rrthomas/hpmor

Add 6 separate PDFs and add volume title into complete PDF

entorb opened this issue · 5 comments

I suggest adding the creation of the 6 part/volume pdfs to the release pipeline. Currently, people browsing to the release page do not know that these printable volumes exist.

Furthermore, I suggest adding this 6-volume structure into the complete PDF, for example using
\part{Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres and the Methods of Rationality}
\part{Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres and the Professor's Games}
...
or similar.
So that in the table of contents and at the start of each part/volume the volume title is displayed.
In the e-book version I already did so.

When I first read the book, I did not realize this substructure and upon realization I very much liked it.

I'm not sure I agree; I think this is just a division of convenience for physical printing. Do we have some evidence that this is what the author intended?

I have no clue who came up with the titles for the 6 volumes. As I first encountered them on hpmor.com I assumed it was the author's intention. Nevertheless, I very much like them and would therefore prefer to display them in the complete pdf as well.

If the titles are just nice extras for a physical division for a book that is impractical as a single volume, I don't think they have any special claim to be added to the single-volume edition (whether e-book or PDF).

I had a look on hpmor.com and the pages it links to. I find this sentence in the introduction on https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality significant:

The pacing of the story is that of serial fiction, i.e., that of a TV show running for a predetermined number of seasons, whose episodes are individually plotted but with an overall arc building to a final conclusion.

This is how I find the book: the chapters are natural units, and the only larger natural unit is the whole story.

If I search for the volume titles on hpmor.com and fanfiction.net, e.g.

site:hpmor.com "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres and the Professor's Games"

I do not get any hits.

rjl20 commented

The split points for arcs/books and their titles were actually suggested by Yudkowsky, for what it's worth: https://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/2z116j/chapter_122/cpeqcdh/

Thanks, @rjl20. @entorb, I look forward to your patch!