manuscript to a publisher or literature agent it is good practice to compare the new story to well-known existing ones, in order to help the editor get a picture of what they've got in their hands. I'm searching for popular works comparable to mine. If anybody can point me to something I can use as a reference, I'd be very happy.

It's okay if only some aspect is covered by the proposal. I might be able to stitch together various aspects then by naming more than one reference.

My story is a Sci-Fi novel, set in a world which is a very large space station, inhabited by millions of humans. Living there means being constantly surrounded by technical stuff (this part also is a bit hard-SF in the meaning that much of it is backed by physical calculations), but people live normal lives there; they work, marry, have babies, etc, and the story concentrates rather on people than on technicalities. Police and government exists but isn't too effective, so there's also crime and Mafia-like structures of which the protagonist is part. He is basically a robber and hitman.

The story is obviously a crossover of SF and Fantasy but it is far from High Fantasy. The magic is treated in a rather technical way, maybe like a complex and unfathomable way of telekinesis. The general feeling is rather drama, suspense & action.

Any suggestions for comparisons of the different settings and/or the story itself are welcome.

Alfe

10:20 AM

← 3 messages moved from Reference stories wanted

Sorry if I'm spamming this room here. Is there no way to delete messages? I only found a way to move them to another room, and moving them to "trash" was a trial to get rid of them.

David Reed

3:07 PM

@user170039 I appreciate how frustrating it can be when people aren't willing to listen to you. I think, and I can only speak from my own experience, the harder you push someone to engage in that way the firmer they dig in their heels.

user21820

@DavidReed It's an apt description, though you're implying that I'm not willing to listen to @user170039, which is patently false as you can see from the hundreds of hours I have spent in responding in detail to him.

David Reed

In response to your comment. Calculus was historically formulated in terms of infinitesimals. That is numbers that are infinitely small, that is where this notation, due to liebnitz, hails from.

The truth of the matter is there are no infinitely small real numbers. It's possible to create an extension of the real numbers called the hyperreal numbers that have infinitesimals and define calculus in that way, but its not a trivial development and there's not much gained from doing it.

Modern calculus is formulated in terms of limits, not infinitesmals. This notation has stuck around because …

user21820

← 1 message moved from Logic

← 2 messages moved from Logic

amWhy

4:19 PM

@DavidReed What? Did you have a question? wtf: wednesday, thursday, friday? want to farm?

David Reed

No, was just reacting with regards to me being plucked out of the room I was in and that dropped in her for no apparent reason

I thought maybe a mod had done it or something...was a little strange

amWhy

@DavidReed Yikes! can you find the chat your were in? (maybe check the back arrow of your browser?)

David Reed

?

Is there something you'd like to get off your chest

Don't pm me again

amWhy

@DavidReed What?

user21820

@DavidReed It may be malware in your computer again. And amWhy was just trying to help you figure out; if you accidentally clicked Back or pressed the Backspace key then you may get that same phenomenon.

amWhy

4:33 PM

@DavidReed I didn't pm you and I don't know what it means. I saw your icon in this room, saw your comment wtf, and checked in to see if there was anything I could help with. Just being civil and polite, and then you blow up out of no where?

David Reed

Ok. If that's true I apologize

the "maybe check the back arrow of your brower" I read as sarcasm

user21820

That's okay. @DavidReed @amWhy Can I delete the off-topic comments now?

David Reed

It's fine by me if you want to delete them

amWhy

@user21820 Perhaps wait to let a mod see this. This all was very upsetting to me

David Reed

ok

user21820

4:37 PM

Ok.

amWhy

← 17 messages moved from CRUDE

amWhy

6:50 PM

@DavidReed I see that. And the question answered is of very very low quality. The answer is not the kind of high quality answer that makes the question off limits for deletion. Indeed, "someone" just voted up the question, adding a vote to reopen; no explanation given. A friend, a Robin hood, who knows (likely the answerer voted to reopen it.).

David Reed

@amWhy I understand. Just bringing it to your attention.

amWhy

@DavidReed Thanks! Much appreciated.

David Reed

7:14 PM

dsaljdlfadsf

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amWhy

7:33 PM

@DavidReed This site is limited to users aged 13 plus. These are the kind of questions , in which an asker has the question and solution, but for credit (homework/test) need to include how to get from question to solution (all the steps); unfortunately such questions may get a flood of answerers, because some of the answerers simply can't answer anything else. That doesn't mean the question is a good one, because answerers rush to answer and farm low hanging fruit.

Limits need to be learned, by askers, and by answerers.

Wow... I must be really popular!! all the people here and in the background! Wow!!

David Reed

background?

amWhy

@DavidReed huh? Just that my presence and activity has a lot of followers: Hi, @Michael, Hi @JohnMa, again! hi egreg! Please don't sit on the benches in this chat room!. Jump in: what concerns you: which question or answer concerns you, and is your question related to closing, reopening, undelete, delete, or edit??

David Reed

just reading your last setence

Been away for a bit :)

amWhy

7:50 PM

@DavidReed Users who've never taken an interest in the chat room, before. Everyone is welcome, but best not to have to many "wall flowers."

Farewell, @JohnMa! Until you come back for the sixth time today!

David Reed

I will say this. I stumpled upon the IPS beta page the other day. And I posted a question that was put on hold within the first 24 yrs. The last couple of years, my mom has fallen victim to online dating fraud. She's lost three years of her life and over a million from her retirement invested in people she hasn't met a single time.

I went into how it was tearing my family apart, etc. My question was "has anyone else gone through something like this with a family member that may have some advice on how to approach her on this issue. I tagged it using the preexisting tag "intervention".

put on hold as not being about interpersonal skills

So I do think its possible to get carried away

As for me, I spent most my time in logic. I just popped in because i had a notification you had sent me something.

i'll let you be

John Ma

@amWhy I would suggest that you do not ping me if you have nothing essential to let me know.

amWhy

@DavidReed Whaaaat? That's too bad!. I rarely vote as off topic due to not being about math here. But I don't understand why this relates to the present discussion ("I will say this")

@JohnMa If you'd like to ask me not to ping you, I'll oblige, unless you comment, and I feel the need to reply to it. I'd appreciate you stop stalking me, so please, stop doing so?

@JohnMa Thanks for suggesting; did you want to make that a question? If not, I would strongly suggest you stop stalking me.

@JohnMa Okay, so I see you haven't asked anything of me here. Wasn't sure what you meant. When you're ready to ask me to, I'll oblige.

David Reed

8:15 PM

@amWhy What was meant by that in general is that one can become a little to strict when it comes to enforcing the sites rules. I'm not accusing you of it, just encouraging you to be mindful of it. I have no reason to believe that you've been anything but professional,fair, and competent.

amWhy

@DavidReed Thanks! I am mindful of it; and likewise, I hope users in general at mse are more mindful that there are limits on this site, and that there are, unfortunately, users who abuse it for their own gain, regardless of site policies. So, I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to respect both ends of the spectrum.

David Reed

lol

will be very curious to see your reaction to what I'm fixing to put up'

self-ask self-answer

we'll see what happens

apaul

8:47 PM

@Catija I've been chatting with peufeu, not sure if it's a waste of time, but he seems to sort of listen to me, which is odd...

If I'm not over reaching... His next round in the penalty box is likely to be a year? Not sure if anyone has explained that to him or if that's even the case?

Catija

9:04 PM

28

A: What could cause users to be placed in the penalty box for an entire year?

For their third suspendable offense. Typically, the first offense is a 7 day suspension, the second offense is 30 days. For egregious offenses, like being blatantly abusive. When we want to hold someone's OpenID hostage (sometimes used for persistent spammers or low-quality posters that keep cr...