User:Hauck
From ISFDB
I'm Hervé Hauck, a Frenchman nearing fifty (well, 48 to be precise) and SF lover fom a long time (close to forty years).
I'm also a book collector just having passed the 12.000 volume mark (half in French, half in English).
One of the last dinosaurs of the dying french newsgroup fr.rec.arts.sf (as herve), I also have comitted a few translations and done the usual things : fanzine writing, fanzine editing, con going, noise-making on forums, contributing to bibliographic enterprises and generaly trying to help spreading knowledge and love of SF.
I also have a few complete (Interzone, Spectrum, Galaxie, Galaxies) or interesting (Analog, Asimov's, Fiction, Venture, WOT, WoIf) runs of magazine available for verification purposes.
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Reference Books
During the years, I became particulary interested in reference books on SF (I own now several hundreds in english and french). I'm in the course of (slowly) reviewing them on my blog : here and a quite complete list can be seen here.
They are listed here so please don't hesitate to ask if you want data that's in any of them (they are the most accessible books of my collection).
Some bibliographic notes on French SF books
Here are some generalities concerning the specificities of French publishing, following the usual ISFDB catogries.
- Title : French or translated texts, due to a smaller market, tend to have less title changes than US/UK ones. The main causes for such vts are the classical transition from magazine serial to book (particularly when the text is modified) and, of course, the making of a film from the book see here for one of the more complicated cases.
- Authors : The use of pseudonyms and house name is as frequent in France then elsewhere, notably for 'popular' publishers. Sometimes "real" names are used early for pseudonymous works by US/UK authors, like Poul Anderson whose _The barrier moment_ hasn't been translated under the Sanders byline but under his real name.
- Year : For shorter texts, the dating is quite easy as French magazines are generaly dated (note that those are real dates, e. g. a magazine stating "Mars 1990" is really on sale during March and mailed to subscribers at the beginning of the same month, not before). The books (normaly !) have two dates printed on them. The first (and most reliable) is the "Achevé d'Imprimer" (AI), which is the precise (dd/mm/yyyy) date when the book has been physically produced (printed). This changes with successive printings. The second is the "Dépôt légal" (DL) which is the date (intially Trimester/yyyy, then mm/yyyy) when the book has been deposited at the BNF (French National Library). In case of reprints without really major changes, only the AI is different, the DL being rarely modified. In most cases, the only way of differentiating printings is by the AI. Of course, note that some publishers don't give the two dates (usually there's at last one of them), it's sometimes simply due to the printer as successive books in the same collection by the same publisher have different printers and give different sets of dates (AI or DL or AI& DL).
- Catalog ID : French publishers came quite late to the ISBN (generalized in the beginning of the 80s). It's interesting to note that most French books (particularly PBs) are numbered in their "collections" with a lot of variants (double or triple numbers for one book, starting point at #5000, missing numbers, integration of SF in an overall number scheme -like Ace-, addition of unnumebered extra volumes, collection initially without numbering gaining one after some time, etc. ).
- Publisher : Genre publishing is done in French by non-specialized publishers (which are parts of larger conglomerates), most of the time in specific "collections" (a sort of imprint) with (usually) specific numbering, packaging or markings. For exemple, publisher "Livre de Poche" prints SF in a dedicated collection "SF" which is distinct in presentation from its general line see here with numbering starting at #7000.
- Price : French books fall broadly in two categories. HC (very rare) and TP have generally their price printed on the back cover. PB haven't any price on them as the retail price is calculated at the time of the sale by matching the category of the book and a price table (e.g. category one books are € 5.00, cat two € 6.00, etc.). This allows publishers to rise prices quite discreetly (you just have to change the price table) and explains the symbols present on the spines of French PBs (stars, lozenges, logos, circles...) which indicates the category of the book (mostly linear with number of pages). To complicate matters, some books have also changed category during the years. All this to say that the price of a French PBs depends on the time of the buying (remembering that the price of books is unique in France with a 5% margin) and is not an absolute quality of a precise printing. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules, TPs or HCs without price (even in the same collection), or PBs with price on it (mostly pre-1975 titles).
- Binding : HC are quite rare in French publishing (well less than 5% of the total) and concern mostly Book Clubs and a few small press. For known authors, first publication is TP (which plays in France the role of US/UK HC and have quite close prices) then PB (generaly by a different publisher). By large, the most frequent format is PB, either PBO or reprint.
French Bibliographic Sites
There are (IMHO) three main sites for general bibliographic purposes (meaning that they have a sufficient coverage of the whole field), listed here by alphabetical order (they have each a different philosophy and variable manpower and so different strengths and weaknesses).
- BDFI : here
- Index SF : here
- Noosfère : here
Data entered in ISFDB
Here are a few points (which will be updated regurlarly) about the choices that I made when entering information in the ISFDB.
1) Pub date : The AI (Achevé d'Imprimer) will be used first when avaliable, then the DL (Dépôt Légal) if it is given on the verification copy. Note that DL like "Xth Trimester YYYY" will be entered as YYYY-00-00 and real DL given in note.
2) J'ai Lu - Science Fiction : For the sake of simplicity, all SF books published by J'ai Lu will be treated as being part of the "J'ai Lu - Science Fiction" series here even if technically the SF line was deliberately not differentiated by the publisher before the 80's. For the same reason, for early books without ISBN, the number in the series will not be repeated in the "Catalog#" field.
3) Le Masque - Science Fiction : The publisher has been entered as "Librairie des Champs Elysées" as on title page. The cover are generally not credited but ISBNs are present from the start. Note that from 1976 onwards, no AI (precise printing date) is given on the books which only state the DL. Some tiltes have been reprinted (a minority), sometimes very closely (three printings at a few months of interval for _L'image de l'autre_ or _Les mutants_) but there is no easily apparent logic, see here.
4) Translated titles : For now, I chose to keep all the book titles in french but in case of collections or anthologies to left the stories' titles in english (except of course for french texts) as it's easier to enter and to merge. Perhaps will it be interesting to find a way to indicate the translated title in the future (creating a vt ?) as they sometimes are not easy to match, as _The Dancer from Atlantis_ becoming _Fatum_ after translation.
5) OPTA - Galaxie Bis : Even if there are some short stories added to the main text in the first titles (up to #56), I chose to treat the books as novels and not collections. I also follow the publisher's catalogues in later printing in affecting #130-131-132 to corresponding titles. generally, this series is best conceptualized "backwards", meaning that you've got to use the later printing characteristics and apply them to the former ones (e.g. the name or the fact that it's a novel collection). Note that this is probably one of the trickiest series in french publishing due to a general sloppiness (wrong ISBNs, same ISBN for multiple titles, errors on artist's names, non-stability of artist's names used, incoherences between catalogues and actual series, etc.), see here.
6) Presses de la Cité - Futurama : No specifics for this series except the need to create chapterbooks for a few of the later titles, see here.
7) Presses de la Cité - Futurama Superlights : No specifics for this series except the need to create one chapterbook for #31. Note that I've chosen to use the name "Superlights" against the possible "Super Lights". See here.
8) Albin Michel - diverse series (PBs) : Please forgive the poor quality of the scans. Because of the metallic foil, this series is quite hard to capture. Note that I've chosen to regroup the two first series and that the fifth is under the label "Albin Michel - Aventures galactiques" and not "Albin Poche". See here, here and there. If anybody has better scans, feel free to replace the ones that I've uploaded.
9) Albin Michel - Super+Fiction : See here. I've chosen to give the Clarke (here) the number #1 for the sake of lisibility even if it's technically false. Juste like the pbs, the quality of my scans is low so if anybody has better scans, feel free to replace the ones that I've uploaded.
10) Denoël - Présence du Futur : As I have only between one quarter and one third of the series (which runs to 650+ volumes with numerous reprints), I didn't create placeholders for the missing titles. I'll merge later with this series the few existing items already present in the ISFDB. I also chose not to differentiate the short-lived sort of sub-series like the one which appears on this cover. See here
11) Presses Pocket - Science Fiction : I've chosen this label instead of "Presses Pocket - Science-Fiction" (with an hyphen as on cover) to avoid confusion between publisher and series. Due to the holes in my collection (and holes in the publisher's catalogue) I didn't enter placeholders for missing titles. See here.
12) OPTA - Anti-Mondes : Note that I've given numbers to the first eight titles for clarity's sake even if they are unnumbered. See here
13) Denoël - Etoile Double : The complete series is here.
14) J. C. Lattès - Titres SF : The complete series is here. Note that the title of the series can be interpretated in different ways : Titres SF, Titres/SF, Titre SF (for the 1st) and that the first volumes were numbered retroactively.
15) Le Livre de Poche - Science Fiction : This series is here, note that I've chosen the label "Science Fiction" even if SF, S.F., Science-Fiction can be found on the books.
Things to do (for the next 10 years)
- Enter my collection of French Books series by series, in progress : a few thousands to go; probable next will be "Jai Lu".
- Enter/Verify reference works (about 800) => done.
- Verify US & UK magazines (add covers if necessary) present in my collection, done for : Interzone, Spectrum SF, New World, SF Monthly, Authentic SF, Science Fiction Stories, Venture SF [UK], WoT, If, Galileo, SF Yearbook, F&SF (partial), Space Science Fiction [UK], Nebula, F&SF [US], F&SF [UK], ASF, in progress : Astounding/Analog.
- Enter French magazines (about 1000 issues).
- Enter French fanzines.
