User talk:Dcarson

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Welcome!

Hello, Dcarson, 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! Ahasuerus 00:39, 1 Jan 2007 (CST)

Contents

My Collection

In case anyone wants me to verify a physical book a listing of my collection is at http://thecarsonfamily.org/books/sf/

I'm also willing to check if the BSFS library has something that needs verification. They have title, author, type of book and year so you can get a good idea if it's the version that needs checking.

I have Anne Inez McCaffrey 40 Years of Publishing An International Bibliography if someone needs me to check something in it.

Edison's Conquest of Mars

Dcarson, I saw your publication update for Edison's Conquest of Mars but had to think for a while on how to best deal with it. Please keep in mind that a goal of ISFDB is to be able to construct/display bibliographies and other reports from the information in publication and title records.

The issues I saw were:

  • Things like an introduction, foreward, afterward, etc. should be titled “Foreward (Edison's Conquest of Mars)” for example so that someone looking at Robert Godwin’s bibliography for will know what books an introduction, forward and afterward were for.
  • Listing artwork as “untitled” by “uncredited” may be useful in the context of the publication itself but does not add to the bibliography for anyone other than “uncredited.”
  • Template:TitleFields:Title says “Interior art should have the same title as the fiction or essay it is associated with.” You seemed to have titled much of the artwork using the captions or the word “uncredited.”
  • Please read the INTERIORART section of Template:TitleFields:EntryType. In summary, had the artist been known I believe one INTERIORART contents entry (without a a page number) would have been sufficient.

What I did was I took the list of interior illustrations you had entered and put it into the publication’s “notes” field. Marc Kupper 19:00, 8 Jan 2007 (CST)

The Universes of E. E. Smith

Hi hi! Thanks for submitting the details of the Evans/Ellik Concordance! I have made two changes to the submission. The first one was adding HTML line breaks to the Notes field since the software currently doesn't display regular carriage returns well.

The second change was more interesting. I changed the "type" of the Concordance entry from "NONFICTION" to "ESSAY". The reason was that all NONFICTION records are displayed in their authors' Summary Bibliography pages in the NONFICTION section. Thus, if we left the Concordance as it was submitted, there would be two NONFICTION records displayed in Ellik's and Evans' bibliographies, one for The Universes of E. E. Smith and one for Concordance to the Lensman Novels of E. E. Smith. I am not 100% sure if that's how we want to handle this case since, after all, the Concordance is a book length piece. If you think that it would be better to have them both listed, please post on the Community Portal and we can discuss what to do about this interesting case there. Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:30, 10 Jan 2007 (CST)

Steve Jackson (UK)

Hello again! Re: your proposed change to the "Steve Jackson" record, please keep in mind that we have 3 separate records with this Author name: "Steve Jackson", "Steve Jackson (UK)" and "Steve Jackson (US)". If we can establish that the plain vanilla "Steve Jackson" is the same person as "Steve Jackson (UK)", then we will will want to do a merge on these two author records. You can do it by running Advanced Search, selecting the second section from the top ("ISFDB Author Search Form") and then merging two of the displayed records. On the other hand, if we were to just change "Steve Jackson" to "Steve Jackson (UK)", then we would end up with two Author records with identical names and that would cause significant software problems. Also, please keep in mind that the "Legal Name" field should be populated using the "Lastname, Firstname" format. That way we can distiguish middle names from composite last names.

Here is the data that you submitted so that wouldn't be lost:

Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:39, 13 Jan 2007 (CST)

I see that you have submitted a proposed merge of "Steve Jackson" and "Steve Jackson (US)". Reviewing the two respective bibliographies, it looks like the one under "Steve Jackson" may be a work in progress. I note that many Titles do not have Publications associated with them; didn't you delete these Publications as RPG source books a few days ago? If you did, you may want to delete these Titles first before having the two Author records merged. Once the Titles are deleted, it will be easier to see what it is that we are actually merging.

Keep in mind that deleting the last Publication (i.e. edition) for a Title doesn't automatically delete that Title. It's a bit of a pain since it forces editors to submit a Publication Deletion request, wait for the approval and then submit a Title Deletion request, but that's the current compromise between data quality and convenience. Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:09, 17 Jan 2007 (CST)

Ace Double reverse cover images

Hi; I saw you'd entered the reverse cover image for this publication. I changed it so it works as a link; you can see what I did if you edit the notes. Hope that's useful. Mike Christie (talk) 19:08, 14 Jan 2007 (CST)

Minor heads up on price

I just saw a couple of publication's with prices stated as "$.40". I updated these to have "$0.40". --Marc Kupper 02:37, 30 Jan 2007 (CST)

Anne Inez McCaffrey

Hi -- re your submission of the Anne Inez McCaffrey bibliography, it looks to me as if the book would more naturally be NONFICTION with an Afterword by McCaffrey, rather than having all the sections done as individual essays. That's to say, those sections look more like chapters than independent essays, as if this were a COLLECTION. Is there some reason to track these as ESSAYs? Mike Christie (talk) 09:18, 30 Jan 2007 (CST)

Just excessive caution on my part. If I tell you the info you can discard it but if I don't tell you you don't know. The fact that it includes things like unpublished and merchandise is worth noting at least I think. Dana Carson 14:47, 30 Jan 2007 (CST)
Should I edit it down to just the book entry and a comment in the notes? Dana Carson 22:35, 30 Jan 2007 (CST)
Yes, I think that's the best solution. I'll go ahead and reject the current sub -- thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 04:43, 31 Jan 2007 (CST)

GURPS

Hi -- I just posted a note on the community portal about those GURPS books -- I'm pretty sure I've seen GURPS books being deleted in the past, so I asked about it. I know these are specific to sf worlds, so they might qualify, but I think gaming books have historically not been included. I've held the subs till we get an answer. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk)

Related to this is I'm approving the deletes but as I did it I was wondering if you are keeping track of the authors as usually when you follow the co-author threads you'll find that they write mostly non-genre. I guess you are not deleting the title records yet meaning the RPG authors can still be chased down.
Here's an idea - use the new tags thing to tag titles something like xRPG and then when you are ready to whack the titles we'll just hunt down the xRPG and also follow the author trails. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:45, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)

To Do

  • Figure out Dream Makers, are they variant titles or what. The 1987 one seems like it might have all the interviews from the 2 earlier ones.
  • Enter contents of Inside Outer Space
  • add Gurps sourcebooks that are by known authors
  • finish up Groucho Marx books
    • buy the last book so I can enter primary data
  • enter Baen CDs
  • enter the Serviss, Garrett Putman stuff from secondary sources that Gutenberg lists that ISFDB doesn't
  • add more of John Blaine's Rick Brant books
  • add publication data for Tom Swift Jr.s
    • books all entered, start on real author names
  • should Tom Swift Young Inventor series be under Tom Swift?
  • get last Dig Allen book, finish my set and ISFDB data for it
  • separate story Beyond the Farthest Star and fixup novel with it and Tangor Returns
  • add Christine Morgan from http://magelore.com/ and http://christine-morgan.com/
  • add Doc Savages
    • enter the ones I have
    • enter rest from Bantam Doc list
    • verify the ones I own
  • add the Asimov science collections that I have
  • According to the Locus list of Awards (http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit52.html#1963-2002), she edited the anthology, but I can't find any evidence of her involvement elsewhere. Can we send her an e-mail and ask? Ahasuerus 15:01, 21 May 2007 (CDT)
    • OK. I'll do that. Thanks. Dana Carson 16:58, 21 May 2007 (CDT)
  • add Elizabeth Peters "Amelia Peabody" mysteries since they have some fantastic elements and at least one is already in.
  • John Creasey had at least two series that are SF/thriller. Dept. Z and Dr. Palfrey. Only a couple are listed. Add the rest from secondary sources?

Pirate Tarzan

Go to the UMBC special collection and get the info for the unauthorized Tarzans that were mostly destroyed when the publisher was sued.

Are we talking about the 5 Tarzan books by "Barton Werper" (aka Peter T. Scott and Peg O'Neill Scott)? I think I have them all:
  • Tarzan and the Silver Globe (1964)
  • Tarzan and the Cave City (1964)
  • Tarzan and the Snake People (1964)
  • Tarzan and the Abominable Snowman (1965)
  • Tarzan and the Winged Invader (1965)
I can enter/verify them the next time I have access to my collection, which should be some time around March 30. Ahasuerus 14:25, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)
Not sure of the details. I just happened to remember from when I went to UMBC that they had copies of some that most copies were destroyed since they were not authorized. Going to the special collection and putting in the more unusual stuff would be a useful project at some point.
Yup, that sounds like the "Barton Werper" books all right. There was a bit of a dustup over it at the time. And looking up uncommon titles in the UBMC's special collection certainly sounds like a worthy project! Ahasuerus 19:34, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

What is the right pub type for a ebook short story?

I would use NOVEL or CHAPBOOK (called CHAPTERBOOK in ISFDB) for the pub-type type and "www" for the binding as the Project Gutenberg works are not really "eBook"s. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:40, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

Christine Morgan author update

I'm approving this one, but please change the legal name to "Morgan, Christine", since that field always wants LastName, FirstName format, according to the Author Data help screen http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Screen:AuthorData. (Scott Latham 17:24, 7 Mar 2007 (CST))

...and the reason that we want to capture "Lastname, Firstname" is that some folks have names like "Patrick Nielsen Hayden" where you can't readily tell whether the last name is "Hayden" or "Nielsen Hayden" :) Ahasuerus 18:08, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
OK, done. Dana Carson 18:33, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

Seven Conquests

Just a quick FYI that Baen books are occasionally listed by Amazon.com and others as by Pocket because of the way Baen's distribution works. It's usually safe to replace them with Baen-specific records, which is what I have done in this case: ) Ahasuerus 12:04, 12 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Peter F. Hamilton

You were quite right about the Neutronium Alchemist looking wrong. Hamilton's biblio was messed up and I had to rearrange things, hopefully for the better :) Ahasuerus 00:58, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Devil's Point

Just curious why you decided to capitalize the name of this series? Is there an indication that it should be in all capitals? I don't see anything about it in Locus and I can't check my collection at the moment... Ahasuerus 01:24, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I see you've changed it - thanks! :) Ahasuerus 01:49, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I'd just cut and pasted from the author's website. Didn't actually look at it until I was entering another book in the series. User:Dcarson
No worries! Thanks for the correction :) Ahasuerus 01:25, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

John Dalmas - The Puppet Master

I see that you are trying to merge The Puppet Master the novel and The Puppet Master the collection. Wouldn't they be two different animals, though? Currently, the Collection Publication record points to the Collection Title record, the Novel Title record and a few short fiction Titles. That's how we typically handle books that include an eponymous novel plus some short fiction -- not perfect, but it seems to work :) Ahasuerus 01:25, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, I must have gotten confused. Please kill it. Thanks. Dana Carson 02:22, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Dead and buried :) Ahasuerus 09:32, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Law of Survival

I have approved this Publication, but I was wondering if:

(a) David G. Hartwell's "Year's Best Fantasy (Excerpt)" was a short fiction fiction piece or an essay (b) "Sky of Swords: A Tale of the King'd Blades (Excerpt)" was spelled with a "'d" or a "'s" (c) the comma in "Juliet E, McKenna"'s name should be a period.

Ahasuerus 15:40, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Allergy meds, gotta love them. Yep all those needed changing. Fixed. Dana Carson 18:24, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Girl Who Heard Dragons

I have approved The Girl Who Heard Dragons, but I was wondering if "The Greatest Love" (pp. 187-255) was really a short story or a novells as its page count would seem to suggest? Ahasuerus 23:23, 18 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Must have selected the wrong entry. Yes it is as long as it looks. I'll submit an update. Dana Carson 04:15, 19 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, Pratchett

I'm approving your update, but please edit it to use "hc" for hardcover, rather than "hb" for hardback. (Scott Latham 16:04, 22 Mar 2007 (CDT))

Lancelot Biggs

There is a collection and a novel. The novel is an obvious fixup, the events look like they are the stories listed as the contents of the collection. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?39539 How to record it so it doesn't have the Type Mismatch (Pub=NOVEL, should be COLLECTION): The Remarkable Exploits of Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman error but still shows the connection.

Email Wildside and check if it has all the stories from the collection?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dcarson (talk • contribs) . 00:17, 3 Apr 2007

The Novel version would be a different title to use the ISFDB's terminology. From 39539 you would do "Unmerge Titles" of The Remarkable Exploits of Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman. ISFDB will give you a new title record named, I believe, The Remarkable Exploits of Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman of type novel. If it doesn't then you can always edit the new title record plus should add a title note explaining that it seems to be a fixup. Something you may want to mention in the notes is if the publication discloses the underlying story titles at all. Are there chapter names or any other indication of what the stories may be? I'm guessing that's not the case if you need to ask Wildside. It sounds like a project for someone with copies of both the collection and the novel to compare the two and to document what the differences are. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:40, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing here, folks. The original 1950 book was a collection of related stories that had been previously (1939-1943) published in various magazines. The ca. 2000 Wildside edition (I can't find the exact year online) has the same page count as the 1950 edition, so it's likely identical. Whether a collection of related stories (without a significant rewrite) is technically a fixup is not an easy question to answer, but I tend to enter them as a collections because that way we preserve Contents level data.
However, it sounds like Dana was asking about a way to eliminate the "mismatch" warning on the Title page, which can be done by changing the Publication type of the Wildside edition from NOVEL to COLLECTION. Ahasuerus 15:12, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I think it's likely identical also. But it has no table of contents and no chapter headings. The only divisions in the book are numbered chapters. From the titles of the stories in the 1950 book what I've read seems to match. The copyrights are correct also, one for 1950 and a series of dates that match the story dates. But the only reason the text would make you think series of stories is how episodic it is. If the 1950 entry had page numbers it would be interesting to see if breakpoints matched and if the chapters at those points seemed to fit the titles. Dana Carson 21:18, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I have the 1950 edition in my collection, so I can post the page numbers and the first/last sentences of each story when I am back in town. April 28 looks likely at the moment, but it's probably easier to post a request on the Verification requests page. Ahasuerus 21:32, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I have checked what I thought was my first edition, but after consulting Tuck it looks like I have Doubleday's el cheapo 1951 "Young Moderns Science Fiction" hardcover reprint. Here is what I found.
First, the full title on the title page is The Remarkable Exploits of Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman, although it appears as just Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman on the spine and on two separate pages before and after the title page. The Library of Congress Online Catalog and OCLC Fiction Finder show the long form of the title as the primary title and the short form as an alternate title, so I assume that the 1950 first edition used the same long title.
Second, there are no chapter headings in the book, just 27 chapter numbers. Contento lists the original Lancelot Biggs stories as the book's contents, but Tuck mentions that all but 2 stories had been rewritten for book publication.
Third, Contento lists 14 stories, including one "Lancelot Biggs"/"Horse-Sense Hank" crossover, but Tuck states that only 13 stories were used. The Nelson S. Bond site lists 14 stories as well, but I am not sure whether they used primary sources or Contento. I think I have over 50% of the pulp issues that the original stories were published in (I have very few Weird Tales), so in theory I could identify which chapter was based on which story. However, finding the right pulps in the rather messy pulp section of my collection would not be easy and I don't have enough time to do this project justice at the moment. I suspect that Bill Contento used Tuck as the source, so perhaps we could check with him. We could also send an e-mail to "speccoll@marshall.edu", the maintainer of the Bond site, and see if they have a way to cross reference the stories and the collection.
For now, I think it's safe to assume that the 1951 "Young Moderns Science Fiction" reprint and the ca. 2000 Wildside reprint were just clones of the 1950 first edition. We can then zap the variant title in the ISFDB. The rest remains shrouded in mystery... Ahasuerus 22:44, 28 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Alan E. Nourse and Doctor X

The vt was set up to point in the opposite direction, so I deleted it and created a new one. Take a look when you get a chance :) Ahasuerus 03:18, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, the traditional first pseudonym screwup. Thanks. I did the record from the fact that the book was published by Doctor X and it was quite a while before the real name came out. Some of the things he said about how internships ar run might have led to him not finishing his. Dana Carson 05:01, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Fix Stith mistake

Cleanup where I cloned the wrong title for Stith

Done :) Ahasuerus 00:15, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thanks. Dana Carson 00:35, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Myth-Taken Identity

I approved your update for MYTHTKNDNT2004 but the thing that caught my eye was the price change where you changed it from $14.00 to $14.95. Do you think an edition could have existed at $14.00? Amazon.co.uk 1592220304 has a Look Inside that seems to be a hardcover (it has front/end flaps with the same ISBN and is priced at $25.95 (US) but the same Look Inside has a copyright page that says.

  • Hard Cover 1-59222-029-0
  • Soft Cover 1-59222-030-4
  • First MM Publishing Edition September 2004
  • Printed in the USA 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Is your copy a first printing with a "9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" number line? Does your tp edition have front/end flaps? Marc Kupper (talk) 23:09, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

First Edition trade, no end flaps. Number line goes 
Printed in the United States of America 
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
with both ISBNs and First publication date like the hardcover. Maybe $14 was the initial idea for price and it went up by actual printing? The previous one was $14 even. Dana Carson 03:00, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thank you - that makes sense. It is common for the publisher to announce a book and later to release it at a different (and usually always higher) price. I added a publication note about the $14 price and your number line as it's possible review copies were sent out with the $14.00 price and we don't want someone to just overwrite your $14.95 price. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Anvil, Strangers to Paradise

In the notes, you ask about the relationship of Belmont Books to Tower Books: although they began as separate companies, by the mid-'70's they were combined and interchangeable. Although I worked for them for several years, I never did discover the logic they used for branding - sometimes Belmont, sometimes Tower, sometimes Belmont/Tower. It may have been pure whim... (Scott Latham 10:41, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT))

Clearly "Tower" should have been used on books that were supposed to sell better to men and "Belmont" on books that were supposed to sell better to women ;-) Ahasuerus 10:59, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Asimov's essay "Welcome, Stranger!"

You submitted a variant title for a record which, after research, I've determined was incorrectly entered by the original editor. If you will merge the two records, preserving the title with the comma, I'll accept the submission and reject the variant title edit. Thanks! Mhhutchins 16:12, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

OK, done, thanks. Dana Carson 16:17, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
You're quite welcome. By the way, thanks for pointing out that the Asimov essay "Just Mooning Around" wasn't listed among those from his F&SF science column. Searching on Google I discovered that it was published in the May 1963 issue, but it was not recorded in that issue here on ISFDB. I've gone ahead and updated the issue, as well as combined it with the reprinting in Of Time and Space and Other Things. Mhhutchins 16:29, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
Prior to the ISFDB-1-to-ISFDB-2 conversion, our default magazine cataloging mode was to concentrate on fiction, with non-fiction pieces making infrequent appearances. Thus almost any magazine issue that hasn't been marked as Verified is automatically suspect when it comes to non-fiction. We have also been known to miss fiction pieces when cataloging magazines, but that's a whole different headache. Ahasuerus 16:36, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
When I did the F&SF Essay mega-update, I was pleasantly surprised how much WAS actually captured. Of course, there's no guarantee the Essay Series from other Magazines is as complete... My fingers have almost recovered from that now, I may do another soon. Or at least create the Skeleton series hierarchy. BLongley 13:46, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Asimov's Understand Physics books

I am looking at the three Understand Physics submissions from the other day and I am not sure I understand what the Note fields ("publication date for first printing, data from third printing") are saying. It would appear that we would want to have two separate Publications for each one of these three Titles. There would be one Publication record for the first printing, which would have the Publication Date and not much else, and one Publication record for the third printing, which would have 0000-00-00 as the Publication Date and all the other data that you submitted. Is that what you had in mind, perchance? Thanks! Ahasuerus 06:25, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

I agree the notes might be a bit clearer. I would point out the discussion here where Marc and I would prefer that different printings of one edition were gathered together by first publication date, if that's all we have on the later printings. In this case, there seem to be 1988 and 1993 editions to separate, I don't know how many printings they went through. (There's also a 1900 edition, which shows why we shouldn't use Amazon as a reliable source at times!) Still, I doubt we're going to get a lot of versions of this pub here, it's not SF. And someone has to decide if it it's one book published in 3 parts or 3 books occasionally published as an omnibus.... Ah well, enough discontent and rebellion sown for now, I'll leave you two to it! ;-) BLongley 13:43, 10 May 2007 (CDT)
Should have made the note clearer. Yes, afterwards I should clone it and have 2 publications. One with the first printing date and one unknown. And I think that's first publication for that paperback edition, there was a hardback first it looks like. Dana Carson 20:46, 10 May 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I have approved the submissions, have fun with them :) Ahasuerus 22:06, 10 May 2007 (CDT)
re "why we shouldn't use Amazon as a reliable source at times!" FWIW - I believe Amazon is accurate but it contains whatever the publisher or book seller was thinking they would do at the time they uploaded a record to Amazon. ISFDB then grabbed a copy of the record. Amazon is like your friendly credit reporting agency where if you complain they say they are just the messenger. Also, the publishers tend to upload the on-sale-by date and the number of physical pages in a book, and a title plus list of contributors that that believe will sell the book. None of these will correspond with what's in the book. :( Sometimes publishers even change their mind. In June DAW will be releasing a book they first announced for August-2001, changed to August-2006, changed to December-2007, and suddenly released for real today with a June-2007 date. That said, I have been documenting the "trail" of changes in ISFDB notes when I see them so that people will understand why there may be conflicting bits of data about a publication. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:04, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Nevermore

You submitted a title update for 573097 but that record no longer exists? The proposed changes that got lost are

  • Title: Nevermore
  • Year: 2002-01-00
  • TitleType: SHORTFICTION
  • Storylen: ss
  • Authors: Ian R. MacLeod

Note that as the record to be updated is missing the old field values are unknown. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

When I merged it with the original title entry it was only marked as shortfiction. Was making it a shortstory. Dana Carson 17:14, 11 May 2007 (CDT)
Thank you, the current title record, 75737 looks ok and has ss. Marc Kupper (talk) 14:14, 20 May 2007 (CDT)


James White's Double Contact"

Hi, i see that you verified the hc version of this publication http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?19978 , my pb with the same cover lists the artists as John Harris and not Berkey. Could you give your book a second look. Thanks? :-)Kraang 21:29, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

The back flap of the dust jacket says
  • Jacket art by John Berkey
  • Jacket design by Carol Russo Design
nothing in the copyright page about the cover. Dana Carson 04:37, 24 May 2007 (CDT)
Interesting same cover two different artists. So who is the real artist? I'll enter a note in each about the conflict in artists names.Kraang 07:59, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

The Players of Null-A

Quick question: Is this edition a "tp" or a "pb"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:54, 1 Jun 2007 (CDT)

It should have been pb. Cloned it and didn't notice. Update submitted. Dana Carson 00:38, 2 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Approved, thanks! Ahasuerus 00:54, 2 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Demon of the Dark Ones

The image URL you submitted points to a blank, but you said it was the right cover. Were you looking at the Customer Image instead? BLongley 09:09, 2 Jun 2007 (CDT)

I was referring to the data, the one I cloned had the same ISBN as the book I'm looking at but had it as a trade etc. The image was already there and apparently not working. I noticed later that it had the wrong publisher, maybe they were distributed through Ace. I have some updates pending. Dana Carson 01:14, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)
OK, your notes made me think that you were talking about the image rather than the pub. If I see that an Image link doesn't work, I see if I can find a replacement, otherwise I delete it - sure, it might start working eventually, but then there's no guarantee it will be for the same pub, and I don't want to be blamed for it! BLongley 16:52, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)
It seems you have several submissions on hold, though I can't see any questions to you as to why. :-/ I presume the later ones are due to the publisher change, which would be fine by me if you entered the originals and want to correct them. Feel free to nudge the appropriate Mods into activity... 
577933 	ON HOLD (JVjr) 	TitleUpdate 	2007-05-11 03:13:10 	Dcarson 	Aye, and Gomorrah
618577 	ON HOLD (Ahasuerus) 	PubUpdate 	2007-06-02 20:43:08 	Dcarson 	Demon of the Dark Ones
618581 	ON HOLD (Ahasuerus) 	PubUpdate 	2007-06-02 20:44:07 	Dcarson 	In the Shadow of Omizantrim
618585 	ON HOLD (Ahasuerus) 	PubUpdate 	2007-06-02 20:45:16 	Dcarson 	The Fallen Ones

BLongley 16:52, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I should have left Dana a message earlier, but I was trying to squeeze as many verifications in as possible while I still had access to my collection. I will run a couple of WorldCat searches to see if the "Ace" editions ever existed and then approve the submissions. Ahasuerus 22:56, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)
The physical copiy I have say Playboy and is a first printing. When I entered them in the program I use (Bookpedia) and it checked Amazon it got Ace also. Dana Carson 01:23, 4 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, all submissions have been approved now. The catch was that we had a few erroneous "composite" Publications, which had data elements from both editions, but they are gone now. Could you please check if the Playboy edition of Volume 6 has 221 or 224 pages? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:32, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Last page with story is 221.Dana Carson 06:38, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Titan - interiorart

I approved your update to pub 181541 but changed the title of the interior art credit from "illustrations" to "Titan" (the story title). Sometimes when it's a specific illustration, such as the frontispiece, I'll make the title something like "Titan (frontispiece)" and the title type is INTERIORART. I'll do the same if the role is something that's not straight illustration, for example, "Titan (photographer)". Marc Kupper (talk) 16:02, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)

OK. There are several illustrations in the book(s) so I didn't give a page number or specific title. Dana Carson 17:05, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Around the World in Eighty Days

I noticed you added publication 195821 under the title Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. These should go under the existing variant title 155531 which is Around the World in Eighty Days. I've often found the safest way to make sure a new publication gets filed under the right title is to pick up an existing title, check that the parent reference is correct (that it says Around the World in Eighty Days for example) and then to clone that. I went ahead with cleaning up Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours to have both the Around the World in Eighty Days and Around the World in 80 Days publications filed under the correct title. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:43, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. I was going to check if I should do that but didn't worry for that entry since if they should be filed per title it would need a cleanup pass anyway. You'll see another variant in the queue also. Dana Carson 17:07, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Upgrading the Wiki

Answered on my Talk page. Ahasuerus 02:24, 17 Jun 2007 (CDT)

H. Irving Hancock

It would appear that you have submitted The Invasion of the United States or Uncle Sam’s Boys at the Capture of Boston twice. I approved the first submission and then entered the other three books in the series. I am not sure what to do with the second submission since it seems to be exactly the same as the first one. Could you please check the approved Publication and see if there is anything that needs to be changed and whether I should reject the duplicate submission? Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:03, 20 Jun 2007 (CDT)

P.S. Oh, and a quick reminder that the code for hardcovers is "hc", not "hb" :) Ahasuerus 00:49, 21 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Looks fine. I didn't think I entered it twice. Sorry, mind like a steel trap, rusty. It's an interesting alternate history/proto techno thriller. Dana Carson 04:04, 21 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I have zapped the second submission, so we should be OK now. As far as "future war" stories go, they were so popular in the UK early in the XXth century that Wodehouse parodied them in 1909. There was a similar fad in the US during the first 2.5 years of WWI (for obvious reasons), so Wodehouse rewrote the novel to move the action to the US and had it published again in 1915 :) Ahasuerus 12:48, 21 Jun 2007 (CDT)

The Moon Men

Dana, just to let you know that I have approved the The Moon Men submission and changed the title of Roy Krenkel Jr.'s contribution from "illustration" to "The Moon Men". ERB's Moon trilogy has a notoriously convoluted history and, to make matters worse, we currently have variously named publications lumped together under the same Title record. We also have collections marked as novels and vice versa - it's a mess :-( I will try to sort it out later, but I won't have access to Tuck (who has a nice writeup) until a month from now. Ahasuerus 14:42, 30 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. Beyond Thirty aka Lost Continent looks like it needs fixing also. I'll see if I can figure out some of it. It only shows as a short story despite having several standalone publications. Would making the title record a serial fix that?
Actually Burroughs overall looks like it needs a going over. Maybe I should make a shot at it using the online biblios of his works. Dana Carson 23:26, 30 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Tarzan and the Lost Safari

I accepted this submission, but changed the author credit to "Anonymous". Research shows that it was ghostwritten by Frank Castle, and I made a note of that. Mhhutchins

Tarzan and the Castaways

You added a new publication of this title. Because there was a pre-existing pub with contents, you could have saved time by cloning the original pub. That way you don't have to merge the new records of the contents that were created when this one was accepted. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:39, 1 Jul 2007 (CDT)

ebooks and ezines

You are the only one who responded as a significant user of ebooks and ezines. This has been a somewhat contentious subject matter but I think there are some that should be entered. I haven't had anyone with practical knowledge of this area to bounce ideas off of. If you are interested perhaps we can make sure that we are a significant part of the discussion. My initial inclination is to include only publications thar are 1) Not available in print format, 2) Not encrypted, 3) Downloadable in a universal format (i.e. PDF), 4) Available from a recognized professional science fiction publisher or from designated third parties (i.e. fictionwise). Web-based publications are obviously out because of their volatile nature. If my ideas sound good to you let me know and let me know if you have any other ideas. If we can come up with some conservative guideline and there is still no positive interest from the general community this is a subject matter I probably will not pursue. My main focus in The ISFDB is 50's magazines and that is where I would like to spend most of my time. You can respond on your talk page. I will put a watch on it until the discussion is over.--swfritter 17:44, 11 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Generally agree with your points. I'd like to have entries for etext versions of published works like the Baen and others offered through webscriptions.com. The point that one of the Baen Universe people brought up of having an ISSN number is good, some kind of stable reference not just a personal setup. Commercial sites like webscriptions, fictionwise and stable third party things like Gutenberg. Definitely not all the sites that reformat Gutenberg stuff or sites with unauthorized versions of copyrighted stuff.
Entering the data for all the Baen CDs is on my to do list but I haven't gotten to it.Dana Carson 02:51, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Actually, Al added software support for e-books and audio books some time last year. If you search our MySQL archive, you will find a number of records with "Adobe Acrobat", "Microsoft reader", "audio CD" and other established formats entered in the "binding" field. It seemed to make sense at the time for a number of reasons, including growing acceptance throughout the industry, e.g. the addition of ISBNs as well as adoption by OCLC, the Library of Congress, Amazon, etc. The fact that many out of print stories are now available in some kind of electronic format was a strong argument as well. Our Policy page was out of date and didn't mention this change, so I went ahead and updated it a few minutes ago.
What the Baen folks are suggesting over on the Policy Talk page is that their Web-based zine is permanent enough to address the biggest argument against the inclusion of Web publications. I think they have a good point, we just need to find a way to change our Policy that would exclude their more mutable brethren in the Web-land. ISSNs (or lack thereof) are probably the most reliable/obvious divide. Ahasuerus 03:36, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
My suggestions were very conservative on purpose; designed to implement electronic media additions on a gradual basis. But since it now seems that that alternative media is going to be included (I listen to audio books, too) we can now have a dialog on the policies. The reason I suggested non-encrypted (i.e. non-DRM) cross-platform PDF editions is that they will have the longest shelf-life. A number of formats, like those for PDAs, will no longer be readable when the hardware they are designed for is obsolete. Encrypted formats have an even shorter shelf life. Once the encryption keys are lost the documents are unreadable. I might also note that many ebooks are available in as many as ten different formats. Should each of these formats be treated as a different edition? I hope I am not starting to sound like Mr. Negativity now but at least I am starting from the assumption that electronic media should be included, it's just a matter of policies. I would suggest that only Moderators be allowed to enter electronic media for a trial period so we can work on the policies. I suppose we need to find a neutral site for this discussion. Perhaps even a dedicated page.--swfritter 09:01, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Well, it's true that encrypted formats will be harder to read a few years/decades down the road, but on the other hand, maintaining a list of formats that we want to include versus a list of formats that we want to exclude will add a fair amount of complexity to the rules. I am not sure that the number of additional non-paper Publication records will be high enough to justify the additional complexity. For example, OCLC lists 4,680 Publications for Isaac Asimov. Of that number, 4,166 are books, 278 are sound recordings, 134 are visuals, 48 are files and 15 are internet resources. There are more recent authors where the ratio of non-book records to books records is higher, but I suspect that it's still low enough to allow us to include all ISBN'd e-books. Ahasuerus 13:48, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Apologies if this sounds like a spelling or grammar flame, but are you using "i.e." and "e.g." the way I do? I suspect not, as "fictionwise" looks like an example, but then again "non-encrypted" and "non-DRM" could be meant as synonymous. But I keep reading this as that PDF is the ONLY electronic format we'd want to support, whereas I'm sure a plain ".TXT" file is OK, and XML isn't likely to die out totally, being based on plain-text.... aw, now I'm overlapping with Ahasuerus's concerns... BLongley 15:30, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
In the meantime, can I grumble about the "Adobe Acrobat" category? I presume that's a PDF file, and you DON'T need Adobe Acrobat to read those - e.g. my phone uses Clearvue software to read them. It credits Adobe copyrights though, so I'm not sure PDF fits with the "Creative Commons" work we're doing... but that's a different discussion really. BLongley 15:30, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
And I have a grumble about the "audio" category too. We should insist on knowing whether it's cassette/CD/DVD/MP3/etc at least, the cassette and CD versions often differ massively in content. And we probably want to record the number of cassettes and/or CDs to give us some chance of deciding whether it's abridged or not. I think the "cassette" format is going to become obsolete faster than, say, a "Microsoft Word document" will be. Actually, I think I'll go check on some of my early UK CD-based SF magazines... that'll add a new twist, maybe. BLongley 15:30, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
I'm perfectly happy with a policy that allows entry of multiple formats as different editions and also encrypted DRM (pretty much synonymous, yes) versions. I just want to make sure that everyone knows these are considerations. I don't think there will be a major flood of entries at first. There will be time to make any necessary adjustments. Perhaps I should have just used the term "cross-platform formats" instead of PDF, but if we allow all formats it's really a moot point. Hey Dana, are you tired of us hogging your talk page? If you want I can move this over to my talk page since I'm the instigator of this discussion.--swfritter 17:41, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Actually your arguments sound like my original point of view. There are a number of people who seem to be resistant to the entire concept of electronic publications being entered into The ISFDB and I was looking for a conservative approach that others could buy into. Please direct comments back to my talk page. I was only trying to get some feedback from Dana who was the only person who responded to my query for people who were familiar with ebooks. I had no intent of placing Dana in the middle of a discussion. Such foolish acts should be strictly voluntary.--swfritter 19:35, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
No problem with the discussion being here. I personally don't like DRM formats but if we are cataloging etext publications we should catalog them. Exact format for a work is as important as hardcover vs paperback or more so. What I read personally is usually HTML, plaintext or Palm. I have software to convert plaintext to Palm and vice versa. Baen is one of the best for that, they have everything is 5 formats. Dana Carson 00:18, 13 Jul 2007 (CDT)
I read mostly Palm and purchase most of my books from Fictionwise. I prefer Mobipocket but also buy Ereader if the books is only available in that format. Because of the way the early Fictionwise contracts were written with some of the publishers a number of my encrypted books apparently had a time-limit and were removed from my library. There were a couple of books I never got to read. That is not a problem anymore. Most of my public domain material comes from manybooks.net because they have Creative Commons and Gutenberg texts in about ten different formats. I used to download from Blackmask before they got nailed by Street and Smith for offering still copyrighted Shadow and Doc Savage novels. It took a while to get used to reading on a palm device but find my hi-resolution Palm T/X more than acceptable. Sure reduces the need for bookshelfs.--swfritter 11:43, 13 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Bujold's Dreamweaver's Dilemma

I accepted your updated submission for this collection but removed your addition of Suford Lewis in the AUTHOR field. ISFDB only credits the author in a single-author collection, not the editor. I added a note giving credit to Lewis as the book's editor. Thanks. Mhhutchins 12:23, 1 Aug 2007 (CDT)

She wrote several factual articles on the story universe that are in the book. Thought that should be considered an author credit. Dana Carson 13:59, 1 Aug 2007 (CDT)
If Lewis is given credit on the book's title page as "by Lois McMaster Bujold and Suford Lewis" then she would be given credit in the AUTHOR2 field. But if it says "edited by", "with notes by", "introduced by", "with an afterword by", etc., then there is no credit given accept for those pieces in which she is given title page credit. This is basically a single-author collection which was edited by someone else. I'd bet that 90% of single-author collections have editors, but very few are given credit unless the author is deceased. And even then, the ISFDB doesn't give the editor credit in the author fields. Mhhutchins 16:02, 1 Aug 2007 (CDT)
A few years ago some publishers (e.g. Tor) began printing novel/collection editors' names on the copyright page. A couple of ISFDB contributors have suggested that we may want to have a special field for editors, but nothing has come out of it yet. In the long run we may want to use the MARC-21 approach, i.e. have "roles" for any people associated with a Publication: "author", "editor", "translator", etc, but that would require a major redesign. One of these days, perhaps... Ahasuerus 18:13, 1 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Anderson's The Byworlder

I approved your update of this publication, but question the page given for the Niven/Pournelle/Barnes story. Can you verify and submit a correction. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:25, 10 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Yep, typo, fixed. Thanks. Dana Carson 00:59, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

The Devil & Dan Cooley

Just a heads up that I added coverart to your verified pub, if you wish to check it. BLongley 15:20, 18 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Looks right. Thanks. Dana Carson 00:59, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Unmerge of Poul Anderson's The People of the Wind

Which title did you wish to unmerge? No pub showed up in your submission. Mhhutchins 18:58, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I checked out the title record and saw there was one pub with a variant title. I'm not sure if this is a true variant or a mis-entry. Locus1 shows the title is The People of the Wind but it could be wrong. Do you have a copy of the pub in order to verify the variant title? Mhhutchins 19:03, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I approved this submisssion this morning. Amazon lists the title as People of the Wind and most of the sellers on Abebooks also list it this way. The only thing I didn't find was an image.Kraang 19:18, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
The Baen edition has People of the Wind, cover, spine and title page. I really need to gat a scanner working. Dana Carson 19:42, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Sounds good enough for me. I'll have to reject your original submission, because it didn't include a pub. Try another unmerge and be sure to check the Baen pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:19, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Your second attempt to unmerge came through the same as the first. Thought I'd take a chance and approve it, but it didn't do anything. Then I realized that the Baen title is already unmerged from the original title as a variant. Go to this variant title and you'll see that the Baen pub is already listed under the correct title. Hope this clears up the matter. Mhhutchins 20:43, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I also created the variant this morning. Sorry about not mentioning it earlier, minds on other things. The medal markets are volatile, currencies are fluctuating, exciting time in my trade.Kraang 21:02, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
No, I should have first checked to make that the pub in question had its own reference title, and wasn't sharing the reference title from which the editor wanted it unmerged (I think that makes sense, but it is getting late and I've been sitting here for way too long!) Anyway, it's straightened out now. Mhhutchins 22:08, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Well almost fixed. I merged the two empty title records with the existing title record. Now its fixed. I hope!Kraang 22:47, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Captain Empirical/Series

Dana I had to add the collection into the series because without a novel length book the series will not appear on the author summary page. The series is still there with the Shortfiction but just not on the summary page. As for this being more a novel than a collection, if the stories can be separated out with there own chapter titles than it would probably be best to leave it described as a collection. Your note about the linking material between chapters is the best way to approach the issue of novel verses collection.Kraang 21:44, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Chapter 1 The Q-Pod Tape Begins starts on pg 1, chapter 2 Meanwhile, Back in Operations on pg 9, then on pg 19 there is a large ellipsis and The Fourth-Stage Polygraph and the page heading changes to that from Meanwhile, Back in Operations which is the chapter name. Then on pg 43 chapter 3 starts. I swear that writers and editors do things like this just to mess with us. Similar with the rest of the stories, a chapter and part of another set in the briefing and than the next story. Dana Carson 00:36, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Actually, Silverberg has stated that he reshuffled the content of Needle in a Timestack in 1985 to confuse bibliographers. He now says that he underestimated them :) Ahasuerus 12:23, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)
1985? His usual reference site says 1979, as does this one. Still, mine is the 1967 Sphere edition, so if someone can please verify a later one I'll know to go buy a newer copy... and if he did do a THIRD shuffle in 1985, I'm particularly interested in that too. BLongley 16:58, 15 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Oops, my bad, it's 1979 according to my master catalog. 1985 comes from an unverified ISFDB publication, which confused me for a few minutes. I have both editions in my collection and should be able to Verify them on October 6. Ahasuerus 19:10, 15 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Ta muchly! I updated our later pub from the online Locus (can't let us Bibliographers get dissed without SOME response!) but of course can't verify that one. BLongley 19:34, 15 Sep 2007 (CDT)
But I might have all the stories anyway... one tool I would like and might have to create is an "I have these collections/anthologies, do I need to buy this one too for a story by Author X?" I presume when I'm buying the "Complete Short Stories of Philip K. Dick" in five volumes (do I get a refund if I find a missing one?), I can discard a few others, but I know I have completely redundant John Varley titles for instance (identical contents, different titles) and Bradbury collections that overlap several times over. Even though my cleaner has reshuffled and found room for one more bookcase, I have three double-stacked ones still and removing unnecessary pubs is still needed. (Or a lottery win.) BLongley 19:34, 15 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Story in The Trouble with Humans

You verified this pub so I hope you have it handy. When it was first published in Fantastic December 1964 the title had an exclamation point as it appeared on the title page (but not on the table of contents). It probably doesn't have one in the collection but if the book is handy I would appreciate it if you could double check. You can answer on your page. Thanks! or perhaps Thanks (without an exclamation point).--swfritter 12:55, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Just noticed that you did it yesterday so it probably is handy. Did you not put the original dates for the stories because they are not listed or because you intended to update them when you do a merge of the individual titles?--swfritter 13:39, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

No exclamation point anywhere. I usually do dates when I do merges since that fixes most of them. Dana Carson 16:38, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I will go ahead and do the one story as a variant title. Kind of a weird coincidence that you would add such an obscure story one day and I would edit and update the magazine it appeared in the next day.--swfritter 17:10, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Draco's Tavern

At this time, once a series has been assigned to a superseries, there is no way to make it a standalone series again, so your attempt to move "Draco's Tavern" from under "Tales of Known Space" didn't work. The only (and admittedly imperfect) way around it is to create a dummy superseries, e.g. "Draco's Tavern Universe" and move the series to it. Hopefully, this will be one of many Series problems that Al will fix once he gets to that bug list. Ahasuerus 22:19, 20 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The Moons of Jupiter

Is the first printing date May 1872?[1]:-)Kraang 23:52, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Asimov was a man ahead of his time :-). Fixed Dana Carson 02:37, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Moderator?

Dana, you have been an active editor since January and there have been very few problems with your submissions the last few months. You also contribute to the Wiki and communicate well. Do you think you are ready to become a moderator? That way you would be able to approve your own submissions, which tends to speed things up considerably and also helps alleviate the load on other moderators. If you have some free time, you could also work on other editors' submissions, but there are no "expectations", much less "quotas". If you think that you are ready, let me know and I will nominate you over on the Community Portal. Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:07, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)

OK. I think I've learned enough to not do any damage I can't fix. Thanks. Dana Carson 21:07, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Excellent, I will get the ball rolling :) Ahasuerus 21:23, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Congratulations, you are now a moderator! :) Ahasuerus 17:10, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Commiserations, you are now a moderator! :) (It's not that bad really - just don't let the power go to your head, read the advice, and you'll be fine.) BLongley 17:30, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)

(Unindent) I just realised the Link from the Moderator screen to its Help is broken - use this instead, if you haven't spotted that already. I don't know when the "tamu.edu" problem will be fixed, but for now, always try changing the "tamu.edu" to "org" when a link seems broken. BLongley 16:23, 2 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Asprin's "The Cold Cash War"

I see that you would like to change the publication date of the second printing of the September 1992 edition from 0000-00-00 to 1992-09-00. Do you think that the second printing appeared the same month as the first printing? Or are you following the proposed convention that would assign the date of the first printing to all subsequent printings whose date we don't know? Ahasuerus 06:00, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Using the first printing plus printing number as that to me gives more data than lots of unknowns. Given the fact that its the same price it was probably not much after the first printing. Dana Carson 17:11, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Oh, you were using the convention proposed back in July!. But wouldn't you then want to use 1992-09-02 instead of just 1992-09-00? Ahasuerus 18:09, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Doh, Right forgot the date as version number bit. Ideally we can add a printing number field at some point. Dana Carson 04:09, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I hope we will too, although I've already got many examples of why that STILL won't be a final solution. :-S
But I do like the "First Printing Date" + "Printing Number" when that's all we have on the book, and notes to explain the convention we're using on that pub. I can live with abusing the Day part of the date if that's explained in the notes, it does make things sort well: but doesn't help when I have printing 32 or higher. (I think my highest is 48 so far.) I've still got to go and research publishers a bit more before we can come up with the next "Final Solution" (that won't be, but should be an improvement) as I've already today, for instance, pointed out that a Methuen paperback is the second printing of a Magnum paperback that Amazon actually now credit to Millennium... BLongley 17:30, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)
No problem, I have approved the submission and corrected the date. As far as the underlying issue goes, we will definitely want to add a "printing number" field to the database sooner rather than later, although the exact details are still unclear. Unfortunately, as long as we don't have it, we end up with what appear to be duplicate Publication records on the Title page. Ahasuerus 20:11, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

SFBC edition of The Foundation Trilogy

I'm not sure if you added this edition or just updated it, but the number of pages didn't show up fully, since the field can only contain a limited number of characters. Can you think of a way around this? The record for the original SFBC edition shows just the page numbers (227+227+225). And to be honest with you, I don't see the necessity of adding another SFBC edition. I'm one of the few here who don't feel the need to include every printing of a book, unless there's a change in ISBN, price or cover artist. But I'm probably in the minority. :) Mhhutchins 22:13, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I'll see what I can do. Maybe remove the viis and just have it in the notes. The problem with the SFBC editions is its hard to figure out if they are different since the books don't have things like prices on them. If I remember correctly thats one of the ones I got as part of my 3 books for a dime when you join back when I was in jr. high. Got it signed a couple of years later when Asimov did a lecture at one of the local universities. Dana Carson 23:07, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I see you made the gutter number the catalog ID#. I don't think it's been set in stone, but for SFBC (Doubleday) editions you should use the number printed on the back inside flap for pre-1980s editions. For later editions it's on the back of the dustcover. Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:02, 26 Sep 2007 (CDT)
I double chacked. No number anywhere. Looks like old enough SFBC only have gutter numbers. Th 1963 SFBC edition apparently didn't have a number either, at least whoever entered it didn't list one. Dana Carson 19:21, 26 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Taking another Asprin

I see you've been working on some of his titles, do you have an opinion on this?

I'm not sure that his latest books use the middle name. In fact, the last two books that you (Dcarson) updated, Myth-lon Improbable and Something Myth Inc. were published as by Robert Asprin not Robert Lynn Asprin. Can you double check to make sure we're getting the right credits on these. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:17, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Should have though to put it in a note. The covers have Robert Asprin, the title pages inside have Robert Lynn Asprin. At least for the Meisha Merlin editions that I have. I am making the assumption that the hardcovers are identical to the trades, MM released them together and the copyright pages have both ISBNs. Dana Carson 21:57, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Can you check Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn too please? On my UK editions of the series, his short story credits vary between having a Lynn and not, and may have them on the short story even if he doesn't have them on the cover. Also, can you check whether the introduction is actually an Essay or (uncredited, but probably Asprin) shortfiction?
Finally, if you have other titles in the series, can you check if the Editor's notes are the same across them? (They refer to inconsistencies, but seem to be consistent in the two different titles I've checked so far! ;-/ ) BLongley 14:45, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Robert Lynn Asprin on both the story and the title page. The Intro is a fictional bit. Will update. The editor's note in Thieves' World and Vulgar Unicorn seem the same, the one in Storm Season is different. Thieves' World has Robert Asprin on both the title page and the short story. Storm Season has the full name on both. Dana Carson 16:00, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Thanks for checking! I've just acquired a few more copies of some titles in the series and I can see why I left them out of my first and second passes of checking: you really need to understand variant authors, Title over Copyright page, Spine and Cover credits etc, before you tackle these. :-( (It's even worse for the UK editors: I have to adjust "Epilog" to "Epilogue" and suchlike.) BLongley 16:14, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)
Just an FYI that I massaged most of Asprin's Titles and some of his first edition Publication records about a year ago. The data was based on Reginald, so it may not reflect subtle difference in attribution. Ahasuerus 16:27, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Advent:Publishers, Inc.

Info on them is at efanzines/EK 1, efanzines/EK 6 and Nesfa order form.

Young Rissa

Sorry about the approval, i got you confused with Dsorgen.Kraang 18:43, 14 Oct 2007 (CDT)

No problem. That's a convoluted series with the different ways they're bundled. Dana Carson 14:29, 15 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Saturnalia

Removed the middle initial (D.) from Saturnalia since I can't find it anywhere on my copy. Dana Carson 05:11, 18 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Project Jove / The Hunters of Jundagai

Your copy had a broken Amazon Image Link //ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/41/c4/c885793509a01d2a51d93110.L.jpg so I replaced it with one that works - please check to see if it's a good enough alternative. BLongley 09:32, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Same happened with The Key to Venudine / Mercenary From Tomorrow - the URL of //ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/47/b2/787c224128a02ea61dea9010.L.jpg didn't work. Replaced again, please check. BLongley 13:23, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Again here - I'm beginning to wonder if they're picking on you! BLongley 14:23, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

All good. We need a reliable image source. Dana Carson 18:05, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)
No kidding! ;-( Ahasuerus 23:39, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)
The program I use (Bookpedia) has field for cover images so I have a local copy of any I own so I can upload them when we have a place. Dana Carson 01:57, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)
Project Jove / The Hunters of Jundagai broke again. I fixed it again but maybe it's time for you to upload your copy here? BLongley 11:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, is it "John S. Glasby" internally, as the cover seems to omit the middle initial? BLongley 11:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
And 47143 is broken again too. :-/ I think we need your uploads. BLongley 11:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Uploaded the cover for 47143 Dana Carson 05:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Son of the Tree / The Houses of Iszm

Right Cover? BLongley 10:25, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Yes thats the same cover I have. Dana Carson 17:53, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

This edition which you had verified came up on the Short Fiction/Non-fiction Data Inconsistency page. From the contents that were entered I assume that the TYPE was incorrectly entered as NON-FICTION. Since most of the contents is fiction, I changed the TYPE to ANTHOLOGY. Do you agree that this would be the more appropriate category? Thanks. Mhhutchins 12:07, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Probably. The contents are reprints of the comics and articles about the Buck Rodgers. So either that or non genra since it isn't written SF. Dana Carson 18:07, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

'"Riddle Me This . . . "'

This is to let you know that I'm about to change the title of a story, which is in a collection you verified. The story is Anvil's "Riddle Me This . . . ", & the quotes should be part of the title; it's that way in the magazine publication (where I'm actually going to make the change), but I went & checked my copy of Interstellar Patrol II: The Federation of Humanity (which is what you verified), as well, & the quotes are there too. So hopefully this isn't a problem. Thanks. -- Dave davecat 13:23, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Sounds right. Must not have thought when I did it. Dana Carson 14:18, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks wrong

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?ONEHCLP1998

Indeed it does! I wondered whether "One Hand Clapping" should be here at all - the Non-Work-Safe cover made me think it was erotica rather than SF, but an Amazon UK review says "it's an unusual combination of love story, horror story, contemporary fantasy and science fiction". But it certainly doesn't belong here in THAT sort of mix-up! BLongley 06:34, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)
I'll remove the L&C title from it and leave the novel for someone to verify at some point. Dana Carson 16:55, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)
"One Hand Clapping" looks intriguing enough that I may be the verifier at some point, but don't hold your breath. Accidentally buying the "A. N. Roquelaure" books (I ordered "Anne Rice" books, I'm sure!) has probably given me enough SF/F porn for years. BLongley 17:12, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)

Binder's Adam Link - Robot

Can you verify whether the authorship of this edition is given to "Eando Binder" or as you verified it, Earl and Otto Binder? The cover gives the combined pseudonym, but if you have a copy, check to title page. Thanks.

Title page has Eando Binder also. Dana Carson 02:13, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

Escape on Venus

Can you please check your verified version (and any of the other Krenkels like it, if you can)? I've been trying to track down all the Ace version's covers but some are just a bit too blurry to my eyes at the moment. BLongley 14:06, 18 Nov 2007 (CST)

Author index questions

All the same author?

  1. Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock
  2. Count Eric Stenbock
  3. Count Stenbock
Fixed Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

ALAIN STRAUB, NANCY SKULTETY, BLANCHE SIMMS, KIO SHIMOKU, STEVEN TOMPKINS, HESTER VELMANS, SIGNE O. WEGENER why all caps


All the same artist?

  1. Darell K. Sweet
  2. Darrel K. Sweet
  3. Darrell K. Sweet
Fixed Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

In Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark Ben J. S. Szumskyj is the editor, Ben S. J. Szumskyj wrote the intro. One of those has to be a typo. And Benjamin Szumskyj wrote Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays which seems like it would be the same person.


Same Artist?

  1. Slatter-Anderson
  2. Slatter~Anderson

Probably artist not author http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Bill_Sienkiewicz

S. H. Sime I don't think he did interior art in 1910 and a novel in 2005

Sume illustrated this Dunsany collection when it first appeared in 1908. I have fixed the pub and will add Contents shortly. Ahasuerus 11:46, 23 Dec 2007 (CST)
Contents data entered for the 1908, 1916 and 2005 editions. Ahasuerus 14:55, 23 Dec 2007 (CST)

Same Artist?

  1. Hannah M. G. Shapero
  2. Hanna M. G. Shapero
  3. Hannah Shapero
  4. Hanna M.G. Shapero
  5. Hanna Shapero
  6. Hannah M.G. Shapero
Fixed Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Same author?

  1. Millicent Ellis Selsam
  2. Millicent E. Selsam

Jsepha_Sherman really Josepha_Sherman?

Same author?

  1. Quien Sabe
  2. Quien Sabe?

Same author?

  1. E. Rose Sabin
  2. E. Ross Sabin
  3. Elenora Rose Sabin

Same Author?

  1. Scott R. Sanders
  2. Scott Russell Sanders
  3. Scott Sanders
All legitimate bylines, but had to create a canonical name and pseudonyms Mhhutchins 01:32, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Same Artist?

  1. Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys
  2. Anthony Frederick Sandys


Same editor?

  1. Hans Stefan Santessen
  2. Hans Stefan Santesson
Fixed Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Same artist?

  1. L. Robert Tschirky
  2. Robert Tschirsky

Same author?

  1. Janet Trautuetter
  2. Janet Trautvetter

Same author?

  1. Dave Truesdale
  2. David A. Truesdale
  3. David Truesdale

Same author?

  1. Lisa Trumbauer
  2. Lisa Trutkoff Trumbauer

Same author (typo)?

  1. Alvin Toffer
  2. Alvin Toffler
Fixed Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)
Toffer links to a Commentary in Asimov's Dec 1982; on the cover they have printed Commentary: ... Alvin Toffler, see Asimov's 1982 listing.

Leo Tolstoi is Leo Tolstoy. See is it's a typo or a different transliteration.

Same author?

  1. Robert E. Toomey, Jr.
  2. Robert Toomey

Same author, needs cleanup

  1. A. T. Quiller-Couch
  2. Arthur Quiller-Couch
  3. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
  4. Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch

Same artist?

  1. A. R. Tilburn
  2. A. R. Tilburne

Same artist?

  1. Jerry Tiritili
  2. Jerry Tiritilli

Same author, needs mergng or variant.

  1. E. P. Thompson
  2. Edward Palmer Thompson

Why 2 entries that go the same place?

  1. Edward Thompson http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Edward_Thompson
  2. Edward Thompson http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Edward_Thompson


Same author?

  1. G. R. Thompson
  2. G. Richard Thompson

Same author?

  1. Michael S. Teitelbaum
  2. Michael Teitelbaum
  3. Mike Teitelbaum

Same author?

  1. Alison Tellure
  2. Allison Tellure

Same author?

  1. Walter S. Tevis
  2. Walter S. Tevis, Jr.
  3. Walter Tevis
All legitimate bylines Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Same author, who's typo?

  1. Lou Tabakov
  2. Lou Tabakow

Same artist?

  1. Bill Tackett
  2. Billy Tackett

Rumiko Takahashi is all manga I think.

Shin Takahashi also it looks like.

In fact anythig published by VIZ, VIZ LLC, or VIZ Media should be suspect.

Same author?

  1. Barbara E. Tarbox
  2. Barbara Tarbox

Same editor?

  1. James Taurasi
  2. James V. Taurasi

Same artist?

  1. Marc Tauss (has a webpage under this name and has worked for Simon & Schuster) Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)
  2. Mark Tauss (one verified cover credit for Simon & Schuster, so it must be a misprint on the cover) Mhhutchins 01:09, 31 Dec 200