User talk:Chris J

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Contents

Welcome!

Hello, Chris J, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Mike Christie (talk) 06:17, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Prices

Hi, Chris! I have approved the latest batch of submissions, but I had to make a few minor corrections to the price fields. We enter US prices with a leading dollar ("$") sign to avoid ambiguity, so please enter them that way in the future. Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:13, 1 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Curse of Peladon

Re: your addition of The Curse of Peladon. You have the note "First edition, dated 1974 internally" but I'm not sure what that means. Could you please update the note to explain better how and where the date was stated? Thank you! Marc Kupper (talk) 02:45, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Doctor Who titles

Chris, you have submitted a number of Doctor Who books in the last hour or two. They all look good with one exception: 7 of them were done via "Add Publication to this Title", but the Title is actually different from the Title currently in the database. For example, here is the last submission so far: 

Column 	Proposed Values
Title 	The Face of Evil
Authors 	Terrance Dicks
Tag 	-
Year 	1984-00-00
Publisher 	W. H. Allen
Pages 	126
Binding 	pb
PubType 	NOVEL
Isbn 	0426200063
Price 	£1.50
Artists 	Jeff Cummins
Image 	-
Note 	Title - DOCTOR WHO AND THE FACE OF EVIL. Stated - Reprinted 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984.

If the book has been published under 2 different titles, then we will want to enter them separately and then make one of them into a "Variant Title" of the other. On the other hand, if the title currently in the ISFDB is invalid or, in this case, incomplete, then we want to correct it. Could you please shed some light on this issue? Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:19, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi Ahasuerus, I hope I'm doing this right. All editions from 1978 to 1984 where called Doctor Who and The Face of Fear. The 1993 printing (published by Virgin was retitled doctor Who - The Face of Fear. --Chris J 19:57, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)
Thanks for the update! Did the other Doctor Who books that you submited have multiple titles as well? I'll go ahead and adjust this one for now. Ahasuerus 22:14, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)
Yes most of The Doctor Who (Target Books) had 2 titles. One for the W H Allen releases and one for the Virgin releases. The Virgin edition was usually the last release. Since I got your note I have been including all the info I have in the book notes. --Chris J 00:22, 3 Feb 2007 (CST)
Thanks for the clarification! I will approve and massage all 7 submissions based on this information shortly. Sorry about the delays, other things kept intefering. Ahasuerus 02:01, 4 Feb 2007 (CST)
OK, all 7 submissions have been approved and the Title/Publication data reconciled to the best of my ability. We will really need to take a closer look at the Doctor Who data at some point :-( It can be a rather time consuming project, though, as I discovered when I spent a few weeks cleaning up Warhammer/Warhammer 40K last June. Ahasuerus 23:11, 4 Feb 2007 (CST)
As I have heaps of Doctor Who books to put on I will leave it for a while until things are sorted out. I have lots of info about the different series if you need it. There is six main series to consider.

Using the Talk page

All you have to do is hit the "Edit" button at the top of the Talk page and type in your response :) Ahasuerus 19:32, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi Ahasuerus. Did you receive this. If so I'm doing something right.

--Chris J 20:37, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Oh yes, I can see your edits here! No worries, we all started using Wiki software at some point and made our share of mistakes :) Ahasuerus 22:14, 2 Feb 2007 (CST)

Who Killed Kennedy

Chris, I am looking at your submission of "Who Killed Kennedy" and wondering if the spelling of one of the artist's names is really "Slatter~Anderson"? Was that supposed to be a hyphen and not a tilde, by any chance? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:13, 4 Feb 2007 (CST)

The book states Cover design: Slatter~Anderson. It is definitely a tilde. It appears on other books too. Are cover designers and photographers classed as artists?--Chris J 23:31, 4 Feb 2007 (CST)
oops - I saw the "Slatter~Anderson", figured I'd approve the publication as it was mostly correct while I'd then ask about "Slatter~Anderson" and see that a thread was already started. I removed this as a cover artist and instead added it as an INTERIORART. for lack of a better pigeonhole for exterior art. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:44, 4 Feb 2007 (CST)
Yes, I believe we are entering cover art designers as "INTERIORART" for now, although they are getting so common that we may want to have a separate category for them. I have made the same change to Who Killed Kennedy. Also, the entered ISBN had a leading "4" instead of a leading "0", which made it fail the checksum check. I have made a correction using the OCLC catalog. Could you please take a look at it when you have a chance and make sure that everything looks right? Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:39, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)
Yes everything looks good. I noticed you have got London:Doctor Who Books as publisher.--Chris J 01:03, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)
Generally, bibliographers try to indicate where the book was published in addition to stating the publisher's name. The main reason behind it is to distinguish between, say, "Bantam US" and "Bantam UK". We don't follow this rule religiously, although there have been some discussions about its pros and cons, especially in the current global book marketplace. In this particular case, the "London" bit comes from the OCLC catalog, but feel free to remove it if it's not stated in the book :) Ahasuerus

Seeress of Kell

Chris, you have submitted a price change for the 1992 reprint of this Eddings books. The Locus Index claims that the price of this edition (Corgi 0-552-13021-4) was £4.99, but I assume you have a copy that states £3.99, right? I wonder if the publisher jacked up the price some time in 1992 without changing the ISBN or anything else about the book? It has been known to happen, so perhaps it would be safer to Clone the publication and change the price of the clone. Ahasuerus 00:52, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)

Yes I have a copy which states £3.99. So will you reject the edit and I will clone it.--Chris J 00:56, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)
Done! :-) Ahasuerus 00:59, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)

Black Sun Rising

Chris, you submitted an update to Black Sun Rising where you

  • Changed the price from $5.99 to $6.99 - please note that you should have cloned the publication. I noticed the price change the instant I was hitting [Approve] and so went ahead with cloning this to make a copy that states $5.99 which was the price for the 1st printing.
  • You also changed the date from 1992-00-00 to 1992-09-00. You actually have an undated later printing. If you look at the copyright page it will say something like.
First paperback Printing, September 1992
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
In that case it would be a third printing and as we don't know the printing date you put 0000-00-00 in the year field. I usually will add a note that says something like "Undated 3rd printing. The copyright page states "First paperback Printing, September 1992 / 3 4 5 6 7 8 9" so that there will be as little ambiguity as possible about which edition this ISFDB record is for. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:51, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)
Hi Marc, It says First paperback Printing, September 1992
12 11. --Chris J 03:09, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)
Then it's an undated 11th printing. I went ahead with updating the publication to change the year to 0000-00-00 and added a note about the printing. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:04, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

BTW - can you provide some extra details about this book for the DAW list? I already have the data from the publication record but would like to know.the following:

  • Is the DAW book # 864 stated on the front cover (under the DAW logo) or inside the front cover and on the copyright page as "DAW Book Collectors No."?
  • Can you see the code UE2527 on the ISBN/price line on the front cover or perhaps it's on the spine just under the logo?
  • Take a look at the spine with the book as though it's on a shelf (upright)
    • Is just ISBN printed sideways?
    • Or do you see the price normal and the ISBN sideways?
    • Or do you see both the price and ISBN normal.
    • Or is just the price stated normal (sometimes in a little white box)?
    • Take a look at the bottom of the copyright page just after the "12 11" printing #. Does it say "Printed in the U.S.A." or is it printed in Canada?

Thank you! Marc Kupper (talk) 05:00, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

The DAW book #864 is on the front cover (under the DAW logo).
The code UE2527 is on the front cover above book price.
Both price and ISBN are normal on spine.
The book has on the copyright page after the "12 11" "Printed in the U.S.A." --Chris J 23:51, 8 Feb 2007 (CST)
Perfect! Thank you very much. This book can be used as an example of price changes as the paperback was first introduced at $5.99 with ISBN 0-88677-527-2 and then without changing the ISBN they raised the price to $6.99 by your 11th printing and these days is priced at $7.99 on Amazon with the same ISBN though I have not been to a bookstore to see what printing it's at. I just added an ISFDB record for $7.99 by cloning your $6.99 record, changing the price, and also adding a note explaining the source of the record. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:23, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Siege of Faltara

You submited a publication update for The Siege of Faltara where you added the note "Stated. First Ace printing: November 1978." The puzzle is why you left the publication date as 1978-00-00 rather than changing it to 1978-11-00.

Note that at first I was uncertain if you had a first printing. The statement "First Ace printing: November 1978" is literally that and it does not state that *this* copy is the first printing. With Ace in those days the printing # is coded in the last digit of the 5-digit code. Usually for a first printing the code will end in 0 or 5. A second printing would end in 1 or 6, the third is 2 or 7, etc. Sometimes Ace starts at 1 or 6 though. I did a search for # 76340 or 0-441-76340-5 and was unable to find this.

Is the story copyright 1978? The reason I ask is if the story was printed by Ace before January 1969 then the first printing(s) would be under their letter code system and reprints after January 1969 would use a number code where the last digit is 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 depending on which printing this is. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:33, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

The only numbers/letters are on the spine which are the bar code 0-44176341-3 followed by 195. The story is copyright 1978. --Chris J 18:43, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)
Ok, then let's assume it's a first printing. I went ahead with updating the publication to change the date from 1978-00-00 to 1978-11-00 to match when your note states. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:04, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

Seeress of Kell, Demon Lord of Karanda, Sorceress of Darshiva

This is about three publication updates where you appear to be overwriting data that may belong to other editions.

  • Seeress of Kell - You are changing the price from L4.99 to £3.99 plus also adding the artist (Geoff Taylor) and the note "This book seems to have another ISBN as written inside which is 0-552-13853-3." My question is about the price change. It's quite common for publishers to keep the same ISBN as they raise the price. Thus I would have cloned the L4.99 record and edited the clone to match my publication.that to £3.99 unless you know that the publication could not have ever possibly existed at L4.99.
  • Demon Lord of Karanda - You are deleting the L11.95 price entirely and adding Geoff Taylor as the cover artist. Again, unless you know that it’s flat out impossible that a copy of the book could exist that states L11.95 (or £11.95) I would not change or delete the price and rather would clone the record and edit the clone.
  • Sorceress of Darshiva - You are deleting the L12.95 price entirely and adding Geoff Taylor as the cover artist. This is similar to Demon Lord of Karanda.

Marc Kupper (talk) 03:04, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

Could you reject the three publication and i will clone these. Thanks. --Chris J 16:01, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)
Done - thank you! Marc Kupper (talk) 01:36, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Chronicles of Amber

Chris, you have submitted Gollancz' trade paperback edition of The Chronicles of Amber as a 2003 Publication. According to OCLC (4 libraries reporting), this edition apppeared in 2000. Could you please check your edition? Also, just to be on the safe side, I assume that this edition includes the first 5 novels and not all 10 like that recent US monster reprint edition? Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:21, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

Sorry about that but I knocked the enter button and it was too late to add further info.
This edition is published by Gollancz in 2003 (stated Third impression 2003). It is the Fantasy Masterworks edition No.6.ISBN 1-85798-726-8. It does include the first 5 novels.--Chris J 20:32, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)
Could you reject this novel and I'll do it again. Thanks. --Chris J 14:39, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

Barker's plays

Chris, re: the collection of 3 plays by Clive Barker that you added Contents data to earlier today. Keep in mind that if you replace the "Collection" Title in the Content section with one of the constituent Titles (a play, in this case), the association between the edition ("Publication", in our parlance) and the book ("Title", in our parlance) will be lost. In the future, please add Contents Titles after the pre-existing Collection (or Anthology/Omnibus, as the case may be) Title. Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:24, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

Doctor Who and The Crusaders

Doctor Who and The Crusaders - You added a note that says "Has Based on the... on cover." I was just curious. Does the cover actually say "Based on the..." or does it have "Based on the" and the "..." is more stuff that you did not include in the ISFDB note. FWIW - I know absolutely nothing about Dr. Who and for all I know "Based on the..." is an inside joke. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:34, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)

Written under the title is 'Based on the popular BBC television serial'.
The other copies/reprints didn't have this.
I have a large collection of Dr Who novels which I will be putting on gradually. I also have a lot of information about the different editions and reprints. --Chris J 04:10, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)
Whoops I forgot to mention that I have altered the notes to include the full sentence 'Based on the popular BBC television serial'. --Chris J 04:15, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)
Thank you Chris. The updated note makes a lot of sense and now I understand how "Based on the..." would be understood by the T show fans. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:54, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

Wyndham W on back.

BTW - what's the significance of the "Wyndham W"? I've noticed you mention it in several of your publication notes. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:54, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

Some of the reprints where exactly the same, except for W for Wyndham on the back. It helps sometimes to tell which edition is which. --Chris J 16:13, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)
Could you tell if the "W" is on the first printing, on the reprints, or if it's not related to first/reprint? Marc Kupper (talk) 18:20, 15 Feb 2007 (CST)
Sorry I haven't answered. The W seems to be on both first and reprint editions. I have put it on so editions can be identified. --Chris J 17:57, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Doctor Who

Hi Chris! I've been watching recent edits and see you're doing a lot of Doctor Who submissions - is this a special project? If so, I'll dig out my own collection (almost all old Target editions) and add those. If not, I'll just carry on with my favourite authors for a bit... BLongley 17:19, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi. My son and I have collected Dr Who books (novels and non fiction) for years. We must have approx. 400 items. As I am on holiday I thought I would start to put them on. Yes certainly dig your collection out. --Chris J 03:16, 12 Feb 2007 (CST)

Title deletes

Chris, you've submitted a couple of title deletes for "The Space War" and "The Power of Kroll" as they have the wrong author. Just curious: wouldn't it be better to just edit these to have the right author name? Is there something I'm missing here? Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 19:53, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi. Once they were deleted I was going to put the right info on because I wasn't too sure the program would recognize 2 books with the same title and different authors. If you will reject the edits I will redo both. Thanks. --Chris J 22:45, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)
OK, done. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 07:17, 12 Feb 2007 (CST)

Deep Blue

Chris, you have submitted a price change for "Deep Blue", a 1999 Doctor Who book, from £4.99 to $5.95. Is the price really in dollars or was it a typo? Thanks! Ahasuerus 14:24, 14 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi. It is $5.95. The novel had 3 prices in different currencies on it so i changed it thinking $USA was easier for users. --Chris J 14:55, 14 Feb 2007 (CST)
Ah, I see! Do you think you could add the other prices to the Notes field in the Publication record? That way there would be (hopefully) no confusion as to the price data in the future. Thanks! Ahasuerus 15:56, 14 Feb 2007 (CST)

Author Order

You tried to change "David Whitaker+Terrance Dicks" to "Terrance Dicks+David Whitaker". I approved the change but a heads up on that ISFDB does not maintain the author order and in fact if you make a change to one of the authors ISFDB will REVERSE the order of the authors on you. For example, if the authors are a1, a2, a3, a4 and you change a1 to be a1x you will find the new order is a4, a3, a2, a1x. Thus if there are two authors and they are already backwards then it's painful

  • David Whitaker, Terrance Dicks (these are backwards)
  • Edit the autors to be "David Whitaker, Terrance Dicksx" and ISFDB will give you "Terrance Dicksx, David Whitaker"
  • Edit the authors again to be "David Whitaker, Terrance Dicks" and ISFDB will give you "Terrance Dicks, David Whitaker"

The reason you need two edits is that the names are already backwards and for ISFDB to flip the names you need to both make some change to the names AND state them backwards. If you don't change anything the author list is not updated.

For now, I don't try to fix the author order and just really hope this gets fixed in the code. Some day, when author ordering gets added to ISFDB we'll have a massive project of going through all titles and publications with two or more authors and correcting the order. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:39, 15 Feb 2007 (CST)

Some updates on hold due to Web server errors

Chris, just an FYI that a few of your Doctor Who updates can't be approved at this time since they are causing the Web server to error out. The error has been reported to the ISFDB programmer and hopefully he will sort it out soon. Sorry about the inconvenience! Ahasuerus 01:58, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)

OK. Thanks for that.--Chris J 03:34, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)

Here's a list of what's on hold. Some of your stuff went though and these hang. Sorry about the ugly formatting - it's late for me.

Submission State Type Date/Time Submitter Subject
<a href="294121">294121</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-15 23:34:22 Chris J Doctor Who and The Daemons
<a href="294141">294141</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-15 23:35:13 Chris J Doctor Who and The Daemons
<a href="294251">294251</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-15 23:42:55 Chris J Doctor Who and The Cybermen
<a href="294371">294371</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:08:04 Chris J Doctor Who and The Daleks
<a href="294461">294461</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:21:58 Chris J Doctor Who and The Dalek Invasion of Ear
<a href="294471">294471</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:23:23 Chris J Doctor Who and The Dalek Invasion of Ear
<a href="294481">294481</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:24:24 Chris J Doctor Who and The Dalek Invasion of Ear
<a href="294551">294551</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:37:08 Chris J Doctor Who and The Deadly Assassin
<a href="294561">294561</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:37:45 Chris J Doctor Who and The Deadly Assassin
<a href="294571">294571</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:39:23 Chris J Doctor Who and The Deadly Assassin
<a href="294661">294661</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:53:48 Chris J Doctor Who and The Day of The Daleks
<a href="294671">294671</a> ON HOLD (Marc Kupper</a>) NewPub 2007-02-16 00:54:50 Chris J Doctor Who and The Day of The Daleks

Marc Kupper (talk) 04:29, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)

It turns out that the ISFDB application has run into a problem with too many Publication (edition) titles starting with "Doctor Who and The D". Oops! :) Al is currently working on this, thanks for your patience! Ahasuerus 12:49, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
Chris - I see that Al fixed the issue early this morning and approved the updates listed above that had been on hold.
This is a good opportunity to ask something I had been meaning to do anyway. On the title pages of your books do all of them start out with “Doctor Who and The …?” or is that a convention for the front covers? Marc Kupper (talk) 13:34, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
What I have put is what is on the covers and the copyright page. Some of the Doctor Who sites and others shorten the title and leave the DW off. Would you like me to shorten the book title but have the complete title under publications? --Chris J 16:14, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
It seems like you are doing the right thing with using the full title though I can see why fan sites omit the "Dr. Who and the ". In ISFDB we use the title that's on the title page (I'm not sure if you meant the title page when you said "copyright page" or if you are also looking there). My own practice is I look at the front cover, sometimes the spine, title page, copyright page, etc. What's on the title page is what I put in ISFDB but if the titles are different I'll make a note of that in the comments. Sometimes I'll even add a variant title. For example, one of the Wollheim SF Anthology series uses "SF" on the front cover and "Science Fiction" on the title page meaning people are likely to be looking for the story under either title. The canonical title is the "Science Fiction" one as that's on the title page and "SF" would be a variant though documented as to exactly where each of the title variants (there's a third version on the spine...) are located. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:00, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
It seems books 1 - 73 where called Doctor Who and Title. From books 74 on the titles where changed to Doctor Who - Title. I can change the titles of 1 - 73 to a shorter version if required. --Chris J 21:12, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Giant Robot - pub taken over?

There is a publication update in the queue for a copy of The Giant Robot where it looks like you are hijacking an existing publication. Did you intend to do this meaning we will loose the record of the old publication? Here's what the change looks like - when there is a "-" in the right hand column it means the data is not changing (it's color coded meaning it's easy to see the changes but the colors did not get copy/pasted into the wiki):

</tr>
Column Current [Record #125751] Proposed Changes
Title

The Giant Robot

Doctor Who and The Giant Robot

Authors

Terrance Dicks

-

Tag

THGNTRBTJS1979

-

Year

1979-00-00

1975-03-13

Publisher

W. H. Allen

Universal-Tandem

Pages

124

-

Binding

pb

-

PubType

NOVEL

-

Isbn

0426112792

0426108582

Price

£0.70

£0.35

Artists

Jeff Cummins

Peter Brookes

Image

-

-

Note

-

First edition. Illustration on back cover.

Marc Kupper (talk) 20:00, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)

As there is already a copy called Doctor Who and The Giant Robot aka The Giant Robot recorded with the same info I thought I would change this edition instead of deleting it. Is this allowed or do I have to change titles to have the same name and then merge? --Chris J 20:24, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
No - that's fine - I just wanted to make sure that we were not accidentially wiping out an existing publication's data. As the original record was s a duplicate I've approved the update.
I also came over to the talk page to ask you about a similar pub-update where you were changing the ISBN for an already verified publication but I must have accidentially approved it and now I don't know which record it was. It's probably ok. In summary - when reviewing my biggest concern is data loss. Thus with clone publication I just do a quick glance to make sure the field layout looks good and approve as there's no chance of data loss (I check to see that the editor did not make changes to the content/title records). With edit-publication I will hold up and research changes to things like the ISBN or price as data is being lost (overwritten) and so I want to make sure that what we are losing is something that should be gotten rid of. So in a sense, using clone pub followed by a delete-pub with a note saying "duplicate publication" may be better because I auto-approve clone pub and for a regular editor such as you I will trust that you have in fact double checked that it was a duplicate and so I'd approve that too without needing to hold-review an edit-pub.
We have talked about adding a moderator-notes field much like the one for delete-pub so that when editors know they are about do do something strange that they can use the notes to give the reviewer a heads up. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:53, 16 Feb 2007 (CST)
Hi, I wonder if you can fix a couple of problems for me.
Clicking on the publication Doctor Who and The Space War (1979) by Malcolm Hulke goes to Doctor Who and The Terror of The Autons (1979) by Terrance Dicks.
Clicking on the publication Doctor Who and The Sea-Devils (1984) by Malcolm Hulke goes to Doctor Who and The Tenth Planet (1984) by Gerry Davis. It is also listed 5 times.--Chris J 18:25, 18 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Dead Men's Diaries

I can see one in the queue for this book, changing the title from "The Dead Man's Diaries" to "The Dead MeDiaries". I assume that's a typo?

If so I can let it through and massage it afterwards. Should it be "The Dead Man Diaries"? --Unapersson 14:49, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Yes it was a typo. It is "The Dead Men Diaries". If you could reject this and i will fix.
Also could you please fix this fault for me (I'm no to sure how to send messages to people).
The Doctor Who and The Sea-Devils by Malcolm Hulke (1979, 1980,1982, 1984) links when clicked on go to different books and authors. Thanks. --Chris J 16:21, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)
I've approved and then fixed it. I didn't want to make you have to enter all the stories again by rejecting it and fixing was easy enough.
As for the other problem, that looks like some corruption somewhere that I wouldn't even want to attempt to fix just yet. I'd add a mention of it to the community portal page so it can be picked up and investigated.

--Unapersson 17:03, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

David Mcintee

Chris, you have sumbitted a pseudonym creation request ("David McIntee" as a pseudonym of "David A. McIntee"), which I have approved. If you pull up "David McIntee" now, you will see that there is a line at the top of the page to the effect that "David McIntee" has been used as a pseudonym by "David A. McIntee".

However, if you want Beautiful Monsters to show up as a "David A. McIntee" title which was published as by "David McIntee", you will need to pull up the Title and then click on "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" and enter the canonical name (in this case "David A. McIntee") in the bottom half of the form. This may sound like unnecessary work since you have already marked "David McIntee" as a pseudonym of "David A. McIntee", but we have to do this to support pseudonyms shared by multiple people and "house name". Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:41, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Thanks, looks much better! :) I have also changed the Title and Publication record types for this book from NOVEL to NONFICTION, so it should be all set.
Please note that record types are often the same for book length Titles and Publications, e.g. NOVEL/NOVEL, COLLECTION/COLLECTION or ANTHOLOGY/ANTHOLOGY, but there are cases when they do not match, e.g. a NOVEL Title may have been printed in an OMNIBUS Publication. Ahasuerus 17:58, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Collected Works

Chris, I have approved you submission of Collected Works, but I was wondering if you could double check that all of the submitted stories -- including Nick Wallace's "Work In Progress" -- are "SHORTFICTION" and not "ESSAY"? Also, would you happen to have the page numbers for the included stories handy? Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:42, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Sorry no I don't have the page numbers and from all I can gather they are all short stories including 'Work in Progress' I looked at a number of sites to confirm this. --Chris J 20:01, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)
Well, we do what we can :) Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:13, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

Star Trek the Next Generation

Chris, you have submitted a change to the Star Trek Next Generation Numbered sub-series of the Start Trek Next Generation series that would blank out its name. I put the submission on hold and then hit a wrong button, so it was accidentally approved. As a result, the sub-series name has disappeared -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1835 -- and it can no longer be edited. I will ask Al, the programmer, to fix the database manually and add an extra check in the software that would prevent this from happening in the future. For now, could you please refrain from editing/adding Star Trek the Next Generation books until the problem has been fixed? Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:46, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

OK, the data has been fixed, but I rejected the submission for now since it was trying to make "The Death of Princes" volume #48 in the STNG series as opposed to volume 44, which is what all the online sources claim. Was that a typo or was there another numbering scheme used somewhere? Also, please note that we currently have a few subseries under the main STNG series: "Numbered", "Unnumbered", etc. It's not a very good breakdown and we will probably change it at some point, but we may want to discuss it over on the Community Portal (see the link on the left under "navigation") before we do anything drastic.
Something else re: John Peel. One of his series, "Diadem", has the same name as the much older series by Jo Clayton. If we let all books in the two series share the same series name, we would end up with a completely messed up series list, so I've changed Peel's series name to "Diadem (John Peel)" for now. Ahasuerus 01:12, 22 Feb 2007 (CST)

The DisContinuity Guide: The Unofficial Doctor Who Companion

Re: "The DisContinuity Guide: The Unofficial Doctor Who Companion", you have submitted a removal of the "Doctor Who Universe" series data from this Title. Is this because this is an "unofficial" guide? Are there more like it? If there are, perhaps, we could have them put into a subseries of their own under the main Doctor Who series? Ahasuerus 19:52, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)

There are a lot of books which are nonfiction and are reference/manuals etc about Dr Who. I was trying to separate this from the novels although they are still really under the "Doctor Who Universe" series. I thought by deleting it from the "Doctor Who Universe" it might have gone to nonfiction. But thinking on it now would it be better having a series called "Reference' under the "Doctor Who Universe" series. --Chris J 20:21, 21 Feb 2007 (CST)
Sure, I will create a subseries and call it "Doctor Who Reference Books". That way users won't get confused when they see a bunch of non-fiction books intermixed with novels. Ahasuerus 00:57, 22 Feb 2007 (CST)

Tony Abbott

I see that you are working on Tony_Abbott and had approved a title change plus conversion into an omnibus for Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet. I'm looking and wondering if that was the right thing to do. I think what happened is that The publication The Secrets of Droom was an omnibus that contained Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet and people had not yet entered the standalone books by that title. I need to run but will take a look when I get back as there are now multiple title records for the omnibus. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:26, 22 Feb 2007 (CST)

I'm back - I took a look and decided to deal with this by

  1. Creating an empty title record for Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet (book 1 of the series)
  2. Adding Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet back as part of the contents for The Secrets of Droom #1 (books 1-3) omnibus
  3. Merging the two The Secrets of Droom #1 (books 1-3) omnibus records.

I'm wondering if we should add a new Tag, "Ages 9-12" and drop all of these book into that. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:22, 22 Feb 2007 (CST)

Yes that seems a like a good idea. I'm tiding up 'Raymond Abrashkin' and his novels are for juvenile readers. I shall follow your lead. --Chris J 19:12, 22 Feb 2007 (CST)

Future Boston

Chris, you have submitted a Title type change for "Future Boston", "ANTHOLOGY" -> "NOVEL". 5 separate Amazon reviews (2 from professional reviewers) describe this book as an anthology of short stories written by 8 different writers. Are you sure you are not confusing this title with "In the Cube: A Novel of Future Boston", a David Alexander Smith novel? Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:17, 23 Feb 2007 (CST)

Sorry about that but you are right they are 2 different books. --Chris J 19:33, 23 Feb 2007 (CST)
No worries, I will reject it then :) Ahasuerus 21:43, 23 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Shadow series

Chris, I am afraid I approved your change from "Shadow" to "Shadows" without doing enough research first :( I should have remembered that Charles L. Grant edited a series of "Shadows" anthologies a while back. Now all the titles from the two series are listed together. Give me a few minutes to sort this out... Ahasuerus 00:43, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

OK, I have split the "Shadows" mess into three separate series: "Shadows (Deborah Chester)", "Shadows (V. C. Andrews)" and just plain "Shadows" for Chrles L. Grant's anthologies. I hope this makes sense! As a general observation, we probably want to be extra careful when changing series names since it's easy to accidentally intrude in unrelated authors' areas. Ahasuerus 00:56, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)
Yes I see what you have done so I will do the same in future. Thanks. --Chris J 01:21, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

Rose/Rosey

I am looking at the submission that attempts to change V. C. Andrews' "Rose" to "Rosey" and I am wondering if I am missing something. There are over a hundred copies of V. C. Andrews' "Rose" on sale at used.addall.com, so it looks like a legitimate title. On the other hand, a search for "Rosey" by V. C. Andrews doesn't find any hits. Was it a typo of some sort, perhaps? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:16, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

I had a bit of trouble trying to merge the 2 titles so I thought I would try and change one of the names then delete. --Chris J 01:29, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)
OK, I think I see what's going on here. The underlying issue is that "V. C. Andrews" died year ago and her byline is now used by Andrew Neiderman. At some point Variant Title records for the pseudonymous titles were created and everything was fine. Then somebody -- possibly somebody who didn't know that "V. C. Andrews" was a pseudonym these days -- changed the Variant Titles for "Andrew Neiderman" to "V. C. Andrews", which caused problems in the database. Let's leave V. C. Andrews alone for now and I will get back to it on Monday and try to fix the relationships. Unfortunately, this is one of the more complex areas in the application and may take me a bit of time. Thanks! Ahasuerus 13:12, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

Forgotten Realms

Chris, you just submitted an edit to change this title from a collection to a novel. The first review here, on Amazon, certainly makes it sound like a collection. Are you looking at a different copy that is presented as a novel? Mike Christie (talk) 15:14, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

Yes you are right it is a collection. Thanks. --Chris J 16:14, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)
OK -- I went ahead and rejected it. Thanks Mike Christie (talk) 16:35, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

Harpers - Series renaming

Chris, when trying to rename a series, you don't have to do it one book at a time. Just click on the Series name, then select "Series Data" on the left and change the Series name. Much easier and less error-prone that way :) Ahasuerus 00:00, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

Forgotten Realms: The Wizards

Chris, you have submitted a Series name change from Forgotten Realms: The Wizards to Forgotten Realms: The The Wizards. Is this, perchance, a typo? Ahasuerus 00:53, 28 Feb 2007 (CST)

Yes it must be a typo as I can't recall why I did it. Sorry.--Chris J 03:40, 28 Feb 2007 (CST)
No problem, all fixed! Ahasuerus 00:17, 1 Mar 2007 (CST)

X-Universe

FYI, I have accidentally approved your submission that changed Darren Astles' Dominion to X-Universe Volume One and then had to restore the title. Please note that Astles' novel is Dominion while the omnibus that it appeared in (along with Steve Miller's Rogues Testament) is X-Universe Volume One. Both are displayed in his bibliography. Confusing, I know :) Ahasuerus 19:08, 1 Mar 2007 (CST)

Chaz Brenchley

Chris, I've accepted all your title changes and gone in and shifted things around a bit to achieve what I think you were trying to do. --Unapersson 16:10, 3 Mar 2007 (CST)

Yes that's excellent. Thanks. --Chris J 02:09, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

A Nomad of the Time Streams

Chris, can you check your Nomad of the Time Streams pub? The date is in as 0199-00-00. Thanks. --Unapersson 16:37, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

Done. --Chris J 22:47, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

Dark Tyrants: A Vampire: The Dark Ages Anthology

Re: Dark Tyrants: A Vampire: The Dark Ages Anthology, I checked the Locus Index and found a couple of discrepancies, including the ISBN ("1-56504-888" vs. "1-56504-888-1" in Locus) and the original publication date (1999-03-00 vs. 1997-00-00 in Locus). Could you please compare what Locus has with your copy and post the results here? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:24, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)

The ISBN is 1-56504-888-1 and the publication date is 1999-03-00 (a reprint)as stated in locus (under Fiction 1999). Amazon have both copies pictured. --Chris J 02:05, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)
Thanks, approved and corrected now :) Ahasuerus 10:31, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)

Isaac Asimov’s Utopia

I've approved the addition of Isaac Asimov’s Utopia but there are a couple of corrections needed.

  1. There is a period at the end of the title. If that's stated in your publication it may be a good idea to add a note explaining that's the way it is and that it's not a copy/paste or data entry error.
  2. You put "0-441-00471-7" in the price field. I suspect you cloned a publication and that 3404242734 is the old ISBN and you intended to overwrite this with "0-441-00471-7" but I it'll be a chance for you to fill in the price. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:56, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)


Sorry about that. All corrections done. --Chris J 13:15, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

Kage Baker, On Company Time

Chris, I've put this on hold because I'm under the impression that it's an omnibus of two previously published novels. Could you check it, please? (Scott Latham 15:36, 9 Mar 2007 (CST))

Yes it is an omnibus of two previously published novels (In the Garden of Iden and Sky Coyote). --Chris J 16:55, 9 Mar 2007 (CST)
Thanks much - I've approved it and added its contents. Please verify that I've got it right. (Scott Latham 18:21, 9 Mar 2007 (CST))
Yes all OK. --Chris J 03:39, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)

Silverhair

I approved the update to MAM1SLVH1999 but one thing I wondered about is the price change from $23 to $24. It's common for publishers to increase the price and to keep the ISBN the same meaning it's possible editions exist at both prices and given the book came out in 1999 and is still active on Amazon I'd suspect it's been sold at several price levels. With that in mind I cloned the publication and added a second record at $23.00. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:28, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)

1999 edition of The Illustrated Man

I have approved this submission, but I was wondering about the price. $3.95 is awfully low for a hardcover published in 1999 :) Could you please doube check it? Thanks! Ahasuerus 14:16, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)

I cloned this copy and must have left the price in by mistake. I have since deleted price as I have no price to add. --Chris J 15:36, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)
Thanks, it looks much better now! :) Ahasuerus 15:45, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)

Highlander Universe

We had a problem with two nested Series with the same name. I had to move some things around, but it looks better now :) Ahasuerus 20:47, 11 Mar 2007 (CST)

Pontypool Changes Everything

Chris, could you please clarify why you entered Pontypool Changes Everything as 1999-00-00 and then added a note about it being "dated 1998"? Wouldn't that make it a 1998 book? Thanks! Ahasuerus 05:55, 12 Mar 2007 (CST)

It is a 1998 novel. I checked on Locus and it said that it had not been seen until 1999. --Chris J 13:38, 12 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Land That Time For--Chris J 13:44, 12 Mar 2007 (CDT)got

Could you please check whether this edition of The Land That Time Forgot is a reprint of the original 1918 novel or whether it contains all 3 novels in the Caspak series as subsequent reprints often did? The fact that it has 428 pages suggests the latter :) Ahasuerus 05:59, 12 Mar 2007 (CST)

I looked up Locus and it stated this edition was a reprint of the McClurg 1924 edition which contained the 3 novels. --Chris J 13:44, 12 Mar 2007 (CDT)

T. Davis Bunn/Thomas Locke

Re: the proposed title additions and pseudonym changes to the 1999 Betany House edition of The Dream Voyagers, could you please clarify whether the book was published as by "T. Davis Bunn" or as by "Thomas Locke"? We will want to enter the data as it appears in the book and then we can set up Variant Title relationships. Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:51, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Locus and WorldCat have it as T. Davis Bunn. A picture on Amazon has it as T. Davis Bunn with in smaller writting under the title 'First published under the pen name of Thomas Locke'. What is written inside I don't know. --Chris J 22:06, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)
OK, I see what's going on. We had the series under the pseudonym that he originally used and there was some confusion with the titles. Since the author is much better known as "Bunn" outside of SF, I had to reverse one Variant Title and create a bunch of new ones. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to delete Pseudonym pointers, so I can't reverse that for now. We'll have to wait for Al to come back and fix it for us. The fun never stops :) Ahasuerus 00:24, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Out of the Dark, Volume Two: Diversions

Quick question: Is the price of this volume $49.50 or $49.95 as indicated in the Locus Index? Ahasuerus 23:00, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)

$49.95. I must be going blind. --Chris J 23:13, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)
No worries! Transcription errors happen all the time -- at least we are not writing prescriptions here :) I have corrected the price and added Lamb's intro, so we should be all set for now. Ahasuerus 23:34, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Hand That Feeds

Re: the proposed change from Shortfiction to Novel, how confident are we that this 64 page paperback's word count is high enough to make it a novel according to our current definitions? Ahasuerus 21:25, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I tried to clone this publication to add 2 reprints and a error message said 'This publication is not in a cloneable state' so I thought if I changed it it might work. --Chris J 23:36, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Ah, I see. It looks like the cloning logic didn't believe that a Novel Publication record could legitimately contain a Shortfiction Title and nothing but. Which does make a certain amount of sense, I suppose. I have changed the Publication Type from Novel to Chapterbook and now it can be cloned and otherwise massaged. Clone away! :) Ahasuerus 00:25, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

A Thousand Words for Stranger

Chris, I see that you have proposed to delete the ISBN (1568656238) from the SFBC edition of Julie E. Czerneda's A Thousand Words for Stranger. Are you sure there is no ISBN stated anywhere in your copy? Have you checked the dust jacket etc? The reason I am asking is that this ISBN is listed by OCLC and 9 different Internet booksellers and they can't be all having the same hallucination unless they are trapped in a Phil Dick novel :) Also, how confident are we that the SFBC edition was printed in 1998 and not in December 1997 as currently stated? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:09, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I found The ISBN to match the Daw edition but not the SFBC and as for the date I got that off WorldCat. --Chris J 23:45, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Was there a DAW hardcover edition? I thought it was an original paperback, which was quickly picked up by SFBC? Here is what the OCLC catalog says: 
A Thousand Words For Stranger 
Czerneda, Julie, 1955-  / Julie E. Czerneda. 
Edition: [Book club ed.]  
Date: c1997. 
Language: English 
Description: 366 p. :—22 cm. 
Publisher: New York, NY : DAW Books, c1997. 
ISBN: 1568656238 0886777690 (pbk.)
OCLC: 37603809
It looks like the first ISBN is for the SFBC edition and the second one for the DAW paperback. Interestingly enough, The Locus Index only mentiones the DAW paperback and not the SFBC (or DAW) hardcover. Ahasuerus 00:35, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

"tp" vs. "pb"

I have noticed that you occasionally use "tp" on books in the $5.99-$6.99 price range, usually from White Wolf. This suggests that you are using the publishing world's definition of a "trade paperback", i.e. a book that is not strippable, but rather returnable to the publisher. "Trade paperbacks" in this sense include some small size paperbacks from White Wolf and certain other publishers. Conversely, there are some oversize paperbacks that are strippable.

Keep in mind that we don't use this convention within the ISFDB, in part because it would probably confuse over 95% of our users who are not familiar with the publishing business. We use physical dimensions to determine whether a book is a pb or a tp. As our Help pages currently state: "tp - Trade paperback. Used for anything significantly larger than a paperback. 7.5" x 5" is a common size, but there exist many variant sizes larger than this, all of these should be simply recorded as "tp"."

It's not a huge deal since it's easy to write a script that finds all supposed tp Publication records published in the 1990s and 2000s where price is under, say, $8.00, but it would be easier not to introduce these issues in the first place :) Ahasuerus 23:30, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Price Changes

Please note that it's been a common publisher practice since 1980 to keep the same ISBN for a book as they increase the price. You had entered publication updates for the following:

  • 53443 Visitors - You changed the price from $5.99 to $4.99 (and the page count from 176 to 163) - You may have a copy at $4.99 but I see that it's available on Amazon for $5.99 and thus both prices are valid. I accepted the update but then cloned it to create the $4.99 copy and edited the original record back to $5.99 so that if someone had deep-linked they will still be pointing at the $5.99 copy.
  • 13787 First Evidence - You changed the price from $22.95 to $23.95. In this case it's a 1999 book that may well have been priced at $22.95 or lower and is currently on Amazon at $23.95. Again I accepted it, cloned the record to create a copy that has what you wanted, and edited the original record back to $22.95.
  • 31248 Sons of Entropy - You changed the price from $6.99 to $5.99. With this one it's not in print (no "new" price from Amazon.com) but Amazon offers a "Look Inside" of the publication and you can see that a $6.99 publication exists. Again I approved the update, cloned it, and edited the original record's price back to $6.99.
  • 15333 Ghost Roads - You changed the price from $6.99 to $5.99. In this case Amazon is has copies at $6.99 and the "Look Inside" confirms this exists and so I approved, cloned, and edited this one too so that there are publication records at both prices.

If you are making updates based on physical copies then please also add to the notes section a comment on the printing # which is usually available via a number line. Also, most newer books to not state the printing date for later editions meaning we use 0000-00-00 for those. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:25, 22 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Future Crimes

I see you're trying to update the title on this one to "Future Crimes (Greenberg)", is there a reason for that? I won't reject it because there are lots of content editions, but am tempted to go in and revert this change afterwards. --Unapersson 05:26, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

As there were 2 titles with the same name I put the 'Greenberg' for my reference while I was working on it and realized I had sent it and was too late to delete it. Please delete it. Thanks. --Chris J 06:40, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Buffy series numbers

Chris, I see you're deleting some series numbers on Buffy books. I assume you have a plan here, so I'm going to approve these; let me know if this wasn't what you intended to do. Mike Christie (talk) 17:25, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I looked at different sites and the majority didn't show numbers so I thought it best to forget the numbers for now and rely on dates for order.
--Chris J 04:45, 25 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Stonewalkers

I approved the title update to 30930 from Stonewalkers (Mystery and Suspense) to The Stonewalkers but then updated the title to Stonewalkers as the single publication is titled Stonewalkers both in ISFDB and Amazon.com 0440981980. Marc Kupper (talk) 11:58, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

A couple of reminders

Chris, a couple of reminders based on the last batch of submissions.

When entering introductions, you occasionally enter them as type EDITOR as opposed to ESSAY. Also, when entering the contents of an existing collection or anthology, please add the stories after the existing COLLECTION or ANTHOLOGY record in the Contents section. When you replace the pre-existing record with the first story in the collection/anthology, it deletes the main Title record for the collection/anthology and the book no longer appears in the author's bibliography.

I have already corrected the last batch of submissions, so there isn't anything that needs immediate attention, but I just wanted to raise these issues for future reference. Thanks for all the work on the database! :) Ahasuerus 03:42, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

New collection publications

Chris, I've put a few of these on hold as there are previous publications that list all the contents of the collections. Would it not be easier to clone one of these and fix the publication details rather than create a new publication then manually add/merge the contents? --Unapersson 04:42, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Yes it would be much easier as I have done it before. I don't know why I didn't do it in the first place. If you could reject them I will do them again. Thanks. --Chris J 17:49, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I rejected two and accidentally approved the other (itchy trigger finger), which I guess you can remove as a duplicate once you've cloned the one with contents. --Unapersson 19:17, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Doctor Who again

Seeing as I'm on holiday, I finally dragged out my copies (well, most of them) and had a good editing session. I think I've figured out the Universal-Tandem, Tandem and Wyndham differences, but I think I'll have another run-through as some of the dates and art-credits were far more accurate than I could tell from the actual pubs. :-/ Anyway, I stepped on your verifications in a few places so I thought I'd point them out and let you scold me if I'm doing something wrong;-)

I added interior art to Terror of The Autons but if you know the back-cover artist please add it. And I see you verified the previous year's publication - was it really a page shorter?

My Day of The Daleks has artwork too, does yours? Ditto with The Sea-Devils, The Green Death, The Cave-Monsters, The Abominable Snowmen, The Doomsday Weapon and the Curse of Peladon.

Oh, and my Day of The Daleks had a significantly different page-count too, can you check that?

"Zarbi", "Crusaders" and "Daleks" all had artwork too, which I think is carried forward from the 1964/1965 Frederick Muller printings, but we don't have those yet and I'm going to do some more research.

Apart from that - good work! (I'm sure someone will point out that all the "and The" titles should actually be "and the" but as all the searches are case-insensitive I've never worried about it too much. ;-) )

BLongley 16:31, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I'm on holiday next week so I will check these copies out and fix any mistakes and add anything if I can. I had just started using the database when I did Dr Who so I was a bit green so all help and comments are welcome.
If I find out who did the back covers do I put it under notes?
With the titles on the front page and inside most are "and The" and not "and the" so shouldn't I use what is on the cover.
Let me please know if you find any more mistakes or further info about Dr Who books. Thanks. --Chris J 15:39, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)
For back covers, use an INTERIORART entry with a page number of 'bc'. (Inside front cover and inside back cover and other special cases are less intuitive, see EditPub help text.)
As for titles, NewNovel help text explains "regularization" - Case. Titles should have case regularized unless there is some specific evidence that the author intended certain letters to be in a specific case. For example, if the title is "EXTRO" in all caps, the title should be entered as "Extro". This applies to the titles of short stories as well as books. Typesetting style is not important; for example, Fantastic Universe typically printed story titles in lower case, but these titles are regularized for the ISFDB. Regularized case means that the first word is capitalized, and all later words are also capitalized except for "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". Hyphenated words have the first letter after the hyphen capitalized.
I'm not bothered enough to go fix all the ones there, but usually do 'correct' them when I'm working on a title or publication for another reason. BLongley 06:05, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Clive Barker's Books of Blood

Re: the proposed change to Clive Barker's Books of Blood (1987) that would turn it into Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Vols. I-III, are we sure that the current titles doesn't exist? The Locus Index seems to suggest that there have been reprints that that were entitled simply Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Or am I reading it wrong? Ahasuerus 02:42, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Some book sites have the books down as Clive Barker's Books of Blood while other sites have the same books down as Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Vols. I-III (even some of the libraries differ) and as there are no cover photos to read the correct titles my idea was to lump them altogether till someone can verify them. Under "Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Vols. I-III" now there are 4 different publication names. It might be best if you reject the change until someone can sort out the correct titles. --Chris J 04:34, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Two pubs under "Clive Barker's Books of Blood" look completely invalid, they've got 999 ISBNs. The other has the cover image for "Books of Blood: 2" but wrong for a 1988 publication of it and missing lots of data. I'd say delete all three as none of them look right to me. --Unapersson 07:50, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I have deleted the 999s and found some data re: the 1988 Publication. Apparently the latter was a "Warner UK" edition of "Book 2" only which was reprinted again in 1993. Also, there is at least one omnibus edition of all 6 "Books of Blood", but the one that I found in OCLC and the Locus Index was published in 2001. I have moved things around and rejected the original submission, so we should be in better shape now. Ahasuerus 17:12, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I'd thought an omnibus might exist somewhere. I don't think anything is right about the 1988 edition of this one though. I have got the 1989 Sphere edition which was printed in 1988. Warner probably did do a reprint, but it would have been later than 1988, I did think Warner Books would have been used as the publisher name until about 1991. I probably do have some of those reprints stashed away so I will look for them. I've seen this problem a few times with data imported from Amazon. Where a name the publisher used later (possibly because of being taken over) is stamped on a much earlier book, i.e. 1980s HarperCollins books for Granada or Grafton. I'm going to make a note on the community portal about this. --Unapersson 02:54, 15 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Ah, so that's what that "reprinted in 1993" business was all about! Thanks, I will update the Publication date accordingly. Ahasuerus 12:43, 15 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost by John Bellairs

Your submission of this title indicated Penguin/Puffin as the publisher. OCLC shows the ISBN you provided was the same title but published by Bantam Skylark in 1986. They show Penguin published this title in 1997 with the ISBN as 0140380434. Can you please double check if you're entering from the book itself? Thanks! Mhhutchins 20:32, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Penguin/Puffin (1997) ISBN should be 0-14-038043-4. I forgot to change the ISBN when I cloned the copy. --Chris J 22:43, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Galloping Galaxies!

Chris, do you have the ISBN for this one. The price has come through twice (in price and ISBN fields). I can then tweak it after accepting the submission. --Unapersson 14:40, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sorry about that. ISBN is 0-426-20296-1. --Chris J 15:30, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)
No problem, Chris. That's tweaked. --Unapersson 16:09, 22 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Submission #5,000

Congratulations on your 5,000th submission and thanks for all the hard work! :) Ahasuerus 17:16, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Hiding Game by Jane Brindle

Can you please double-check the number of pages in this publication? OCLC states the book has 320 pages. They've been wrong, but I just wanted to make sure. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:36, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

As I do not have a copy of this edition I got most of the data from Locus and from The Worcestershire County Council Library per WorldCat. Both state 216 pages. I will let you decide which you think is right. --Chris J 02:36, 22 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I've seen two other sources that indicate 320 pp. and another that states 216. Because of the conflict, and with no verification, I'm accepting the submission and removing any indication of page count. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:37, 22 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Why not add a pub note explaining the conflicting page counts. This would also head off someone down the road being "helpful" in that they see the blank and they fill in the page count from some unknown source. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:32, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Taltos the Assassin

I have approved the submission, but I was wondering how confident we are that Taltos the Assassin was published in 1990 and not in February 1991 as the Locus Index claims? Ahasuerus 09:29, 23 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Yes Locus has it at Feb 1991 but when I checked libraries they state 1990 as well as some book sites. --Chris J 19:34, 23 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Ah, I see. I have checked the 6 British library catalogs that Worldcat links to and they all say 1990, so I have added a note to the record and left it as 1990. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:49, 23 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Yes, it's definitely 1990 - I have a (battered) first edition in front of me. I'll verify it tomorrow, but the pagination needs work - it's more like 239+209+214, but I need to find out if the various Prologues and Introductions are included in other editions. BLongley 16:34, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Verified. I left details of the prologues and introductions out as it's impossible to put page numbers to them in the normal way, and no other pub has them. I'll be keeping the book around if anyone wants them later. BLongley 14:57, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume VII

You want to update publication 19764 and change

  • The date from 1991-00-00 to 1995-00-00
  • The Publisher from Bridge to New Era
  • The page count from 459 to 461
  • The ISBN from 0884046419 to 1870451600
  • The price from $5.95 to £4.99

My question is why you didn't use clone-publication for this? The existing publication record looks quite valid and is on Amazon.com 0884046419 . In fact - the record could be cloned and twice with one copy being for the current $7.99 price. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:47, 25 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Copy cloned to new Era 1995. As for not using the clone-publication before, I slipped up somewhere. --Chris J 17:26, 25 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thank you Chris - I went ahead with rejecting the original submission. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:45, 26 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Merging short fiction titles

Chris, I have approved the last batch of submissions, but I had to go back and restore the "short story" and "novelette" fields for 3 or 4 titles after they were overwritten by the merge. Please keep in mind that some duplicate titles will not have this data on file while others will. Thus, when merging short fiction titles, it is important to try to preserve this information and not let it fall through the cracks. Thanks! :) Ahasuerus 19:04, 4 May 2007 (CDT)

Fantastic Worlds

I have approved Fantastic Worlds, but given the price ($A14.95), I was wondering if it is a "pb" or a "tp"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:43, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

I have looked everywhere and can't find any more info on this book but I would say the price would be for a tp. The price seems right for a 1999 book in this part of the world. I have resent edit in. --Chris J 16:05, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Back of Town Blues and the "Alex Duncan" series

Just a quick check to see if D. G. Compton's "Alex Duncan" series is spelled "Alec Duncan" as OCLC claims? Ahasuerus 12:04, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

It is "Alec Duncan". I have changed. --Chris J 16:12, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Stonewords: A Ghost Story

Chris, you submitted a title update for 30931 but the record no longer exists and may have been merged. The available data is

  • Title: Stonewords: A Ghost Story
  • Series: Stonewords
  • Seriesnum: 1

Those fields are the ones you tried to change and the title record would have had other fields such as the author's name. I suspect, if it's not already done, that you may need to reapply these changes as this submission was lost. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:20, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Done. --Chris J 16:17, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens: Tales to Warp Your Mind

I approved your update to publication 77861 but one concern was the change of the price from $3.99 to $2.95. Amazon.com 0590461621 has a Look Inside where you can see $3.99 on the front cover (sideways on the left side). I'd clone your pub for for the $3.99 edition now but also wanted to ask if your copy credits John Pierard (on the back cover) for interior artwork. If so, we can add the interior artwork and then clone it for $3.99.

Basically, price changes always trigger a hold/research as I've found it common since 1980 for publishers to keep the same ISBN as they increase the price. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:41, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Price was $3.99. so i have sent an edit in with price change and interior artwork by John Pierard. --Chris J 17:17, 14 May 2007 (CDT)
Are we sure that the 1994 edition wasn't $2.95? I can't figure out Scholastic's printing number line (third printing in 1999?) but this appears to be a later printing. As Mark says above, perhaps we shou