User talk:Mhhutchins

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Contents 1 Destinies 2 The Shield of Time 3 Tau Zero 4 New Soviet Science Fiction 5 Destinies, Jan/Feb 1979 and Apr/Jun 1979

Destinies

Just picked up the first four issues/pbs of the Baen Destinies series. When I went to the first one I found no artwork in the contents, as well as the second and third volumes. In the fourth the artwork is listed. Since you verified the second and third, do you mind if I enter the artwork on those? The practice will serve me in good stead once I get to the magazines I have (Galaxy, etc.). I will follow the format you set out on the fourth volume. With that in mind, even though all the artists are credited on the copyright pages, not all of the interior pieces are signed, and I am not familiar enough with the styles to just arbitrarily assign one. How should these be entered? Crediting the artists in the notes is easy, but for the pub contents? Thanks & Happy New Year! ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Please go ahead and enter the artwork. Back when these were verified we didn't pay as much attention to artwork as we do now. Thanks. Credit artwork based on either signature or explicit credit (even if it's only in the copyrights), but don't credit based on style (use "uncredited"). You can make a note in the work's title record of your estimation of who the artist might be. MHHutchins 20:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Since these will no doubt be held for you to check you can give me a grade!! One more thing, if two or three pieces are within the pages of one story, do they all get the story title? ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

If there's only one artpiece for the story it gets the name of the story, as the INTERIORART type. When there's more than one add an appendix to the title, i.e. [2] for the second piece, [3] for the third piece, etc. Check out this magazine that I entered recently. MHHutchins 22:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Super! Will attempt this tomorrow with a fresh brain. Thanks! ~Bill. --Bluesman 03:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, they are done, though after an hour just to write them all down and another to enter.... whew! I did something for the Vol. 2 entries that might be wrong. For two of the illustrations, they were continuous on two adjacent pages, so I listed them with the same []'d number, but with the separate pages. Have also discovered that some of the illustrations have definitely been trimmed to fit, so the signature may have been on the trimmed part. Let me know how they look. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't realize how many pieces of art were included in these pubs! I made a few changes. When an artist's signature is visible on one of the pieces I credit all of the pieces for that story to the same person even if the signature isn't visible on all of them. Also I changed the "(uncredited)" to "uncredited" (removed the parentheses). And about the single piece that covered two pages, I dropped the second one and kept one with the pagination of the first page on which it appeared. It's quite common for artwork to spread over two pages in magazines (Destinies was a pseudo-magazine/bookazine, despite the ISFDB's designation of it as an anthology.) Thanks for the tremendous effort. I know how tedious entering multiple contents can be. Check out this fanzine I entered the other day. MHHutchins 00:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought the changes were yours, much thanks for adding some of the artists' names, as I just don't recognize a lot of the styles. Got a go-ahead from Bill Longley to do the same with the premier issue and will follow your lead on the changes you note. A little tedious, but at least there was only one longish story title! Being basically a two-fingered typist, the shorter the titles, the better, especially with 17 pieces for one story! Kind of glad I only bought the four! ~Bill, --Bluesman 05:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

That's when copy and paste is heaven sent. Now that you've added the art for the first four, I guess that means I have to find the time to do the others. Thanks a lot! MHHutchins 05:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Copy and paste?? And I still have to do the first and fourth, as there are way more pieces than the contents in the pub record show, figured two was enough for one day, especially if there needed to be any major changes as to how I had entered them. ~Bill, --Bluesman 05:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

When you have several entries with the same title (as with interiorart) just copy the first title (Ctrl + C), paste it (Ctrl + V) into the blank title fields, then go back and add [2], [3], etc. MHHutchins 05:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

This just became a prominent post-it on my computer. I am assuming it will work the same with a MAC as a PC? Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] Sorry. Never even touched a MAC in my entire life, so I'm not sure what their "copy and paste" keys are, but they have to have one. Can anyone familiar with MAC perhaps be able to answer? MHHutchins 05:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The Shield of Time

Bluesman has updated the story type for Amazement of the World from shortfiction/novella to NOVEL. Presumably as it's 136 pages. This affects your verified The Shield of Time. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I would argue against making the story a novel regardless of the number of pages. The main reason is that it will be listed on Anderson's summary page under "Novels" and this is it's first (and only) publication. It was original to this collection, which itself is billed as a "novel" in a cover blurb. And it has not been published as a stand-alone publication since. I also yield to Locus1's designation of it as a novella. If we were to change anything, it would make more sense to remove the contents entirely, and designate the whole work as a novel. None of the pieces were previously published and only three of them are of any great length, the other three being linking material. And since I verified the publication, one of those pieces ("Riddle Me This", 5 1/2 pages long) has mysteriously grown into a novella, according to the record as it currently stands. MHHutchins 22:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

DES and I had a long discussion about this with his argument being that anything over 40,000 words was a "novel" and my argument was the same as what you just used. :-) I've changed Amazement of the World back to a novella and added a note.

I see that Beringia just scrapes into novel length at 100 pages and so added the same note to that.

I was about to fix Riddle Me This but see there's something screwy going on. These are the page lengths you guys verified.

Mhhutchins TOR hc			Bluesman TOR pb
Page	#	Storylen	Page	#	Storylen	Title
1	8	shortstory	1	6	shortstory	The Stranger That is Within Thy Gates
9	94	novella	7	118	novel	Women and Horses and Power and War
103	12	shortstory	125	12	shortstory	Before the Gods That Made the Gods
115	100	novel	137	78	novella	Beringia
215	8	shortstory	215	52	novella	Riddle Me This
223	136	novel	267	169	novel	Amazement of the World
359			436			Last page

I'll ask Bluesman to hop over here and to re-check the starting page numbers. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The page #'s I submitted are not correct. I imported the content from the hard cover and then used the page numbers from the Table of Contents in the PB, which do not match the page numbers in the book. They should read: 1,9,125,137,257,267. This would bring the designations back into line with those in the HC. Still learning the 'repercussions' of entries. I am definitely going to leave the marginal ones alone from now on, as there doesn't seem to be a consensus and different sources don't always agree, either. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Everything looks good now. Thanks. MHHutchins 23:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added a publication note explaining the TOC discrepancies. Bill, don't worry too much about lack of consensus and conflicting sources. We document/interpret as best as we can. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Tau Zero

Bluesman is in the process of fleshing out a publication which was originally based on Locus data. He wants to change the Note to read, in part, "Artist uncredited; no visible signature; style is Powers'". Could you please check whether Locus 194 explicitly credits Powers? I've put it on hold for now. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The cover artist is not credited in the Locus listing (they didn't credit artists as thoroughly as they do now), so that must have been a part of the record when I updated it using the Locus info. In that case, perhaps we should remove the Powers credit and leave Bluesman's notes as stated? MHHutchins 23:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan, thanks! Ahasuerus 23:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

New Soviet Science Fiction

Could you please check whether it's "Vladen" or "Vladlen" Bakhnov in your verified New Soviet Science Fiction? Contento uses "Vladen", but IMDB uses "Vladlen", which is apparently correct. The name stands for "Vladimir Lenin" -- Bakhnov was born 6 months after Lenin's death, at the peak of the first Lenin cult in the USSR. Thanks! Ahasuerus 05:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's "Vladen" on the title pages of each story and in the TOC. I suppose by the time he became a published writer the cult had wained (or at least when this anthology was published.) :) MHHutchins 08:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It looks like all of his Russian language works appeared as by "Vladlen", but (most? all?) English translations used the "Vladen" byline. Perhaps we'll find some exceptions as we verify the affected 1960s/1980s anthologies, but for now I have set up a bunch of vts. And the Lenin cult was very much back in vogue in the 1960s when Bakhnov became a published writer -- see Nina Tumarkin's Lenin Lives! for all the gory details :) Ahasuerus 03:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I am in the process of verifying Russian Science Fiction 1969, an otherwise seriously messed up book, and the two Bakhnov stories both credit "Vladlen", so apparently it just depends on how clueful the editor is/was. Magidoff had his quirks, but he knew Russian well after spending many years in Moscow as an NBC correspondent and later their bureau chief (and barely making it out alive -- see his memoirs). Ahasuerus 05:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Good to see you've finally found an editor that used the right name. Could it have simply been a case of someone with no political agenda thinking that Vladen may be easier for the English speaker than Vladlen? God knows it wouldn't be the first time publishers have changed an author's name! MHHutchins

Oh, I don't think that the editors who misspelled Bakhnov's first name had a political agenda. Most of the time it's just a question of how sloppy your assistants and printers are, e.g. here is what I wrote in Russian Science Fiction 1969 just a few minutes ago: "Vladmir Dmitrevsky's last name is misspelled "Dmitrvsky" in the table of contents. Evgeni Brandis' first name is spelled "Yevgeny" in the table of contents. Isai Lukodianov's last name is spelled "Lukodianov" in the table of contents, but "Lukodyanov" on the title page. Shefner's "A Modest Genius: A Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups" is listed as "A Modest Genius: A Fairy Tail for Grown-Ups" in the table of contents." With assistants like these, who needs a political agenda?! :) Ahasuerus 06:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Tail??? That's so bad that it's funny. Where's a proofreader when you need one? MHHutchins 06:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I suppose some shaggy dogs have fairy tails :) Ahasuerus 15:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Destinies, Jan/Feb 1979 and Apr/Jun 1979

I've left two submissions on hold for you to review/approve. Both are additions of INTERIORART to verified publications.

• Destinies, Jan/Feb 1979 on hold at [1].
• Destinies, Apr/Jun 1979 on hold at [2]. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for placing them on hold. He'd let me know that he was going to add the interiorart. I'll check them out before approving them. MHHutchins 23:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)