User talk:Bluesman

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See User talk:Bluesman/Archive for 2008 discussions.

Contents

Roger MacBride Allen's The Depths of Time

I'm holding your submission updating this pub, questioning the inclusion of "short fiction" in a novel. As it's currently designed, the system frowns the situation where short fiction is part of a novel and would consider the work a collection or omnibus. In this case, do you feel the two pieces (especially the Dramatis Personae) actually warrant a separate record in the database? There must be hundreds of novels where the author lists characters, place names, acknowledgments, notes, etc. as an appendix to the main body of the work. In other words convince me that there's something different about these pieces that require that they have individual records and should be typed as fiction and not essay. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I just didn't know what else to call them. You're probably right about the Dramatis Personae, but the Timeshaft Wormhole Transport System really should be mentioned. Both are in the Table of Contents. The Timeshaft was almost just an interior art piece but only 1/2 the page is a drawing and the other half is a detailed account of how it works. Since such a thing doesn't exist (as far as we know) it is definitely fictional. I put them in hoping for some clarification on how to deal with these types of content. I'll leave it to you to decide the fate(s) if you'll let me know whether I should just ignore them in the future. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 05:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I accepted the submission, but deleted the Dramatis Personae. I would suggest that you update the title record of the Timeshaft piece explaining its nature and relationship to the main text. Thanks. MHHutchins 01:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Done! And thanks for the direction. I always appreciate how patient you guys are. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
You have no idea how patient we can be, especially when we have so few editors who are as communicative as you. It's easy to help someone who answers our questions about their submissions, asks questions of their own, and responds to our suggestions. You're on the track to becoming a moderator which requires less of a thorough knowledge of the database's intricacies than a full set of communication skills. Thank you for making this less of a chore than it could be. MHHutchins 17:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Always figured, since it took me so long to even find my talk page, that there would need to be an atonement for the massacres I made before that time. And this is fun! My skills, such as they are, need honing/fleshing out, but as long as you guys talk, I'll listen. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The Horn of Time

You submitted an update to The Horn of Time that changes the note from "5th printing" to "Stated 3rd printing. Artist not credited; there is a signature on the cover, extremely faint." I believe it would be better to clone the record rather than overwriting it. In scanning AbeBooks for Q5480 I see listings for

  • Q5480, 1968 5th Printing
  • Signet. [0-451-05480-6 Q5480] 1973, 3rd printing

As you added Contents I approved your update and then cloned it to create THHRNFTMCJ1968 for the 5th printing. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

But it doesn't make sense to have a 5th printing with an earlier date than a 3rd. Especially when Signet was very good at putting in the printing dates for each one. I realize what you did is the better way, and will do that in the future. Thanks! On a different note, there is one ancient edit still in my list that was kept there until someone could figure out if it was a software issue (two separate edits got combined somehow - not by me, this time!  ;-) ), is this still an issue? There is a second one that doesn't even have a title reference (the software wouldn't handle two page #s in the same field (for a map) but has since been re-entered and accepted) with a corresponding "parse error" note that could just be eliminated. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I fixed the dating for the 5th printing to 0000-00-00. I thought I'd fixed that last night. As for old edits in the queue I see
1056926DESiegel60PubUpdate2008-11-14 15:07:02The Weapon Shops of Isher / Gateway to E
1076744BLongleyVariantTitle2008-12-29 12:00:32The Dark Light Years
1076788BLongleyPubUpdate2008-12-29 13:09:58Neanderthal Planet
1076943MhhutchinsPubUpdate2008-12-29 18:23:35The Depths of Time
1077528MhhutchinsPubUpdate2008-12-31 00:22:35The Blind Geometer / The New Atlantis
The first # is a submission record #. Do any of these ring a bell? There's also 1073817 which says "XML PARSE ERROR" and is a pub-update for Hunter's Run. I'm pretty sure we are leaving that in the queue so that Al can take a look. There are three faults in the XML which the one I suspect causing the explosion being a page number of "9 & 10". --Marc Kupper|talk 23:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the 1056926 edit is quite old and I think was still there for Al as well. Okay, will ignore them both as they are for him. Thanks for checking! ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Satan's World

You want to update Satan's World

  • Add price of $4.95
  • Add note "Price taken from the cover of the first Lancer edition."

The puzzle is this is a Doubleday edition. How can you take a price from a Lancer edition and apply it to a Doubleday publication? Maybe it would help to cite what's stated on the Lancer edition which I assume is this. I'm guessing there's a something that says "Originally sold at $4.95." --Marc Kupper|talk 06:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Close! "Originally published in hardcover by Doubleday & Company at $4.95" First time I've seen this crossover between publishers, too, at least on the cover. Sometimes on the copyright page, but never with the original price. I can amend the note...? ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
It was common practice back in the 1950s, when paperbacks were still new and hardcovers cost much more than paperbacks, so it was worth reminding potential customers that they would have to pay $2.00 instead of $0.25 if they opted for the hardcover version of the book. Of course, paperbacks were often abridged, but that's a whole different can of worms :) Ahasuerus 21:35, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you - I approved the update and then edited it to add the citation quote from the Lancer cover. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Weapon Shops of Isher (reprised)

I'm picking up an old on-hold submission which is an update to Weapon Shops of Isher. The discussion above was about the seemingly spurious addition of "/ Gateway to Elsewhere." I don't think there's much for Al to look into at this point and so I

  • Approved the update
  • Edited the publication to remove " / Gateway to Elsewhere"
  • Edited the other Pocket publication to add a leading "The " to the title. (AbeBook seller listings and cover images seem consistent with this).
  • Merge the variant title record for "Weapon Shops of Isher" into its parent that has the leading "The " as the two pocket editions were the only two publications. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Uncharted Territory

User:BLongley verified Uncharted Territory as a collection and included contents. You entered your edition as a novel with no contents. Should the contents be imported?

I'm going to ask Bill to comment here too as the Amazon reviews and Look Inside make it sound/look like a novel.

It's possible that because Uncharted Territory itself is rather short that the edition Bill has got padded out with a couple of extra stories. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, mine has 3 stories: I don't think Fire Watch got a UK paperback release so there's plenty of short fiction to pad out her shorter novels with. Time for Bluesman to learn the Unmerge and create a separate Novel. BLongley 11:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
There is no indication in any way that the Bantam edition is a collection. The copyright page usually mentions if portions of a book have appeared elsewhere. This does not. There is no table of contents. The eight chapters have titles but virtually all the same: Expedition 183: Day 19; Interim: Al King's X; Expedition 184 Day 1,2,3,4,5,6. "Learn the Unmerge"??? Sounds diabolical!! ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The publication that Bluesman submitted already has a pub record in the database here. Uncharted Territory is a novella, so it's listed under shortfiction. His pub was a stand-alone reprint of just the novella itself. So you don't have to learn the unmerge yet. Just update and verify the current record. MHHutchins 16:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
149 page novella/chapterbook..... now that's funny! I would never have looked for it under short fiction, but have updated the pub, which had not previously shown up under the collection title record, as suggested. Do chapterbooks kind of get ignored? Can't recall seeing any under the novel/collection titles. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd personally recommend learning the unmerge dance to create separate titles records for Uncharted Territory COLLECTION vs. NOVEL with the NOVEL publications containing Uncharted Territory the SHORTFICTION/novella. The reason this came up is that Fixer found a 176 page large-print hardcover edition which we'll leave classified as a novel for now.
Bluesman, I added a cover image for your edition - is it correct? --Marc Kupper|talk 17:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it is! --Bluesman 18:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[unindent]Chapterbooks is an area of the database that needs to be improved. I believe that when a piece of short fiction is published stand-alone there should be a separate section on the author's summary page so that it doesn't get lost in the short fiction listing. There have been several publishers who specialize in publishing novellas (PS Publishing, Wildside, Axolotl, Century Legend and Pulphouse among them), and those works seem to have less significance than they should when it comes to how they're presented on the author's summary page. But at the moment there's no better way to handle them. Maybe someday... And by the way "Uncharted Territory" is only 100 pages long in my verified publication. So you can never judge a story by its page count, especially large-print editions. (Sound familiar?) Thanks. MHHutchins 17:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed! If Dozois got hold of it, it might only be 20 pages!!! ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
One of the annoyances is that Chapterbooks USED to work, and in fact you can still get them to IF you enter them all in one go: see my BL TEST 1 Test Author for an example. Chapterbooks get their own little section. However, the CHAPTERBOOK publication type has since been banned on the edit screens (only the title type is allowed), and any edit to one of these publications will silently change it to an ANTHOLOGY (the first type available in the still-allowed list). So if you see one looking OK, don't mess with it even if you want to improve it, you almost certainly WILL break it. BLongley 20:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
There's a big philosophical split here on whether Books can be called NOVELs if they're not long enough to win an award as a NOVEL - personally I'd always leave stand-alone novella publications as Novels however short they are unless we need to link them to an award, others insist on changing them anyway. It sometimes works, especially if the novella is the same name as the Chapterbook, but often it breaks the link from Publication to Title, and it certainly hides books in Short Fiction (one of my pet peeves). There's an uneasy truce at present where we all agree the software is currently broken so we don't usually mess with such, we're waiting for Al. What we haven't really agreed on is a workaround: to keep it looking like a book you can put a single Novella inside a Book-type publication such as OMNIBUS or ANTHOLOGY or COLLECTION (or even as Marc suggests, a NOVEL, but that seems to annoy the lengthists most as it creates a NOVEL title as well as the SHORTFICTION one). In this case, as we want to distinguish a stand-alone Novella from a Collection I wouldn't put the single title in another Collection or they'll probably just get merged back. "Lots of Notes" is a usually acceptable workaround in the meantime though, although that doesn't help us use this as a database, just as a web-site. BLongley 20:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like the beginning of a schism: the Lengthists against the Bookists! Only Al in heaven can bring us together. MHHutchins 21:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Now that's funny! --Bluesman 23:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, the schism started long ago and keeps resurfacing - see the current first entry on the Community Portal for instance, about "The Trouble With Tycho". Whatever Al comes up with, I (as Bookist) can at least rest assured that even if the Lengthists get their way and get to (unnecessarily and unhelpfully, IMNSHO) reclassify loads of Children's Novels, older Novels published before the Awards rules even existed, et cetera, they've got 4,765 "Novels" (as of last backup I loaded) under 100 pages to "fix". And I for one will not lift a finger to help them do so unless they still end up looking like Books. Inertia can be a wonderful thing. ;-) BLongley 22:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
And that's how schisms become abysses. Maybe I should change the title of this thread to "All Too Familiar Territory"? ;-) --Bluesman 23:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The Shield of Time

Please see User_talk:Mhhutchins#The Shield of Time. You and Mhhutchins have wildly different page counts for a couple of the stories. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I saw that and just left a note to correct the discrepancies. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Asimov's The Stars Like Dust

When I was checking your submission of this new pub, I realized that the most common title for this is The Stars, Like Dust (note the comma). Most of the pubs without the comma are listed under the comma-ed title. Can you verify that your copy has no comma on the title page (not the cover or spine)? If so, we need to create a variant title for this work. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It does have the comma, but where in Asimov's titles page does it show up? Found it and there is an 11th printing there. Since everything else is the same, I see no point in adding a 10th printing to the record as the only point of interest would be that there are at least 11 printings. ~Bill, --Bluesman 06:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, sometimes it's hard to find titles when there's series and subseries. I have to resort to doing a page search occasionally. I'll move your pub over to the correct title record. As for adding a tenth when there's an eleventh already listed, we try to be complete as possible. Sometimes I think it makes for a cluttered page, but it can help to place other printings when the pubs aren't dated. Thanks. MHHutchins 06:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Destinies, Nov-Dec 1978

I accepted your submission for this pub, with only one minor hiccup and a burp. The artwork on page 309 isn't from The Magic Goes Away. It appears to be a space-filler, as it doesn't accompany a story, but it is the same work (only larger and slightly lighter in print) of the piece on page 238 by Stephen Fabian. Another oddity: The title page of "Very Proper Charlies" (which has a wildy different style than the interior pieces), is the work of Stephen Fabian. If you look just above the character's right shoe (our left) you can see Fabian's distinctive "SF" signature. Look at the bottom left side of the work on page 160, you can see a half-cropped signature. If you'd like to make the suggested changes, go ahead and I'll approve them. Or I can do them if you're sick of Destinies by now! MHHutchins 19:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Done the changes. Question: to change/ add to the second printing contents, if I import these will they overwrite the existing contents (which would be good in this case), merge with the existing contents (same thing) or will I have to delete the duplicate titles? ~BIll, --Bluesman 21:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
They'll add to rather than replace, which causes big problems as removing the duplicate contents tends to remove both. You'd better decide whether it's easier to remove all the duplicated titles and have to re-add page numbers after the import, or just add the extra titles and merge afterwards. Or just leave it till Al returns with better software. Or - and I recommend this - just delete the second printing and CLONE the first, which should preserve the page numbers. There's few extra notes to consider. BLongley 22:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
That is much simpler! I'll do that, then you can verify it. Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 22:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll probably skip the reverifying part. Or just say I'm verifying the Fiction content, printing number, maybe cover artist credit and such. I'm gradually moving from a "this is The Internet Speculative Fiction Database" attitude to recognition of some useful factual articles and publications and some great covers and artists, but checking a signature credit on a sketch on page xyz still doesn't feel that important to me when I could be more usefully adding Fiction appearances in titles we haven't yet heard of. I feel more satisfaction in finding a new SF author, a new SF title, a new SF publication (in that order), than getting everything absolutely perfect about one particular publication. BLongley 22:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Neanderthal Planet

Marc seems to be having a clean-up of held edits, so I'm going to reject your change to notes and let you do the edit properly, or do it for you if you prefer. The original discussion got archived here it seems. BLongley 21:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought I was following your directions??? Change the author first, then delete the contents, then import the right contents. What did I do wrong? ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, that would work as I said, but Neanderthal Planet still seems to have With-W contents in a No-W publication? Who approved your changes? BLongley 21:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
The no-W pub didn't get approved, so I haven't been able to go to step 2... --Bluesman 21:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Your no-W pub is there already, Step 1b: "add No-W versions of each content title" is OK, OR delete all contents is OK. I guess some moderators don't see the thinking ahead multi-step edits sometimes take. I know I get confused when doing my edits and moderating others as well - I've been telling you No-A when I mean no-W, fixing no-Lady to with-Lady, and am going to have troubles as Terry Pratchett is now Sir Terry. I haven't fixed all the Sir or No-Sir Arthur C. Clarkes yet! :-( BLongley 22:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
That's done, and I don't even remember verifying it! The blur seems to be constant these days. Just too much time on my hands after the operation. Will add the contents with the no-W and then it's done? Or will there be title merges as well? ~Bill, --Bluesman 22:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Ok, remove approved. Adding the others first might confuse other moderators less. There will be title merges needed, sorry. Sometimes I think we should have a real-time chat-room for ISFDB so non-mod editors can explain things to mods better, then I realise I would stand even less chance of sleeping. BLongley 22:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Sleep??? Wuss..... ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The Dark Light Years

I thought I'd left a note about this before, but it seems I must have missed a "This is only a preview" message or it got deleted while archiving or something. Sorry!
You're right in that we want a "Brian Aldiss" variant of the "Brian W. Aldiss" title, but just creating the variant title doesn't move the Signet #D2497 edition to the right title. What you want to do is unmerge that publication from all the other "The Dark Light Years" editions. This gives you a new title and publication to play with as you will - so you can adjust the unmerged publication to the No-W author version. And maybe check the title hyphenation. When that's done to your satisfaction, then you can make yours a variant of the With-W version. Clearer now? Or would you like a full walk-through? (You're going to learn the Unmerge Dance someday!) BLongley 21:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this one just sat there, wasn't sure what was happening. Just did the unmerge (and there is definitely a hyphen) and will follow from there! Thanks for the input and directions. ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, approved. You now have a separate title and pub to fix The Dark Light - Years as you will then we'll do the Merge/Variant dance. BLongley 22:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Merging vs. Creating a Variant

I rejected your submission to merge these two title records: The Dark Light Years and The Dark Light-Years. Instead make the second title a variant of the first. (That is, if the title page of your copy gives the title a dash in "Light-Years"). Thanks. MHHutchins 23:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The two titles I picked both had the hyphen. ?? I'll try the variant. Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Went and got the right page but there is no "submit" 'button'.... ?? ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
On the page for title record 955348 select "Make This Title a Variant Title..." from the editing tools menu. On the page that comes up enter "117" (not the quotes, just the numbers) in the first field (Parent #) and click Link to Existing Parent which will create a submission for the moderator to check. MHHutchins 23:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay. Where do you find this "parent" #? For future reference. ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
The "parent" is the title record which you believe to the canonical title of the work, in most cases the first edition (but not always.) Click (or hover if you browser allows you to see the intended link before your click) the title record which you wish to make the parent (the author's summary page is the best place to look). You'll see a URL looking something like "http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?" followed by a series of numbers. Those numbers are the title record number, or "parent" title record. Either record or remember those numbers when you're asked which record you wish to make the parent. Voila! MHHutchins 04:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternate Asimovs

I approved this edition of Alternate Asimovs and massaged the contents a few days ago, but I am not 100% that everything is kosher with "Belief". Is the version printed on pp. 262-297 the same as what was printed in 1953 as is indicated by the year and by the fact that it uses the standard "Belief" Title record? Or, as appears more likely, is it the first draft of the novelette? And should we change "Belief (Published Version)" to "Belief (Second Half of the Originally Published Version)"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thought this oddity would generate something later on. Asimov wrote "Belief" and submitted it to John Campbell. He didn't like the ending and persuaded Asimov to create an entirely new second half for the story, and published that. In the table of contents the original version is called "Belif (first version)" but is just called "Belief" in the book. Up to the point of the *, as mentioned in the notes, this is the same as the version published in 1953. Everything after that has never seen the light of day until this publication. This story runs from page 255 to 297. On page 298, the rest of the original story, from after the * is printed under the title "Belief (published version)", though technically it is only the second half. In the notes preceding the 'second half' Asimov pointed out that re-printing the first half wasn't necessary as it was right 'next door' and would just take up space. So, the 'second half' definitely gets the 1953 publishing date while only 1/2 of the first version qualifies. The fields just aren't set up for this as it is probably the only time it has ever been done. I honestly don't know what the 'fix' should be. Maybe copy/paste this thread onto the help or standards page and see what everyone thinks? This is a good one and might get some interesting suggestions. ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Asimov's Murder at the ABA

Locus #202 (July 1977) gives the date of publication for this pub as June 1977. Fawcett Crest hardly ever gave the actual printing date, only the copyright year, which many editors assume to be the printing date. Looking at the dates of the first edition, I think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that Locus is correct about the first paperback edition. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Know what you mean. I was surprised there was a number line! Want me to change it? (And cite the source, of course). ~Bill, --Bluesman 06:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, change it and cite Locus as the source in the notes field. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:28, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Ring

Bill, you may want to see/comment User talk:Kraang#Ring --Marc Kupper|talk 18:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Artifact

I have approved the fifth printing of Artifact, but I wonder about "Prologue Greece [ca. 1425 B.C.]" since we generally do not list in-universe prologues and epilogues separately. Ahasuerus 23:42, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, then I'll take it out. And remember, too!! ;-) I submitted a Baxter edit the other day that had an Author's note ostensibly written by the alleged 'finder' of a manuscript. Same deal? ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, as Help:Screen:NewPub explains, "Forewords, introductions, prefaces, afterwords, endnotes, etc. These should all be included; enter them as ESSAYs. Occasionally something like an endnote will be set in the fictional world of the novel; these do not get indexed separately as they are regarded as part of the novel's text.", so I think the answer is "same deal". I guess a lengthy essay about the novel phrased as if the events in the novel were real might deserve a separate entry, especially if it was misleadingly signed or otherwise not obviously in-universe, but most in-universe essays do not rise to that level of mischief :) Ahasuerus 00:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

UK prices

Just a reminder that we use "£0.60" rather than "60p" for post-decimilization UK prices. And if you ever want to find out about the decimilization project and how it greatly benefited the UK, just ask our other Bill :) Ahasuerus 04:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Where did I miss one? I thought I was changing them as I went? ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
It was some 1977 Sphere reprint, as I recall. No biggie, I have a script that finds all "XXX.YYYp" prices and changes them to their decimalized equivalent, so we can fix them all easily. Ahasuerus 02:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
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