Talk:The Spy Who Loved Me (novel)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Moisejp (talk · contribs) 23:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I will be reviewing this article for GA. It may take up to a week for me to finish the review. Moisejp (talk) 23:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi again! Good to see you back. Looking forward to the review again. - SchroCat (^ • @) 05:41, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

No disambiguation links or linkrot. Moisejp (talk) 05:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Good prose, although I had some concerns re. points below

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   The sources all seem reliable. No evidence of OR. I couldn't check the books themselves, but I assume good faith.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Covers the topic well.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   NPOV.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   No edit wars.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The one image has a FUR and suitable caption.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Some comments:

• Like for Octopussy and The Living Daylights, I believe there are a number of books in the bibliography that aren't referenced—if you wanted, you could move them to a Further Reading section. Also, the McLusky et al. Horak link in References seems not to work again.

• Done them both - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• So, is the book split up into Me, Them, and Him sections? If so, this should maybe be explicitly stated in the lead and at the beginning of the Plot summary section.

• Done - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• On my computer, the green box with the quote from the prologue overlaps over regular text.

• Done - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• By America, do you been the United States, or North America (is Viv just traveling in the US, or in the US and Canada)? Either way, it would be better to be precise about that.

• Done - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I wonder if some of the details in Background could be excised, or if some of the sentences could be otherwise shortened, e.g.,

"Similarly, he took incidents from his own life and used them in the novel and Vivienne Michel's seduction in a box in a Windsor cinema mirrors Fleming's loss of virginity in the same establishment, the Royalty Kinema, Windsor. --> either remove mention of "the Royal Kinema" (is it important?) or shorten to "Vivienne Michel's seduction in a box in the Royal Kinema movie house, Windsor, mirrors Fleming's loss of virginity in the same establishment"—if it were me, I'd cut "the Royal Kinema", though, unless you have a reason it's important.

• Done (although not using the US term "movie house"!- SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"A colleague at The Sunday Times, Robert Harling, gave his name to a printer at a "steam-age jobbing printers in Pimlico",[12] while one of the stories told by the publisher at the printers involves a bus conductor named Frank Donaldson: the name of one of Fleming's wife's friends who was staying with the couple when Fleming was writing the novel was Jack Donaldson." --> "A colleague at The Sunday Times, Robert Harling, gave his name to a printer in the story, while another minor character, Frank Donaldson, was named after Jack Donaldson, a friend of Fleming's wife." Some of the other details don't seem as important to me, but you may disagree.

• Done; I've left in the details as they show how Fleming was a bit of a magpie - picking up details from all over his life to fill his stories. It's the same level of available detail in the other Bond articles, so when read altogether a really full, rich picture comes up. - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Reviews: So, just to confirm, all the reviews you could find were negative?

• Yep - sadly this was seen as a woeful novel, partly because it was so different from all the other Bond novels. - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I would consider cutting the Mickey Spillane comparison review. I didn't know who he was, though I found out from Wikipedia. But even if someone does now who he is, the "as if [he] had tried to gatecrash his way into the Romantic Novelists' Association" will likely not be clear.

• Sadly done! - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I find the last two sentences contradictory: "The only elements from the novel that are used in the film are the character of James Bond (along with his MI6 associates) and the title.[29] Although Fleming had insisted that no film should contain anything of the plot of the novel, the steel-toothed character of Horror was included, although under the name Jaws." In the first of the two you say the Bond and the title are the only elements, but in the last sentence you say there was another element. I tried to think of an easy way to change it, but I think it may require changing the first of the two sentences.
  

• Done - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I think that is about all I noticed. Moisejp (talk) 05:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• All done, I think! Let me know if there's anything I've missed or anything you want me to look at again. - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Lookin' good! Congrats on another very nice Good Article. Moisejp (talk) 04:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)