Publication:THSTRCHLDTA1992

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This page is the wiki-page for the publication The Starchild Trilogy. This page may be used for bibliographic comments or extended notes about the publication, or discussion on how the publication is to be recorded. The link above leads to the ISFDB publication record for THSTRCHLDTA1992. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page. For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates.

This publication record has no author given. Obviously it should be an omnibus of The Starchild Trilogy by Pohl & Williamson; however the ISBN 9992062533 looks rather suspicious with those leading nines, has very few Google hits except http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/9992062533 whence the other data ("Publisher: Pocket") seem harvested, and such an edition is completely unknown to http://www.locusmag.com/index/b380.html#A5525.95 --JVjr 08:07, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

English language ISBNs start with 0 or 1; 999s are typically bogus ISBNs that are used as placeholders until the real one can be established. Since this Publication record had no other useful information that we wouldn't have elsewhere, I zapped it. Ahasuerus 11:02, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

Ah hah: 47847 (as well as THSTRCHLDT1983 which precedes it in 25646) is listed again as from "Pocket", although by the cover it's clearly the Baen Books ed. Might this be caused by that famous Simon&Schuster distribution deal? (And shouldn't BB take precedence in ISFDB?) --JVjr 08:28, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

Yes, we should use whatever the book states, in this case Baen, but this record probably originally came from Amazon and they often list the company that they received the item from instead of the official publisher. It's not like their data entry clerks are particularly competent in this or other areas... Ahasuerus 11:02, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

Note, however, that the newer's ISBN 0-671-65558-2 is, per Locus, Mar/Feb 1986 pb (not tp, which seems indeed strange for $3.95; unless it means distribution channels and not format in this case?); have no idea what the older might be. --JVjr 08:23, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

Dissembler uses "tp" when it knows that the book was a paperback (e.g. as per Amazon's record) and not a hardcover, but doesn't know whether it was a trade paperback or a mass marker paperback. Dissembler doesn't use the price field to fine tune the data, although it probably could if it had a sliding table of pb/tp prices over the years. Ahasuerus 11:02, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

I forgot: the 1983 version gives the title as separate words "The Star Child Trilogy" which by itself seems suspicious: Google test suggests this is just a typo, not a variant ever printed anywhere. --JVjr 08:28, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)

Thanks, corrected :) Ahasuerus 11:02, 14 Nov 2006 (CST)