User talk:Robertreginald/Archive

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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! BLongley 17:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the submissions!

Particularly the vapourware clean-up. I've changed the dates of those to "8888-00-00" which will keep the records here but show them as "unpublished". BLongley 17:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

There were of course a few beginner's mistakes, which I think I've mostly fixed for you, but please do check. "trade paperback" is just entered as "tp" (which at least saves some typing) and most of the dates came through as "0000-00-00" which we reserve for "unknown". I suspect that you put them in in a non-standard format - we use "YYYY-MM-DD" here. I've taken the dates to fix these from Amazon, which may or may not be right. And I've moved the contents from notes to actual content records, so that people can search for the shortfiction titles. Don't worry, that's a pretty good first set of submissions, thanks for editing! BLongley 17:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The Elder of Days: Tales of the Elders / Three Tales of Omne

I accepted the submission updating The Elder of Days: Tales of the Elders / Three Tales of Omne but am going to remove the notes that don't apply to this particular pub. Any questions, concerns, etc can be posted on the Help Desk. I also am going to add your introduction to the contents. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 00:20, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I created a file of the two covers of the omnibus. Unfortunately, the system can only accept one image per publication, so I combined the artwork into one image. I also created records for the two volumes of Michael R. Collings' Wordsmith. Was it ever published in one volume? Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

My dear Longley & Hutchins,

No, the novel Wordsmith had to be divided into two volumes for technical production reasons, and thus far, it's only appeared that way. Other Michael R. Collings works that should be included in your database are: Wer Means Man and Other Tales of Wonder and Terror; Singer of Lies; and The House Beyond the Hill. In addition, we've also published his son Michaelbrent Collings's YA fantasy novel, Billy: Messenger of Powers. I've got a new horror novel by Michael R., The Slab, recently in hand; it'll be published in 2011.

We had the first already: I've added this, this and this from Amazon data. Please double-check. BLongley 12:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I edit the Borgo Press imprint of Wildside Press, publishing over one hundred titles annually, many of them by SF folks; I'd be happy to work with you in updating your listings of Borgo Press and Wildside Press titles, to the extent that I have time and energy; I can also provide cover images on some of these books. All of the Wildside Double volumes (thirteen published or in press in the main series, one in press in the new Wildside Mystery Double series) have two covers, with the books being bound upside down to each other; the separate halves maintain their own unique paginations.

As far as my own books are concerned, my bibliography is fairly complex; you can always check details quickly on www.millefleurs.tv, under the Robert Reginald/Michael Burgess listing, and then under the Bibliography link, which I try to keep up-to-date, at least for monographs. There's also a link there to my e-mail address.

You list If J.F.K. Had Lived with its 2009 Wildside Press reprint edition; the original publication appeared from the old Borgo Press in 1983, and was in turn a rewriting and updating of The Attempted Assassination of John F. Kennedy, as by Lucas Webb (which has now also been separately reprinted under the Robert Reginald byline). Most of the Bibliographies of Modern Authors Series from the old Borgo Press were either edited by me as "Boden Clarke" (with that appellation on the title page, in addition to the individual author credits), or under one of my other pseuds. I reworked many of the books in this series extensively, or at least added to them extensively. I maintain a master list of all the BP books that were actually published, including detailed series listings. Some of these series have been carried forward under Borgo's current incarnation as a Wildside Press imprint.

I've tried to fix The Attempted Assassination of John F. Kennedy and If J.F.K. Had Lived, please check. BLongley 12:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Next up for me is a collection of historical mysteries with fantasy overtones, The Judgment of the Gods and Other Verdicts of History, packaged with a similar collection on the flip side by Darrell Schweitzer. Most of these (on both sides) have appeared previously in separate anthologies. I've also committed to writing at least one more short novel, "A Glorious Death" (quotes intended) in the Human-Knacker War series started by Ardath Mayhar--and probably others in this sequence down the road. I'm also working on a contemporary mystery, The Paperback Show Murders. And I finished earlier this year another long fantasy in the Nova Europa series, The Fourth Elephant's Egg; or, The Hypatomancer's Tale, which will be published sometime in 2011.

Rob Reginald

Glad to have you aboard! BLongley 12:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

image uploads

Hi Robert, after uploading the image you need to manually enter the URL using "Edit this publication". You will find this by clicking the uploaded image and then copying the displayed link or right clicking the image and under "Properties" you will find the "URL". The upload to the Wiki is not automatically linked to the data base. Hope this helps.Kraang 02:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Mary A. Burgess

As per your last submission, I have set up Mary A. Burgess as a pseudonym of Mary Wickizer Burgess. Could you please clarify whether Mary Burgess, who wrote 3 reviews for "Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review" in 1979, is the same person? TIA! Ahasuerus 07:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is the same person--my wife, as it happens.

So I figured, but in a world with 2 "Mel Odoms" and 3 "David Alexanders", it's safer to double check :-) Linked now, thanks! Ahasuerus 05:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

She's done a bunch of other things as well, although most are not related to SF or fantasy. There's an image of her (and me) on our website, www.millefleurs.tv. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robertreginald (talk • contribs) .

Speaking of images, is it OK to link directly to one of your photos hosted by www.millefleurs.tv so that it would appear on your Summary ISFDB page? We generally don't do it without an explicit permission since some sites frown on it. Ahasuerus 05:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course. I usually prefer the one that appears at the top of the Michael Burgess/Robert Reginald page at millefleurs@millefleurs.tv, showing me with some of my books, since that was shot by a professional User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

Done! Ahasuerus 22:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

--and because I was thinner then! Sigh. User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

At some point it occurred to me that there are three stages in a modern man's life. During the first stage, when he is still growing, he typically wants to gain weight because he wants to be bigger and stronger. During the second stage, he usually wants to lose weight because the lifestyle of a middle aged man is more likely than not sedentary these days. During the third stage, he is apprehensive about losing weight because unexpected weight loss can be an early symptom of Bad News (tm). When viewed from this perspective, the second stage isn't all bad :-) Ahasuerus 22:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

There are a half dozen Mary Burgesses who've written books in recent years, and at least that many Michael Burgesses--but only one Robert Reginald (so far!). One of the Michael Burgesses ("Uncle Mike") died in Oregon at the beginning of September. The "Michael Burgess" who penned soft-porn paperbacks in the 1960s for Midwood, Monarch, etc., was the pseud. of the late historical novelist, Noel B. Gerson. User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

1960s soft porn by major SF writers like Silverberg is another area where our coverage is still weak. It's not that the information is hard to find in most cases, it's just that we don't have many contributors who are interested in this area. Where are all the dirty old men when you need them?! Ahasuerus 22:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Seeing one of his books on a newstand in the Fall of 1964 was one of the things that started me toward using a pen name. I use my real name mostly these days for serious historical research (The Coyote Chronicles, for example, which is a 600-page history of California State University, San Bernardino, that was published in July 2010). User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

Thanks, added! Ahasuerus 22:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I've abandoned the other pseuds. (you're missing "Miguel Alcalde," which appeared once as an editorial credit on one of the critiques that we published from the old Borgo Press). User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

Well, we list the trade paperback version of book, but at this time there is no place for "editors of single author books" in the database record. It's something that we plan to add in the future along with support for translators and other "related persons". Ahasuerus 22:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Most of the Boden Clarkes were used in this way as well. On those books in the old Bibliographies of Modern Authors series for which I did not have a co-author or primary author credit, I included the line, "Edited by Boden Clarke," to each title page, since I added so much new material to all of those titles. The list that you display of this series is incomplete--showing volumes that were never actually published, and missing titles that did appear. If I can help with any of this, just say the word. There's a comprehensive bibliography of the 300 publications of the original Borgo press in my biblio, BP 300.

Rob User:Robertreginald:Robertreginald

Thanks! As a general comment, we are all painfully aware of the gaps and the "vaporware" titles in the ISFDB. We are slowly working on them, but it's quite a challenge when you try to cover as much ground as we do -- the old "quality vs. quantity" dilemma. Much of our data comes in via automated feeds from library catalogs and online booksellers (who get pre-publication data from publishers) and although we clean it up before incorporating it into the database, we can't be sure that the data is 100% correct until someone verifies the book/magazine. Ahasuerus 22:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

But you're trying, and that's what makes the difference. Bibliography is a neverending chore, as I know all too well, having penned several dozen of them. A couple of interesting developments: I now have reversion of the rights to Invasion!, so the three novels that comprise that volume will finally be published for the first time under their individual titles in 2011. Also, I just sent off today the PDF for Wildside Mystery Double #2, which includes Deadly Things: A Collection of Mysterious Tales, by Darrell Schweitzer, and The Judgment of the Gods and Other Verdicts of History, by Robert Reginald. ISBN 978-1-4344-1205-8, $15.99, 149 (Schweitzer) + 123 (Reginald) pages, trade paper. All of the stories are reprinted from anthology or magazine appearances, except for one of mine, which is original. One of Darrell's stories is fantasy, and three of the four pieces comprising my side are fantasy. Publication date: probably January 2011 (the interior dates are all '11). Would you like me to list the complete series of the sixteen volumes published (or in press) to date?

Rob Reginald

The Dark-Haired Man

I've accepted the submission updating this pub, but made a few changes. The NONFICTION type is reserved for book-length works, while the ESSAY type is used for shorter works which are contained in a larger work. I also disambiguated the generically titled essays by adding the title of the book in parentheses. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Did the same tasks for The Exiled Prince. Mhhutchins 21:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

And Quæstiones. Mhhutchins 21:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Phantom, What kind of series?

Is this a character/title series or a publication series? If the former, that's added to the title record. Publication series are recorded on the publication record. For an example of a publication series, see here. For a character/title series, see here. Farmer's collection Strange Relations was published in the former series (publication), and his novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go is part of the latter series (title). That novel will always be part of the Riverworld series, regardless of how many times it is reprinted, but any reprints of the collection can only be part of that publication series if Avon revives it. Go here for further info on series. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The Phantom's Phantom

I accepted both submissions adding a single pub of this title. In the future, it would be better to wait until the submission is approved, then edit the record. One of the two pub records will have to be deleted. I'm assuming the one without the Author's Notes should be the one. (I changed the Author's Notes record to an ESSAY instead of NONFICTION. See the comments above.) Mhhutchins 21:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted the first record, keeping the second. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The Nasty Gnomes

With the addition of this title, I'm assuming "Phantom Detective" is a character series, so I'm removing it as a publication series and updating the title records. Also, when giving page count, adding "p." at the end makes it part of the field. The system automatically adds "pp" to this field, so the page count becomes, for example: "124 p.pp" instead of "124pp". Mhhutchins 21:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, The Phantom Detective is a character-based series. The books are not numbered, although my two contributions pick up in time (late 1953) from where the magazine-based series (and subsequent book editions) end. Wildside has issued a number of the old PD novels as monographs. My two volumes have fantasy elements, particularly Gnomes.

I realized after the fact that I mislisted the character/geographic index in both The Dark-Haired Man and The Exiled Prince. They have the same title as in Quæstiones: Character and Geographic Dictionary. Mea culpa. Also, Q was published in November 2005, and the contents need to be shown accordingly.

You list Operation Crimson Storm as being issued in 2006. Although a cover was prepared by Underwood Books, and it was advertised as a separate release for Fall 2005, it was never actually published in any form until Invasion! was issued in September 2007. The three novels comprising the series will actually be released under their individual titles for the very first time in 2011, by Borgo Press (an imprint of Wildside Press). If they're well received, I'll write the planned fourth book in the series: Ceres Central.

Thanks so much for your help. Rob Reginald.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robertreginald (talk • contribs) .

It looks like someone has fixed the Operation Crimson Storm situation. Please look it over and see if it looks OK. Also, are the character and geographic dictionaries which appear in all three of the Nova Europa books identical? If so, we can merge the three. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 01:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Operation Crimson Storm, I know for a fact that this volume was never published separately, as confirmed by Tim Underwood (publisher of Underwood Books), and you can add that as a bibliographical note, if you wish. Neither was the first volume, War of Two Worlds. Volume Three, The Martians Strike Back!, wasn't even written until 2007. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robertreginald (talk • contribs) .

About Operation Crimson Storm: we've kept the record for the Underwood publication, but it's clearly marked as unpublished. We do this so that anyone who looks up the record, either through title or ISBN based on a publisher's announcement, will know that it was never published. Mhhutchins 03:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The dictionaries in each of the Nova Europa books are unique to that volume, listing only the character names and place names referenced therein; and since the books thus far have been set in different times and places, there's minimal overlap. I do have a master file that combines all three indices, and I used it when writing the fourth book, The Fourth Elephant's Egg (forthcoming from Borgo Press in 2011). I'll probably augment it and issue it as a separate guide one day, in my, uh, copious spare time!! The Nova Europa books are set in a world that is geographically similar to ours, but has a completely different history. They probably qualify as alternate histories--although they aren't, really (they actually reflect alternate realities). Rob.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robertreginald (talk • contribs) .

Sounds interesting. We'll keep the three dictionaries as separate records since they're different. By the way, if you "sign" your comments with four tildes (~~~~), the system will automatically give your user name and date the comment. This helps when communicating using these Wiki page. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 03:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Xenograffiti

I was editing the entry for the first edition of Xenograffiti, and hit a wrong key. It may or may not have gone through. I hope it did, because I spent quite some time adding the data. I wasn't quite finished with the review list. There were also a number of literary obits included in that book--do you want these listed separately? I used to pen a lot of these--until they started getting too close for comfort--and I nearly kicked Ye Olde Buckette myself. There are two distinct versions of this book. The Second Edition, which has a different subtitle (but the SAME ISBN, through an accident of mis-assignment), was published in 2005; it adds eight essays and some other material. Robertreginald 04:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears to have gone through. Check out the record here. You can add any missing content records using the "Edit This Pub" function. If the obits are separate essays, then it would be a good idea to create individual records for each. I have a question about the way the titles are entered, i.e. including the year in the title. Was this your intention, or is this how they actually appear in the book itself? Also the reviews are undated. Do you know the original year of publication for each of the reviews? If so, it would help to sort them on your author summary page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Viva California

Have the submission to add this publication on hold. Seems to have no spec-fic contents which would put it outside the parameters of the ISFDB... or am I missing something? --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't know how far afield you folks went--too bad, 'cause Viva's a great book. In response to the earlier query about Xenograffiti, the years of the major essays were included as part of each chapter head in the book, so I listed them with their respective entries. These were also the original publication years of these pieces. I've added the publication years for the reviews. A bunch of them were done in 1979-80, because that's when Neil Barron and I produced Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review (I actually wrote other reviews for that publication, under a variety of pseuds., that weren't included in Xenograffiti). And then, of course, there were the 13,000 pieces (yes, that number is correct!) on authors that Mary and I wrote between 1998-2003 for a reference publisher, mostly uncredited WFH. Brian Craig is a pen name of Brian Stableford. Robertreginald 23:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

We include non-genre pubs by authors who are deemed to be above an as-yet not clearly defined threshold where their spec-fic output merits inclusion of 'other' works, but that really doesn't apply to editors. Other than becoming all-inclusive, which would necessitate renaming our little corner of the universe, lines need to be drawn even if it's just in the sand of cyberspace! :-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

What about Tempest in a Teapot, my history of the Falkland Islands War? It includes a Tim Kirk cover that I commissioned according to my design specs, and has recently been reprinted. It was absolutely destroyed by the critics when it first appeared, 27 years ago, but, curiously enough, has now undergone a renaisssance of re-evaluation, and now seems to be regarded as one of the better accounts of that li'l flash in the South Atlantic pan. Also, Draqualian Silk, a literary bibliography which I recently edited for my friend, William Maltese (rn: William J. Lambert III), who's written SF, fantasy, and horror under a variety of pseuds., although he's much better known for his other fiction (he's penned 180 books, 60 ahead of me)? Robertreginald 03:20, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Adding a hardcover edition to an existing title

The Introduction to the Second Edition of Xenograffiti is called: "Introduction: Ooze from the Muse," and is original to that book. How do I add a hardcover edition to an existing paperback edition? Robertreginald 17:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Pretty easy. Go to the pub record, and use the "Clone This Pub" function under the Editing Tools menu. It copies everything exactly from the first record, but you have the option to change any field in the copied record. Mhhutchins 23:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Forgotten Fantasy

The magazine Forgotten Fantasy ran for five bimonthly issues (Vol. 1, Nos. 1-5), dated October 1970, December 1970, February 1971, April 1971, and June 1971--I can supply contents. My friend Douglas Menville was Editor, and I was Assoc. Editor (as "R. Reginald"). All five issues have now been reprinted by Wildside Press in book form, with both of us listed as co-editors, under the byline "Douglas Menville and Robert Reginald." The publisher, Nectar Press, Inc., was a sister company of Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc., which began issuing trade paperbacks in the summer of 1971, also edited by Doug and me. The main series of interest published by Newcastle was the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library (24 vols.). Newcastle lasted until 1999 before being purchased by another firm, and Doug was involved with them for the entire period; I dropped out in 1992. Newcastle also distributed the early Borgo Press titles, which I and Mary Burgess published and edited from 1976-98. The Borgo Press imprint was sold to Wildside Books for one dollar in 2003, and I began editing books for Wildside and the revived Borgo Press later that year--and have continued to do so to date. Doug Menville later edited a magazine for The Braille Institute (through June 2010, when he retired). Doug's only byline, other than on the 1975 reprint of his master's thesis, was "Douglas Menville." He never used the "A." His film name appeared on the film critique. Robertreginald 22:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

We have records for all five issues in the database. Check them out here and see if there's anything missing or awry. They've all been primary verified. You can create records for the Wildside Press, and if they're exact duplicates of the magazines, you can avoid having to re-enter the contents by using the "Import Contents" function for each record.

Except for one letter to Locus, all of Menville's credit are without the middle initial. Mhhutchins 23:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the listing for the five issues of Forgotten Fantasy magazine to include me as a secondary editor of the publication; and I'll later add the Wildside reprints in book form. However, you cite some of the reviews in the magazine wrongly, and I can't change the contents lists. In particular, I wrote the review of The Well of the World's End, by William Morris, in the February 1971 issue; that of Golden Cities, Far, ed. by Lin Carter, in the April 1971 issue; and that of The Broken Sword, by Poul Anderson, in the June 1971 issue. All three are cited in the magazine as by "RR"--and were later reprinted in the two editions of my book, Xenograffiti. Thanks. Rob. Robertreginald 23:12, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've notified the verifier of the original records and have asked him to join in the conversation. Changing the review credits should be pretty easy, but I'll wait until Rtrace (the verifying editor) joins us. Thank. Mhhutchins 23:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm just fascinated reading the history above. I'm fine with the changes that are being held. I've never entered Associate Editors, but I have no issues with them being added. I don't think we have a clear guideline for what sorts of editors should be listed. As for the reviews, I can certainly fix them for you. Of if you want to try it yourself: Do an advanced search for a title type of "REVIEW" and the title of the book being reviewed. You should then get a list of all of the reviews we have. Select both the one credited to Menville and the one to yourself, and then click the "Merge Selected Records" button. You'll then get a screen with the conflicts between the two records. You'll have one for the reviewer name (select yours) and may have one for the date (go with the more precise date). You can then submit the change. This should show the review in both the magazine as well as the reprint in both printings of Xenograffiti. As I said above, I'm happy to make the merges for you if you'd prefer. Just let me know. Thanks. And thanks for your work on Forgotten Fantasy. Classic fantasy is an interest of mine and both the magazine and the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library are treasured parts of my collection. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 04:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

If you can make the changes, I would appreciate your assistance. I always seem to be running from one thing to the next these days. How do I clone the five book reprints from the magazine issues? I've always been a student of fantasy, and writing four long fantasy novels (The Dark-Haired Man, The Exiled Prince, Quæstiones, and The Fourth Elephant's Egg) has been one of the great and enduring joys of my life. I loved every minute of the hours that I spent in Nova Europa and the Otherworlds; when I finished the fourth one this past April, I felt a loss that's just indescrible, because in the end I had to walk away from folks that I'd come to know and love very much indeed. When I was young, I read through William Morris's collected works (there was a set in the academic library where I worked as a student assistant)--and later through Dunsany, Eddison, and all the early masters. For me, particularly as a young man, they were revelations of what could be done with prose fiction. Doug Menville and I were friends from that day in the Fall of 1969 when we were introduced in the back of the Sunset-Vine Bookmart in Hollywood by Al and Joe Saunders, two brothers who wanted to get out of book-SELLING and in to book-PUBLISHING. But they were cheap SOBs, and they were looking for free editorial labor. That was OK--we got an education of a different kind in return. I don't regret any of it. Doug's retired now, but I'm still chugging along. Robertreginald 03:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

These reviews of mine never got changed, either in the magazine issues or on the Wildside reprints. Also, three of the Wildside book reprints aren't listed in the database. All five issues were reprinted in trade paper, with contents identical to the original magazine issues. Robertreginald 21:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed your earlier response. I've done the merges on the reviews. Please let me know if I made any mistakes.

I'm a little less comfortable doing the Wildside reprints. Do you have information on dates and ISBNs? I see from the reprint of the February 1971 issue, that the page count appears to be identical (if you allow for the inclusion of covers for the magazine edition). We would need add new records for an Anthology and leave the contents blank. We could then use the "import content" link using the ID of the magazine to clone the contents. You'll need the ID of the magazine to do the import. You can get that from the URL (to the right of the "?") or in the parentheses on the Bibliographic Comments line of the source publication record. Again, I can help you with these if you'd like. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 02:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Ron--I appreciate your help. The book versions are as follows: FF #1, 978-1-4344-0480-0, front cover a reproduction of the magazine front cover, internal contents identical, published 2/14/2010, price $14.95. #2, 978-1-4344-9144-2 tp, text cover (no illustration), internal contents identical, published 11/25/07, $14.95; #2, hardcover (the only one so issued), 978-1-4344-9238-8, text cover, internal contents identical, published 11/25/07, $24.95. #3, 978-1-4344-0479-4 tp, original cover on front of book, published 2/14/10, $14.95. #4, 978-1-4344-6692-1 tp, text cover, internal contents identical, published 8/10/08, $14.95. #5, 978-1-4344-6693-8 tp, text cover, internal contents identical, published 8/10/08, $14.95. Rob. Robertreginald 03:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

On the April 1971 issue of Forgotten Fantasy, and its later book reprint, "Prognostications" and "Articulations" by Doug Menville should be listed as Essays--I can't change the designation myself, or I would have. These are running columns throughout the five issues of the magazine. Robertreginald 05:29, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the error. After a title has been included in multiple publications (the magazine and the reprint), you can't edit the title from the contents within the container record. What you need to do is open the title record (e.g. this), and click on "Edit Title Data". You can then change the title type, and in this case blank out the storylen field. I've gone ahead ahead and fixed these two. Thanks again. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help on this. I just spotted it in passing. Robertreginald 17:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Classics of Fantastic Literature

I've linked all of the reviews (but one) contained in this collection. Most were automatically linked by the system upon first submission. Because you added the canonical names to the pseudonymous ones, the system was unable to match the review with the title. It's best to give only the author to which the work is credited. If a pseudonym exists in the database, the system will find it. If not, we can create pseudonyms. The one review I couldn't link is on Page 40. It appears to be a duplicate but with a different, perhaps misspelled, name. The review that was linked is credited only to you. Was this also in error, as all the others are credited to both you and Menville. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

What happened with Classics of Fantastic Literature (twice), is that I hit the return key, which kicked me out of the data entry mode--so I had to start over again once the data had been uploaded. The book runs through page 196, and includes well over 200 entries covering about 230+ books, so it takes considerable time to include them all. Yet, listing these things is important, IMHO, because so few of the writers and books are covered anywhere else. All of the entries should be credited to both Douglas Menville and me; although we divided up the work equally when we wrote these back in the 1970s, neither of us have any records of who penned what. We literally salvaged the material from a series of advertising brochures that we wrote to promote our three Arno Press reprint series. Robertreginald 04:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Now that the submission's been accepted, you can continue to add the remaining reviews. I'll link those that the system misses, and create records for missing titles. I already made records for this one and this one. Thank goodness I had such a fine resource at my disposal. :) Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Draqualian Silk

I'm going to accept the submission adding this (under the assumption that Mr. Maltese wrote some spec-fic novels). Unfortunately, I'll have to remove your editor credit, as the system isn't currently set up to hand two different roles in the creation of a work unless they're considered either co-authors or co-editors. For example, if you edited a collection of stories by M. R. James, you would only be credited in the notes field, as Mr. James would be considered the author of the work. Eventually we hope to create additional fields for those non-author roles (editor, translator, narrator [for audio books], etc.) Till then... Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:34, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Re Draqualian Silk, I reworked the ms. to make it a better book, although William supplied the data, and responded to my questions by checking the original volumes. I regard this as a collaborative authorship, albeit in a secondary role (I didn't take a co-author's credit because that would have divided up the royalties). However, it's up to you to decide the final outcome on these things. I did the same thing here that I did with the earlier Bibliographies of Modern Authors series books--except that I don't actually have most of these particular titles in my collection, only the PDFs of the 16 books I edited. For the record, William Maltese (rn: William J. Lambert III) has published about 15-20 SF, fantasy, and horror novels under six or more pseuds., beginning with his very first title back in 1969. By the way, I went back and looked at my master list of the Bibliographies of Modern Authors Series. Under the old Borgo Press (1976-98), we published #s 1-18, 21, 23, 25, and 27-29, out of 35 numbers assigned. The others were announced but never released. In a few cases, the mss. in question were issued later by other lines and under other titles. Under the new Borgo Press imprint of Wildside Press, we've published #19, Draqualian Silk, and #22, World Wrecker--and I'll replace the other missing numbers when and if I find appropriate titles. I've done the same thing with The Milford Series and the I.O. Studies series. Isn't this fun??? It's going to take a long time to check everything. Robertreginald 04:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's a list of the books of William Maltese with fantastic content: Adonis (1969, #1), Adonis at Actum (1970, #2), Adonis at Bomasa (1970, #3), Five Roads to Tlen (1970, #1), The Gods of Tlen (1970, #2), Demon's Stalk (1970, #1), Demon's Coronation (1971, #2), Valley of the Damned (1971), Starship Intercourse (1971), The Secret of the Phallic Stone (1977), The Last Galaxy Game (1980), The Crystal of Power (1980), The Alien Within (1980), Voyage of the Trigon (1981), The Galactic Arena (1981, sequel to The Crystal of Power), Bohack: Symbiotic Worlds (1981), Riders of the Dragon (1981), Encores in Fade (1981), Jason and the Argonauts (1981), Michael: The Master (1981, sequel to The Alien Within), Bond-Shattering (2005), The Gomorrha Conjurations (2007), Total Meltdown (2009, with Raymond Gaynor). Robertreginald 04:24, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Eventually I'll get to these. There's a SF Pornography bibliography by Kenneth R. Johnson that I've bookmarked but still haven't found the time to research and create records for all of the titles listed there. 04:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Ken and I are old acquaintances. Not all of these books are porn, however. The group of titles published in 1980-81 were issued by Carousel, the straight side of a porn publisher, under a variety of pen names; and the later books also were mainstream titles. If you go to my website (www.millefleurs.tv), click on the e-mail link there on the bottom of the first page, and drop me a note, I'll create a file for you that includes the exact bibliographical data on all of these titles, and send it to you. As far as the early books are concerned, an original Starship Intercourse goes for a thousand bucks if you can find one, and the Tlen and Adonis books are almost as pricey. If I'd bought a couple of boxes of these when they first appeared, I'd be a wealthy man. Of course, if I'd bought Microsoft when it started.... Robertreginald 04:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The request was sent. Looking forward to seeing the data. And, alas, we all look back in regret on the road not taken when it comes to book purchasing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:34, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

co-author/co-editor ordering

Hi. I accepted the modifications you submitted for R. I. P., but, as you'll see in this edit (and others), attempts to control the software's display of the order of co-authors/co-editors is a bit of an exercise in futility -- or at least in frustration. The system has no concept of author order, just author sets. So if you swap the order, the system sees no change in the set and basically ignores that part of your edit (as happened here). If you change one of the authors (e.g., from Robert Reginald to R. Reginald), that one is replaced but the original order remains unchanged no matter what new order you provide. I recommend that you not bother. It is possible to get a specific order, but it takes a lot of editing and is prone to errors of completeness (leaving a title or pub without its full roster of authors/editors) and is likely to drive moderators crazy. :-) --MartyD 12:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Author legal names

Hi. I accepted your submission for the legal name of John Weeks, but I modified it to change the order of the names to LAST, FIRST MIDDLE and to remove the parenthetical comment. See Help:Screen:AuthorData for details of the various aspects of capturing names. Thanks. --MartyD 13:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Changes to Primary-Verified pubs / notifying verifiers

Hi. One last comment from me for the morning (I promise). Sorry about all of the nits. When editing information for a primary-verified publication, our policy is to notify the verifier on the verifier's talk page. Usual practice is to ask first when making corrections and fixing errors of omission (if you find something on the pub itself that a verifier presumably should/could have noticed), and to notify after the fact for other additions. It can be a pain at times, but this practice helps us make sure everyone is looking at the same edition/printing of the publication and also helps improve verifiers' data entry and data verification. Some folks prominently post more detailed preferences about notifications at the top of their talk pages. You will find a link to the verifier's "user" page in the verification list. The "talk" page is then the Discussion tab. Thanks, and thank you for all of the contributions. --MartyD 14:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

John Weeks used that name for many years, but more recently, has begun using his full name, "John Howard Weeks," as his preferred byline for his books, etc. (see The Window Beyond the World), because of the commonness of the name. He still uses "John Weeks" on his newspaper column (he's the Features Editor for the San Bernardino Sun newspaper). He's the same person who did reviews for me for Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review thirty years ago. We're currently doing a book together, Our Favorite Eats in the Inland Empire. I'm not very familiar with posting on sites like these, and I'm always rushed by deadlines and such, so what I do is pretty much catch-as-catch-can. I just wanted to clean up my bibliographic listings on public datasbases like these--because there's so much erroneous information strewn out there on the net, and because I've done a LOT of stuff over the last four decades--some of which worked out, and some of which didn't, having been announced but never published. And I know a great many of the circumstances of why things were done the way they were, or how things developed, with the publishers and the authors that I worked with--then and now. Again, thanks for all your help. Rob. Robertreginald 18:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

No worries, that's what the moderators are for. The more good, and cleaned-up, information, the better! Thanks much for helping us out. --MartyD 12:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I notice that the reviews listed between p. 100-131 in Classics of Fantastic Literature are not displaying on my page. Missing a few other things too. Robertreginald 16:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I see the reviews. Can you give me an example of one of them that is missing? There are a few other things credited to just R. Reginald for which we need to set up variant titles credited to Robert Reginald to have them show up properly (those would be missing at the moment). I will do that when I get a chance (not today). --MartyD 13:17, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

They're there--they just wound up on a separate part of the list, for some reason. Robertreginald 17:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, I marked a few of the pseuds. that I used in the four issues of Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review, and added them to my main entry--including Michael Demotes, for example. But these reviews haven't shown up in the main listing either. Robertreginald 17:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not obvious, but having the pseudonym relationship isn't enough to make them appear. In addition, we use a "variant title" mechanism -- one title attributed to the pseudonym, the other title attributed to the canonical author name, and the two titles linked in a parent (by the canonical author) - child (by the pseudonym) relationship. Where the relationship between the two identities is 1:1, this is extra work. But when the pseudonym is used by different authors (e.g., house pseudonyms), it's the only way to attribute each instance of the pseudonym to the appropriate "real" author. I made the variants for Demotes, so you'll see those (and if you go to Michael Demotes, you'll see it listed as a pseudonym with no titles. Compare with R. Reginald. There, the titles you see do not yet have the variants under the "Robert Reginald" authorship yet in place. Each title needs to be visited and "Make this Title a Variant Title or Pseudononymous Work" done to it, setting the author on that new title to "Robert Reginald". I will go through and do them -- knowing they're pseudoynms is the most important piece of information. --MartyD 12:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The other pseuds. that I used--and recognized while scanning the annotated contents of the first four issues of SF&FBR--were Miguel Alcalde, Peter Harding, and Rex Miletus. There were a few others I employed in the later issues, but until I encounter them, I won't remember what they were. We did so much stuff back in those days, much of which I've forgotten, that it's just overwhelming at times. And later, between 1998-2003, Mary and I generated some 13,000 entries for a large literary database from one of the reference publishers; most of this work was uncredited work-for-hire, and I'm not sure if we even still have records of the material--not that I wish to revisit this arena. We're not going to crash your database! Most of my creative energies now are spent in writing fiction--and editing other folks' work. Robertreginald 17:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Note that the four issues of SF&FBR got pulled over in facsimile format into the one-volume reprint of all of the issues of Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review, as edited by Neil Barron and Robert Reginald for Borgo Press, and the page numbers and reviews listed therein will be identical from one to the other--except that the book has a new intro by Reginald. So the contents of these four issues can be copied into a beginning index of the reviews in the book volume. Robertreginald 17:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I will import them when I get a chance. --MartyD 12:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

And I'm gradually adding the next 8 issues, but they are a lot of work so don't hold your breath. I'll try and get at least one done each day. BLongley 16:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Can the records be easily imported into the book version of SF&FBR, once they're complete? If you need any help, or if you're missing any pages, let me know: I've got a complete, bound set of the original run--and, of course, the reprint in book form. I'm easy to find through my website, www.millefleurs.tv. Robertreginald 19:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the contents will be easily importable once I've entered the magazines. (One of the newer features of our software, but an invaluable one.) If you care to check them before we do so though, then the latest two are here and there - it's easier to get them right on the first entry rather than correct multiple entries later. BLongley 21:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

On the issues you've indexed so far (a fine job, I might add), I can add the following data: The "Clifford Bendes" you cite in #8, p. 108 is actually Clifford Bendau, who usually wrote as Clifford P. Bendau. In the same issue, the reviewer you cite on p. 110, Misha Grazhdanin, is a pseud. of Robert Reginald. In issue #9, p. 120, I'm also Nero Rale; in the same issue, p. 124, I'm also G. Forbes Durand and Lucretia Sharpe. Robertreginald 22:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, all issues entered. I've also imported the contents into the one-volume reprint, except for the last issue. As the page-numbering restarted for that one, it might cause confusion If I keep the numbers - multiple page 1s, 13s, 14, 15s and 16s. Might it be better if I made those [165], [177], [178], [179] and [180]? BLongley 15:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

In issue #12, p. 1, I'm all these folks: Walt Mobley, Daniel Painter, Jack B. Nimble, Andrew Kapel, and Jacob Lawson--these were throwaway filler pieces. On p. 11, I'm also Tertius Spartacus. I paged through the final issue, #13 (February), and I've got some pieces in there as well, under R. Reginald and Boden Clarke. Let me know if you don't have that issue, and if not, I'll index it myself. The page count in the book volume is the same as in the original issues, so best to keep them that way. If you want to differentiate the second issue paginations, I would suggest putting a "2" or "II" in front of the page number. Robertreginald 16:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Latest Pseudonyms created - you're beginning to catch up with Lionel Fanthorpe on number of alter-egos, did you try and race with each other while he was your British Agent? ;-) BLongley 21:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have Issue 13 so please do enter that. I guess Brian Stableford didn't renew his subscription - the issues I have now all came from his collection. I'll have a bit of an experiment and see what pseudo-page-numbers will work best with ISFDB sorting. BLongley 21:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually (covering my face in shame), I adapted one of the last ones, Tertius Spartacus, from Lionel's pseud., Deutero Spartacus, as a kind of tongue-in-cheek tip-of-the-hat to an old and honored acquaintance. Some of the others were ancestors of mine, or taken from odd sources (G. Forbes Durand was the private eye in the TV mystery movie, Banyan, Walt Mobley was my Dad's name during his teen years, etc.). (There were other writers who employed pseuds. in SF&FBR as well, but I can't remember them now.) I'd forgotten most of these, and only recognized them again when I saw them--because I know the antecedents. I do similar things in my fiction, and some are the kinds of references that no one other than Mary will ever get or understand. I enjoy playing made-up literary games. I recently challenged two of my prolific colleagues in the business to the "alphabet game," which I first noticed Andre Norton doing in the 1960s and '70s--in which you try to fill in the alphabet with your book titles (or just your fiction titles, or...). I have "Y" and "Z" yet to go. Brian just submitted "Xeno's Paradox" today to complete his run--of just his Borgo Press titles! He hopes to pass 200 published books this summer. William, another friend of mine, hopes to reach 200 in a year or two; he still has "Q" and "X" to go. I'm a terrible laggard: I'm just shy of 120, although I may rework my long novels into trilogies, which would add another fifteen titles very quickly--say, by the end of 2011. I'm also in the process of converting as many of my older books as possible into e-formats; I should have 30-40 of them out by summer. Robertreginald 23:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

It's actually been quite fun guessing which were you - I suspected Nero Rale but the rest of those awful "Satan's Library" book reviews were done as Peter Harding, so I wasn't sure. BLongley 18:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

One more thought on Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review. My late colleague, Neil Barron, talked me into doing this publication, against my better judgment. He organized and edited a group of reviews for the forthcoming issues, from a variety of contacts that we both had, and I fit them together, creating each issue from scratch, depending on the copy I had in hand, and doing some further editing as I laid out and assembled the text for each page, typing it onto masters as I went along, and writing filler reviews myself (right on the page) where I needed to make the columns come out right. Mary ran the business end of things, as she always did. I came to hate the thing with a passion that's hard to understand, if you haven't faced a continuous monthly deadline that just wouldn't go away, and that ate up every spare moment that we had. It was a monster that threatened to devour the book line, and I couldn't let that happen. So I killed it after a year--and while we did some good work there, I was very, very glad to stake the thing right through its literary heart, and leave it bleeding on the field--by giving it away to another publisher. If you look at our book production for this period, there's a big gap of something like thirteen months during which we published no titles. SF&FBR was one of the reasons why: all of our money and energy were going there. I'm a book person: I like to work on projects that, even when they're long, can eventually be finished and put away, so that I can turn to something new. And yet, in the end, I was able to salvage a book out the magazine--something for our efforts, although it'll never make any money; just as I was able to dredge a book out of the advertising brochures we wrote for Arno Press back in the 1970s to accompany our three long reprint series of SF, fantasy, and horror titles. I just wanted to preserve the material--all the hard work some very bright and talented folks contributed to these publications, back when we were young and foolish and full of sand. Robertreginald 23:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, even 30 years later I've found it to be a useful read. There's not many publications that I really respect for reviews, but this was definitely one of them. BLongley 18:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. If you'll send me an e-mail with your snail-mail address, I'll send you an inscribed copy of the reprint, as my thanks for all the work you've done indexing this publication. Rob. Robertreginald 23:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Borgo Press (1976-98) and Borgo Press/Wildside Press confusion

Please see the note

There's no legal connection between the old Borgo Press (1976-1998) and the BP imprint, except that the owners of the old BP sold the label to Wildside in March 2003 for a dollar--and also transferred their ISBN registers. That's it. They did not sell rights to their books, because they no longer owned them. Wildside later acquired rights to some of the old BP editions, and reprinted them. You have these editions conflated throughout your database, and it quite simply is wrong. By the way, there CAN'T be any Borgo Press editions between 1998-2003, because the label didn't exist then. You are missing hundreds of titles from the WP Borgo Press imprint, however. Robert Reginald.

I've attached to The Work of Katherine Kurtz. You folks have confused the old Borgo Press (1976-98) with the Borgo Press imprint of Wildside Press, a completely different publisher--and you keep mixing up the editions. I can understand why Amazon would do this, since they simply want to sell books, and all the old BP editions have been OP since 1999. They automatically substitute when a new version comes on-line. But the old Borgo Press did NOT sell the rights to any of its books to Wildside, because it had already reverted these back to their authors; any books that have been reprinted since by Wildside have been reacquired separately. Also, the BP label did not exist between 1999-2002, so no books were issued under that imprint during those years--despite your listings. And, contrary to your statement on the Wiki, the BP imprint of WP has issued over 850 books since 2006 under that label--the real number may be closer to 1000. I have complete records of these. There were some books published under the imprint between 2003-05, but I wasn't involved in most of them, since I was seriously ill at the time. Contact me for my information, please. Thanks. Robertreginald 05:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

One question: did you enter/create this record? If so, it has the same publisher as that which published in 1976-1998, and it's only natural that the database would "confuse" the two publishers. If you want to distinguish the publications of the entity known as "Borgo Press" (an imprint of Wildside) from that of the earlier publisher known as "Borgo Press", then a different name must be used in the publisher field of the record. If you use the same name, the database will naturally combine the records of the two publishers. Changes must be made on a record by record case. Making a change on the publisher level will effect every pub that currently has the same name in the publisher field.

Also I can't find the Wiki page that gives the number of BP/WP titles published. If it's incorrect, it's easy to change. Use the "Edit This Page" link on any Wiki page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably--at this point, I really couldn't say for sure. Is there any way to search for all the books by a particular publisher? I need to see what we're looking at in terms of numbers in the database. I can upgrade the Wiki page to reflect more accurate (and current) information. Not all of the books published by the original Borgo Press--or the current incarnation--are SF- or literature-related, so they fall outside your categories: we're talking about maybe a third or quarter of the total volumes produced. The old Borgo Press published exactly 300 titles, as delineated in BP 300. Because the new imprint of Wildside Press is used by more than one editor (although I'm responsible for most of the production under that label), I'm not certain of the exact number of titles produced under the BP label by Wildside since it acquired the imprint in 2003. I've submitted over 850 since 2006--but not all of those have appeared. The "publisher" of the reprint edition of The Work of Katherine Kurtz only appears on the bottom left rear cover, which states: "Borgo Press, A Division of Wildside Press LLC." However, that usage is not consistent. There are physical differences between the two editions as well, including the trim size and cover color. Because Wildside also acquired the old BP ISBN registers, it has continued to use the numbers for both new and reprint volumes. Robertreginald 19:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can search by publisher: if you do a simple search from the main page you'll find "Borgo Press", "Borgo Press / Underwood Books", "Borgo Press / Wildside Press" and "The Borgo Press / Wildside Press". (The last should probably be absorbed into the third.) Each will give you publications by year for that exact imprint/publisher. If you do an ADVANCED Search (using the third section) then you get every single publication, broken down into groups of 100. BLongley 21:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The Work of Katherine Kurtz

Since the Borgo Press matter is being addressed above, I've dealt with the other matter raised in the submission for the title record of [this] publication. Using Locus data, I've created records for the two missing editions. Please check them for accuracy. Thus the need for the original notes submitted is unnecessary so have rejected that submission. If there are other records missing, it's always better to create new ones [even if they are no more than 'stub' records]. A note in another record isn't much use if it's not seen. Pleasure to have you aboard! --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This fixes the problem, and I think that, generally, listing the later rendition of Borgo Press as Borgo Press / Wildside Press should do the trick. Wildside is John Betancourt's company, and he should get the credit for the good choices he's made. I have no financial stake in Wildside. I'm happy at this stage of my life just to be able to make some small positive difference with the things I do. Robertreginald 03:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I nearly finished updating the reviews in The Work of Katherine Kurtz, until I hit return again accidentally, which stops the process. The previously listed review for Camber the Heretic has the same two reviewers as the others (they all do), but I can't update it. I'll finish this whenever it's uploaded, and then the additional reviews will need to be imported into the other two editions. Robertreginald 03:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Approved, reviews linked, and variants created. You seem to have reviewed four pieces of short fiction we don't yet know about? BLongley 13:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Callipygia

Hi Robert, I have a question about this book[1]. Is this an older Borgo Press publication or a current Borgo Press pub. The current date is clearly wrong, but the only dates I find are 1988 & 2010. Thanks!Kraang 04:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This isn't one of my titles (that is, the books that I've edited for Wildside), but what I can tell you from the printing record is this: The original 1988 edition was issued by DAW Books (I have a copy of this in my collection). Early on, Wildside arranged with Carter's executor to reprint most of his books in trade paper, and in this particular case, the book appeared in March 2002 with the ISBN 1-58715-316-5 (taken one of the early Wildside ISBN registers--which I mention only because it matches with the 2002 publication date). It was reworked in some fashion by Wildside in January 2010, and is now listed with the Borgo Press label on the printing metadata at one of our two POD printers--these metadata are what Amazon and other e-vendors use to create their own records for public consumption. However, the back cover copy, as displayed on the printing website, just says "Wildside Press," and if the internal edition is a facsimile reprint of the DAW edition (a search of WorldCat might tell you this), which is the usual way we do these things, then the Borgo label probably does not actually appear on the book. I don't own a physical copy of this title, so I can't tell you for sure.

The old Borgo Press only issued a handful of fiction titles among the 300 books it published--maybe a dozen or so. We mostly did nonfiction books for the library market: literary critiques, history, current affairs, that sort of thing. Almost everything we issued was packaged into a scholarly series of some type (for example, Bibliographies of Modern Authors). If you'll go to my website (www.millefleurs.tv), and use the link there to send me an e-mail, I'd be happy to send to you a PDF of BP 300, which is a comprehensive bibliography of all the books that the original Borgo Press actually published--or, if you'd like a physical copy, I have a few of those too. I also have a master list of the 872 books that I've submitted since March 2006 to Wildside under the BP label, and it's current to today; but I would have to strip out certain proprietary information to send that to you; also, the fact that I've submitted something doesn't necessarily mean that it ever appeared (some of the books intended for facsimile reprint couldn't be used physically), or that the title in question is currently in print. The new BP imprint of Wildside Press is MOSTLY fiction-oriented, and most of the books we publish are by well-established pros. However, the content ranges all over the literary map, and isn't confined to fantastic fiction, although at least 50% could be considered to fall into SF or related genres. I have the general impression that some of these titles are missing from the ISFDB database, but I don't have time to check everything there--only my own books, and those of my close friends. Hope this helps. Robertreginald 21:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

As a follow-up to my last message, here's a list of the monographic series that I edited for the old Borgo Press that contained material relating to (fantastic) literature: Bibliographies of Modern Authors (ISSN 0749-470X); Borgo Bioviews (ISSN 0743-0628); Borgo Cataloging Guides (ISSN 0891-9615); Borgo Laureate Series (ISSN 1082-3336); Borgo Literary Guides (ISSN 0891-9623); Borgo Political Scenarios (ISSN 0278-9752); Brownstone Mystery Guides (ISSN 1055-6859); Classics of Fantastic Literature (no ISSN); Clipper Studies in the Theatre (ISSN 0748-237X--one title only that was related to the field); Essays in Fantastic Literature (ISSN 0891-9593); Great Issues of the Day (ISSN 0270-7497--one title only); I.O. Evans Studies in the Philosophy and Criticism of Literature (ISSN 0271-9061); Malcolm Hulke Studies in Cinema and Television (ISSN 0884-6944); The Milford Series: Popular Writers of Today (ISSN 0163-2469); Studies in Judaica and the Holocaust (ISSN 0884-6952--one title only). Robertreginald 21:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This answers my question and more! The PDF files would be handy to have, so I'll send you an email shortly. Thanks!Kraang 01:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Borgo Press ed. of Watson's Pictures at an Exhibition

As Michael Bishop's bibliographer, over the years I've come across several references for a Borgo Press edition of this anthology (Bishop has a story in it.) It supposedly had an ISBN of 0-80956-107-7. There's even an OCLC record of the book. That record gives approximately the same page count and dimensions of the British edition (a paperback). I've never been able to track down a copy of it and have long suspected it was never publish. Can you confirm or deny that Borgo ever published a US edition of this title? Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, well, when Borgo Press was founded in 1976, we were distributed to the trade by another publisher. When the recession hit in 1980/81, that publisher abruptly stopped paying us, and it nearly drove us out of business. That caused us to re-evaluate our business, and we decided to become a library publisher, since that reflected my own knowledge base (I worked for 40 years as an academic librarian). We went to the owner of the other company, and suggested that he give us copies of the paper editions of his books, so we could pay off his debt to us by selling his books. He agreed. We took them to a local binder, and set up a system whereby our books--and those of this other publisher--could be rebound in hardcover on a single-copy basis, and then sold to libraries, which preferred to buy cloth. We later expanded the program to encompass 35-40 publishers, and perhaps a thousand or more titles. We used a variety of binding styles over the years, but all of the books included the original paper editions as their internal base. The books we distributed were stickered with our label on the title page, assigned new ISBNs and prices, and imprinted with our name on the covers. We often obtained CIP for these titles as well. A few titles we actually wound up reprinting in short-run print editions.

One of the companies we handled was Lionel Fanthorpe's Greystoke Mobray Ltd., and that included the book, Pictures at an Exhibition. I have no idea how many copies we imported and sold--probably not many--but the book did exist (I remember the cover), and we picked it up sometime in 1987, according to my old stock lists. The Work of Ian Watson: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide, by Dougles A. Mackey, which I edited as Boden Clarke, lists it as item #A14b. We also handled The Black Lion, with that godawful cover painting of the ugliest barbarian woman in the world! By the way, the ISBN for Pictures is 0-8095-6107-7 (a four-digit publisher's prefix). Borgo used eight or ten ISBN prefixes over the years, many of them subsumed from other companies, but our two main prefixes were 0-89370- and 0-8095-. These were passed along to Wildside Press in Spring of 2003, per agreement with R. R. Bowker Co., save for one small register, which we keep in our back pocket, so to speak. Like I've said before, we did a whole lot of stuff. We've been cleaning out our files recently with the help of a student aide, and in looking back at it all, I honestly don't know how we accomplished everything. I had a full-time regular job during this entire period--and was also writing books for other companies. But we were very focused, and being young, had much more energy than we possess today. That's probably more than you wanted to know. Robertreginald 03:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm happy to learn the circumstances around this previously unsolved riddle. Thanks for the insight. I'll add this printing to my Bishop bibliography with confidence, even without having seen the book itself. I've created an ISFDB record for this publication. The only thing missing is the price. Do you recall what it was priced? Also was the cover artwork the same as the British paperback, and was it laid into the binding, or was there a dustjacket? Thanks again. Mhhutchins 22:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

According to our 1988 stock list, the book was priced at $19.95. None of the hardcovers ever had dusk jackets. Probably by this stage we were doing the original covers laminated into the binding, or, alternatively, a light gray binding with black letters stamped on the spine--or, possibly, both. If the cover didn't transfer well, we wouldn't discard the text, but would replace it with the plain gray binding. The book's not listed in our '92 catalog, so we probably just had one draw of 10-20 copies up front, and then declared it OP. We don't have the reporting records any longer, so I can't actually check the files. The books would be sent to our binders whenever we received an order. Since almost all of these distributed books were sold to libraries, very few escaped into general circulation. I didn't keep file copies of these, although I think I have the paper edition of Pictures somewhere. What remained of the old Borgo Press book stock (our own printed titles) was donated last year to the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of the University of California, Riverside, although I retained one or two master copies each of our own titles in their various printings. When we're gone, our daughter will donate the rest. Robertreginald 03:04, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I did some spot checking in ISFDB this evening, and I found many titles that I've edited that are missing from the database; in fact, there are just too many for me to update. But I could help with a couple of things. As I mentioned, I'd be happy to send any of you a PDF copy of my biblio, BP 300, which lists in great and gory detail all of the publications of the old Borgo Press (1976-98), including detailed contents listings, prices, publication dates by month and year, ISBNs, bibliographical quirks, etc. It's a biblionitpicker's dream-come-true. For those books that I've edited for the Borgo Press imprint of Wildside Press since March 2006, I maintain a master list that I keep up-to-date of every book that I've submitted for publication. I'd have to strip this down a bit to remove some proprietary information, but I'm willing to do this. It basically only records main title, author(s), submission date (NOT publication date), and status (format[s] in which the book was published, and if it actually appeared). I edit books in many different categories, so not all of these materials would be suitable for ISFDB. However, some of my authors, including Ardath Mayhar and Brian Stableford, have a number of titles published by BP/WP that haven't been registered yet. And, of course, I'm always happy to respond to your questions. So, if any of you folks have an astonishing amount of free time on your hands (don't you all fall into that category?), and really want to get down-and-dirty shoveling bibliographical merde, now's your chance at e-mortality! Could I at least beg one of you to update the Wildside Double list? We've published #1-11 and #13 (by Robert Silverberg!), with #12 and #14 pending; and we've done the first volume in the Wildside Mystery Double series, with #2 pending. Thanks so much for all your help. Robertreginald 05:28, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Wildside Doubles updated a bit to the best of my ability. I couldn't find cover images for number 10, or full contents for number 11. And if you have information on the Cover artists, or page counts/numbers for each half that would be appreciated. BLongley 18:15, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I have physical copies of all of these, and I'd be happy to update them; thanks for getting the basic volumes listed. The differences in imprint (#4 is a BP title, by the way) identify who edited the books. On #8, Three Tales of Omne, etc., is the primary title (judging by which side the EAN Bookland barcode is reproduced on the book). The cover for #10 is currently being revised; the revision was uploaded today, I believe, and should be available again generally within a few days. I would strongly urge you to create a listing for the Wildside Mystery Double series as well. The first book in this series, Conspiracy of Silence: A Joe Scintilla Mystery / Tragedy at Sarsfield Manor: A Joe Scintilla Mystery, by S. T. Joshi, has as its second half a short novel that could be considered a gothic horror novel with fantasy overtones. These are the second and third novels in the Scintilla series, the first being The Removal Company, first published as by J. K. Maxwell, and then reprinted under Joshi's own name. All are set in the 1930s. The second volume in the Wildside Mystery series contains some stories with fantasy elements. For the record, main series #12 is Lisa Kane: A Novel of Werewolves, by Richard A. Lupoff / The Princes of Earth: A Science Fiction Novel, by Michael Kurland; #14 is Personal Recognizance: Sime~Gen, Book Nine, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg / The Story Untold and Other Sime~Gen Stories: Sime~Gen, Book Ten, by Jean Lorrah; #15 is Human in the Circuit and Other Stories, by Howard V. Hendrix / Perception of Depth and Other Stories, by Howard V. Hendrix; Mystery Double #2 is Deadly Things: A Collection of Mysterious Tales, by Darrell Schweitzer / The Judgment of the Gods and Other Verdicts of History, by Robert Reginald. All except the Hendrix have been submitted, and it'll go in this next week--just waiting for the final approval by the writer. All have 2011 imprint dates. Robertreginald 04:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Wildside Mystery Double series created as well, and stubs for the forthcoming titles. BLongley 14:29, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Could you please add the mockup for the last issue of Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review (Vol. II, No. 13, Feb. 1980)? Not sure how to add magazine issues. Once it's there, I can add the review list. Thanks so much (as always) for your help and consideration. Robertreginald 18:11, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem, stub added here. BLongley 16:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I've upgraded the Wildside Double and Wildside Mystery Double listings, except for #15, the Hendrix, which I'll add in a few days when I actually submit the PDF file and the copy is fixed. Since the other books have already gone to Wildside, their internal text is complete, and I've also assigned ISBNs and prices. We're reprinting the entire Sime~Gen series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah, starting with House of Zeor (which is already out), and also publishing four new books in the series: Wildside Double #14 (an original novel and collection), plus two original novels--all of them to be released early in 2011. I've formatted about half of the books already. We're also reprinting Jean Lorrah's Savage Empire series in early '11. All of these are being reset and repackaged as series novels, and also being issued in simultaneous multiple e-editions. On the personal front, my trilogy Invasion! will finally see publication in early 2011 as three separate novels: War of Two Worlds, Operation Crimson Storm, and The Martians Strike Back! Robertreginald 22:30, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

SF & Fantasy Review, February 1980

The submission adding the contents to this issue was accepted, but it needs some more work. When you're adding contents to a pub which have the same date as the publication, you don't have to give a date in the date field of the content records. By giving the date as "1980", the system doesn't recognize it (because it must be in the form of YYYY-MM-DD), thus defaulting to the "0000" date. Leaving the fields blank, the system automatically gives each of the content fields the same date as the publication date. Many of the titles are not linked for various reasons. I'll make corrections tomorrow (it's getting late), and try to link up as many titles as I can find or create pub records for missing titles. Looks like the entire run of the periodical has been entered, thanks to you and Bill Longley. Mhhutchins 04:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so kindly for your help on this: we'll need to load the contents of these issues into the book version from Borgo Press / Wildside Press (2009). I wanted to complete this record as a memorial to Neil Barron. I wrote his obituary today, and sent it to Locus and SFRA Review. His Anatomy of Wonder remains one of the key research guides in the field. He and his late wife Carolyn were good friends. Robertreginald 05:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've imported the last two issues into the book version, with 200 added to those page numbers to keep them in sequence. There's a bit to tidy up still - e.g. I've left a review of a calendar in one of the early issues, but omitted a whole page of such from a later one. And I haven't been able to bring myself to enter the Satan's Library books so those are unlinked at present. But it's looking like quite a handsome volume now. BLongley 16:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

My condolences on the loss of your friend - we weren't aware of his passing. BLongley 16:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, after the publication of the Fifth Edition of Anatomy of Wonder (2004), Neil cut his ties with his friends and the field, and dropped out of sight. I discovered his death randomly on Dec. 30, while doing one of my idle periodic sweeps through various databases, and then verified it through data matching. For your ISFDB entry, he was born March 23, 1934 at Hollywood, CA, and died on Sept. 5, 2010 at Las Vegas, NV. His major books were the five editions of Anatomy (1976-2004), Horror Literature (1990), Fantasy Literature (1990), What Do I Read Next? (1994), What Fantastic Fiction Do I Read Next? (two editions, 1998 and 1999), Fantasy and Horror (1999), and the book publication of Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review (1999).

If you can continue assisting me in adding some of the books that I've edited to the ISFDB, and in cleaning up existing records, then my time has been well spent, no matter what the outcome. Besides, I enjoy "talking shop," so to speak, and resolving thorny knots of bibliographical conundrums with folks who actually seem to care about such things (mirabile dictu!). I'm one of those crazy people who actually like working on bibliographies--and it's a luxury that I haven't been able to indulge, save for the few weeks spent this past summer on cleaning up the Maltese biblio, in quite some time. So thanks to all of you for your kindnesses. Robertreginald 17:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks YOU for the contributions. It's a pleasure to work with a professional - and we'd probably never clean up all the Borgo Press without your knowledge. BLongley 18:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Dates of Reviews

I'm afraid we may have wasted some of your time due to an inconsistency in our help. We used to have the reviews dated to the date of the work being reviewed, but changed it to the date the review was first published. The Correct part of the help is:

Date - The date the review first appeared. Normally the date of the publication in which the review appears unless it is a reprint.  
(Note: if you leave this field blank it will default to the date of the publication being added or modified). 

The misleading part is probably from the first sentence "date of the work being reviewed" - I'll fix that. I've also fixed the dates in the last SF&FBR - presumably those were all originals, not reprints? BLongley 15:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, last night I updated the reviews in Classics of Fantastic Literature, listing the original dates when they first appeared back in the mid-1970s. I haven't reviewed much of anything new for many years, but I used to turn this stuff out by the barrels-full. Churning out 13,000 author bios in five years sorta salved the itch. Robertreginald 17:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I've got the edit for "Classics of Fantastic Literature" on hold for the reasons above - it looks as though you're giving the date of the publication under review, rather than original publication date of the review. Am I right, or are we just missing the publications the review first appeared in? BLongley

No, actually, the data are correct, and should be maintained: these were the dates the reviews actually appeared. You don't have the original publications, which were the extensive, detailed advertising brochures for the three Arno Press reprint series that Doug Menville and I edited(Science Fiction [1975], Supernatural and Occult Fiction [1976], and Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction [1978])--shouldn't these be listed in our bibliographies, BTW? I could certainly give you the bibliographical details, but I don't regard them as books in and of themselves, and I don't list them in my own biblio. Nonetheless, the material they contained was well worth preserving, in my estimation, because many of these publications they review are described nowhere else; and so I painstakingly scanned them all, and transcribed any that wouldn't scan. They contain minor corrections and updates, but essentially were published "as is."

Thanks for the info - edit approved now. I think we'd better record the advertising brochures somehow - the alternative would be to put a reason for the date into each individual title. And yes, the reprint series are worth recording. Supernatural and Occult Fiction seems to be present, but we don't have any other Arno Press Publication series. BLongley 20:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been working on adding pubs in the Arno Press "Supernatural and Occult Fiction" series over the past few weeks, and am about 50% finished (it's been on the back burner of my projects list for what seems like years now). The "Science Fiction" and the "Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction" series are complete. I worked on those last year when we didn't have the ability to place publications into a series. I'll take some time off the Supernatural books and place the pubs in the other two series into their proper publication series. Mhhutchins 20:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure we can use the data even if it's the former - one use of reviews is to find missing editions/printings of publications - but the reviews get their own dates. I've made some assumptions about your reviews in Xenograffiti too - if they were significantly different from the similarly-named reviews in SF&FBR then they should probably get their own titles. Apologies if I assumed too much. BLongley 18:29, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Some of the essays in Xenograffiti went through three or four renditions at different times, and were variously updated, or reworked to a greater or lesser degree, or otherwise amended as needed. I added about fifteen additional pieces, old and new, in the Second Edition of X, plus new obits--but no additional reviews, since I hadn't published any in the interim (and basically haven't done so since). A few pieces were original to X--essays that we sold, but for various reasons were never actually published. Almost all of these were penned as specific assignments for specific publications, according to their specifications and lengths. Some were first drafted by Mary, and then edited by me. I have all of the information on previous appearances of my work, but it's very picky sometimes. For example, my story "The Judg[e]ment of the Gods" first appeared in a 2005 Mike Ashley anthology that you don't list, almost simultaneously in a British version (with the "e" in "Judgment") and an American version (without the "e"); the anthologies also had slightly different titles in each country. It's now included in Wildside Mystery Double #2, which went to press today (hooray!), with a Darrell Schweitzer collection on the flip side. As before, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about these things--won't guarantee that I actually HAVE any answers! Robertreginald 19:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

If we're missing an entire relevant anthology, please help us fix it! It would be nice to have Mike Ashley on board here too, but some people still have to work on writing for paying markets I guess. (I really wish I got paid for this - I will have to return to work and make this a spare-time hobby again sometime soon though.) BLongley 20:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The Arno Press brochures: Science Fiction: 62 Books; Advisory Editors: R. Reginald, Douglas Menville. New York: Arno Press, April 1975, 24 p., limp paper covers. Supernatural & Occult Fiction: 63 Books; Advisory Editors: R. Reginald, Douglas Menville. New York: Arno Press, December 1976, 40 p., limp paper covers (note: 64 books were actually published, because the two Ben Hecht titles, Fantazius Mallare and The Kingdom of Evil, were originally intended to be run as one volume). Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction: 69 Books; Advisory Editors: R. Reginald, Douglas Menville. New York: Arno Press, June 1978, 32 p., limp paper covers. Various reprints of these brochures were later issued by AP, with different configurations, but these were the originals. As usual with our collaborations, at this date I can't separate out what Doug wrote and I wrote, particularly since I edited all the copy as well.

The Mike Ashley book is a tp anthology of historical mystery stories. Do you still want it? I have both versions.

The reviews of mine taken from Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review, and later included in Xenograffiti, mostly ran unchanged, with minor editorial touch-ups as necessary. Robertreginald 23:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I will create records for the three brochures, importing the reviews from Classics of Fantastic Literature. There are OCLC records for them, so why not here on the ISFDB? Mhhutchins 01:00, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Mistitled review?

Could the Stephen W. Potts review on page 23 of SF&F Review, February 1980 actually be a review of Voices for the Future, Volume 2 instead of "Writers for the Future, Volume 2"? I've been unable to find any title of this by Clareson. Mhhutchins 17:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That's got to be it, since LC lists it that way--although the title is cited in the review as "Writers..." All of the reviews in SF&FBR were original to that publication, and first published there.

I'm going to make a link to the correct title, but note that the review itself stated the book's title incorrectly. (Wouldn't be the first, and certainly not the last time that's gonna happen!) Mhhutchins 19:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

William Maltese Bibliography

I've started entering the data from the listing you sent to me on the work of William Maltese. One question: are all 170 titles speculative fiction in one form or another? Mhhutchins 18:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry. I missed the fact that there are NOT 170 titles listed, so I'm assuming that this is a list of ONLY his spec-fic titles. Mhhutchins 18:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I've discovered that we already had listings of several titles, albeit without knowing they were Maltese pseudonyms. One of them Biohack: Symbiotic Worlds. Both your listing and OCLC gives the title as Bohack: Symbiotic Worlds, as do several Abebooks.com sellers. Even though the former title is more science-fictional, I'm going to change it to that shown on your list. Mhhutchins 18:58, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Your listing for Riders of the Dragon gives the ISBN as 0-89370-137-9 which turns out to be an invalid ISBN. I checked on OCLC who gave the ISBN as 0-89784-137-9. This is within the same ISBN range assigned to American Arts Enterprises other pubs. Is the misprinted ISBN stated in the book, or is the listing misprinted? Mhhutchins 19:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Entry is complete for the 26 titles on your listing. Please check to see if everything looks OK. Also, has any editor on the ISFDB requested a PDF copy of BP300 yet? I'd like to get the db's records for those early years of the press into better shape. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

These look fine to me. No one has yet requested BP 300, but I'd be happy to send you one, in print or PDF form; as it happened, I just formatted this particular volume this past week to be released in e-versions. Also, I have master copies of everything that we published in the old Borgo Press, although BP 300 provides enough bibliographical detail (included detailed contents, with page numbers) that you shouldn't need anything else. In answer to another of your queries, I can provide stripped-down lists of the three Arno Press series that Douglas Menville and I edited in the mid-1970s, as taken from my personal biblio--and I can send this to you as a Word file. There were 62 books in the SF series, 64 in the Supernature set, and 69 in the Fantasy group. I actually sold Arno a fourth series of 50 volumes, consisting of critical works on SF, but they shut down much of their business as a result of the 1980/81 recession, and the series was never published, although I completed my work on it; Arno's assets were subsequently turned over to the company that was providing it with warehousing services, Ayer; later, I sold 20 of these same books to Arnold Zohn, the ex-Publisher of Arno, for his own imprint, Sagapress, but he died before they could be released (although we obtained CIP for these anthologies), thereby creating another group of RR "ghost titles" floating about the web, all of them with endless virtual lives of their own. So it goes. Doug and I also edited the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library (24 volumes) for Newcastle Publishing Company, Inc., from 1973-80; plus a few other nonseries volumes with fantastic content for NPC. Finally, Arno also published a Utopian literature series edited by someone else, if I recall correctly; and maybe three Gothic Literature series, reproducing late 18th- and early 19th-century examples, a number of which were fanastic in nature. I can probably find you information on these, since I ordered them all for the campus library (for many years, I was Head of Collection Development there--I probably bought about one-quarter to one-third of the entire 800,000-volume library). Just let me know what you need. Robertreginald 23:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Email's on its way. Mhhutchins 00:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought I HAD requested BP300, but it seems my domain registrar is messing up badly and all my anti-spam email addresses are not working. :-( I'll retry after adjusting my isfdb email account. BLongley 15:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

My copy arrived in my inbox today, and it's fascinating. Some of the titles are obviously outside our purview, but some will be a tougher call. I can start on the first 150, Bill, if you care to take up the latter half. Mhhutchins 23:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Got mine now, at second attempt. You're right, it's fascinating. I think I've seen some of it before (Amazon look-inside or such?) but I didn't do much with it first time. You'll probably come across some of my work entering early issues though, but I didn't do much with contents. You should have a head-start on me - I'll start at 200. BLongley 18:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Arno Press series' brochures

Records for the three brochures have been created: Science Fiction, Supernatural & Occult Fiction, and Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction. I'm sure somewhere in the process I may have missed some of the reviews (or placed them in the wrong brochure.) The best way to check is to update the reviews with the page numbers, when you get the chance, adding any reviews that are missing or removing any that are in the wrong pamphlet. If you do that, I'll go back later and merge the missing reviews with the ones already in the database as reprinted in Classics of Fantastic Literature. A question concerning that book: it has 196 pages but the reviews end on page 168. Have you finished adding all of the reviews? If not, I probably should have waited until you finished before creating records for the three brochures from which the reviews were taken. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Very well done indeed. The items missing are things you either weren't aware of, or (in one instance) a book I failed to list. Let me start with your question: the 28 pages at the end of Classics consist of a very detailed index to the authors and titles mentioned; this is dropped from the forthcoming e-version, because I can't rectify multiple e-formats with a sliding text and index. The Kingdom of Evil, by Ben Hecht, was missed in my index of Classics, because it was merged with its prequel, Fantazius Mallare. I'll add it to the book and the brochure. I chose not to carry over to Classics the reviews of the nonfiction books included in the original series: there were 13 of these in the SF series, and one in the Fantasy series. I'll add these to the brochure listings only. Unfortunately, I can't find my copies of the original brochures (they were never included in the cabinet containing the master copies of the various editions of my books), and so I'll have to wait until they surface in the current ongoing reorganization of my office and library before I can add the page numbers. This might take some time, so please be patient: I have a student coming in one afternoon a week to help.

For anyone who lives close to Southern California, Mary and I will be at the J. Lloyd Eaton Conference in Riverside on Feb. 12th, and at the Paperback Collectors Show in Mission Hills on Mar. 27. There'll be a number of well-known SF writers attending each of these, so perhaps I'll see one or two of you there as well. Now, that would be fun! Robertreginald 03:46, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

A bit out of way I'm afraid - wrong continent for a start. I'd be happy to meet some other ISFDB editors if they ever get to England though. BLongley 17:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Good to hear that the Paperback Collectors Show is still going strong! I remember going out of my way to drop by back when I was still on the road 24 by 7. You could run into lots of good people there, although sadly many of them (Forry Ackerman, Poul Anderson, A. E. van Vogt) are no longer with us. Ahasuerus 05:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Questions about the Borgo - Newcastle relationship

When you get a chance, could you take a look at this conversation and give your take, the definitive one, on the relationship between Borgo and Newcastle, and the use of ISBNs on the first four books of the line? Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review, the Complete Series

My copy arrived today, many thanks! We usually do this with no reward, so your gift is much appreciated. I look forward to reading the parts I've not seen before. BLongley 20:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

One little thing - skimming through for the first time, I notice page 115 is printed twice and page 116 is missing. Hopefully this is easily correctable for future printings? BLongley 20:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You're right--I hadn't noticed. I went back to the original PDF (we had the original file scanned commercially five years ago), and it was a scanning error. Page 116 IS part of my file only copy of the actual magazine. I'll have to see if we can fix this. Robertreginald 21:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news - I guess that's the risk of sending copies to avid bibliographers - we might spot errors. It really is appreciated though. I haven't had a free copy of anything since "Matrix 89" back in 1990. BLongley 23:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hadn't noticed the double/missing page in my copy of the book (yet). Is it possible to upload/mail a scan of page 116, so I can have a complete copy? Thanks, --Willem H. 14:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

If you'll contact me directly (go to my website, www.millefleurs.tv, and click on the e-mail link there), I'd be happy to send you a copy, either physically or as an attached file. I'll probably scan the page over the weekend, and get it off to John Betancourt at Wildside. Robertreginald 17:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

E-mail sent. Thanks for the response. --Willem H. 19:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I talked to John Betancourt, and he can fix the book when I send him a scan of p. 116. He's also going to replace the text covers for three issues of Forgotten Fantasy with copies of the original artwork used on the magazine, and he's already replacing the text covers on the nine anthologies that Doug Menville and I edited for the old Arno Press--and have now been reprinted by Wildside. So that's a piece of good news. I've been working these past few days on formatting a new novel (The Quintessence of August) by Brian Stableford in his Auguste Dupin/Comte de Saint-Germain series, and a new Sime~Gen novel by Jean Lorrah (To Kiss or to Kill). I was very happy to send you the volume of SF&FBR. You folks have really helped the SF world by maintaining this website so assiduously, and I just want you to know how much your work is appreciated. All of you have jobs elsewhere, so this free labor comes out of your "spare time." Ha! I know how that one goes! Besides, you now have one of the rare "tainted copies" of this book, signed, no less, by the utterly oblivious editor and compiler! This is truly one of a kind! Robertreginald 05:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Being praised by Robert Reginald for helping the SF world with bibliographies is a little like being praised by Mother Theresa for charity work :-) BTW, speaking of helping the SF world and Brian Stableford, he has been doing an impressive job translating French novels lately. I doubt they will be appearing on the NYT bestseller list any time soon, but this kind of work is very important in the long run. Ahasuerus 07:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, gee, I don't think I'm in quite the same category. I just try to do the best I can with whatever I'm writing or editing--fiction or nonfiction. At my age and state of health, I've about come to the conclusion that's all anyone can do--try to make a small positive difference. I've known Brian Stableford for maybe 35 years, although I've never met the man in person, and I have the highest regard for him as a writer. I've now published about 50 of his books altogether, and have just signed him to reprint 15-20 of his earlier novels, plus three new titles--and he's still actively writing. He hopes to pass the 200-book career mark this summer, which is an extraordinary achievement. He's also, in my estimation, one of the best-ever critics and historians of fantastic literature. His work is always lucid, informed, well-balanced, and free of jargon: traits very difficult to achieve under the best of circumstances. He's a model for all future commentators on the field. Robertreginald 17:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Author credit for The Gentleman in Black

Can you tell me what author credit was given when you edited the Arno Press reprint of The Gentleman in Black. OCLC gives credit only to "Dalton" and that it reprints the 1831 Kidd edition. According to your reference Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, that first edition was published anonymously. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the book itself, and that's the way it appears on the volume--just as Dalton. I can't recall at this point whether the information came from the Library of Congress--or some other source. Robertreginald 00:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It turns out there was an omnibus edition in 1845 (possibly earlier) with a somewhat convoluted publishing history - see The Gentleman in Black, and Tales of Other Days. Contento and Ashley attribute both "The Gentleman in Black" and "Tales of Other Days" to John Yonge Akerman, but the Library of Congress says:

• Published anonymously. "Gentleman in black" written by James Dalton, sometimes ascribed to John Yonge Akerman.

(BTW, their copy used to belong to Dickens, of all people.) And we'll probably want to change the "Anonymous" attribution to "uncredited" as per Help. Ahasuerus 01:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Rob. I've also changed the author credit on the 1831 edition to "uncredited". Mhhutchins 05:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure how to list this one. War of Two Worlds is now in press from Borgo Press (Wildside Press). This was the title that had previously been announced as forthcoming by Underwood Books in 2005, but was not actually published until it appeared as the first third of the omnibus, Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (2007). This will be its first separate publication.

In other news, I've now found the three brochures for the old Arno Press Science Fiction, Supernatural & Occult Fiction, and Lost Race and Adult Fantasy Fiction series. If any of you need to check things like the original sales prices for the books listed, I can verify them for you. Robertreginald 17:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes Please! As you can see from here, here and here, there's a lot of '?'s in the price fields. BLongley 18:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens

I accepted the submission updating this pub but removed the data you'd placed in the Publication Series field. This would be considered a Title Series and is placed into the title record, not the pub record. The title record already gives the series. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

And if it's not, please let us know where we got it wrong. BLongley 19:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much, everyone! We spent yesterday (the 11th) getting ready for a con, and then attended the J. Lloyd Eaton Conference today at the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. Saw a number of writers and critics that Mary and I hadn't encountered in a couple of years, sold a few books for ourselves and our friend Howard Hendrix, and had a great time overall. The weather was eighty degrees here in Southern California; we actually ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Wish you could have been here with us! Invasion! (now the title of the first book in the War of Two Worlds series) was published in print form yesterday, and went into e-book format today; it'll be available on Kindle probably next week. I'm still working on The Paperback Show Murders--which I need to finish real-soon-now if it's going to be out in time for the Paperback Expo in Mission Hills on March 27th. But overall, we had a good couple of days--and I'm just glad to still be here--and still writing and editing. Robertreginald 03:21, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The Paperback Show Murders

Had a question that hasn't arisen before. This novel contains made-up excerpts from 20 fictitious paperback novels (and their equally invented authors) of the 1950s and '60s as chapter heads. They range in size from a few paragraphs to two pages. In essence, they're short short stories embedded within the framework of the main novel--and they include SF and fantasy pieces, among others. Do you want me to list these separately? Robertreginald 23:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

As an integral part of the novel, and not having a life outside the novel, I'd suggest that they not be given individual content title records. It would be OK to record the data in the notes field, but not necessary to list each individually. Mhhutchins 23:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Editor credit

I accepted the submission adding this pub to the database, but removed the editor credit from the author field per ISFDB standards. The editor info was added to the note field. Mhhutchins 13:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Ten Little Indians

The new pub of this title was added, but a few changes were made to the record: "p." was removed from the page count field (the system automatically adds "pp" to the number, so only the number of pages should be given in the field); and "tb" was changed to "tp", the ISFDB standard designation for a trade paperback. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The Nova Europa Fantasy Saga

I posted a new novel today, The Cracks in the Æther: The Hypatomancer's Tale, Book One. This is the first of the reconstituted Nova Europa books. Each of the three older titles in the series are being divided into trilogies, and the new one will only be released that way. The books will be numbered from 1-12 in original release order. The Hypatomancer's Tale (#10-12) consists of: The Cracks in the Æther, The Pachyderms' Lament, and The Fourth Elephant's Egg. The latter two will be along shortly. The Hieromonk's Tale (ex-The Dark-Haired Man, #1-3) consists of: Melanthrix the Mage, Killingford, and The Dark-Haired Man. The Archquisitor's Tale (ex-The Exiled Prince, #4-6) consists of: The Righteous Regicide, The Virgin Queens, and The Exiled Prince. The Protopresbyter's Tale (ex-Quæstiones, #7-9) consists of: Brother Theo's God, Quæstiones, and "Whither Goest Thou?" Robertreginald 20:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I accepted the submission but had to make some changes. "The Nova Europa Fantasy Saga" is a title series, not a publication series, and as such, can only be entered in the title record, not the publication record. When entering a new pub, you must first wait until the pub is in the database, then you can update its title record to add the series. (I've done this for you.) A good way at looking at the difference between a title series and a publication series: if your novel was reprinted in five years by another publisher would it still be in the same series. If you say "yes", then it's a title series. A book can actually be in both a pub series and a title series. Think of this printing of Frank Herbert's Dune. It's part of the author's "Dune" (title) series, and part of Gollancz's "SF Masterworks" (publication) series.

Back to the Nova Europa books. We don't have to wait until the new editions begin appearing before creating the title records and placing them into the series, that is, if you're certain that these are the titles which will be used by the publisher once the books are published. I'll start working on it soon. Mhhutchins 05:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Title records created for the entire reconstituted 12-book series. Please look at it and see if everything looks OK. Mhhutchins 05:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

All of these look good to me--thanks so much for all your work on these. I wanted to get them listed correctly, right from the beginning, on what I consider to be the prime SF bibliographic site. I made one small correction (my error) on The Cracks in the Æther--the Afterword is actually dated 4/20/2011; the book was submitted yesterday (4/24/11) to our printers, which will likely show as the publication date on Amazon and other sites. I should submit The Pachyderms' Lament later in the week. You might wish to list the original three volumes as omnibus editions, since that's what they'll wind up being. The three old books are being reworked, as they're being divided into pieces, with new front and end matter, and some small changes to the texts. All best: Rob. Robertreginald 19:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I seriously considered making the first three books into omnibuses (it would help in displaying the series), but they have to have been actually published as omnibus before we can do that. Are there indications in any of them about the three parts that make up the whole? Perhaps a table of contents and a title page for each constituent work? Mhhutchins 19:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Alas, no, not in the three old fantasies. There WERE separate contents lists and title pages in the original edition of the SF book, Invasion!--which has also now been separated into a trilogy--but it was written that way, and these weren't. I'm having to add a new Prologue and Epilogue to each division of the fantasies to provide the appropriate continuity--and may have to do more than that with several of the older books. The way I write these things has evolved over time as well. I'm employing shorter chapters now, whereas in the early books I used much longer chapter divisions, although they were often broken internally into scenes of three or four pages each. I'll see how possible it is to separate these out into distinct full or sub-chapters. The Dark-Haired Man breaks fairly easily into a trilogy at the one-third and two-thirds marks, because of the way the plot was devised; but the other two books may provide more challenges. However, first things first: I need to finish proofing the second and third pieces of the first trilogy, before I can proceed with the others. Robertreginald 19:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The Pachyderms' Lament

I've accepted the submission updating this record (congratulations on its publication!), but wonder why the date of the afterword differs from the date of the book. If this is the essay's first appearance, it should have the same date as when the book was published. Mhhutchins 04:29, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I've been putting the date that's listed on the Afterword itself (the date the piece was finished), but I can sync the dates in the future. I've got the third volume in the trilogy yet to proof (this next week?), and five anthologies that should be sent in before the end of the month. Robertreginald 03:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, please record the first date of publication instead of the date of completion. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:37, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Then perhaps several of these entries will have to be adjusted. The one that comes to mind particularly is the story, "Occam's Measure," whose first publication now should be listed with the same date (2011) as the collection, The Judgment of the Gods..., in which it first appeared. All of the intros/afterwords of my recent titles are original to those publications. You'll be adding a few more shortly, it doth appear. Robertreginald 03:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Jean Lorrah's & Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Works

To Kiss or to Kill by these two authors, supposedly published by Meisha Merlin in 2004 or 2005, is a ghost title: it was never actually issued by that press (confirmed to me today in a note from Ms. Lorrah), which folded not longer thereafter. The Sime-Gen novel To Kiss or to Kill was finally published for the first time by Borgo Press/Wildside Press in January of this year; I can provide the biblio data if you would set up the master entry properly. The short story "Best of Fools" was first published in the Lorrah & Lichtenberg Borgo Press Wildside double that you already have listed--Lorrah's side of the book (and the ebook singlet deriving therefrom) was called The Story Untold and Other Sime~Gen Stories--and is now being reprinted in Once Upon a Future, a BP anthology that I should be turning in shortly (which is why the question arose in the first place!). Strange how these things work out sometimes. Cheers to everyone out there. Rob. Robertreginald 03:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I've made a preliminary record here based on Amazon data. Please feel free to update and/or correct any errors. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Re the book Jean Lorrah Collected, I don't own a copy of the physical volume, and the text was reset after I submitted it in 2007, due to technical issues, so the page count of my PDF is different from what was actually printed. However, MY title page copy read: Jean Lorrah Collected: Stories from Six Universes, by Jean Lorrah, with Lois Wickstrom, edited by Jacqueline Lichtenberg. The contents included: "Foreword" (by Lorrah), "Pay the Piper," "Witch Fulfillment," "Sympathetic Magic," "The Beholder," "The Rooster Under the Table: A Folktale Retold (with Lois June Wickstrom), "Change of Command," and "Short Quarter." This appeared under the Borgo Press imprint. The book was recently reset again (by me) for the ebook version. Robertreginald 21:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

John Glasby

According to my friend, Philip Harbottle (the author's agent), writer John S. Glasby died in England on June 5, 2011. Robertreginald 03:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Edward Morris

This is the same person as Edward R. Morris. Robertreginald 17:20, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

A pseudonym has been created and the single piece has been made into a variant title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I notice that you're missing the SF novel of his that we published, so I've added that as well. It's the first of the Blackguard series. We're using his middle initial "R" as part of his byline (with his permission) because "Edward Morris" is such a common name. We also have a second volume in the Blackguard series due in 2011, plus several story collections. Robertreginald 22:07, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The submission for Fathers and Sons was accepted, but I wonder why the record is dated 2010-11-25, and has a stated publication date of 2011. Ordinarily, we have to record what's stated in the book. If true facts differ from the stated data, then we record the truth in the note field. Mhhutchins 22:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The way it works is this: I enter the metadata for the book directly on the printer's website--this is the same day that I submit the final PDF and cover copy for the book to the publisher for packaging. The date that I do this is often carried down throughout all or most of the internet listings as the publication date, since it's picked up by Amazon.com, etc., from the printing information. However, any books that we submit late in the calendar year are dated internally with the following year--and because of holiday schedules, they usually don't actually appear until then. We publish very few books in December, for example. So, starting on November 1, 2010, I dated every book that I submitted as being published in 2011--and most were actually issued after the first of the year. If you wish, I could look up the exact date that Morris's Fathers and Sons was made available for sale by the printer. Robertreginald 03:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that would help. We'll still have to note the discrepancy between the stated date and the actual date of publication. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:56, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

It was published Jan. 30, 2011. Robertreginald 03:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Whodunit: The First Borgo Book of Crime and Mystery Stories

The only reason this nongenre title would go into the database is because of your being the editor and your status in the spec-fic field, but the contents would not qualify for inclusion. I'm going to reject the submission, but create a record for the pub without content records. I hope you understand the logic behind this. The inclusion of mystery stories might lead to an erosion of the db's stated policy. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, several of the stories in this volume have fantastic as well as criminous content ("In the Light of What Happened" [supernatural] and "Flankspeed" [SF]), and a third piece, "The Case of the Telbury Halt Ghost," is borderline supernatural. The authors Betancourt, Bounds, Cilinca, Gilden, Hemmingson, Jarman, and Johnson have all done SF or fantasy books. But it's your choice in the end. The second volume, More Whodunits, will be submitted this weekend; it has similar content and authors (more than half of which are primarily associated with the SF world), and includes a number of fantastic pieces, including my own story, "Occam's Razor," an historical fantasy mystery. Robertreginald 04:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Stories with spec-fic content can be added to the record. Stories without spec-fic content should not, even if the authors have written spec-fic. This is not to say that occasionally non-spec-fic stories will find their way into the db. We just try to keep them out if they're obviously not. Keep that in mind when you're creating a record for the next anthology. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:01, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, you've already got the data I sent you on these two stories, and since I can't add these myself.... Robertreginald 03:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Here again are the data for the two stories with fantastic content: "In the Light of What Happened," by Francis Jarman (p. 218-226, original story); "Flankspeed," by James B. Johnson (p. 227-254, reprinted with changes from Anthology of Florida Science Fiction: Subtropical Speculations, ed. by Rick Wilber and Richard Mathews, Pineapple Press, 1991). Robertreginald 19:56, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You can add them yourself, and once you know how, it's probably faster than telling us about it on the Wiki. I've done it for you - and thanks for pointing out the Florida Anthology, I've filled in contents for that too. BLongley 20:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Lee Sheldon

I notice that you had him on today's birth list, and so I did a quick search. Cyril Wayne Lee (his legal name) died on Dec. 5, 2010 in Nebraska, at the age of 93. Robertreginald 03:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I updated the record. --MartyD 10:18, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Bitter Steel, by Gramlich

This is not an anthology, but a single-author collection. I'll provide complete contents when I get a chance. Robertreginald 03:21, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Meaning this publication of Bitter Steel? --Dirk P Broer 21:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Jean Sutton

Listed on today's birth record. Pretty sure this is the Eugenia G. Sutton, born July 5, 1916, who died on May 29, 2003 (Social Security), last known living in New Mexico. Robertreginald 22:52, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I updated both ISFDB and Wikipedia.--Dirk P Broer 21:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Reluctant Spy

I notice that you labeled this book by Lois June Wickstrom as "non-genre." I would regard it as SF, since the mad scientist in the novel seems to have the ability to create earthquakes (or some similar effect) that the hero must thwart. Robertreginald 03:00, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess "This juvenile novel employs real spy techniques, real animal training techniques, and real science" misled us. I'll change it. BLongley 16:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I looked at the PDF, and Timmy (the main character) stops the villainous scientist at the end of the book from generating an earthquake with his superscientific device--which is clearly beyond present-day technology. Q.E.D., I think. Robertreginald 19:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The ISFDB:Policy#Definitions that lead to the "Rules_of_Acquisition" do have a clause "Speculative fiction is defined to exclude: Techno-thriller, political thriller and satire works set in a future indistinguishable from the present". I guess someone thought that an Earthquake-Generator is close to reality. :-) BLongley 22:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

In practice, our rules are so vague that the only real rule is that at least one editor wants them in, and one moderator is happy to deal with such. Which is fine until that Editor quits or the Moderator goes inactive or other people complain. :-( I really would like to obliterate the Daisy Meadows works for instance. But it has had so much effort put into it and would take so much effort to remove that I guess we're stuck for now. BLongley 22:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

My fault, I read the Amazon story description and it left me with the impression it was non-genre.Kraang 00:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Same here. I hope people aren't demanding that Moderators actually read everything submitted - even if editors started sending me free copies (and I have no problem with them doing so, I'm unemployed and can't afford new books), I think the backlog of Submissions could only get worse. So if an Editor reads them for us that's fine by me. BLongley 01:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I generally have a pretty good sense of what's what in the books that I've edited over the years, although I will have to admit that my memory isn't what it was when I was twenty--and could reel off the stock numbers, cover artists, and prices of long series of Ace SF paperbacks. Now I'm lucky if I can remember where I ate lunch yesterday! I actually do have a question for you folks, however. I've got a book that we did in '09 by Lois Wickstrom that's a collection of her plays, a couple of them co-authored with well-known SF people. One of the latter is the fourth in the "Nessie" fantasy series that she wrote with Jean Lorrah (you only have two listed in this series, and none of them are our editions--but I'll fix that!). Do you want these--and if so, what category do I use to list them? And thanks to all of you for kindness and patience--it's much appreciated. You just don't get the credit you deserve for the exacting work you do. Robertreginald 02:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the acknowledgement. I think the Wickstrom book of plays should be IN the database, but any non-sf contents should not be given separate content records. They can be noted in the Note Field. BTW, there are two summary pages for Wickstrom, one with and another without her middle name. Because they're about evenly divided, I couldn't say which one should be the canonical name. I'm hoping you know enough about her and her output that you could help in the decision about which should be the pseudonym. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've now inserted this entry--two of the seven plays are non-fantastic in nature. We've consistently used Wickstrom's full name, which seems to be her current practice, on all eight of her books that we've published. If you'll note, the other entries you have for her all date back 30 years. I suspect it's somewhat like my pseud.--I originally used just "R. Reginald," taken from Saki's character Reginald in several collections of that name, but finally switched to "Robert Reginald" in the early '80s when folks kept asking for a given name. My real name, which is much more common, was being used by Noel Gerson on some soft-porn titles for Midwood and Monarch back in the '60s, when I was getting started; so I've mostly just used it on nonfiction histories, genealogies, and such. Good or bad, once you've gone down that road, there's no turning back. Robertreginald 23:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the appreciation. I came across an interesting comment in What's_New_from_2005#What.27s_New_-_5_December_2005 - I'm glad to see we've improved since! ;-) BLongley 17:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The database has much improved (and grown) since then. Robertreginald 23:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear it! I'm not sure Al von Ruff would be as happy, he started it and we upstarts seem to have taken over. But he has a Wooden Rocket award and we don't. ;-) BLongley 23:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

But in the end, it's up to all of us in the publishing world to check our own entries, and those of the authors we shepherd, to ensure that the material is correct and complete. I can't point fingers at anyone else if I don't do my bit. I just wish I had more time to work on these things. It's always catch-as-catch-can, squeezed in between other chores. Robertreginald 23:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I slightly disagree - if every relevant publisher and editor and author and artist contributed to ISFDB we would be even better. If we can cope with all the input. But please keep adding the data, it's always nice to have a primary authoritative source! BLongley 23:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Damien Broderick pieces in Climbing Mount Implausible

Hi. While reviewing one of your submissions that added several Damien Broderick essays, I noticed Climbing Mount Implausible having many Broderick pieces typed as ESSAY that we have appearing elsewhere typed as SHORTFICTION. Could you by any chance confirm what type they should be? Amazon has a Look Inside, but it doesn't show quite enough. Thanks! --MartyD 02:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I'd forgotten that this collection is a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I've now corrected the entries after scrolling through the PDF of the book. What I'm trying to do is systematically to go back through my master lists of all Borgo Press / Wildside Press books (the 950 volumes I've edited, beginning in 2006), year by year, and insert (or upgrade) any qualifying titles that were missed in ISFDB (about two-thirds of our titles qualify). This is a slow process, but once it's done, I can maintain it by adding new the books as they're submitted to Wildside. Since many of our books are anthologies or collections, you'll also pick up tons of subsidiary listings. Thanks for helping. Robertreginald 19:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

That's quite the undertaking. It is definitely appreciated. Thanks much for looking at those Broderick works and fixing them up. --MartyD 22:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Exotic Encounters: Selected Reviews

I approved it but there's a lot of unlinked or unmerged reviews. Do you know how to link/merge such? I still feel I owe Brian a major favour for donating his fanzine collection to me, so am willing to take it on - but I don't want to take away an opportunity for you to learn such techniques. BLongley 23:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I actually have almost no idea what you're talking about. We do very few books with reviews in them in any case, so there won't be very many of these in the future: I can think of only three from the past that had significant numbers of these things, and one of these is no longer in print. I'm just trying to concentrate on the overall issues: getting the many of the BP/WP books that have been missed over the past five years actually listed in the database (but I only have the PDFs for those that I myself edited [about 800-850 PDFs, with another the rest shot facsimile from the original editions]); and getting already listed books upgraded (where necessary) with contents data. With someone like Brian Stableford, this is a major issue--but I don't have the original sources where some of his things appeared, and his internal references in the books themselves to previous publication information are not always precise. With these reviews, he appears to have made some of them into review essays, with a foretitle added in quotes--and some of the things that he reviews are music CDs. I'm so swamped right now with other work that I don't have much free time anymore for anything else beyond this, alas. I could send a copy of the PDF, if that would help. Robertreginald 02:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it would help. A brief look at this publication suggests that we have some of the book reviews already, but where he's reviewing music instead it would help to know it, rather than have me trying to track down nonexistent "books"! And I must find a good way to pass on the two or three boxes of non-SF zines he left me with - I'm sure I can unearth a few literate Goths somewhere near. BLongley 02:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I've managed to fix it up with a few dozen merges, 10 review links and a few Review to Essay conversions, based on Amazon Look-Inside. BLongley 17:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

My Life, by Rushie: A Dog’s Tale

Do you know of any speculative or fantasy element in this novel, other than it being told from the point of view of a dog? Otherwise, I'm not sure that it actually belongs in the database. Thanks. Also, I've noticed that on several of your last submissions that you're disambiguating introductions by giving the book's title in brackets. The standard is to use parentheses. It's not necessary to go back and correct the earlier entries, but please use parentheses for any future submissions. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:36, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It's a genuine fantasy, IMHO. Among other things, the narrator has a section at the end of the book where he speaks from the afterlife--and none of my sweet doggies has done this yet to me! I certainly would have included the book in SF&FL--and did include a handful of similar publications, including at least one mass market pb published by Ace. But it's your decision. I've noted the "Intro" format--thanks for pointing this out. Could one of you respond to the question I posed a few paragraphs up re Lois Wickstrom's collection? Many thanks, folks. Robertreginald 02:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've answered the Wickstrom inquiry above. Also, I'll accept the submission based on your criteria for inclusion in SF&FL, a rather well-respected reference. :) Mhhutchins 03:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Latest Submissions

Are all mostly OK, bending the "Rules of Acquisition" a bit to let in stuff you've edited (we WILL get round to noting Editors of more than NONFICTION and ANTHOLOGY eventually, I suspect). I think Ardath Mayhar is "above a certain threshold" so the new titles can come in, but remember that there is a "NONGENRE" category for titles. (They're still NOVELs but they get separated out in the bibliography.) And please don't use NONFICTION for contents - the only time that's correct is when there's multiple nonfiction books in an Omnibus - ESSAY is the right way to record nonfiction content. Still, thanks for all the effort, we would probably have spent ages before getting round to these titles! BLongley 23:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I keep chipping away at them, a few at a time, trying to be systematic about the process. About a third to a fourth of our titles don't qualify for ISFDB under any possible standard (the wine guides, for example). We've done all of the available titles of Ardath Mayhar (53 books), about a third of which are originals; and will have republished all of S. Fowler Wright's oeuvre (over 70 titles) when we eventually finish with him. This will include a number of unpublished pieces. I've signed contracts this year to publish or reprint at least 70 titles by British SF and mystery writers, with more to come. I've got more than 100 plays translated from the French by Frank J. Morlock, of which we've done about 45 (I just submitted the third part [of four] of The Count of Monte Cristo, adapted by the original novelist, Alexandre Dumas--it's different in parts from his novel); I haven't made any effort to list the fantasy or SF or horror dramas--although there's a doozy of an original Jules Verne SF play in the mix that's wholly unlike any of his novels (it includes Captain Nemo as a character). I have less than 50 titles to go to pass the 1,000-book mark of volumes submitted to Wildside since March of 2006. Hope I get there! It's great fun to work on these titles, and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to do so. Cheerios! Robertreginald 03:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

It's amazing how much work there is still to do after "retirement", isn't it? BLongley 06:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

How to Have an Affair?

Hi. I have your submission of How to Have an Affair (9781434401915) on hold. I'm afraid I don't see how it fits with the ISFDB's acquisition rules. But I know you're keeping them in mind, so would you mind briefly explaining your reasoning that it should be "in"? Thanks. --MartyD 01:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I also look at how specific authors are being handled on an overall basis. For example, S. Fowler Wright's nongenre publications ARE listed in ISFDB--under that category--and so I've included all the books of his that we've published in all categories--or will publish, eventually, since we have about 15 yet to go. Michael Hemmingson is a rising West Coast writer whose work is very hard to categorize. It crosses multiple genre lines: SF, fantasy, horror, mystery, western, erotica, the surreal, you name it. Like a number of other modern writers, he stirs up his fiction--and film work--in a way that I find unsettling. Look at his film, The Watermelon, for example--is it fantasy, is it modern reality, is it noir? It may be all of those things (it is entertaining). This particular book is mostly noir mystery erotica short stories, but there you go. I omitted a William Maltese mystery today, because he's very straightforward in how he handles genre designations in his fiction--so he's easy to categorize. Hemmingson, not so much. Robertreginald 03:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"License to Bleed "

When you get a chance, could you please check whether "License to Bleed" by Charles Gramlich in Midnight in Rosary: Tales of Vampires and Werewolves in Crimson and Black is a very short (1 page) story or a poem? There is already a "License to Bleed" poem (1996) by the same author, so I suspect that this was a reprint. Thanks! Ahasuerus 10:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is a poem. Robertreginald 03:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks! Ahasuerus 05:48, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

James Arthur Anderson

I see your note that "James Arthur Anderson" the author of "Out of the Shadows: A Structuralist Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft " is the same person as "James Anderson" the author of "The Illustrated Bradbury". However, we already have a James Arthur Anderson on file, the author of Wrestling World, a 2004 novel published by PublishAmerica. Would you happen to know if this is the same person as the other "James Arthur Anderson"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 11:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I queried James, and he said that it's his, along with another novel called Finders Keepers. He said he changed his byline to JAA because of an issue he had with a scammer. We're doing a new version of The Illustrated Bradbury this year, as well as an original horror novel of his called The Altar--and probably other books down the road. Robertreginald 03:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for checking! I added Finders Keepers and then set up all of his "James Anderson" titles as variants under "James Arthur Anderson", so we should be all set for now. Ahasuerus 06:01, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The Police and the Public

According to the National Library of Scotland, there was a "second revised edition" of this book, apparently also in 1929. Would you happen to know whether the Borgo Press edition is using the original or the revised version of the text? Thanks! Ahasuerus 13:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I don't know, but I'll ask Gus Fowler Wright, SFW's grandson and literary executor, and get back to you. Robertreginald 03:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I queried Gus, and he said that the first edition was pulped due to legal issues, and then reissued almost immediately with the corrected text. Only a couple of copies survive of the original; the text he provided me was from the revised edition. Robertreginald 20:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for checking -- I have updated the records accordingly. Ahasuerus 21:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Borgo Press Updates

Tomorrow Mary and I will finish the update of the Borgo Press / Wildside Press entries in ISFDB (Sept. 2006-date)--at least all those that were created and edited by me into PDF files. The books reprinted facsimile from print originals will take more time to check, and we'll submit these as we can. Most of the collections of fiction and nonfiction that I edited (but not all) have Acknowledgments pages that give detailed information on the original publications and dates of the stories, essays, or poems included therein. If any of you need help ID-ing these, please feel free to ask, and I'll send you what I can, including the PDFs, if necessary. You can easily reach me through my web page, www.millefleurs.tv. Thanks, as always, for all your help. Rob. Robertreginald 03:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit to "The ALPHA Trap"

I found your edit to The ALPHA Trap, but it didn't change anything, other than to give a note to the moderators that the 2nd in the series, Lord of the Djinn was never published. Did something you changed not make it through? Did you mean that note to be a note on the title? Something else? Thanks. --MartyD 10:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The sequel has appeared as an ebook from another publisher, I believe, but I'm not sure that it ever had a physical edition. Since you set this up as a series, I just wanted to let you know what the second title was. You can add it or not as you choose. There are a number of books now that are starting to be published only in eform, including a few from Wildside. **Actually, I just wanted to see if you guys were awake out there!!!** Bloody hot, humid day here in California. Rob. Robertreginald 02:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

You are quite right. I hunted it down and added it. Thanks for the pointer. --MartyD 10:57, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Series info as subtitles

Hi. I accepted you submission of Dragon Lord of the Savage Empire, but I removed the ": The Savage Empire Series, Book Two" subtitle. In general, we don't include series information as subtitles, even if presented that way. We already had that title with several other publications, and it already had been set up as #2 in a "The Savage Empire" series. --MartyD 10:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the head's-up, Marty. I'll be doing the third book in the series in the next month or two. Rob. Robertreginald 03:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

E. C. Tubb's "Moon Base"

We have a record for the 2001 Wildside Press edition of this novel, but I can't find it in OCLC or anywhere else except at Amazon and B&N. Would you happen to know if it was announced but, like some other Wildside Press titles, never appeared? TIA! Ahasuerus 22:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Always happy to help, if I can. According to the information on our printer's site, it was actually released on June 23, 2002 (although turned in during 2001). Although this title predates my active tenure at Wildside by five years (I joined them in March 2006), I believe that it was one of a group of Tubb titles that were reprinted by WP a decade ago, and then later resold by his agent to another line. It's now officially OP (not listed in the Wildside catalog). The only titles from this group that were retained were the two "Best Short Stories of..." collections--and, of course, the new batch of collections and novels that I signed earlier this year, part of a continuing program to help bring more Tubb fiction back in print. Robertreginald 03:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, updated! Ahasuerus 18:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

He's very much underappreciated as a writer, IMHO. Robertreginald 03:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Once you have been pigeonholed as a "potboiler purveyor" -- fairly or unfairly -- you become well-nigh invisible. Unless you go to heroic lengths to reinvent yourself a la Silverberg in 1966-1968. Ahasuerus 18:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The Horror Megapack contents

Hi. In reviewing your submission of The Horror Megapack, I notice in the Amazon Look Inside that the copyright info cites:

“The Lost Ghost,” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, originally appeared in The Wind in the Rose-Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural (1903).

but neither your submission nor that Look Inside preview has any sign of it or her. Do you happen to know what's up with that? Thanks. --MartyD 10:32, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

And a follow-up question about the same anthology. Do you know if the half-dozen stories not listed in the copyright info section ("Lucifer" by Swain, "Pit of Madness" and "The Walking Dead" by Price, "The Corpse on the Grating" by Cave, "The Ghost of Towneley Towers" by Quinn, "The Man Who Collected Knives" by Betancourt) are original to this publication? --MartyD 10:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Never mind the follow-up. I have tracked them down, and I see none is. --MartyD 13:53, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The Ghost Megapack

A similar question about The Ghost Megapack and the copyright credits in the Look Inside. I see:

“The Lost Ghost,” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, originally appeared in 1903.

but no sign of that in the contents. --MartyD 15:17, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't have copies of these books in hand, alas, although I intend to order them on Kindle. I assume that the publicly announced contents are correct, but I'll drop a note to John regarding this story, and get back to you. John told me in a phone conversation yesterday that, as a matter of policy, ALL of the stories in the Megapack series are reprints. There are twelve more Megapack titles currently under development, the next of which will be The Werewolf Megapack; also, there were three titles published earlier this year without fantastic content: The Western Megapack, The Adventure Megapack, and The Mystery Megapack. Thus far, only The Military Megapack has had a physical tp edition. Robertreginald 20:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I downloaded this book, and the story by Wilkins Freeman IS present in the text. So it needs to be added to the contents list. Robertreginald 19:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you also tell which of the 25 stories currently listed in the contents does not belong? --MartyD 00:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

All of the 25 stories listed on the contents page are present, in addition to the Wilkins Freeman tale, making a grand total of 26. Ya get a bonus! Robertreginald 17:27, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

How nice! I will add each Freeman story to each respective Megapack, along with a note about their not being listed in the contents (and potential doubt for the one you didn't check). Thanks for looking at it again. --MartyD 22:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that what must have happened with this one was that it got buried in the text, without having a separate page for the title header--and so it wasn't indexed or picked up on the contents page. The first Science Fiction Megapack had 26 stories (deliberately), so this one may have been intended to be oriented similarly. I tried asking the author, Ms. W.-Freeman, but her response was, uh, somewhat difficult to interpret. The new style of virtual Ouija board just doesn't work the same way, and I always have problems adapting to changes in technology. Drat. She did tell me to tell you, though, "Bon chanci!"--but something must have been lost in the translation, because if one takes that literally.... I've now got all nine published "Packs" on my Kindle, so I can check them quickly, if necessary. Rob. Robertreginald 02:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. Thanks for passing the message along, I think. :-) Since you have them all, would you check that the same thing happened with it in the Horror Megapack? Thanks. --MartyD 10:13, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Although a Freeman story is listed on the Acknowledgments page, it does not appear in the Horror Megapack. However, the other 25 stories are present. Robertreginald 17:28, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I adjusted the notes, and both Megapack entries should reflect what's present -- and not -- in them. --MartyD 23:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Richard McKenna (2)

Hi, Mr Reginald. In your fine work "Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature 1975-1991", that I used to update isfdb's entry for the Tom Swift Jr. series, you attribute the latest three titles to Richard McKenna (pp. 38-39.). At the Richard McKenna (p. 655) entry you state that is is not Richard Milton McKenna (because he was already six years dead by then). Have you perhaps any more information about Richard McKenna (2)? --Dirk P Broer 23:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

At this site they claim a slightly different sequence of authors for the Tom Swift Jr. series: John Almquist (2,3); Vincent Buranelli (33); William Dougherty (1); Jim Lawrence (5-7, 9-29); Richard McKenna (31,32); Thomas Mulvey (8, 30); Richard Sklar (4).

this site claims John Almquist was born in 1913 "While little is officially recognised about John Almquist, one widely circulated rumour is that the John Almquist who was an English teacher of Montclair High School, New Jersey, USA in the 1950s and 60s is the missing link. There was rumours amongst the pupils that he had written some of the the Hardy Boy books. The way he taught English to pupils merely strengthed this possibility that the two John Almquists are the same". --Dirk P Broer 11:37, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This study in ancestry claims Vincent Buranelli's full name to be Vincent James Buranelli, born January 16th 1919 in New York City. --Dirk P Broer 11:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything further about these writers (the research into the pen names was done by others). The famous Richard McKenna had long moved away from science fiction, and I can't imagine him being involved in any of these--and in any case, the chronology doesn't work for him to be the writer. This publisher in later years used relatively unknown individuals who were poorly paid as author-for-hire writers. Robertreginald 23:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Not only in later years, they (the Stratemeyer Group) were at that game from the beginning of the last century (the game being using relatively unknown individuals that were poorly paid as author-for-hire writers). --Dirk P Broer 21:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

John Burke

Had a note from Phil Harbottle (the author's agent) that John Burke died on Sept. 20, 2011. Robertreginald 19:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for passing it along. I've updated author data for John Frederick Burke. (I'm not sure why this was chosen as the canonical name, as it appears most of his work appeared under the "John Burke" name.) Mhhutchins 19:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

All of his current books--and I've got open contracts at Borgo/Wildside for a half dozen of them--are being issued under the byline "John Burke." Phil's obit will appear in the November Locus, I'm told. Another oldtimer gone. Robertreginald 21:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do about switching the pseudonyms and make "John Burke" the canonical name. I can't find any pubs at all that were published as John Frederick Burke. Mhhutchins 03:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

It's now possible, but still a lot of work, to reverse a pseudonym. "Jonathan Burke" seems to be a quite popular variant too, I don't know why. I think I only have his "Robert Miall" works easily to hand. :-( BLongley 04:21, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

So far as I'm aware, the books of his that were not deliberately issued under pseudonyms appeared mostly as "Jonathan Burke" in the 1950s, and John Burke thereafter. The latter name is generally how he's known today. He did a LOT of work outside of the SF and horror genres as well--but then, almost all of the British SF writers who started their careers in the post-WWII period had to diversify in order to survive. He never used his middle name on anything. Robertreginald 22:46, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Florence L. Dieudonné

She died on Apr. 17, 1927, at San Francisco, California, aged 76 years. Robertreginald 22:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Her author data had been updated. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:50, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Arno Press reprint series

I have a question about the moderator note that you wrote in your submission to update the record for The Earth Tube. Because the ISFDB gives author credit based solely on the book's title page, can we be safe to assume that the record should be credited to Edward Pendray? You say it's stated as "Edward Pendray (Gawain Edwards, pseud.)", so is that how it's credited on the new title page which replaced the original title page of the first edition that credited "Gawain Edwards" as the author? This brings up the same situation for The Conquest of the Moon: A Story of the Bayouda, currently credited to "A. Laurie". Does the ARno Press edition's title page credit Paschal Grousset? Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly how The Earth Tube is credited on the Arno Press title page. Arno always used the real names of the authors, if they knew them, on their title pages during this period (prior to the implementation of the AACR2 cataloging rules, by which time Arno was defunct), followed by the pseud. in parentheses--and listed the real surname only (no first name or pseud.) at the head of the spine. To answer the question below, there is no author credit on the title page of In the Future. I just checked the physical copies of both books a few minutes ago. By the way, all of the reprints have two title pages--the Arno Press one, which appears first, and a fascimile reprint of the original title page. All of the books in the SF series were originally published in violet cloth, but there were reprints of some of the books, particularly the nonfiction titles, and at least one of these reprints (of my Contemporary SF Authors) was issued a second time in blue-green cloth. It's also possible that some of these titles were reissued by Ayer, the company that bought out Arno in the early 1980s, under their own imprint, although I haven't seen any. "333" was withdrawn from publication shortly after it appeared. The original print run of these books was about 250 copies each. Robertreginald 03:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Another title page credit question: how is the author credited in In the Future: A Sketch in Ten Chapters? The OCLC record doesn't credit anyone, and doesn't give the subtitle. It is ISFDB policy to record the authorship of such books as "uncredited", not "Anonymous" which indicates an actual stated credit. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 02:21, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on the info stated above, I'm going to change the credit of this last pub from "Anonymous" to "uncredited". Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Two Stories

Two of the stories in Katydid had partial original publication in newspapers. A Little Light Reading was published under the name Michael Burgess in The San Bernardino County Sun, Oct. 31, 1985, p. D-1, D-4; the version in Katydid has been edited. Hell's Belles was published in abridged form under the name Michael Burgess in The San Bernardino Sun, Oct. 31, 1998, p. D4; the version in Katydid was the complete story. Robertreginald 04:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I've updated the title records of each story to give the original publication data. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:52, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Anstey's Humour and Fantasy

You noted that only 2 of the 10 stories from the original edition of The Talking Horse are included in this omnibus edition. That would account for the page count (less than 70 pages). On your word, I'll delete the remaining 8 stories from the omnibus, along with the title record of the collection since the entire collection isn't included in the omnibus. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I just checked my 1933 reprint edition -- which uses extra thin paper and is priced 3s. 6d. but apparently retains the page numbers -- and The Talking Horse section is indeed limited to 2 stories. Ahasuerus 03:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I've updated all pub records to remove the eight stories and the title records for the entire collection. I guess at 1100+ pages and 5 novels, you can understand why they didn't include the entire collection! About the Arno Press reprint: $68.00 in 1978 was a lot of money for a library book, especially one where they weren't paying any author royalties (or were they?) but it looks like Arno based their prices solely on page count. And this was one big book! Mhhutchins 04:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Arno did license a few titles, and they did publish large volumes on occasion (witness the various reprints of the old gothic novels they produced). I had completed the editorial work on a solo fourth series about 1980--this one consisting entirely of nonfiction works about SF, fantasy, and horror--but it lapsed when Arno filed for bankruptcy during the recession of 1980/81. Arnold Zohn, the publisher of Arno, then founded his own company, and I licensed twenty of the new books to him--but he became ill and died, so once again, the books were never published (their ghosts still float about the internet). Ayer, the company that was warehousing Arno's unsold stock, took over the Arno imprint in lieu of hard cash, and began selling copies of the remaining old books for whatever they could get for them--and reissuing selected titles under their own imprint. So far as I know, none of my series titles were affected. A few of the Arno editorial staff were also hired by Ayer, and I was actually approached by several of them in the early 1980s to develop a marketing plan for selling some of the books--but that never worked out either. So it goes. It was a chaotic period for publishing. Robertreginald 20:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

That's why so often I see Ayer as the publisher on the Abebooks.com dealer listings for Arno publications, like this one. I suspect our records for this and this are phantom publications as well. Mhhutchins 22:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

There'd be no way of knowing if these Ayer listings represent reprints with actual Ayer imprints without physically examining the books. I've observed a few of the latter at the CSUSB library, where I was responsible for acquisitions for many years, but most were of popular nonfiction titles. I've never seen one of the books from my three series with an Ayer imprint. You might check WorldCat for these; if you fail to find an Ayer listing, it probably doesn't exist. I failed to mention the name of Zohn's private imprint in my note above--it was SagaPress. He obtained CIP data for the twenty anthologies that I sold him--which caused them to be listed everywhere--but none of the books were ever actually published. I have no regrets about my association with Arno--or with Arnold Zohn. It led, among other things, to a trade coffee-table history of the SF film, Things to Come, through Arno's sister company, Times Books; and it was very good experience for a young editor. They were willing to give me an opportunity despite my age. I've now edited some 1,700 books (I'm approaching the 1,000-book "mark" with Wildside/Borgo), but Newcastle and Arno were the presses that gave me my start, beginning when I was a very green twenty-two. A very long time ago. Robertreginald 19:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Pub Series vs. Title Series

I accepted the submission adding this new pub, but removed the data you'd placed in the Pub Series and Pub Series No. fields. Those fields are for publisher/publication series, not title series. The latter type of series can only be entered at the title level, not at the pub level. So once a pub record is in the database, you can go back and put its title record into a series. The difference between a pub series and a title series? An example: Frank Herbert's novel Dune is part of Dune, a title series. When it was reprinted by Gollancz in 2001, it was published as one of the SF Masterworks a pub series. Only title records can be placed into title series. Only pub records can be placed into pub series. A book's author determines what title series it belongs to. A book's publisher decides what pub series it belongs to. Mhhutchins 03:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Jack Dann's Wildside Double

Do you know if either of the two stories in this collection have been expanded from their first publications? "The Economy of Light" was a 92 page novella, and "Jubilee" was a 41 page novelette in their original appearances. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Rather than guess, I'll ask the author, and get back to you. Rob. Robertreginald 02:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

According to Jack, the pieces are identical; there were very minor corrections, etc., throughout the texts. Our word counts were about 32,500 words for Economy and about 16,500 for Jubilee--similar to those of the halves of the two Fearn doubles currently in the pipeline (one in press, one currently being proofed). Speaking of Fearn, we've done a number of crime novels by him this year--pretty good reads, actually. Since he's a long-deceased writer, do you want to list these? The Dann double is my 990th submission to Wildside since March 2006; I should pass the 1000-volume mark sometime next week. Great fun. Can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing (other than writing my own stuff!). Cheers. Robertreginald 03:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Victor Samuels

Another pseud. of Victor J. Banis, sometimes in conjunction with Sam Dodson. The Vampire Women is believed to be one of these co-authored books. Robertreginald 02:37, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Mystery and Detective Fiction in the Library of Congress Classification Scheme

You should have waited until the first submission adding the hardcover edition of this title was accepted before making another submission to add the paperback edition. It would have saved us both unnecessary work. You could have cloned the first record to create the second one which would not have made it necessary to merge the records created for the contents. Please keep this in mind in the future when you're adding a book with two separate states. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding a new pub to a title already in the db

When a title is already in the database (such as Perchance), you should not use the "Add New Novel" function. Instead, you should use the "Add Publication to This Title" function found under the Editing Tools menu on the title record page. This will automatically merge the new publication with all of the other books published under the title. As it was submitted, there are now two title records for the same title on the summary page for Michel Kurland. We will now have to merge the newly created title record with the one that's already in the database. Mhhutchins 22:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Kurland's Perchance

Your note for this record states that the internal dating is 2012. It is ISFDB policy to record the book's actual stated date in the publication record. I went to the Wildside Press website and was unable to find this title listed in their catalog. Has the book actually been published or, in the case of POD books, is the book available for purchase? Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

A casual glance through the October and November 2011 publications from Borgo Press listed in the db revealed that none are yet available either on Amazon.com or the Wildside Press's website. Are the people at Wildside just slow at updating their website, or are these books not yet available for purchase? Mhhutchins 22:54, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I turned in eighteen books between Oct. 15th, when I returned to duty following my wife's serious illness, and Nov. 8th--Wildeblood's Empire, Shattering Glass, The Farris Channel, Chuzzlewit, Enemy of the State, The Gates of Eden, The Planetoid of Amazement, The Asteroid Murder Case / A Collector of Ambroses, Mars Needs Books!, Crawlspace / Cold Bullets and Hot Babes, Tomorrow, The Man Who Was Not, Polonius, The Death of Caesar, Journey to the Core of Creation, The G-Bomb / From Afar, The Economy of Light / Jubilee, and Perchance--comprising ISBN numbers -3567 through -3585, less -3583, which has been preassigned to the Second Edition of Mystery and Detective Fiction in the Library of Congress Classification Scheme (out later this month, I hope). Of these, according to my records, all but six have now been packaged by Wildside and sent to press, including Jean Cox's The Asteroid Murder Case combo today. I don't control when the books are packaged or go to press, or when they appear from our two printers (one of which is Create/Space, Amazon's POD division), or when they're listed in the WP catalog--and I don't usually have time to monitor the latter on any systematic basis. I can get books added to the catalog if I ask. The printer that produces our double volumes has been slow this past year in getting those books out, with production delays of a month or more following submission; can't do much about that either. My Borgo Press titles constitute a worthy percentage of the contracted titles that Wildside publishes, but you should realize that Wildside has issued 1,000 titles in the last three months, bringing its backlist to more than 12,000 active books. We do a great deal of work with a very small staff. I don't have any paid assistants here on the West Coast, although Mary has been doing more and more volunteer work as times passes. I'm now submitting between 120-150 formatted and edited titles per year, almost all of them books for which I've issued the original contracts. The book that I'll turn in later today--Fearn & Harbottle's One Way Out--will be #991 of my BP list. That's probably WAY more than you wanted to know, but it might give you a better idea of how things actually work in the real world. Robertreginald 22:04, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you feel it's a good idea to record these books as published when they may not actually have been printed? In the real world, before POD and ebooks and all such stuff that is way beyond my understanding of the publishing business, a book that's not available to the reading public really hasn't been published. Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned, or naive when it comes to such matters. When the books are printed and available for purchase, will the stated publication date reflect the day the ms. (or electronic file) was turned in to the publisher, or the date it was "published"? Or will there not be a stated publication date at all? If I wanted to buy a copy of Brian Stableford's Wildeblood's Empire, which our record states was published three weeks ago, how would I get it? At the moment it's not listed on Amazon or on the publisher's website. Thanks for your patience. Mhhutchins 23:51, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, remember the old philosophical conundrum?: if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear the crash, does it really happen? If a book is published in print-on-demand format, but no one ever orders a copy, does it really exist? Well, all of mine DO, because they have real authors or agents or estates attached, and they get copies of the finished product. All of the books that I edit share certain characteristics. They all have Roman numeral imprint dates for the first Borgo Press edition recorded at the base of the title page. There's an edition statement at the base of the copyright page--for example, the Fearn/Harbottle title mentioned above (One Way Out) is legitimately a "First Edition," and is so noted. As I think I've mentioned before, we date all books produced in the last two months of the year with a publication date for the following year, so that they're eligible for awards' consideration in that year--and also because the printers are sometimes slow to process new titles during the holiday season. Since we produce e-versions of these books simultaneously with the printed copies, often a title will be available on Kindle before it's printed physically. In any event, ALL of the books that I submit are normally available for physical sale within, at most, a month or two after submission--often within the first few weeks. However, Wildeblood isn't among them yet, alas, and I can't tell you exactly when it will be, since I don't control that process.

The definition of what a book is, of what constitutes that particularly entity or reality, is changing constantly in this brave new world of ours. I can offer no more wisdom on the subject than anyone else, except to say that what I'm now doing--what Wildside is doing--is trying to ride the wave crest of change to avoid being swamped by it. The very idea of a "book" is just not what it was back when I got started in the business, in 1968--and you have only to talk to a young person to see how much difference there is in that generational perception. I don't especially like the way the world has morphed, particularly since the end result seems to be a constant diminution of the money that authors, editors, and publishers are receiving--but I have no choice but to live within its bounds, or fall upon my literary sword and declare "Woe is me!" in a loud voice to a deaf audience. As one Em to another, I'm not yet ready to do that, dear friend. Instead, I continue to fight against entropy in the best way that I can--one quasi-book at a time--trailed by my growing group of oft-impoverished writers, whimpering "Please! Please! Enough!" If I had to predict what's going to happen in the publishing world, short-term (within, say, the next five years), I'd guess that the mass-market paperback format will largely vanish, that most bookstories and chains will cease to exist, that print-on-demand, mail-order trade (i.e., large-sized) paperbacks will replace most other forms of print publishing, and that some version of e-books and audio books will generate by far the most "book" sales--and have the greatest market penetration--of any literary format. I also think reading and reading skills will continue to decline--again, we already see this in the younger generations--resulting in pressure to produce smaller and smaller packages of literary entertainment. I do hope I'm wrong--about all of this--but, as Gahan Wilson once said, "I paint what I see." Or, as Caecilius Statius stated, "Serit arbores quae alteri seculo prosint." Indeed! Of course, Caecilius Statius is dead. Robertreginald 03:31, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Your analog about the tree in the forest made the situation more clear. BTW, I emailed Wildside yesterday about Wildeblood's Empire and received their response today: "We hope to release Wildeblood's Empire within the next few months". Mhhutchins 23:25, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The Food of Death

Could you please take a look/comment on [this] discussion? Hopefully your memory is as good as it seems! [Now what did I have for lunch...] ;-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:39, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I responded to this on the page for The Food of Death. However, for future reference, if anyone has questions about Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc. books or Starmont House books, I have a complete set of both during the time I was involved with them--and a pretty good sense of their individual histories. Robertreginald 18:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Fred Gottfried

Frederick Douglas Gottfried was born 16 June 1942 in San Luis Obispo Co., California. Robertreginald 05:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I'll update the author data. You may not be aware that any editor can edit author data. Just go to the author's page, click the link "Edit Author Data" under the Editing Tools menu, and then enter the correct values in the fields. A few caveats: the legal name field must be entered LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME MIDDLENAME; the birthplace field must include the country (in this case "USA"); and the date fields must be entered YYYY-MM-DD. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 06:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

S. H. Burton died in 2005 in Staffordshire Co., England. I don't have an exact date. Robertreginald 23:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Shock Theatre

Are you certain that the author will be credited as "Edward R. Morris" in this upcoming collection of his short stories? Most of them have been previously published as by Edward Morris with no middle initial. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Ed has agreed to my suggestion that, due to the commonness of his name, "Edward R. Morris" shall be the byline on his books--including the previous novel we published, and the two others that will be forthcoming next year--another collection and the second novel in the Blackguard series. And since I set up and format the internal copy for all these volumes, as well as pen the cover copy, and since this particular book has already been sent to Wildside to be packaged--yep, I'm pretty certain!!! Of course, there's always that wild card--I can recall Victor Banis telling me that one of the copies of one of his own books that he'd received had someone else's book inside--just in that one copy! That was an electrical screwup at the printer that somehow mixed up the files from two different publishers. It happens, but not very often, thankfully. Which leads us to the nightmare future scenario in which a hacker gains access to one of these printers' secure sites, and starts randomly scrambling the contents of all the hundreds of thousands of volumes included in the database. Think about that one, M! Robertreginald 23:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

G. C. Edmondson

According to the California death index, his real name was Garry Cotton Edmondson, and he was born in Washington State. Other records confirm this. Robertreginald 23:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Locus Gleanings by Bamberger

I have removed and deleted the 19 reviews between pages 102 and 166 in this record because the books under review were nongenre titles. You can update the record and enter the reviews as ESSAY type under the content section of the update form. Do not enter them under the review section. The titles of the essays should be in the form "Review of <title of book> by <author of book>" with W. C. Bamberger as the author of the essays. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Roger Elwood

According to several posted family trees, Elwood's middle name was "Paul." Robertreginald 00:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

A. R. Morlan collection

Should the story (and its afterword) in this record be titled "The Best Lives of Our Years" as it was in its original appearance or was the name changed? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 05:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging this. I listed it wrong--IN THE BOOK! Not even the author caught the error with her usually meticulous proofing. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve the files (which hadn't been picked up yet), and quickly make the change on the Contents page and story title page; the title was correct on the Acknowledgments page and in the Afterword header. No matter how careful you are, you can still stumble. Thank you again for letting me know while there was still time to do something about it! You guys are soooo good! P.S. You had an author listed a few days ago on the birthday list (I don't recall the name) without a year of birth; I found a year of birth for her, but I don't know what to do about it. Do you want the date? Robertreginald 20:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I was glad to be of some help. I'm familiar with the travails of proofreading, and know from personal experience about the minor (and sometimes major) errors that can be overlooked. About the author's birthdate: do you remember the author's name? Otherwise I'm not sure how to go back and find the ones that were listed for any particular date. Mhhutchins 20:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Darlene Bolesny. Born 1-19-55, according to public records. Robertreginald 23:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Author data updated. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Rae Odell died on Dec. 27, 2011 at Albuquerque, NM, according to Doug Menville. She was 78. Robertreginald 23:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Stuart J. Byrne died on Sept. 23, 2011. Robertreginald 21:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for these updates, Robert, but it's better to post them on one of the community pages, probably the Community Portal, or even better, just update the author's data directly. Go to the author's summary pages using the "Search the database" field, and then click on "Edit Author Data" link under the Editing Tools menu. Mhhutchins 04:30, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The Skylark of Space

I'm holding a couple of submissions for Wildside Press editions of this title. Amazon only credits Doc Smith, but the covers appear to mention "Lee Harkins Garby" as co-author. Do you know if this is what appears on the title page? As we only know of a "Lee Hawkins Garby" so far. BLongley 16:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I have no way of knowing, since this isn't one of my titles. If it was a facsimile reprint, then I doubt that John Betancourt could tell you either, without a copy being ordered. Wildside Press has twelve thousand titles in print, and no one has a complete set. However, I'll query him, and let you know what he says. The cover copy may be an error on his part. Robertreginald 21:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Any news from John yet? I'm feeling a little guilty for holding these submissions, when there are so many more in the queue. :-/ BLongley 01:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I talked to John today. It was indeed a cover error. The title page copy, which was set, is correct. He's changing the cover. Robertreginald 21:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check back in a few days for the revised cover. BLongley 16:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Uezen

I've accepted the submission to add a publication of this title, but corrected the author data. We don't credit the translator in the author field. This can only be credited in the note field of either or both the publication record and title record. I've made Snowdon King the credited author of the novel. Mhhutchins 05:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Stableford's series

I'd be interested to see the list of books that comprise the Tales of the Biotech Revolution. We can place them into a series, but only if the titles aren't part of another series already. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The collections are, in order of publication, and without subtitles: Sexual Chemistry (1991), Designer Genes (2004), The Cure for Love (2007), The Tree of Life (2007), In the Flesh (2009), The Great Chain of Being (2010), and The Golden Fleece (2012).

The novels are: Inherit the Earth (1998), Architects of Emortality (1999), The Fountains of Youth (2000), The Cassandra Complex (2001), Dark Ararat (2002), The Omega Expedition (2002), The Dragon Man (2009), The Undead (2010), Les Fleurs du Mal (2010; issued back-to-back with The Undead), Xeno's Paradox (2011), Zombies Don't Cry (2011), and Nature's Shift (2011).

Brian Stableford notes that "Many, but by no means all, of the stories in the series share a common future-historical background, an early version of which was first sketched out in a futurology book, The Third Millennium: A History of the World, 2000-3000 (with David Langford)." Robertreginald 23:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank, Robert. I'll see about putting the titles into the series. Mhhutchins 00:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

There was already a couple of series, so I've combined them under one umbrella title. The first six novels appear to be their own sequence, so I left them together in one subseries and numbered, according to Stableford's Wikipedia article. I also created a subseries for the collections. Please take a look at it and see if it makes sense. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this makes very good sense to me--and thank you, as always, for your kind assistance. I'll mention the revised entry to Brian--he may or may not take a look at it. If he responds, and gives me permission, I'll let you know what he says. He has a new entry coming up in the complex Auguste Dupin series as well, a collection called The Legacy of Erich Zann (etc.) which also includes other Cthulhu Mythos stories. I'll be doing this one sometime later this month. Robertreginald 03:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Borgo Press "Bibliographies of Modern Authors"

If you have the chance to check it out, I believe that I have sorted out the correct listings for the Borgo Press publication series "Bibliographies of Modern Authors". In particular, I have separated it from the Wildside Press series of the same name, and separated out the NESFA listing for the Jack Williamson bibliography. (WorldCat lists this as volume #22 in the Borgo Press series, but admits that none of its libraries has a copy.) My "notes" at the top of this series include some details about the unpublished volumes, and the two titles not listed here (as not SF-related). I suspect I may have a few editions that are missing (e.g. was there a hardcover of #27?), but I think I have all the titles and most of the reprints. Thanks, Chavey 00:33, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

We published #1-18, 21, 23, 25, and 27-29 only. Under the new BP label (since 2003), we've done #19 and #22--but not necessarily the same titles as previously announced. A few more are under development. BP 300 has a complete listing of every (old) Borgo Press publication, edition, and printing, with detailed biblio data; the last book we did under the old imprint was published in Dec. 1998. If you don't have access to that volume, please contact me directly through my website (www.robertreginald.com), and I'd be happy send you a PDF. Robertreginald 20:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I had noticed that the Borgo/Wildside editions were not the ones that had been announced for the original Borgo Press series. I included the list of the "announced but never published" volumes in that Publication Series listing I linked to above. I'm having a harder time figuring out which editions, and which numbers, have actually been published under the Borgo/Wildside label. The Wildside website doesn't list anything as being in a "Bibliographies of Modern Authors" series, and for the six books using the traditional Borgo title phrase "The Work of XXX ...", none of those six (Chad Oliver, Katherine Kurtz, you, William Eastlake, Bruce McAllister, and Ross Rocklynne) give any hint that they are part of a series, much less give a series number. But I will definitely contact you through your website about the "First 300" book. Chavey 22:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The Borgo Press/Wildside Press editions of the previously published books are all facsimile reprints of the originals--at least internally--but the cover copy has been reworked in each case to provide the Wildside tie-in. This is true generally of any of the old nonfiction BP books that were reprinted under the revised BP label, where rights were available. I have used the old BP nonfiction series and series numbers on some new nonfiction titles, but only as internal references within the books themselves, usually posted on the verso of the title page (normally, p. 4 of the volume). I maintain a running list of the numbers assigned in each series, and keep it current. I decided that the original bibliographies published under the new BP label would NOT employ the old standard title format of "The Work of..."--but would be uniquely titled. Also, I haven't, with one exception, taken any editorial credit on the new books, as I did with the old; "Boden Clarke" has been retired, permanently. The old biblios were much more of a collaborative effort between the author and me, in that I often added a great deal of supplemental material to the books, particularly with critical and review sources. Can't do that now--just too busy generally--except in a couple of cases where, at their request, I stepped in to help old friends get their books into publishable form. But I'm not going to be writing many reference books in the future. Whatever writing time I have is better spent on fiction, I believe. Robertreginald 00:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

John Glasby's The Lonely Shadows

Just a note that I mistakenly listed an earlier publication of this collection under the title "The Thirty-First of June." This actually is a book by another author. Robertreginald 18:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Submission accepted for a record under the new title. The ISBN is an invalid number. Please make the correction to it. If the note field is stating this is a reprint of The Thirty-First of June, please correct that also. Mhhutchins 20:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you certain that the author is credited as "John Glasby" and not "John S. Glasby"? Mhhutchins 20:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen a Glasby book where he used his middle initial. All of the books that we're contracted for by the author will be issued as by John Glasby. Robertreginald 02:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Adrift in the Noösphere

Are the two co-authors of the single story each given credit as co-authors of the book, specifically on its title page? Mhhutchins 23:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes on the title page, no on the cover. This follows the stated wishes of the primary author. Robertreginald 02:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Are all three authors given equal billing on the title page? Or is it something like "Damien Broderick with Barbara Lamar and Paul Di Filippo"? Mhhutchins

Exactly as you show it. Robertreginald 19:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

BORGO PRESS

Under the heading of Borgo Press, you list a number of book titles published after 1998. The original Borgo Press published its last book in Dec. 1998. Anything shown with a publication date after 1998 needs to be moved to Borgo Press / Wildside Press. But...since that imprint didn't exist until March of 2003, when John Betancourt first approached me to acquire the label, anything you have listed with a date in between simply was NOT published during that time with that imprint--whatever else may have been done at some later date. The books you have listed are not books that I edited personally, so I don't know their history. I think that the imprint may have been applied or listed retrospectively, but since these books appear to be facsimile reprints, at most this was just a cover label. Robertreginald 23:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Bob, this note should have been entered on one of the community pages, which is why there has not been response to it. Any general questions/statements should be left on the Community Portal page, and specific requests for assistance should be left on the Help Desk page.

Now to respond: I'll look to see why there are later records for Borgo, and will either update them or delete them. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I've changed most of them to Wildside Press and deleted the others. They all were sourced from Amazon data, and we know how sketchy they can be when it comes to POD editions. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Ted Dikty

You have two separate main entries (unlinked) for my old friend, Ted Dikty, the first as T. E. Dikty, the second as Thaddeus Dikty. The latter should probably be moved under the former, with a note on the byline used. The bibliography he did of Julian May (his wife, Judy Dikty) was his last book. Robertreginald 17:19, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out! All better now. Chavey 17:33, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: A Classic Crime Tale / New Cases for Dr. Morelle: Classic Crime Stories by Ernest Dudley and Philip Harbottle

Are there any fantasy elements in either half of this collection? I know we have several Holmes titles already in the database, but this is due to Doyle's science fiction work. I don't think Holmes works by other authors would qualify for the db if they aren't speculative fiction. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No...but in the past, per previous conversations, you've included all the titles in this series, irrespective of content, in order to provide a complete listing.Robertreginald 19:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that decision was came to, but ISFDB rules would normally not allow a non-sf book by a non-sf writer simply because it's in a tangential publication series that included some sf. I'll remove my hold and let another moderator determine whether an exception should be made. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Fearn's Herbert the Dinosaur Series

According to the author's agent, Philip Harbottle, there are only two books in this series. EXIT LIFE doesn't belong in this series. Robertreginald 22:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, Robert, posting this on your own talk page will not give you the results you're after...usually. Luckily, I was checking on recent changes to the wiki pages and noticed this posting. Placing it on the Community Portal will allow more editors to see it and contribute to a discussion about the merits of the topic.

Back to the subject: I could find no evidence of Exit Life being part of this series, and have no way of knowing which editor may have made the submission to place the title into the series. So I'm removing it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Mhhutchins 03:09, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Novel content record

Please do not add a content entry for the novel itself when you're creating a publication record for a novel. The system automatically creates a new title record which is essentially the content record for the novel. By adding a content record of the same title, you're saying there are two copies of the novel in the same publication. I'd mentioned this in the past, but you may have forgotten about it because you've been entering mainly collections and omnibuses (which require a content record for novels). I've had to go back and remove the extraneous content record for each of the novels that you've been entering for the past few months. Mhhutchins 00:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Stableford's Exotic Encounters

Are there two different essays by the same name on pages 94 and 147 of this publication? The first one notes it was published in Interzone, December 1994, and the second one was published in Other Dimensions #3, Winter 1996. Are they the same text, do they just have the same title, or is one mistakenly entered? Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 22:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't track with anything that I can ID in the book itself. You'll need to provide more info, please. Robertreginald 21:10, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Compare the actual book against the ISFDB record and see if there is a difference between them. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:52, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to match--at all. The contents do sound vaguely familiar, but I have no idea in which volume they appeared. I can send you a copy of the PDF of this book to your email address, if that would help. You know how to get ahold of me. Robertreginald 10:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Changing author G. C. Edmondson's legal name and birthplace

Sorry, I have put your submission on hold, but as I read the sources as, for example, wikipedia and SFE, all given information hint in the direction that what we already have, is correct, or rather: the most probable data. Do you have other information? Stonecreek 19:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, well, you see: Edmondson made it up! He was born Garry Cotton Edmondson in Washington State (see the Washington Birth Index), and died in California under exactly the same name (see the California Death Index)--and the dates and places cited in both sources sync together perfectly. The rest, like Lester del Rey's supposed original name, was just a bunch of hooey. Both men fed me a line of bull when I was a wee lad, but I'm not so young--or naive--any longer! Remember: all writers are liars--by profession! Rob Reginald (just another rambling pseud.) Robertreginald 04:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, I take your word on it, but since you are trustworthy - as far as I know ;-) - I'll approve of your submit. Could you please add another link (perhaps to the Washington Birth Index) to Edmondson's author summary page? Thanks for finding this hoax! Stonecreek 14:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The Washington Birth Index isn't generally available to the public (I've seen it on microfilm); the easiest early record to check for this author is the 1930 census, which shows Edmondson living with his parents and grandparents in Seattle, King Co., Wash.--with his state of birth shown as "Washington" and his given name listed as "Garry." I always try to verify "odd" birth claims in the records. BUT--and everyone really needs to be aware of this--there's often only one source for personal biographical information--the writer herself. My potted bio states that I was born in Japan. However, just try to prove it--you can't! I was the sole source of this datum in every case. And while I do have a birth certificate, it's not available to anyone except me, and it's not recorded in any available database. In fact, I'm mostly not listed in any record prior to my coming to age--when I changed my name as part of becoming a writer. My Dad had also changed HIS name when he came of age--and we were both born in foreign countries. Try finding HIM in any record prior to the mid-1940s. There IS one available record prior to 1968 that lists me as having been born in Japan--but you're unlikely to locate it unless you know what you're looking for (I found it by accident). And my father is also listed in one early record that the average person could find--again, if you know the right questions to ask. As part of doing genealogical, historical, and literary research, I've done a LOT of tracing of individuals who wanted to keep their backgrounds hidden--or who had just lost contact with all of their previous friends and family. Some are exceedingly difficult to find. Some I've never found. However, we do what we can. I knew Reginald Bretnor, who lived in his later years a few blocks from my folks. He would never tell me his original name; he disliked his father intensely, and legally changed his name at the first opportunity. However, my youngest brother discovered the information when he was inventorying Reg's papers following his death. It's surprisingly easy to "vanish," even in our interconnected society. Robertreginald 17:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The Radio Red Killer

Hello, your submission would lead to adding a second (longer) title for a title we already have. Wouldn't it be better to use the 'add publication' feature? (Holding your submission for that time). Stonecreek 14:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I finally accepted it and merged the two titles. Stonecreek 10:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The Chambrion and Other Stories

You gave the author of this collection as "Ponson du Terrail, Pierre-Alexis". I've corrected it to the ISFDB standard of entering the author credit in the order in which it is given in the publication ("Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail"). Also, based on the introduction and afterword credit, can we assume that the translation was also by Stableford? If so, that should be noted in the Note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. We've signed with Stableford for a number of his original translations of early French fantastic literature. Robertreginald 03:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Christmas Megapacks

What are the pieces which begin each of these two publications: here and here? If they're introductions, they should be typed as ESSAY. Mhhutchins 01:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, both of these are nonfiction introductions. Robertreginald 18:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Then I'll correct them to ESSAY. Do they have a title such as "Introduction", or are they the title of the anthology (as they're given now), or are they untitled? Mhhutchins 19:00, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

They're as given now, with the essay title the same as the title for the overall compilation. I'll probably change that with the new bunch Mary and I are currently editing (two cat and one dog Megapacks), to use a standard "Introduction" title for the preliminary essays. Robertreginald 18:10, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Valencies

Please check the ISBN given in this record. It's come up as an invalid number. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:10, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Check digit should be "5". Robertreginald 18:07, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Xeno Fiction

I changed this record from ANTHOLOGY to NONFICTION. The first is for a publication which collects short fiction by more than one author. Mhhutchins 01:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

This one was also incorrectly accepted. I've fixed it too. Mhhutchins 01:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Deathwind of Vedun

Are you certain that this work retitles the 1983 novel Samurai Combat? There's a 1982 novel with a similiar title: Deathwind of Vedun. Mhhutchins 03:30, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

That's the way that Ted Rypel wanted it in this new edition of the trilogy. Robertreginald 20:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Fearn's Golden Amazon reprints

I meant to tell you this before, while you were adding the past three or four volumes of the Borgo Press reprints of this series. Don't use the Clone function to create the record, because the records you're cloning include contents which are not included in reprints. You should only use the Clone function if the contents are identical and the types match. (The Borgo Press reprints are novels while the Gryphon editions were collections.) It takes several subsequent submissions to fix the record. The best method is to use the "Add New Novel" function. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Will do. Robertreginald 21:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Dog Megapack ebook

Are all of the stories that you added as content in this publication record speculative fiction? There are a few that I'm familiar with which are not spec-fic. Mhhutchins 21:48, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

They may or may not be, but even the content on the questionable pieces can often be evaluated in several ways. For example, KAZAN, the longest story in the book, isn't told in the first person, but it presumes knowledge of a dog's intellect and thoughts that simply is impossible to gauge in any ordinary way. How DID Curwood know exactly what his chief character was thinking--and are canines REALLY that profound? And I won't even comment on "The Sound of the Barkervilles," which is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche--but with all-doggie characters. So, with the animal-oriented megapacks, I'm providing complete contents' listings. Next up will be Horse and Bugs (not the same books!), with Cat 3 and Dog 2 to follow. On something like the Slavery anthology, or Victorian Mysteries Deux, which are some of the ones currently under development, obviously I won't. Robertreginald 02:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

If the stories are borderline, there's no problem, but in cases where stories are obviously ineligible, you can enter the non-spec stories in the Note field and create content records only for the spec-fic and borderline ones. (Even if the subject is slavery or Victorian mysteries!) Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll do this on the substantially non-genre megapack anthologies, of which there'll be an increasing number as time goes on--and only list the very few items that might be considered SF, fantasy, and horror. Thanks, as always, for your help and advice. Keep in mind that whenever you want to look at these yourself, I'd be happy to copy you a PDF of the final version; you have my email address. By the way, I forgot to add on the Contents list for Dog-1 an ABOUT THE AUTHORS section, which I wrote, starting on p. 610. Robertreginald 17:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

[And] Happiness Everlasting

Do you know if Gerald Warfield's And Happiness Everlasting (dated 2011) in The Third Science Fiction Megapack might be the same story as his Happiness Everlasting from 2010's Timelines? Thanks. --MartyD 11:41, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. I think Timelines uses the wrong title in its TOC (but the right title within the book). I am double-checking with the verifier of that publication. --MartyD 13:53, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

TIMELINES is the original source publication for this story--which we licensed--and I have the story title listed appropriately, based on the credits in the ebook anthology (which I own). Robertreginald 19:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Verifier confirmed, fixed, and everything merged and looking good. --MartyD 22:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, as always, for your help--and your attention to detail, which is very important with these records. I'm not immune to making mistakes, so I always appreciate the cross-check. I'll be adding records for many more of these books in the Megapack series in the near future--all of those that fit the parameters of this database--and editing (with Mary) a bunch more of these volumes for Wildside Press. Robertreginald 21:03, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

[The] Peacemaker

In The Fifth Science Fiction Megapack, is Dozois' Peacemaker by any chance missing a leading "The"? We have a bunch of over verified publication using "The Peacemaker", including the August 1983 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine", which prominently features "The Peacemaker" on the cover, so I'm guessing "The" was indeed present in those publications. Thanks. --MartyD 14:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

This IS the same story (the credit on the Acknowledgments Page is identical). But...I just checked the ebook, and "Peacemaker" is the way it's used throughout this particular volume. So, it's a title variation. Robertreginald 16:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Varianted it is. Thanks for checking. --MartyD 17:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Poe story in The Steampunk Megapack

Can you confirm the title of this story? It's usually "Adventure" and not "Adventures", and the name is usually given as "Hans Pfaall" and not "Hans Pfaal". Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 16:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

The title is exactly as shown on the anthology Contents page and on the title page for the story. However, Hans's name is given as "Pfaall" throughout the story itself. Robertreginald 20:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll make a variant. It's typos like this that really make me wonder if I'll ever get into ebooks. Do ebook publishers these days even have proofreaders? It's like they rush these publications by using electronic files that have been scanned from print books and no one ever actually reads the results. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

It's always a problem--and not just with ebooks. Mary and I are constantly finding misspellings, typographical errors, continuity issues, lapses in logic, grammatical errors, illogical plots, a complete lack of sense in the storylines, etc., in present-day trade print books, which seem to be edited by a bunch of moronic monkeys pounding the keys of those infinite typewriters in the sky. This includes bestsellers. Most of our Borgo Press print books are currently being proofed by their authors, all of them long-time pros--and if they fail to catch these things in their own publications, I'm not sure what we else can do beyond that. We WILL proof volumes where the author has no connectivity, or where we've seen a pattern of problems with their own proofing. We're also trying to proof the Megapacks we're editing for Wildside--we were brought into this process this past year, and have now completed two CAT Megas, two Christmas volumes (2012), and one DOG, most of them in the last month, and have almost finished the first HORSE Mega (I'm still writing my own story for that one). But...you need to understand that the huge number of words included in these anthologies makes detailed proofing difficult. I edit 200+ books a year for Wildside--we do far more than the SF-related titles listed in this database--but there are just two of us here at the Borgo Press imprint. No staff whatsoever. Adding selective Megapack editing to our duty-roster has forced us to scale back the production of our other books, because some of these anthologies reach 500, 600, even 1000 pages of text. They're very time-consuming to edit, and neither of us are as young or energetic as we used to be. That's not an excuse--just a fact. I'm also trying to enter retrospectively on this database the biblio details of the Megapacks edited by John Betancourt that were previously published by Wildside, and whose subject matter qualifies them for inclusion here (about a third fall outside the spec-fic category). More than 80 Megas have been published thus far--and many more are in development. I resisted Kindle for many years. One of the reasons I use it now is that when I fall asleep reading late at night (more often than not!), I don't lose my place--which I often do with print books. It's not the format that matters, only the content--and how comfortable each individual is in adapting to new media. I love my work--I'd do it for nothing. Cheers. Robertreginald 22:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

A typo here and there in a 1000 page publication is understandable. But in the title of the work? That's inexcusable. Mhhutchins 22:33, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I once complained to a writer friend at a con about another writer who was way too loud, in my opinion, whom I felt was out-of-line with the decorum that one ought to expect of professionals at a public function. My friend said: "But...don't you realize, he's very hard of hearing, and he doesn't realize he's speaking too loud." No, I didn't understand--and I never said anything about this writer ever again--and I felt terrible about my impulsive leap-to-judgment. Similarly, there are reasons why this particular error occurred that you're completely unaware of--and that must remain private. But I'm aware of them, and I assure you that it wasn't carelessness or incompetence that caused the problem. I make too many mistakes myself--particularly as I age--to worry overmuch about such things at this stage of my life. Yes, I lament what I see as a general drop in standards in the editing of books for publication--at every level. I try to make as few errors myself as I can--which is all I can do in the end--and I make certain that Mary reads everything that I write myself: for content, for continuity, for spelling, for missing words (something I have a tending to do when typing fast). But things slip through anyway--including on cover copy, much to my mortification. All you can do is fix them, when that's possible. So, my dear friend, be kind--at least to my work! You do an excellent job here, and are to be commended--along with your colleagues--for the care you take in maintaining a (mostly) error-free database. Good bibliography is very hard to do, as I know from personal experience. Robertreginald 02:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that you were involved in any way with the publication in which this error appeared. (My assumption was that your involvement in these Megapacks was limited to those in which you were credited as editor.) If you had a hand in the editing and proofing of this publication, please accept my apologies since it's obvious that you feel that what I said was inappropriate or insensitive, or both. My remarks were spur-of-the-moment without much thought put into them and without regard to any consequences the posting of them would make. I meant no disrespect to you and the work you're doing, both professionally at Borgo Press and voluntarily here on the ISFDB. Again, I apologize. Mhhutchins 04:49, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I wasn't involved directly in the production of any of the Megapacks save Christmas-1, Christmas-2, Cat-1, Cat-2, and Dog-1 (plus a slew of others forthcoming), all of which were co-edited with Mary--but I'm privy to information you're not. Indirectly, I've suggested topics for various of these anthologies, as well as stories to be included in ones that I didn't edit myself; and it goes the other direction as well. It's easy for any of us to point fingers at a distance, and say (perhaps with justification), "I would have done that differently," without being aware of circumstances that may have been beyond anyone's control. Many hands have contributed to the creation of some of the Megapacks, not just mine or Mary's or John's. Small publishers all suffer from the same ills that the original Borgo Press had: not enough time, not enough help, not enough money. One of my previously published stories was purchased a year or two ago for reprint in a Mega that has yet to appear, one that was edited by an outsider; it's been left unfinished thus far. Presumably, I or John will have to pick up the pieces at some point, and make do with what we've already got--because we can't really toss the work already accomplished. The one overriding principle that I learned early in my career as a writer and editor is that you absolutely have to finish projects within a reasonable period of time. Yes, the content is important too, and I'm not denigrating the need for quality control--but if you don't actually publish the work, what good is it? I've left at least 40 books lying by the wayside in my 45-year career, perhaps half of which were beyond my control (the rest I never completed). I had at various times offers of major editorial positions (one with a six-figure salary), and promises of major break-out novels, none of which were ever realized--again, often beyond my control (I turned down the high-paying editorial job for what I considered to be valid reasons). I do the best job I possibly can for my authors, some of whom are facing the end of their careers in very poor circumstances, having nothing to show for perhaps 200 professional books published in the lifetimes save a lame Wikipedia entry. It's all about the writing--and the writers--not us. Or so I believe. Anywho, I need to complete "Horse Latitudes," my sequel to Gulliver, to put THE HORSE MEGAPACK to bed--and these wretched ramblings are just one way of trying to dodge the work! Cheers, my friend. Robertreginald 17:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Horse Megapack

I'm uncertain about the inclusion of Black Beauty in this record. I can not recall any fantasy or speculative elements in the novel (other than being narrated by the horse, which in itself doesn't make it spec-fic.) Is there any other reason why the title should be eligible? The author doesn't qualify as a spec-fic author, so her non-genre works would not be eligible for the db. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. The story is told by--and from the POV--of the horse. Might as well be Mr. Ed. Robertreginald 20:09, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Ed talked to his owner. I don't recall that happening in Black Beauty or any other unnatural event. I guess we have different definitions of speculative fiction and leave it at that. Mine is closer to the one you used in compiling your standard reference Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, which doesn't include Sewell's novel. Would you also consider the novel War Horse spec-fic, since it is narrated by the horse? Mhhutchins 22:38, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes. In essence, these works make horses sentient beings, with considered thoughts and comments of their own that are far beyond any possible realistic estimation of an equine's actual intelligence. Definitions change over time--and one is never omniscient in gathering data in any case. How many works of SF are omitted from this database, simply because folks are unaware of them, or if they are aware, have no firm data to contribute, or they just can't be bothered to contact anyone here? Case in point: Phil Harbottle's anthology series, Fantasy Adventures. You're missing #13, the last one published (in 2008, I believe). I don't own this book, so I can't give you the data--but I know it exists, because we've published collections under my imprint that drew on this volume as a source for the credits. I have no idea how many Wildside Press books you've missed, but I would guess that there are more than a few. Again, without spending a considerable amount of my own time tracking down this stuff, time that I just don't have right now, I have no easy way of finding or adding the data. I would if I could. Back to THE DOLL MEGAPACK. Robertreginald 02:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Pointing out what is missing in the db is a pointless exercise, especially since the discussion was about whether a single title is eligible. There are going to be missing titles, ones that are truly spec-fic. If they were all here, I wouldn't be systematically going through Tuck and Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, and adding new titles every day. I find it strange that in the 18 years of the database's existence know one has added such a famous title if they thought it was spec-fic. It can slide for now, but it will come up for discussion when another editor or user stumbles across it. Mhhutchins 03:13, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

My own experience suggests that there's a randomness to data gathering that defies description or corralling--just as one can never seem to find all of the typographical errors in a book that one's writing or editing. Witness the efforts of the OED recently to track down an obscure mid-nineteenth century British tome that was cited by an early researcher as the first appearance of a number of words in the English language. That the book existed is incontrovertible--but no one's been able to find a copy (so far). Years after I finished SF&FL, friends of mine kept sending me notes on books I (and everyone else) had missed. I think they finally gave up when they realized I wasn't going to do a Third Edition (no market for it). You do the best you can with the time and resources you have. In the end, that's all you can do. Overall, you and your colleagues have done a great job with this database. It continues to become increasingly valuable as time goes on. I wish all of you could get the credit you deserve. Robertreginald 19:40, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Robert. Your efforts, both present and past (and future!), are much appreciated. Mhhutchins 21:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

On another topic, do you consider the original Tom Swift series as non-SF? If so, then I won't list this Megapack. Robertreginald 20:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

If you're speaking of this series, there's no problem with adding this omnibus publication to the database. Mhhutchins 02:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Weinbaum listing in SF&F Literature 1975-1991

On page 1041 of your reference, there is a listing for The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum (#14959) published by Fantasy Press. All details other than the title match this ISFDB record. Were there two variants of this collection with different titles? Mhhutchins 14:21, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I have a note in my master copy that this was an error--I accidentally flipped the two titles between the original and the British reprint. Robertreginald 19:16, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Fantasy Annual 4

I rejected the submission to update the 2010 printing, and created a record for the 2000 printing. Please update it to make any changes or additions to the record. Mhhutchins 16:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Updating primary verified publications

When you're making changing to a record which has been primary verified, you should first notify the editor which verified the record. Some editors may no longer be active (like Dragoondelight). In this case, you should give the source for the changes. If you're working from a physical copy of the same publication, do a primary verification of the record, which lets the moderator know you have a copy, or add a note in the "Note to Moderator" field that you're working from a copy-in-hand. Keep this in mind when making future changes to primary verified records. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Fantasy Adventures #1

I have your submission to change the publication date of this record to 2000-05-20. If that date isn't given in the publication itself, you must give the source in the "Note" field of the record. What is your source? Mhhutchins 17:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

There are two subsequent submissions (all within 26 seconds of each other) that duplicates the same data. We've been having problems with duplicate submissions lately, and I'm wondering if you recall making these three submissions, or did the system duplicate them. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I try only to submit records to you once. For a POD book, the only true date of publication is when the volume first goes "live" at one of the printers handling it--we use both LSI and CS. Any dates listed at the end of the books reflect individual printer production dates for that particular copy of the book only--and do NOT indicate a new printing--I notice that LSI has now dropped these dates, and is instead using a more complex production code whose meaning is unclear to me. As an editor for Wildside, I have access to the printer databases recording our titles and their status, and that's what I'm using correctly to date the first appearances of these volumes. I also now have in hand a complete physical set of the three anthology series that Philip Harbottle edited for Wildside--Fantasy Annual (5 vols.), Fantasy Quarterly (1 vol.), and Fantasy Adventures (13 vols.)--save only Fantasy Annual #1-#2 (which were produced as standard trade paperbacks, and are now out-of-print); and I'll be updating all of them with correct pub and contents info, and adding Vol. 13 of FAdvs, as I have time. I'm gradually doing the same with all of ebook-only volumes in WP's Megapack series whose subject content qualifies them for inclusion. The most recent one, which I just finished and submitted yesterday, is edited by Philip Harbottle, and includes 25 stories from the Fantasy Adventures anthology series. I'll send you the data for this book when the publication is finalized by Wildside (within a few days, probably). All best. Robertreginald 22:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

We're still trying to figure out how to handle POD. Some editors have been using the printer's print date to date the printing. This procedure is no different than using the printer's code on any non-POD publisher's books, which is an accepted method of dating a publication. But I see your point. If a POD book is printed 100 times on 100 different days, do we really need a record for every printing?

But back to my original question, what is the source for the publication date of 2000-05-20? If it's not stated in the book, you have to give the source in the Note field, even if only to say "Publication date not stated. Date from (the publisher's website) or (Amazon.com) or (the publisher's records) or (the editor's records)." Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The publication date in this case was taken from the printer's internal database. Robertreginald 02:34, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Please update the record when you get a chance. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:43, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Subtitles

Generic subtitles are usually not given in the title field of title records, so I rejected the submission to add one to this title record. I accepted the submission to add the same subtitle to this publication record. Title fields of title records do not have to exactly match the title field of publication records, because a work's subtitle may change when reprinted by different publishers, but the basic title remains the same. Mhhutchins 17:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Borgo Press still published by Wildside?

Your last two submissions (as shown here) give the publisher as just "Borgo Press" without an indication that it is an imprint of Wildside Press. Has this changed? Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

No, sorry. Should be B/W. Just really, really busy--too much to do! Robertreginald 20:25, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Fearn's Fool's Paradise

Is this novel substantially different from Annihilation! that it should be considered a new work? If there's only minor changes, then it should be varianted to the original title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:29, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't have the original in hand to compare with this book, but Philip Harbottle has taken an editorial credit, and it appears to me that he's made a number of changes in the text to bring the science and story up-to-date. I just realized also that I failed to list Phil's "Introduction" (that's the title), which runs from page 9-12. In comparing the wordage of the text of this novel with the average wordage of the standard SF novels that Fearn penned for Scion, this one's about 6,000 words longer. I know he abridged this book in order to sell it to Scion, after first trying to place it in the States. It's a very unusual piece for him, wholly lacking the optimism that permeates most of the rest of his work. Robertreginald 01:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be substantially different, so I varianted the two. I also added Harbottle's introduction. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Archiving your talk page messages

Your talk page is becoming increasingly large. Would it be OK if I archived the older messages? That consists of moving them to another page which would be linked to this one. Mhhutchins 02:31, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Please proceed. Robertreginald 01:33, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Done. I've removed all messages from the start until the end of last year. You can access any by clicking on the "Archived Messages" link at the top of the page. Mhhutchins 02:06, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Murmuring Dust / Microbes of Space by John Russell Fearn

I just finished adding this licensed story to THE BUG STORY MEGAPACK, an anthology currently in progress. We'll be using the title, "Murmuring Dust" under Fearn's real name. This originally appeared as "Microbes of Space" by "Thornton Ayre" in Amazing Stories in 1939, and was reprinted as "Murmuring Dust" by "Herbert Lloyd" in British Science Fiction Magazine #12, Apr. 1955--you have the latter author listed as a separate writer. Robertreginald 02:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The Anatomy of Love and Murder

Added cover scan to your verified. Thanks. Linguist 14:57, 17 January 2015 (UTC).

The Vampire Megapack

The Vampire Megapack I've changed the numbering to be "invisible" orderd page "numbers" since this e-book of course has no page numbers I've also removed John Gregory Betancourt from A Vampire by Luigi Capuana since nowhere does it state that the story is "by" Betancourt in any way Also, adding notes from copyright screen to individual entries FYI, since you did the primary edit :D Susan O'Fearna 07:12, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Doing the same for The Werewolf Megapack Susan O'Fearna 07:26, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The Andre Norton Megapack

Cover artwork for this pub found. --Zapp 20:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

The Fifth Science Fiction Megapack

Found an image URL for this pub. --Zapp 13:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

And the photograph. --Zapp 14:09, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

And here, too. --Zapp 16:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

And here. --Zapp 16:23, 3 October 2016 (UTC)