Talk:Hooded Swan

message: The Hooded Swan books refer frequently to a subject known on Wikipedia as Astrobiology aka Exobiology, the study of possible life on other planets. I believe that it would be germaine to have a link somewhere within the body of the article to this subject, but I am not quite sure where to put it. Suggestions? abdullahazzam 3rd January 2007 15:41pm (UTC)
Probably a good idea... 
Maybe link it in under the destcription of Grainger as an expert in alien environments?  Or maybe part of the initial description could include that there's a strong emphasis on astrobiology?
Wandering Ghost 16:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Astrobiology

message: I've also been mulling over the subject of 'the Hood', the device that connects Grainger to the Swan. It's basically a two-way brain-computer interface that replaces the pilot's senses with the senses of the ship, so that the pilot can feel and act as if the ship were part of his own body.
Is all of this worth a 'See Also' section with maybe three or so entries?
abdullahazzam 3rd January 2007 16:48pm (UTC)
*I'm not sure about the general procedures and standards of the 'See Also' category, but maybe.  Another option is to put the Hood and the discussion of how many ships are flown with the help of brain-computer interfaces in the Ships section (though I think there's also manually flown ships - at least I got the impression that the liner jockeys Grainger complains about it don't actually interface).  Wandering Ghost 22:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Hood

message: I'm very much a Wikipedia beginner, so I'm going to throw this idea out here rather than just dumping a new section into the article. Comments are very much invited.
I have felt, ever since I first read the Hooded Swan novels back in the '70s, that they have a strong "aviation" feel rather than the "naval" or "merchant naval" feel of a lot of other SF. To put it another way, Grainger feels like the pilot of an aircraft, rather than the helmsman of a ship. One example is the way Grainger remains in the cradle for the entire flight, relying on intraveinous feeding and drugs to keep going rather than going "off watch". He always seems to land on a planet to rest.
It seems to me that the background and feel of the books, and the character of Grainger himself, have a great deal in common with the aviation adventure thrillers of the '60s. Books like Gavin Lyall's "The Wrong Side Of The Sky" and "The Most Dangerous Game" come to mind. Tough, sardonic, competent pilots flying (often reluctantly) by the seat of their pants through bad weather, to short rough airstrips far from well-charted routes, without much in the way of navigational aids were staples of the genre, as were dodgy employers with their own agendas, flawed sidekicks, corrupt law-enforcement and Cold War politics. Spotting the parallels with the Hooded Swan novels is left as an exercise for the student...
However, this is very much my opinion, and I've never seen any reference to Brian Stapleford being influenced in this way, so I'm not at all sure that any of this is appropriate content.
RB1956 13:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aviation Feel

message: pretty sure it's by chris foss, throughout the series. one of them ('promised land') is shared with a vangelis album, 'hypothesis', released without the big man's permission by giorgio gomelski.
duncanrmi (talk) 20:53, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  cover art on the HS paperbacks