User talk:JKS

From ISFDB
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Welcome!

Hello, JKS, 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:

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Mhhutchins|talk 02:15, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Embrace the Mutation: Limited Edition Chapbook

I'm holding your submission to add a record for this publication. There's a few problems that will have to be fixed and a couple of questions that also need answering.

  • The ISFDB definition of CHAPBOOK isn't the same as the standard publishing industry definition. We use the term for a type of book which contains a single piece of fiction of less than novel length. Because this book nas two pieces of fiction, it should be typed as ANTHOLOGY.
  • I'm assuming that Schafer and Sheehan are the editors since they were credited as the editor of the main book. So they should also be credited as the "authors" of this publication. (The ISFDB credits editors as the author of ANTHOLOGY-typed publications.)
  • What is the exact title as given on the book's title page? That is what should be given in the title field of the ISFDB record. Can you confirm that Embrace the Mutation: Limited Edition Chapbook is the title given on the title page?

There are a couple more problems. The note in the Price field will have to be removed and entered into the Note field. (Only the price should be given in the Price field.) In the Page Count field, you should only give the number of pages, and not "50 numbered pages". I can fix all this after accepting the submission, and I'll do that once you've responded to the question about the title of the book. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins|talk 02:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Due to no response, I've gone ahead and accepted the submission and made the changes I suggested above. Here's the record. Please make any edits if it doesn't agree with your copy. Mhhutchins|talk 02:41, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Gainsville Readings

Again, this is not a CHAPBOOK, but a COLLECTION. Also, only the author should be credited. It appears that the VanderMeer story is a bonus and not actually part of the collection, so he shouldn't be credited in the author field of the publication record. And again, the entries in the Page Count and Price fields aren't consistent with ISFDB standards. Those standards are linked in the Welcome section above.

The bigger problem is whether these poems are speculative fiction. Can you confirm that? If so, I'll accept the submission and do all the cleaning and repairing to get it in shape.

Also, there's nothing on the VanderMeer webpage to which you link that references this publication. And I couldn't find anything online about this publisher. Are you sure of the spelling? And is it "Gainsville" or "Gainesville"? Mhhutchins|talk 02:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

It's been a couple of weeks without any response to my query, so I am forced to cancel the submission. Mhhutchins|talk 02:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

yyy... Hmm, I wonder if this is the way to respond to messages. In case this works:

Hello Mhhutchins!

I'm very sorry I wasn't able to take the time to figure out exactly 'how' to respond to you previously (to be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure why it's letting me type into this box right now at this particular time, but I'm just going with it!). However the family and I are just returned from a trip to Disney World (courtesy of the Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals, which may give you an indication of my priorities in the real world), and right now I have a couple of hours to fiddle about. I'm going to hit the button 'Save Page' when I'm finished editing this and, hopefully, it will do just that. With any luck you'll respond, anon of course, and I'll be able to luck-into being able to respond back again (I never mocked my elders for having a flashing 12:00 on the VCR, so I feel entitled to the same ineptitude). Of course being a serious faan in my own bookish way (I have, what I term to be, a fairly decent SF&F 'starter' collection of about 3,000 volumes or so, with particular manical interest in a few authors; Caitlin Kiernan and Jeff VanderMeer included, as is obvious), I've used ISFDB many times but have resisted the temptation to stick my nose in, figuring (rightly), that it might take a bit of effort. But, Lo!, in a moment of weakness (seeing ISFDB using my old scan from Amazon of my copy of Jeff VanderMeer's 'The Book Of Frog'), I thought 'Well how bad can it be?' Yes, exactly: The Phrase that precedes every self-inflicted disaster.

Embrace the Mutation

In any case, Firstly... *standing up on my soapbox*... I utterly and categorically reject the ridiculous, and just plain wrong, usage of the term 'chapbook'. Chapbook does not refer, At All, to contents and is instead a 'type' of binding: Side-Stapled Paperbacks. A chapbook, which can be a promotional 'extra', a low-cost initial effort or even a high-quality 'deluxe' edition, 'could' be also termed a 'collection' but is an appellation more usually directed to the NUMBER OF PAGES comfortably bound by a staple! A Single novella, a Couple of short stories, a Few flash fictions, a Whack of poems (yes, that's a technical term), but if it's not Side-Stapled, it's a perfect-bound paperback, or a stitched hardback, or an e-book, or WHATEVER! ...*pant, pant*... Annnd, I know I'm never going to get my way on this. Right, fine... but in this small section of ISFDB, please pardon my usage of the term 'chapbook' (The Right Way... My Way!), otherwise I'll just get myself ridiculously confused. Ok, I'm finished with being facetious (and hopefully somewhat funny, and thus suitably mollifying you), and off to business. Of course anything I discuss here, I own. Very happy to send you scans of anything above (because they're chapbooks and so will lie flat in the scanner, dammit!). Re: Anthology, then fine.

Secondly: There is no editor particularly credited anywhere in the chapbook. However, the copyright page states: copyright [symbol] "2003 by J.K. Potter, William Schafer, and Bill Sheehan", so 'probably' they're what you would term authors; otherwise 'uncredited'.

Thirdly: The Exact title (sans colon and attempting to identify line spacing), as per title page is:

Embrace the Mutation Limited Edition Chapbook

"Gainesville Readings"

Firstly: I'm frankly boggled to know why you can't see Jeff's old site. When I Google 'gainesville readings vandermeer', the first hit is 'www.oivas.com/jeff/biblio.html', and that link took me right to the old bibliography. The Seventh Entry under 'Collections' reads:


"GAINESVILLE READINGS: JEFF VANDERMEER (The Artitorium, 410 NW 13th St., Gainesville, FL 32601), novella excerpt, 1988."

This is a promotional chapbook, probably issued to support a joint reading by JeffV and 'poet' Edward Cortez Garrett (who has top billing and is Google-able), way back when. The cover reads exactly:

Edward Cortez Garrett Jeff Vandermeer

Gainesville Readings [bold]

November 5, 1988

ARTITORIUM [sic] 410 N.W. 13th Street Gainesville, Florida


Please do let me know if you want to see any scans. I purchased this directly from the author, again, way back when, specifically 'because' he had it listed there. Given the circumstances, probably ridiculously rare (I mean, honestly, who else is going to have a copy of this besides the author). The Novella is "Greensleeves (Selection from a novelette in progress)", later revised and published in a couple of places.

Secondly: "The bigger problem is whether these poems are speculative fiction." You're asking for a judgement call here, but, uhm Ok, sure they are.

I will try to make time to understand ISFDB standards, being confident I could eventually Master It, having worked, again way back when, for a public library (I believe I am thus accustomed to irrationality in cataloguing), but honestly my timeline for doing so is shaky.

With apologies, and all good wishes,

Jonathan K. Stephens (jsteph8146@aol.com)

The Disapperance of Dogcatchers

Would you please double check the spelling of "disapperance" in The Disapperance of Dogcatchers from Lyric of the Highway Mariner: A Collection of Poems? Is this misspelled as such in the publication or is this a typo in the database? If the typo is in the database, it should be corrected. If the typo is in the publication, a note should be added to the title record stating the spelling is per the publication. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:JKS&oldid=446478"