How Long Do You Think a Sci-fi Novel Should Be?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Sats

Whyever not? Or the knocking person is alien, and the man is well preserved corpse in ancient tomb. And that assumes knocking has agency and is not a piece of crumbing masonry hitting the door before it, too, turns to dust.

If Brown were alive, he'd probably do a Star Trek revision: e.g., 'man' to 'human'.

[Courant]

Originally Posted by Sats

Then there is a possibility than "man" refers to "adult male" as opposed to "boy" and there is some kind of plague that wipes all humans that hit 18 except that one *shrug* Or maybe they all migrated to Musk colony on Mars and Earth is uninhabitable... Man does not even has to refer to human man... Or living man, for that matter.

I actually think that the apparent specificity, but possible ambiguity aids the story. Even without contextual clues that suggest nonhuman life. This would be similar logic to the trope where "no man" is interpreted to mean no one, but then it is revealed to have the more specific meaning.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The language probably helped in this case. In English, there is a single word for both a member of Homo Sapiens and a male member of Homo Sapiens; in Estonian, these two are completely separate words, and the first thing that I think of, seeing the word "man", is man as in male. Because we have another word for just a human being.

I'm wondering if English is actually an exception because it's similar in Dutch: there are two different words for https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man

[Gormagon]

"How Long Do You Think a Sci-fi Novel Should Be?"

Exactly 347 pages with a font in regular with a font size of 12 points and 20 points for headings and a line height of 100%, the text to white space ratio should be exactly 83.72%.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

The system won't let me upvote you again so soon!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

"How Long Do You Think a Sci-fi Novel Should Be?"

Exactly 347 pages with a font in regular with a font size of 12 points and 20 points for headings and a line height of 100%, the text to white space ratio should be exactly 83.72%.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

347 ADE/RMSDK pages. All others nope.

[DNSB]

I would prefer a page count that is not as easy to screw up as the Adobe Synthetic Page Number algorithm.

Sample ePub attached: words:27 , ADE pages: 2,906 calibre pages: 7

Yes, I know it is a pathological case however I have, according to my notes, run into this issue in several commercial ePubs and in 2 ePubs that failed upload to KDP since Amazon does not support Base64 encoded images.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I would prefer a page count that is not as easy to screw up as the Adobe Synthetic Page Number algorithm.

Sample ePub attached: words:27 , ADE pages: 2,906 calibre pages: 7

Yes, I know it is a pathological case however I have, according to my notes, run into this issue in several commercial ePubs and in 2 ePubs that failed upload to KDP since Amazon does not support Base64 encoded images.

Including base64 inside an ePub is (IMHO) incredibly stupid. That is an outlier instead of a norm thankfully.

But for a normal ePub, the ADE/RMSDK page numbers do work well. I use it for my count pages result. This way I can see how long the book is before it's loaded on my Kobo. I know we also have the word count, but I've gotten used to ADE page numbers. as I've been using them long before Count Pages existed.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Including base64 inside an ePub is (IMHO) incredibly stupid. That is an outlier instead of a norm thankfully.

But for a normal ePub, the ADE/RMSDK page numbers do work well. I use it for my count pages result. This way I can see how long the book is before it's loaded on my Kobo. I know we also have the word count, but I've gotten used to ADE page numbers. as I've been using them long before Count Pages existed.

Yes, I know it is an outlier. The point is that that outlier has been seen in the wild not just in my test document. ADE page numbers are handy when you have identical versions of the ePub on multiple devices. Editing an ePub breaks that connection unless you supply the edited version to everyone. Reading ePubs on a single device, it really does not matter what synthetic page number algorithm you use. And given that calibre's built-in page count calculation does not glitch the way that ADE does, it may be the better way forward as there is no need to run a plugin to get the page count.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Yes, I know it is an outlier. The point is that that outlier has been seen in the wild not just in my test document. ADE page numbers are handy when you have identical versions of the ePub on multiple devices. Editing an ePub breaks that connection unless you supply the edited version to everyone. Reading ePubs on a single device, it really does not matter what synthetic page number algorithm you use. And given that calibre's built-in page count calculation does not glitch the way that ADE does, it may be the better way forward as there is no need to run a plugin to get the page count.

But for those who use word count to have an idea how long a book is, they would have to use Count Pages.

The problem with calibre's page count is that it can be way off for image heavy eBooks. Like say Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson that uses a graphic for every chapter. A book can look longer then it is. using calibre's page count. That's also a flaw. Given differing ways to count pages, nothing is ever going to be without a flaw. But (IMHO) when there isn't a flaw, ADE's count works best. I do prefer having the page numbers not change when margins, font, font size, and/or line height is changed.

[DNSB]

Whereas for me, page counts in a reflowable ebook are more humorous than anything else. Word counts are more consistent than page counts and I've found the reading times I generate from word counts are fairly realistic since they account for my reading speed.

Though now that hockey season is almost upon use, they get less useful since I will be reading during commercial and other breaks and may or may not close the cover when the game resumes.

[Quoth]

Word counts mean more to me.

[Courant]

I think the main advantage of page counts, is that they are easy to obtain. Also, they tend to be smaller easier to understand numbers. Word counts are a more precise measurement, but there is a steeper learning curve.

[DiapDealer]

I prefer not knowing how "long" an ebook is. Before I start reading it or during my reading. Knowing how close I am to the end of a book (provided said book is a standalone and HAS an actual ending) causes me to start making assumptions about how things are (or are not) likely to turn out. I'd rather not do that. I prefer the length of the experience be a part of the suspense, to be honest.

[theducks]

I leave the progress bar ON as I prefer to do my 'pause' at a break (chapter). (One thing I liked about the style Kindle did was a book wide bar with dots at the chapters.)
OTOH knowing an end is in sight...FINALLY