User talk:Ckovacs

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I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! MHHutchins 23:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Series submissions
I accepted your submissions adding series info to the Zelazny stories, but changed "Croyd Crenson / Wild Cards" to simply Croyd Crenson and made it a subseries of the existing Wild Cards series. One thing to keep in mind is that series that contain only short fiction do not currently display on an author's summary page. There are plans to change this. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny
From my talk page it is clear to me, that you are not entirely satisfied with my handling of Threshold and Power & Light. I regret this very much, because it was my intention to do these beautiful books the honor they deserve. Zelazny has been (one of) my all time favorite authors since the first novel I read by him (the Dutch translation of This Immortal) in 1970. I consider the Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny to be the crown on my Zelazny collection, so I went to a great deal of trouble (and in far more detail than I would do with other books] to enter them in the ISFDB. It took me several days to enter the data, and several more to check the result, add notes and publication dates, merge, and check again, and I was very pleased with the result. As you are the person I have to thank for the existence of these books, I'll gladly let you do any further editing you think neccesary. I dropped my primary verifications of the books, so you can take over. Yesterday I put a question on the Moderator noticeboard. It might be a good idea to read their comments first. Willem H. 14:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand. I am simply questioning how the "A Word from Zelazny" sections are attributed. I thought I had explained it clearly enough. I have no desire to take over the editing of this from you, nor do I have the time. You've done a fine job and it is only the one thing that I have questioned. Ckovacs 01:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Apologies for the butt in, I have followed this topic, and I think I can answer the question. The attribution to all three people is because the policy is to be cautious and not miss what others did. The reason straight copyright crediting is NOT used, is that some editors, and many publishers, over the years, have encompassed the work of others on projects, especially collections, anthologies and omnibuses. We actually can not tell, what the copyright actually entails, so standard (hate the word) practice is to disregard a copyright, unless the "worker" here has the time to thoroughly examine all the non-story material. An author type example is "Anne McCaffrey" who has frequently used material passed to her by readers and fans, and sometimes years later she credits their 'contribution'. An example of an editor is "Forrest J. Ackerman" who copyrighted to himself material that can be readily seen was done by others, even though their names can be found in it. This is what leads to "authors words" and then editor's commentary being given 'here' to material, especially of the type you did. Though it is clear to you, we have come to rely on clues. For instance in an anthology by Andrew J. Offut he ended the last interstitial comments with -Andy. David Drake often uses Dave or DAD. These are the "hooks" that cause us to give credit to that individual. Multiple editor or author situations therefore can be seen to be dicey as to who did what.
 * Willem's fix is to 'suggest' you fix it to your satisfaction. In order to fix it to your satisfaction, if you do not wish to do it yourself which is understandable. This is a non-binding suggestion for a fix if Willem agrees to it. I (meaning YOU) did all the work in the "A Word From Zelazny" and the copyright statement asserts this claim to my (your)authorship. That would be added to the note section(s) with the date and then the other editors/authors can be removed. I actually think the "Roger Zelazny" could also be removed as author as you have actually taken the contents, if I understand correctly form sources and he did not directly comment for these publications and you are therefore the sole "author".
 * Without your active participation it is hard to be certain of the details and authorship of your work. I do not have a copy to check all the 'facts', but you and Willem do. The best resolution to the problems is to 'ask' him to correct it to your specifications and in such a manner that he feels easy with being the primary verifier. The primary verifier is the person who tries to explain any questions about the material. Therefor the best fix is an "accord" between those with copies of the work. It would also be very 'nice' if you included biographical information for your 'author data' entry as well. I hope this was not 'obstructive' or unnecessarily objectionable. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, it does help. I think the best way that I can describe the "A Word from Zelazny" sections is that they are akin to the way a newspaper article might be written using quotes from various sources. So Zelazny's quotes (from correspondence, essays, interviews) and quotes from others (his editors, co-authors, colleagues, fans) were interwoven by me to create these short essays in which Zelazny appears to comment upon the preceding short story. These essays could not have existed without extensive research (and personal expense) on my part to go through university archives and other sources to dig out all of the archived correspondence, fanzines, etc. The material was not just lying around and self-assembled.
 * So if I read you correctly and you are asking for some kind of verification statement from me, it would be something like this: The "A Word from Zelazny" sections, the annotations ("Notes"), and the monograph/biography "...And Call Me Roger: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny" were all researched and written by me. My co-editors and other proofers at NESFA edited the text for grammar and readability, and also argued about and helped improve some of the annotations (and discarded others that they thought unnecessary).
 * As for being 'nice' if I included biographical data, I did several days ago list my city of birth. Are you asking for more details than that? I generally avoid posting date of birth information because that increases the likelihood of identity theft, and in my primary occupation I am very sensitive to protecting myself against that.
 * I am new to this system, so I don't know who will actually read this reply, if anyone. Ckovacs 14:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and pardon me for butting in to the discussion. I think the above makes things fairly clear about how the "Word from Zelazney" sections were constructed, and who should be credited for them. You should understand that, in general, the ISFDB attempts to credit authorship as specified in the printed work itself, using secondary sources only when the printed work is not available. There are many cases where an unsigned intro in an anthology is listed as by "Uncredited", even though we may be 90%+ sure who actually wrote it. However, if the acknowledgements page (which is after all part of the book) makes it clear that you compiled the quotes and wrote the linking materiel (as I am sure you did), then I for one would think that crediting you as the author of these sections would be the way to go. As I am not the person doing the entry or verification on these works (I do not, yet, have a copy, though they sound well worth getting) my view is merely an opnion that may or may not be followed.
 * As to who reads this response, our general convention is that anyone who starts or contributes to a conversation on another user's talk page is expected to watch that page to see responses to that conversation. I expdect that Harry and Willem H. will see this here, and respond, as they have time. If you wish, you may drop a msg on their talk pages (User talk:Dragoondelight and User talk:Willem H.) that this conversation is ongoing and they should look here. (A user is automatically notified of new msgs on his or her talk page when the user next logs in.)
 * I hope this is helpful. -DES Talk 15:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the comments. I think it is clear by now, that I intended no disrespect to the work that went into the creation of the Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny when entering the data. I read the "A word from the editors" section, which led me to believing the "A Word from Zelazny" sections were actually written by Zelazny (based on the statement "Many of the stories and poems are followed by "A Word from Zelazny" in which the author muses about the preceding work" which I copied in the notefield). I did not read the books (yet), and I surely hope it is not required to do so before entering a book. I read the acknowledgements of course, but that was no help in attributing the "A Word from Zelazny" sections, since they are not mentioned there.
 * By now, naturally I have sampled some of the essays, and of course it is impossible that Zelazny wrote them. Still, I would be uncomfortable with the idea of dropping Zelazny as author. On the Moderator Noticeboard the discussion is going on, and I'll vote for crediting you and Zelazny as co-authors. Can you agree with that? Willem H. 19:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be fine with me. -- It is too late for me to clarify anything further in the acknowledgments to vols 3 & 4 because they are locked and in press. But I'm tempted to add something to vols 5 & 6 which we are currently working on. It might even be so bold as to say "...and to help out the folks on the isfdb, yes, I did write the "A Word from Zelazny" sections, the annotations ("Notes"), and the monograph ("...And Call Me Conrad.") in all six volumes. That's why I have these 100 people to thank for help with that research..."
 * I conceived the title "A Word from Zelazny" because it seemed fitting. And I expect that anyone reading the notes will quickly realize that he hadn't written those sections, that he couldn't have, but because he is quoted extensively in these sections, each functions as a communication from him to comment on the story, in essence, "A Word from Zelazny." Ckovacs 20:22, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, if you have any questions about the volumes, I'd be happy to answer. But I'm more easily reachable by email; I don't know how often I'll be stopping by here.Ckovacs 20:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

{Unindent)I see that accord has been reached and I apologize again for butting in. Thanks for the bio data and please never compromise yourself in providing such data. The problem we have here is that literally hundreds of people have no data and IMO it is a tragedy. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Author data
Split from the "Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny" section to minimize topic drift. -DES Talk 17:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

As to biographical info and identity theft, I well understand your concern. Any biographical data is always optional. It serves two main purposes: 1) to provide general information to those who might be interested, and 2) to seperate different authors with similar names. Please do not provide any info which you fear might risk identity theft. Your year of birth, without the day or month, would probably suffice to deal with the unlikely event that another author with the same last name as you gets listed here. If you have a public web page, you may wish to include a link to it, and there provide whatever info you choose to make public. We have a field (optional) for an author's web page. -DES Talk 15:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I see you added some info to . Thank you. -DES Talk 16:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I followed your suggestion and added my year of birth and one of my three web sites. On the lower left-hand menu of that web page is a link to "Roger Zelazny Collection" which has some statements from me about what I wrote in The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny.Ckovacs 16:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. However, FYI, our software takes dates only in the form YYYY-MM-DD, with MM or DD or both set to 00 to mean "Unknown" or "Unspecified". Dates submitted with only a year are saved as "0000-00-00" which displays as "unknown". However I corrected the date you submitted to the form our software wants, so this is only in case you should happen to enter any dates here in future. -DES Talk 16:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The page on the "Roger Zelazny Collection" is quite interesting and relevant. Thank you. BTW if you wish to link to multiple sites of yours, we support such links. When the wep page 1 field is filled in, web page 2 becomes available, etc. -DES Talk 16:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Your 2nd submisison of an added web page before the first was approved would have overwritten the first, so i copied the link, rejected your 2nd submission, and adden the third web link myself. i trust that now contians the information you wish to make public. Again thank you. -DES Talk 17:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks fine, thanks.Ckovacs 18:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Alice Lewis name change
The credit for this title was entered by Willem H. today. Is Lewis actually credited in the book? The comment for the title seems to indicate that she may not be. We normally credit by the name as actually credited. If she is not credited we can go with the name as Alice N. S. Lewis and perhaps make a more explicit statement that there is no credit in the book. Also, legal name should be entered last name first. I will also leave a note on Willem's page. Not quite as important as writing the correct prescription. Thanks.-swfritter 16:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * What I submitted is correct. She is credited on the copyright page as Alice N. S. Lewis for the cover design and layout, and she is credited in the acknowledgments for her design of the Zelazny timeline. I should have given her name to Willem as Alice N. S. Lewis but I mistakenly gave the more familiar, shorter version. --Ckovacs 16:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Submission approved and legal name corrected with last name first.--swfritter 17:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Coils by Zelazny & Saberhagen
I'm holding a submission that wants to date this pub as 1999-01-01. What is the source for your information? The primary verifier (Marc Kupper) confirms that this edition is undated. If you're using a secondary source to date a publication, you must add the source for your data in the record's note field. You should also notify the primary verifier that you wish to change the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But I did note the source in the notes field. The source is the Locus database which recorded receipt of the book in December 1998 and the intended publication date of January 1999. The other changes, that the artist is incorrectly attributed, is self-evident from looking at the respective covers as described in my note.--Ckovacs 19:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I missed that part of the notes...but January, 1999 would be 1999-01-00. About the cover: is it this one by Chaykin? Or this one by Anderson? The image currently linked to it is a detail of Chaykin's original version.  It's possible Tor changed the cover back to Chaykin's art, but failed to changed the notice on the copyright page.  If you don't have the book in hand, I'll leave a note on the primary verifier's page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The image currently linked to it is the correct one; it's not a detail of the cover but the actual cover, with altered typography and a zoomed-in image as compared to the first printing. The original artwork by Chaykin appeared on the first edition trade paperback from Wallaby and again (slightly altered) on the first edition mass market paperback by Tor. The cover changed to Anderson's painting for the second Tor printing, and then to the revised version of Chaykin's cover for the Tor third printing. But they failed to change the copyright page to indicate the correct artist.--Ckovacs 22:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to accept the submission, but will have to change the cover credit (you added Chaykin, but didn't remove Anderson). Then I'll let the primary verifier know that we corrected the pub record. Thanks for clearing this up. Mhhutchins 22:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

NYRSF, February 2009
The submission to update this issue was accepted, but some changes were made to conform to ISFDB standards. The page number field is used just for the first page on which a piece appears. Additional pages should not be added to the field. I also disambiguated the titles of the letters by add "(NYRSF, February 2009)". This makes sure they don't get confused (and merged) with title records with similar name. I also removed the "[Editorial]" from the title of "Slow Progress..." and placed it into the NYRSF Editorial series. Please add the price when you get a chance and do a primary verification. If you don't have a copy of the issue, then record the source of your data in the note field. You should also record the issue number in the note field, because it seems to be a prominent way of recording issues of this magazine. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. Will do. I did another issue which will require similar adjustments. --Ckovacs 23:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Everything above also applies to the submission that updated this issue. Corrections will be made soon. In additional, I remove "1052-9438" from the ISBN/Catalog # field. This is the ISSN, and because it's constant over the run of many issues, it should not be recorded in this field which should contain either a unique ISBN or catalog # for individual publications. I also removed the author's name and "[translated by Dwight R. Decker]" from the title of the fiction excerpt on page 7. I have moved the translator to the note field of the piece's title record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * OK. One other thing that I might screw up: can you make, in that issue, "Chris Kovacs" a pseudonym of Christopher S. Kovacs? Thanks. --Ckovacs 23:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * can be easily made into a pseudonym of, and then the title record for On the Origins of Zelazny's The Dead Man's Brother can be made into a variant by Christopher S. Kovacs. Go to the first name and click on "Make/Remove a Pseudonym" under the editing tools menu. In the Parent Name field (the bottom one) enter "Christopher S. Kovacs" (without the quotation marks), and submit. Next go the the title record that I linked to above, and click on "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work".  On the next screen, change "Chris Kovacs" to "Christopher S. Kovacs", and then submit.  That should take care of everything.  Thanks for contributing.  Mhhutchins 23:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The ISSN should go into the note field, not the ISBN field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all your help! --Ckovacs 00:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't worry too much about the ISSN thing. It's comparatively recently that some people decided it was mostly redundant and/or repetitive and could be recorded on the magazine Wiki page instead. I'm not a Magazine expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure some Magazines have changed ISSN over the years (sometimes with title changes, sometimes not). The current downside is that removing the ISSN leads to warnings like:

Bibliographic Warnings: Missing ISBN/Catalog #: The New York Review of Science Fiction, September 2009 (Sep 2009)


 * That should be fixable, if people really want ISSNs removed or moved elsewhere (I'd rather keep such in the database rather than just in the Wiki) but it's not exactly clear what people DO want to do with them. When it's clearer, I'll have a stab at coding such changes. But please do continue editing - ISSNs aren't YOUR problem, they're OURS, and we always value new data. Welcome aboard! BLongley 01:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Edge of Time submission
I approved the addition of this pub, but had to make a few changes to conform it to ISFDB standards. I changed "trade paperback" to tp, and removed the link for the cover illustration since we don't have permission to link to canadianbookshelf.com (see here for the sites we do have permission from. Instead I downloaded the image from this site, and uploaded it to the wiki (see ). Thanks for editing! --Willem H. 10:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have another submission to give cover artist credit as "Pittesh Gandhi, Ambient Devices". I'm assuming Ambient Devices is the name of a company, and if so, it would not be credited in the same field as the artist.  (Doing so would create an artist named "Pittesh Gandhi, Ambient Devices".)  Ordinarily we only credit a company if a human hasn't been credited. I'll accept the submission but change the artist field to "Pittesh Gandhi" and credit Ambient Devices in the note field. Mhhutchins 15:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, it appears Ambient Devices is the company. I misspelled the artist's first name, so I've submitted a revision.--Ckovacs 23:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

NYRSF, Sep 2011
The submission adding this record was accepted but some changes were made to bring it up to ISFDB standards. Please use these guidelines on your next submission: A question: do the three pieces by Michael Swanwick have "(Number X in an Occasional Series)" in their title? I'm considering creating an essay series titled "Brief Lives" and placing them into the series. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Changed the review of the Machover opera to an essay. The review type is reserved for reviews of fiction.
 * 2) Removed the editors in the review of Magic Mirrors. Only the author is credited in collections.
 * 3) Removed "[Editorial]" from the title of the editorial. After acceptance the title record was placed into the NYRSF Editorials series.
 * 4) Changed the two letters from "Screed (letter of comment)" to "Letter (NYRSF, September 2011)"
 * 5) Changed the essay "An Interview with Matthew Bradley, Richard Matheson’s Chronicler" into an interview type.


 * Thanks. Yes, the Swanwick pieces have the Number and Phrase in the title; the first one must have been in an earlier issue. Letters in NYRSF are called "Screed (Letters of Comment)" which is why I put them that way. Magic Mirror was an oddity because the review listed the two editors and not the author!--Ckovacs 02:00, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Individual letters are entered as "Letter (Publication, Date)", while the column can be entered as a separate record (which I did in this case.) BTW, you wouldn't have any earlier issues of this title at hand, would you? The ISFDB coverage is rather meager. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 02:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

NYRSF December 2011
The submission to add this issue was accepted but some changes were made for it to comply with ISFDB standards. The REVIEW section of the entry form should only be used to enter reviews of sf-related publications (other than comics and graphic novels). I changed the reviews of the film and dance performance to ESSAY type records. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The date of periodical issues should also be given in the title field, in this case, as "The New York Review of Science Fiction, December 2011". BTW, there was already a contentless record for this issue in the database. You could have updated that record to add the contents. I've deleted it to keep the record you created. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 22:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I've accepted the submission to add the March 2012 issue. Along with the problems cited with the previous submission, the letters must be disambiguated (as was mentioned in a previous message) giving the issue and date parenthetically. Also, unless it's part of the title you shouldn't append "[Editorial]" to the title. In this case, there's a title series for the editorials in NYRSF into which the record can be placed. I'll do that and fix the other problems. Mhhutchins 22:50, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I put [Editorial] after the editorial in each entry because I don't know how to add it to the editorial series, and I figured that you'd fix it as you did before. The April 2012 issue has been entered but the fix to the editorial hasn't been made. I've only been doing occasional edits so I don't recall all the specifics and rules, but I do my best by comparing to previous entries. If it's too much trouble to be fixing what I enter, let me know and I can just stop. --Ckovacs 23:18, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I figured out how to make the editorials part of the series, and I fixed the December 2011 and April 2012 editorials. Also fixed the titles in the play or movie reviews that you'd changed to essays.--Ckovacs 10:34, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Image file for Sundance and Other SF Stories
The that you uploaded exceeded the ISFDB standards, (it was 343 kb). So I copied the original file and resized it to a smaller file (in size, not dimensions). Please keep all images to no more than 600 pixels at the longest side and no more than 150 kb in size. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The New York Review of Science Fiction, March 2012
According to Eileen Gunn, who has just posted on the Moderator Noticeboard, the author of "From Star Kings to Firebirds: John Jakes’s Fantasy & Science Fiction Novels" in The New York Review of Science Fiction, March 2012'' is rather than. This is confirmed by various online sources, so I have changed the record, but could you please double check your verified copy when you get a chance? TIA! Ahasuerus 05:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Human Reaction
I have a copy of A Little Intelligence too, and I noticed that Human Reaction is credited only to Randall Garrett. And according to this site, the original appearance was also credited to Randall Garrett only. So it seems to me that this story is not a Silverberg collaboration. What do you think? Darkday 20:05, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The New York Review of Science Fiction, September 2011
Just a note that I have changed the spelling of 's first name from "Alvaros" to "Alvaro" based on the online TOC and the fact that it's a typo. Hopefully the version in your copy is the same! Ahasuerus 06:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)