Talk:Strata (novel)

Untitled

Removed references to a band called "Strata" since this is the novel page.

Can someone upload the image for the book cover? I've scanned the cover and put it on http://oi33.tinypic.com/5mgqh.jpg. I don't have privileges yet as i'm new to wikipedia Anonbogey (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Why isn't it mentioned that the book is a clear parody of Niven's Ringworld? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.146.163 (talk) 04:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there America or not?

The Plot Summary section says the continent of America is missing from the world. The Ideas and Themes section says that North America exists but is called Valhalla. Can someone who's read the book please clarify? Should that first reference be South America only? Or does it refer to "The Americas" meaning that the second reference is wrong? Thanks.--Irrevenant [ talk ] 02:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The American continents exist on "real Earth", but are called Valhalla. The American continents are missing from the flat Earth.Aarontu (talk) 14:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Original publisher's homepage

I guess the homepage http://www.colin-smythe.com/terrypages/tpotherworks.htm is not the "Original publisher's homepage", see reference Nr 5 --Paul HT (talk) 10:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Ideas and themes

Has to go. There is not a single source for these two paragraphs and sentence after sentence consists of rehashing of the longish plot summary and "implications" which are original research. I'm moving it here if anyone cares to look for actual sources for the many assertions made by editors of the page heretofore.ZarhanFastfire (talk) 01:43, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The history of the planet "Earth" in Strata unfolded very differently from our Earth. North America is named Valhalla, and was colonised in the first millennium A.D. by the Vikings, led by Leif Ericson; the Roman Empire is known as Reme instead, after the other twin in the story of Romulus and Remus; the planet Venus is orbited by a moon like Earth's Luna. None of the Abrahamic religions ever developed in its history; a mixture of Buddhism and folk religion seems to have predominated, punctuated by an assortment of flash-in-the-pan religious cults. Humanity is much more developed in the field of space travel and has met several other intelligent species, such as the tall, frog-like Kungs and the bear-like Shandi. It is implied that the reason for the historical discrepancies is that our Earth was actually created by Kin Arad to replace the flat Earth featured in the book, which was starting to malfunction. While the history of the real "Earth" in Strata clearly is not the one we are familiar with, the history of the flat Earth is consistent with our own, up to the point where the expedition arrives.

Humanity appears to be merely the latest of a long series of intelligent species who have evolved, altered the universe to better suit themselves, and then died out before the next species arose and started the cycle all over again. Before humans, there were the Great Spindle Kings, a race of acutely claustrophobic telepaths, who could live only a few hundred per planet and therefore built entire worlds from scratch to accommodate their population. Before them were the Wheelers, who were themselves preceded by increasingly alien races extending all the way back to the Big Bang. Interestingly, all of what is known about the intelligent species who have lived before humans is revealed to be incorrect near the end of the book, when the Disc's computer system (built by the universe's actual creators) reveals to Kin that the entire universe is only 70,000 years old and that evidence and remains of long dead civilizations were fabricated by the universe's creators to make the universe appear older than it is (much like the Company fabricated prehistoric fossils on their created worlds to make them appear older than they really were). Finally it is implied (by the fact that the computers systems need a human) that the universe was itself created by humans as a place for themselves to live. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZarhanFastfire (talk • contribs) 01:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I have just put that back. Please don't remove content, but instead point out its problems using WP templates, so that anyone can see the dispute instead of a lack of information due to your censorship. For more information about the contents of the section you removed, I suggest you look no further than the contents of the actual book.

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Perry Rhodan as a possible influence

I could not find the following mentioned in any sources, so it is not suitable for the article. But it seems intriguing and worth mentioning here.

Issue 19 ("Der Unsterbliche") of Perry Rhodan, the longest-running science fiction series in the world (1 issue / week on-going since 1961), features a discworld planet called "Wanderer" which is quite similar to the discworld in "Strata". This story, which first appeared in West Germany in 1962, was written by K. H. Scheer. Although Perry Rhodan authors generally just fill in detailed exposés prepared by someone else, K. H. Scheer was also the only exposé author until Issue 500, so he is clearly the main credit in this case.

Ace Books published the English translation in the US in 1972 as Issue 13 ("The Immortal Unknown"). UK publication was by Orbit Books in 1976, which takes it rather close to the publication of Strata in 1981. So it does not seem unlikely that Perry Rhodan provided inspiration for Terry Pratchett's discworld in "Strata", in addition to Larry Niven's 1970 novel "Ringworld" as mentioned in the article. Hans Adler 12:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)