User talk:Scott Latham

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Contents

Welcome!

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

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --Marc Kupper (talk) 19:52, 20 Jan 2007 (CST)

Swords and Ice Magic

Scott, I rejected an update to Swords and Ice Magic because you wanted to change the ISBN from 0441791670 to 0441791662 and then provide a more accurate printing date (1977-07-00) and state the price as $1.50. The issues with this are:

  • 0441791670 seems to be a valid IDBN for Swords and Ice Magic and we should not remove/overwrite that record from ISFDB.
  • You specified a printing date of July-1977. In the 1970s it was quite rare for Ace to state the printing date. They would state the first-printing date but for later printings would not state the date. If you can see from your copy that you have a first printing then 1977-07-00 is fine otherwise use 0000-00-00 as the book does not state when *that* copy was printed. I usually include something in the notes field that the book states "First printing July 1977 but that it does not state that this copy is the first printing."

The easiest way to deal with things like this is to go to Swords and Ice Magic and to do a clone-publication from the left navbar. You will then be directed to a screen that looks like the edit-pub screen and can then enter the new ISBN, price, date, etc. We will then end up with two records in ISFDB for Ace for the two ISBNs they seem to be using. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:52, 20 Jan 2007 (CST)

Note - if you reply to this please put the reply on this page rather than my talk page. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:52, 20 Jan 2007 (CST)

Hi, Marc I have a copy of the book in front of me. The copyright page shows copyright 1977 and first Ace printing July 1977. The spine shows 0-441-79166-2-150, the last three being the price. The front cover shows Ace|79166-2|$1.50. My main Leiber reference (the Jeff Frane Starmont) gives first publication as new York, Ace, 1977. Currey shows first edition as Ace Books, 1977, wrappers, first Ace printing July 1977 on copyright page, Ace 79166-2 ($1.50). It seemed to me that the ISBN in the original record was simply wrong, so I corrected it. If you would prefer that I clone instead, let me know. (Scott Latham 20:37, 20 Jan 2007 (CST))

Sorry about the slow response - I got behind and switched to a mode of only looking at my own talk page and the community portal.
I should have realized it before but this is an Ace publication. The first four digits of the Ace code is formed by massaging the title into a number and the last digit is used to deal with multiple printings and also sometimes with that two titles massage into the same four-digit code. Here are a set of ISBNs
  • 0-441-79160-3 unused
  • 0-441-79161-1 Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79162-X Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79163-8 Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber (printed with ISBN 0-441-49163-9?)
  • 0-441-79164-6 Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79165-4 Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79166-2 Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79167-0 Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79168-9 Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79169-7 Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber
  • 0-441-79170-0 Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
I don’t know what Ace does when they fill up a range as they apparently have for both of the titles that share 7916x.
Anyway - the orginal ISBN we were dealing with, 0-441-79167-0, is definitely a valid ISBN for the book but must be for a later printing of Swords and Ice Magic than the one you have. With the early Ace books it's also quite a challenge to determine if you have a first or later printing. In fact, having a last digit of 0 or 5 usually indicated "first printing" but Swords Against Wizardry starts with 1 because this numbering system was adopted 1969 and the first printing of Swords Against Wizardry was Ace H-073 in 1968 and the second printing thus used 0-441-79161-1 rather than 0-441-79160-3.
I guess #79165 was already used by up Swords Against Wizardry and thus #79166 is the first printing of Swords and Ice Magic and the numbers after that in the list above would be later printings. What I don't know is if Ace would bump to a new number at each printing or only when they increased the price and reprinted.
I've generally found it best to clone publication records rather than making changes to the ISBN, price, date, etc. fields of existing records. The only field that seems "safe" to change are the ones that are blank or 00 (with the month of the date field).
Marc Kupper (talk) 00:11, 6 Feb 2007 (CST)
Scott, can you check this pub again please, as you seem to have credited all entries to Fritz Lieber whereas my version credits Lin Carter and Stuart David Schiff as authors of some? And "Ultimate Publishing Co, Inc" for some. :-/ BLongley 14:49, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Never mind - pub doesn't make it clear over copyright/authorship. Sorted now. BLongley 15:06, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Different question: does this pub say Harry Fischer or Harry OTTO Fischer? BLongley 15:53, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Oh, and Marc: my Swords Against Wizardry doesn't include the full ISBN, so I can't answer your final 8 or 9 query. BLongley 15:53, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Bill, my copy has no credits for the component stories, beyond the mention of "appeared in different form in Fantastic and were copyright 1964 and 1965 by Ziff-Davis". The book itself is copyright 1968 by Fritz Leiber. However the dedication is to Harry Otto Fischer "who first explored Quarmall, and wrote ten thousand of these words, here unchanged, about that subterranean kingdom." Does that help? (Scott Latham 19:59, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT))
It's just that this introduction (not in the earlier edition) mentions him with the 'Otto' too, so I've not seen one without. I was wondering if you were happy for me to change both ours, or just change mine to a variant, or leave it as a note till someone verifies the Fantastic serial publication when we might want to change all? BLongley 14:03, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Bill, this publication (less a few details) was already in the database when I came along: I added what value I could and verified it, since I had a copy. As for the true and complete authorship of "The Lords of Quarmall," I don't have an opinion, or any resources to add to the current state of knowledge. I assume that Harry Fischer and Harry Otto Fischer are the same person, but don't know that to be true. I certainly don't mind you changing the publication I verified in any way you think useful. (Scott Latham 15:43, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT))

Swords and Deviltry

Regarding the publication update for Swords and Deviltry. You wanted to change the price from $2.95 to $0.95 and also change the date from 1970-00-00 to 1970-05-00. The date change does not concern me as much as many ISFDB records only have the year though the books state the year and month. Thus I see many corrections where people just fill in the month and I approve those without a second thought.

The price change though was interesting. The issue is that it's common for publishers to keep the same ISBN and to change the price. Thus we'd normaly use clone publication to add a new record at a different price.

In this case the "ISBN" was #79191 and to me it seemed odd that Ace would have the same number at both $0.95 and $2.95, but, just in case..., let's leave the existing $2.95 record in there and do a clone-publication to add a new record for your copy at $0.95. Of course, if you know that it was "impossible" that ISBN #79191 could have existed at $2.95 then this publication update will be appropriate and you can just resubmit it along with a note here so that whoever see the pub-update will know what's up. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:06, 20 Jan 2007 (CST)


Hi, Marc: Thanks for your helpful approach. Actually, I screwed this one up a bit. The copy I have (priced at $0.95) is actually a second printing from November 1973. According to the copyright page, the first printing was May 1970. Currey shows the first edition as 1970, no statement of printing on copyright page, Ace 71970 ($0.75). So in attempting to improve the existing entry, I made it rather more confusing! Ah, well, lots to learn here...(Scott Latham 20:48, 20 Jan 2007 (CST))

Brain Rose

Regarding your publication update for Brain Rose. You wanted to change

  • The Year from 1990-00-00 to 1990-01-00 - this is fine and is a common update in ISFDB
  • Add Don Bolognese as the cover artist - this is fine
  • What caught my attention is the change of the price from $22.00 to $22.95. It's very common for publishers to raise the price while keeping the ISBN the same. Can you tell if your publication is a first printing? Does it have a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 number line? If it is a first printing then the $22.00 price probably is in error but if yours is a later printing then it's possible the book sold for $20.00 at some point meaning you should clone the record rather than updating it.

Marc Kupper (talk) 20:08, 3 Feb 2007 (CST)

I do indeed have a first printing copy to work from and add that Locus1 shows the $22.95 price, too. Shall I make the change again or will you just approve it? (Scott Latham 20:33, 6 Feb 2007 (CST))

I went ahead and approved the change to $22.95. I sure wish I knew where that $22.00 price came from as I tend to assume that records in ISFDB have at least some validity. When there is a conflict between a book in my hand and a record in ISFDB then I normally clone the record and correct the clone to match my book. I just leave the original conflicting record alone (or add a note to it explaining why I believe the record is bogus) and years from now when many books are verified and if that record is still there then we can say "it looks like the record is bogus."
I did a Google for "Brain Rose" and "22.00" but only found two dealer listing pages where both are asking $20.00
Both of those pages are formatted such that it was not clear at a glance that these were the dealer's asking price and not the original cover price and it's possibly that's exactly how we ended up with the book for $22.00. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:43, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)
Marc, I spent a little time looking at the web sites you link, and I'm certain those are offering prices: the first has a hc of John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting at $67.00, which is more than the $15.95 list price. (Scott Latham 18:11, 7 Feb 2007 (CST))

James Morrow, City of Truth, 1980 edition

Hi, Marc,

I saw you rejected my proposal to delete this one from the database. While I understand and support the notion that we should be growing, rather than pruning, here's the logic and resarch behind my proposal: 1.) City of Truth won the 1992 Nebula award for best novella. Had it been published in 1980, it would have been ineligible.

2.) Locus1 gives the following:

  1. * *City of Truth (Legend 0-7126-3693-5, Jan ’91 [Dec ’90], £9.99, 104pp, hc, cover by Steve Crisp) Sf novella about a city where everyone has to tell the truth, illustrated throughout by Steve Crisp. Recommended. (PSP)
  2. * _City of Truth (Legend 0-7126-4575-6, Jun ’91, £4.99, 104pp, tp, cover by Steve Crisp) Reprint (Legend 1991) sf novella.
  3. * +City of Truth (St. Martin’s 0-312-07672-X, May ’92 [Apr ’92], $14.95, 104pp, hc, cover by Steve Crisp) Sf novella of a city where everyone must tell the truth, illustrated by Steve Crisp. First American edition (Legend 1991).
  4. * _City of Truth (SFBC #01741, Jul ’92 [Aug ’92], $6.98, 104pp, hc, cover by Steve Crisp) Reprint (Legend 1991) sf novella of a city where everyone must tell the truth, illustrated by Steve Crisp. Similar to the 1992 St. Martin’s edition except it lacks an ISBN and price and the SFBC number is on the back jacket.
  5. * _City of Truth (Harcourt Brace 0-15-618042-1, May ’93 [Apr ’93], $7.95, 144pp, tp, cover by Steven Cooley) Reprint (Legend 1990) sf novella of a city where everyone must tell the truth. Winner of a 1992 Nebula Award.

Had there been an earlier edition, they would likely have cited it, and omitted the "double star" for first publication on the Legend Jan '91 edition.

3.) Locus entry from contents of Nebula Awards 28, ed. James Morrow (Harcourt Brace 0-15-600039-3, Apr ’94, $12.95, 328pp, tp:

228 • City of Truth • James Morrow • na London: Legend, 1991

4.) From the British Library holdings:

System number 007403899
Author - personal Morrow, James, 1947-
Title City of truth.
Publisher/year Legend, 1991.
Physical descr. [128]p.
Subject Fiction in English American writers 1945- Texts
Holdings (All) Details
Shelfmark H.91/472
ISBN 0712645756 (pbk) : £4.50
0712636935 (cased) : £8.99

5.) Although the ISBN may be valid, it is not valid for Warner Books: 7126 is the publisher number for Legend, a Century imprint.

What do you think? (Scott Latham 16:45, 5 Feb 2007 (CST))

Just based on the fact that there are ten listings in Bookfinder leads me to believe the book physically exists with that ISBN on the barcode and that the record should not be deleted. However, I agree with you that something is very wrong with the ISFDB record.
It’s really unfortunate that ISFDB does not give us an audit trail for how data is getting into the database. For now we need to reverse engineer things.
I went back to bookfinder and stared at the results for ISBN 0712636870. There are ten books and here's a summary of the Publisher line:
  • 2 Publisher: Century Pub. Co., 1980
  • 5 Publisher: Legend, 1980
  • 2 Publisher: Legend, 1990
  • 1 Publisher: Time Warner Books UK, 1980
The first number on each line is the count of how many listings used that publisher line.
There are a couple of likely sources for the “1980”
1) Book sellers are using an application where they just scan the barcode and the app looks up data on sites like Amazon using AWS. :To verify this I looked at the three English Amazon sites.
  • Amazon.com – Legend (January 1, 1980) (128 pages)
  • Amazon.co.uk – Legend (1 Jan 1980) (128 pages)
  • Amazon.ca – Time Warner Books UK (Jan 1 1980) (no page count)
That gives me a pretty comfortable feel for where the “Legend, 1980” and “Time Warner Books UK, 1980” entries could come from.
2) It’s possible the copyright date was printed wrong in the book. The book says 1980 when it should be 1990. To test this I then went to AbeBooks, looked up the title (188 results) and first searched for 1980. I did not find "1980" and so I then look for 1990 and see many listings for Century/Legend/St. Martins publications. AbeBooks does not include any listings for ISBN 0712636870 though.
Thus I suspect that while the book exists (based on ten bookfinder listings for the ISBN) that the publication date is either not stated (and people guess 1990 based on the copyright) or that it's 1991 or later.
I included the page count for the three Amazon listings because the book in ISFDB is listed as “Warner, 0-7126-3687-0, 128pp, hc” and I was trying to figure out the source of this ISFDB record. The page count must be from Amazon.com or .uk but that does not explain “Warner” as Amazon.ca has “Time Warner Books UK.”
What should be done about the publication record?
  • Well, for starters let’s copy/paste our entire discussion into the Bibliographic Comments to give others the background on what research has been done.
  • The date should be changed to 0000-00-00 (unknown date)
  • The publisher should be changed to blank (or Century/Legend) as it’s clearly not Warner.
  • A note gets added explaining that the publication may not exist and to see the Bibliographic Comments.
This would get the publication data in line with the verified publication records and hopefully at some point someone will show up with a physical copy.
The fact that the page count is 128 and that the sellers seem evenly distributed around the planet bothers me. The hc counts are 102/104 pages and the tp counts are 144 pages. Maybe we are dealing with a large print hc? The even distribution? I don't know what to make of that as usually you will see most listings for an ISBN from one country. Maybe it was only sold in international airport bookshops?
Marc Kupper (talk) 18:20, 5 Feb 2007 (CST)


Marc, I think my poor formatting obscured my first point, since you don't address it. To reiterate, City of Truth won the 1992 Nebula award for best novella. This means it was first published in 1991, so the 1980 records are spurious. I included the contents excerpt for Nebula 28 to reinforce the point, and note that James Morrow edited the book: I think he'd take care to get the citation right. (Scott Latham 20:31, 6 Feb 2007 (CST))

Scott, I had seen your comment about the Nebula Award and had changed the title record from 1980 to 1990 in response to that though am wondering if it should be 1991 as the story won the 1992 Nebula. The problem is that besides the 1980 record we've already discussed and there are two with a 1990 date, probably because the story copyright is 1990. The offending records are:
  1. City of Truth, (1980 , James Morrow, Warner, 0-7126-3687-0, 128pp, hc)
  2. City of Truth, (1990 , James Morrow, Century/Legend, 0-7126-3693-5, L9.99, 102pp, hc) Cover: Steve Crisp
  3. City of Truth, (1990 , James Morrow, Legend, B000DCO9KM, hc)
  • Number 1 has been beaten to death above and I had proposed to you an edit to the record - I went ahead with the edit
    • The date was changed from 1980-00-00 to 0000-00-00 (unknown date)
    • The publisher was changed from "Warner" to "Century/Legend" based on the ISBN
    • A note was added about looking at the bibliographic comments and this entire thread was copy/pasted into the comments.
    • This would get the publication data in line with the other publication records and hopefully at some point someone will show up with a physical copy.
  • Number 2 - Amazon UK lists this as Jan 31, 1991 and Locus says Jan'91. I changed the date to 1991-01-00 and added a note explaining that it may be Feb-1991 because Amazon often has the on-sale-by date and not the publication date. It's 99% that it's Jan-1991 but I have a policy of never changing existing data unless I can absolutely prove it does not belong meaning that if I stated "January" based on secondary data I want the source of that data to be clear so that if someone has a physical copy of the book they can be comfortable with changing the January to something else if needed.
  • Number 3 - That's an Amazon ASIN. Amazon says "Century (1990)" and nothing else. I suspect the record got added to Amazon as a result of a book club edition and those often don't state the printing date at all meaning someone used the copyright date. I decided to delete this ISFDB record.
  • I changed the title date from 1990 to 1991-01-00 and also added a note about the short story this novel is based on.

At this point the City of Truth title record should be reasonably clean. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:57, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

That's a very elegant and satisfying solution! I'm sure the first edition was actually available in 1990, because it was reviewed on the November and December issues of Locus, but the pub date is January 1991, hence the eligibility for the Nebula. (Scott Latham 11:25, 7 Feb 2007 (CST))
Scott, your comment about the November/December 1990 rewiews brings up a very good point. I revised the title record notes to indicate the story was a Nebula winner and also that the story was available in some form as early as November 1990. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:01, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

A Dozen Tough Jobs

Scott, just FYI -- when you know of a limited edition, as you mention in the notes to "A Dozen Tough Jobs", you can go ahead and enter it. If I recall Ziesing's conventions, this probably comes from a statement about the differing ISBNs on the copyright page; so long as you mention the source when you create that record I think you can go ahead and clone that pub (if you want to). You probably already knew this, but I thought I'd drop you a note to be sure. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 21:06, 7 Feb 2007 (CST)

Marc, thanks for the comment and encouragement. I'm not inclined to create a separate record for the limited edition, as it was issued at the same time as the trade edition, but I did think it worth noting in the comments. (Scott Latham 18:00, 8 Feb 2007 (CST))
Separate ISBNs are pretty much always worth entering separately since that way users can find them when they search for an ISBN :) Ahasuerus 18:16, 8 Feb 2007 (CST)
Can anyone explain why there's now a Bibliographic Warning on this title? I found it originally entered as a collection and changed it to novel, since it's a 135 page novella. What generated the error and how can I fix it? (Scott Latham 18:48, 8 Feb 2007 (CST))
That's because the title and one of the pubs disagree about what type the book is. Title types and pub types aren't identical things, but in some cases the ISFDB expects them to be the same. This is not (yet) enforced in the code. In this situation, the title is a COLLECTION, but one of the pubs is now a NOVEL. That causes the warning -- the ISFDB suspects (correctly) that there is an inconsistency. To fix it, one would use Edit Title to make the title a NOVEL. The other pubs might also need fixing -- I suspect they're all COLLECTIONs too, so making the title a NOVEL would cause a different warning (or several warnings).
With regard to the separate limited edition -- the ISFDB goal is to have a separate publication record for every different publication. Different printings, bindings, and so on are all different publications. There are some grey areas -- what about a numbered edition that is the same as the regular edition with a pasted-in bookplate? -- but that's the goal. There's no expectation that an editor will enter this kind of data as a publication, rather than making a note in the notes, since it's all volunteer labour and we're grateful for any record of the edition. However, it's definitely the case that the ISFDB ultimately will want that pub record separated. So I was just making sure you knew we cared about it, not implying you should have entered it.
By the way, are you the Scott Latham that wrote a foreword for a reprint Conklin anthology back in the 80s? I noticed that in Contento the other day, and wondered if it was you. Mike Christie (talk) 20:53, 8 Feb 2007 (CST)
Guilty as charged: I actually did that for two Conklin reprints, when I was working freelance in NYC.
Got it now: I'll go in and enter the limited editions as separate publications. BTW, the whole of the Waldrop listing is deeply flawed. Granted, it's not an easy one to sort out, because there are lots of same-content-except for-2-short stories issues. I'll try to take a look at it this weekend and propose a strategy. (Scott Latham 10:29, 9 Feb 2007 (CST))

SF vs. SS

Scott, I see you have submitted four or five merges in which you overwrite the story length with just "sf", which is the generic short fiction -- no length specified. Can I ask why? Normally I tend to leave lengths in that I find there, unless I have a good reason to correct them, in which case I normally have another length to substitute. So I was curious about your reasoning. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 21:06, 8 Feb 2007 (CST)

Mike, I got a bit confused on the merge titles screen, and figured that shortfiction was generic enough to cover: I hadn't meant to change them, just get the duplicates out. Can you change them? (Scott Latham 10:32, 9 Feb 2007 (CST))

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire

Scott - I accidentially approved it (the link for approval is immediately below the link for "talk to the editor") I'm wondering why you submitted a make-new-variant title with the same name/author as the orignal. It's not that big a deal that it got approved but in looking at Michael Bishop's page I see that A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire is listed twice and there are three title records (one is hidden as it's the variant). I went ahead and merged them using the "Titles" link on the navbar. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:10, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)

Marc, you undid what I was trying to correct. The original A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975) was rewritten in 1980 and issued as Eyes of Fire, with a new copyright. The Kerosina edition (1989) is of the 1980 text with the original title, which according to Bishop's web site, is his preferred text. Can you switch it back, or shall I? (Scott Latham 14:02, 11 Feb 2007 (CST))

Let's see if I have this one right before doing the edits. Michael Bishop's bibliography shows:
So the Kerosina (1989) book is titled A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire but happens to contain the Eyes of Fire text? Hmm, a nice mess for bibliographers. I deciced to deal with it this way
  1. Unmerge the Kerosina publication from A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire
  2. Edited the newly created title record and renamed it to A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1980 "Eyes of Fire" revision)
  3. From the new title record I did "make this a variant title" and make record # 1983 (Eyes of Fire (1980)) the parent title.
  4. Edited the Kerosina publication, changed its title to A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1980 "Eyes of Fire" revision) and add the following note explaining the mess.
While this publication is titled A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire which is the same title as the 1975 story the publication contains the extensively revised text that was published in 1980 as Eyes of Fire.
Hopefully the resulting bibliography will understood by most people. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:12, 15 Feb 2007 (CST)
Marc, I think that the extra step of adding parenthetical remarks to the variant title is a bit of overkill, given that it's explained in the title block and again on the publication notes. (Scott Latham 11:01, 16 Feb 2007 (CST))

Crescent City Rhapsody

Scott, under this title there are two pubs with the spelling "Cresent City Rhapsody", one of which you verified. Is this a typo on your part or is it really spelt that way? Just checking . . . . Mike Christie (talk) 19:38, 11 Feb 2007 (CST)

I think the operative word is Oops! I fixed it. (Scott Latham 20:54, 11 Feb 2007 (CST))

Strange Monsters of the Recent Past

Scott,

If I understand what you were trying to do with Strange Monsters of the Recent Past correctly, you wanted to make this book into an Omnibus containing one novel and one collection. Is that right? If so, then all you had to do was change the Publication type from Collection to Omnibus. I have tentatively implemented this change and was wondering if you could review the resulting Publication record and see if it looked reasonable? Thanks! Ahasuerus 13:38, 12 Feb 2007 (CST)

That was exactly what I was trying to do; thanks so much! (Scott Latham 15:10, 12 Feb 2007 (CST))
Excellent! :) Ahasuerus 15:36, 12 Feb 2007 (CST)

Making changes to story titles in the Contents section of a publication

Scott - I approved your update to Day Million but then went to the The Schematic Man title record which you had changed to Schematic Man and changed it back to The Schematic Man. The reason for this is if you look at The Schematic Man you will see that it's referenced by eight publications meaning when you changed you title you were affecting the contents listings for seven publications besides the one you were working on. Please see Help:Screen:EditPub#General_contents for information on making changes to the Contents section of a publication. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:39, 15 Feb 2007 (CST)

That's why I hesitated to change it, and double-checked the table of contents and the copyright page. They both show it as Schematic Man. Doing a bit more research, I see it was first published in the January 1969 issue of Playboy, under the title The Schematic Man. It also appears in a Rudy Rucker anthology as Schematic Man, which has not been merged with The Schematic Man. How can I make the entry for this publication reflect the TOC without changing the other publications? Can I just unmerge this story from the others, correct the TOC listing, then remerge it with the version in the Rucker anthology? (Scott Latham 16:11, 16 Feb 2007 (CST))
I took the opportunity to drop by Powell's Books after work, to check on the copy they had. It's the 1973 Pan edition here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?DYMLLN1973. It also has Schematic Man on the contents and copyright pages. Can you tell in the database which of the copies of Day Million was entered first? There's a chance that the others were cloned from it. (Scott Latham 20:58, 16 Feb 2007 (CST))
It's not just the "Day Million" entries, my copy of "The Problem Pit" has the "The" too. I know it seems trivial, but I think Variant Title is the way to go - the search functionality for normal users breaks if we remove the exact title. I do a lot of these things as I do a lot of Short SF collections - my method is to add the new title and mark the page for the old one as "NA", then when it's approved go back and delete the old entry and add the variant title. I know, it's a pain, but I've suggested a few things that might make it a bit smoother, although I doubt we'll get it down to a one-step process anytime soon. BLongley 14:38, 18 Feb 2007 (CST)
Sorry it took so long to approve the removal of the story from the affected editions! I missed this section of the Talk page when I put the submission on hold :( It's been approved now.
As far as the general question goes, Bill's way of creating Variant Titles is the one that we generally use since it seems to be the least time consuming approach. We just need to add another Note field to the Title Removal form to communicate the intent to Moderators. Ahasuerus 16:26, 19 Feb 2007 (CST)

The Age of the Pussyfoot

I see you submitted a title merge of this title, so I thought I'd go see what was done. But the title appears to have disappeared totally, although the serial is there and there's a review too? I have a copy of the Pub here (with both "the"s), so I'm wondering if it got merged with something it shouldn't have? BLongley 08:47, 18 Feb 2007 (CST)

Hi, Bill - that actually was what we call a mistake: I picked the wrong title when I did the merge. Can't say why it has disappeared... (Scott Latham 15:40, 18 Feb 2007 (CST))
No worries, it's easily fixed, I think. All the publications are fine still, as far as I can see. BLongley 16:32, 18 Feb 2007 (CST)

Moderator nomination

Scott, would you be willing to be nominated to be a moderator? If so, let me know (here or on my talk page) and I'll post a note at the Community Portal for discussion of the nomination. Two pages you might want to look at are Moderator Qualifications and Help:Screen:Moderator. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 17:35, 20 Feb 2007 (CST)

Thanks, Mike: I've read through the pages you linked, and I'd be pleased to become a moderator and share in the great work! (Scott Latham 11:08, 23 Feb 2007 (CST))

Kage Baker

Scott, reviewing your submission of the contents of Kage Baker's latest collection, I began to wonder if you are using "nt" and "nv" the way they are defined in the Help pages, i.e.:

  • nt - Novelette - A work whose length is greater than 7,500 words and less than or equal to 17,500 words. (Roughly 20 to 50 pages in a book.)
  • nv - Novella - A work whose length is greater than 17,500 words and less than or equal to 40,000 words. (Roughly 50 to 100 pages in a book.)

For example, you marked "The Angel in Darkness", a 76 page piece, as "nt" and "A Night on the Barbary Coast", a 21 page pieces, as "nv". Was that in error or were you using different definitions of "nt" and "nv"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:11, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

It was an error. I'll go in and correct them ASAP. (Scott Latham 12:00, 24 Feb 2007 (CST))
Thanks! I have approved the submission so all you need to do is pull it up and edit :) Ahasuerus 13:15, 24 Feb 2007 (CST)

Gods And Pawns

Scott, I have approved the Gods And Pawns corrections, but are you sure that A Night on the Barbary Coast (21 pages) is a novella and not a novelette? Ahasuerus 20:51, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

Right you are. It's a trial to follow the unsorted title listing and try to quickly calculate length, but I guess it's a skill I need to hone. ((Scott Latham 21:08, 27 Feb 2007 (CST))
We have debated changing the Contents display order in the Edit Pub form from the current (alphabetized) one to one based on page numbers. However, it doesn't work when page numbers haven't been entered yet, so the idea was abandoned a while back :( Ahasuerus 21:25, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

Lupoff The Triune Man and The Forever City

I just mistakenly created a new publication of The Forever City under The Triune Man: please reject it ASAP! (Scott Latham 21:08, 27 Feb 2007 (CST))

Too late -- it would appear that I approved the submission right away :( I can't seem to be able to tell which one it was by looking at the list of The Triune Man Publication records. Can you spot it and submit a "Delete Pub" request? Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:22, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)
Dead and buried! :) Ahasuerus 21:36, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

Simak

Scott, one your recent Simak submissions reminded me that a couple of days ago you tried to reverse the canonical and variant titles of Time and Again by changing what was then the Variant Tile. I foolishly clicked on "Approve" before thinking it through (even though I should have known better) and the result was a mess that took me about half a dozen edits to fix.

After thinking some more about it, I belive that the best way to flip flop title pairs is to first break the relationship between them by entering "0" in the "Parent #" field in the Make Variant Title form. Once the titles have been unlinked, we can relink them the right way easily enough. The only thing to keep in mind is that sometimes associated Publication records are linked to the wrong Title, so they would need to be fixed along the way as well.

We will probably want to experiment with this approach some more and, once we are sure that it works, do a write-up for the Help pages. Ahasuerus 23:15, 27 Feb 2007 (CST)

Sorry to have caused extra work, but could you explain in more detail what went wrong as a result of the initial title edit? I'm pretty sure I had not at that point entered the publication with the variant title. (Scott Latham 10:26, 28 Feb 2007 (CST))
No problem, happens all the time! I find that I often approve other editors' submissions without thinking everything through and then kick myself in the pseudopod and have to redo them. In this case the problem was that we had a Variant Title relationship "A is a VT of B". When you changed "B" to "A", it became "A is a VT of A". At that point the display logic becemae somewhat unhappy/confused and you could no longer easily get to the original "A" record. I had to do some merges and unmerges to get everything back in order, but we may have learned a useful lesson in the process. I will post the "proposed approach to flipping VTs" on the Community portal shortly and see if it makes sense to other editors. Ahasuerus 18:54, 28 Feb 2007 (CST)

Moderator status

You are now a moderator. Congratulations; ask any of the existing moderators if you have any questions. Mike Christie (talk) 18:31, 1 Mar 2007 (CST)

Date changes

Scott - I did not realize you were a moderator yet and approved some updates from you but held up a bunch of date changes for Kuttner as the dates you want to use don't seem to match what's on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kuttner and/or http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/henry-kuttner/. I'll let you look over the submissions and approve/fix them as needed. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:04, 1 Mar 2007 (CST)

Hi, Marc. The date changes were done to get the title date to agree with the year of first book publication: most of Kuttner's work first appeared in serial form, so that's why the sources you cite are using earlier dates (they're actually copyright dates). From reading the help and archived community portal pages, I think we've all agreed that the title date should reflect first publication in book form. I also checked my copy of Currey, to make sure I had first publication. Unless you object, I'll approve those edits this evening. (Scott Latham 10:18, 2 Mar 2007 (CST))
At one point there was confusion on my part about the title-date field in that I had mentally translated Template:TitleFields:Date into being "date of first book publication" and after discussion and rereading the help I realized it's date of first publication with the one exception being serialized stories where we track the date of first publication as a whole. I believe book publishers also do this as I'll see that the copyright is often that of the first book publication and not the earlier serialized story. Somehow I had confused this into "earlier magazine story" and not just "earlier serialized story".
For example, the first update is for Beyond Earth's Gates - you want to change this from 1949 to 1954. ISFDB does not show the 1949 appearance but the wikipedia says this is a variant title of The Portal in the Picture (this vt is not shown in ISFDB but I'd want to do some more research) which was published in magazine form in 1949. Thus assuming the vt relationship noted on wikipedia is correct then I'd either reject this edit or approve it and then change the date back to 1949.
The reason these date changes got my attention is I have found that ISFDB tends to be pretty accurate about the older stories and my default reaction as a reviewer is to hold the submissions and research them when I see changes. With the newer stuff that's uploaded from Amazon I know the odds are that it's safe to approve editor changes without research. Marc Kupper (talk) 11:33, 2 Mar 2007 (CST)
Marc, here's what the page you cite says (with emphasis added):
Serializations. If a work has been serialized in a magazine, there may be a difference between the first magazine publication and the first book publication. "Skylark of Valeron (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1195)", for example, appeared as a magazine serialization in 1933-4, but was not published in book form until 1949. In these cases, record the first book publication date. A note in the title field can record the magazine serialization date, if there is one.
That's why I changed the dates. (Scott Latham 12:23, 2 Mar 2007 (CST))
There may be some Kuttner-specific confusion here. Most of Kuttner's (and/or Moore's) "novels" originally appeared in a single pulp issue (usually ASF or the Starling Twins) in the 1940s. Sometimes they were billed as "complete novels", sometimes they weren't, but they were all pretty short and as we all know, a "complete novel" of the pulp era was typically a euphemism for "novella". These "novels" were reprinted by Ace and other publishers as standalone books in the 1950s and 1960s, but the only reason that they had more than 100 pages was the low word count per page.
The immediate problem with the way these titles were listed in the ISFDB was that most of them were listed as "novellas" and not serials. I have now changed them to "serials" and appended "(complete novel)" to the Serial Title records (our halfbaked standard for serials that appeared in a single issue), so they are now appearing under their associated "novel" Titles. We can now safely change the "novel" Title dates to the dates of the first book publication and everything should be back in working order. Hopefully :) Ahasuerus 14:45, 2 Mar 2007 (CST)
Hmm - so you are saying that if we have a shortfiction work that only shows up in magazines, anthologies, and collections then the title record will have the date of first publication in any form (including a magazine). If that story is then published as a standalone novel (or perhaps 1/2 of an Ace double) that we change the original title record to type SERIAL, and add a new title record of type NOVEL, and the date of that record is the first book publication? I had been thinking that "SERIAL" meant a story that was published in two or more parts (regardless on if it ever gets published as a whole).
That's pretty much how it currently works. A quick search on "complete novel" finds about 200 records that use this convention. One thing to note is that there were quite a few legitimate (>100 book pages) novels published in a single pulp issue. I am not crazy about this scheme, but at least it lets us capture and conveniently display all the information that we need. Ahasuerus 10:30, 5 Mar 2007 (CST)
ok - I'll figure out how to reword the help and add a note to the community portal because at present there are some title merges in the queue of novels+shortfiction involving a stories published as part of a larger works (magazine, anthology, collection, but not omnibus) and as a standalone works. Marc Kupper (talk) 11:44, 5 Mar 2007 (CST)
To clear out the queue and to make a linkable record of what's being changed I approved all of the pending date changes. Note I am not showing the -00-00 that was appended to each of these.
TitleOld DateNew DateComments
Beyond Earth's Gates19491954http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kuttner indicates this is a vt of The Portal in the Picture which turns out to be published in as a "complete novel" in Startling Stories Sep 1949 image). The "modern" book versions are 138 pages long meaning either it's expanded or a very low word count per page.
Chessboard Planet19461951This was serialized (two parts) as The Fairy Chessmen though the first standalone book publication in ISFDB is 1956.
Earth's Last Citadel19431964Serialized in Argosy either April-1943 and July-1943 or maybe it's a single in June-1943 (I can't find a TOC or cover image for Argosy). An Amazon review says it was the very last piece of science fiction to be serialized in Argosy. Reprinted in Fantastic novels magazine July 1950 image implying this is the first publication as a whole and then reprinted as a whole in book form by Ace in 1964.
Fury19471950That one was easy for a change - 3-part serial
The Creature from Beyond Infinity19401968This one seems to be a single (not serial) in Startling Stories Nov. 1940 under the title A Million Years to Conquer
The Dark World19461965I ran out of time
The Mask of Circe19481971
The Time Axis19481965
The Well of the Worlds19521953
Valley of the Flame19461964
Guys, I'm happy to follow the desire of the majority on this issue, and I realize that my personal preference arises from the fact that I'm a collector, and thus view first edition and the title date issue as synonymous. To me (and most book collectors) the first edition is the first publication in book form of the entirety of a work, regardless of whether it had appeared previously in some other form (e.g., serializied, as a play, in a single issue magazine). For me, it naturally follows that the paperbacks above are in fact the first publication in book form, so I'd naturally think of the date of its publication as the title date. It would make the ISFDB more useful to me if this were the convention followed, but I could live with the converse (first appearance anywhere in any form), so long as we all take the same approach. Do you think this needs elevation to the Community Portal (and eventually to Help? (Scott Latham 14:17, 5 Mar 2007 (CST))
It's not just you :-) The notion that the "first edition" of a book is its first appearance in book form is pretty widespread and used not only by collectors, but also by most genre encyclopedias, e.g. the Clutes, which list both dates. That was one of the main reasons why we adopted the dual NOVEL/SERIAL display in the first place, to be consistent with other sources.
Unfortunately, although it makes the ISFDB consistent with other bibliographies, it also makes our data somewhat internally inconsistent since short fiction pieces use the date of their first publication anywhere (magazine, anthology, etc). Borderline novels/novellas like these Kuttner books just bring this weakness of the current scheme into focus, but I don't think there is much we can do about it without breaking half a dozen other things. Ahasuerus 14:35, 5 Mar 2007 (CST)
Actually, the case of short fiction is probably one we should all the trying to think through. I see a number of novellas or novelettes appearing as chapbooks or even in hardcover book form, some with fine Corinthian leather covers: do we want to continue to relegate them to the Shortfiction section? When are they real enough (or expensive enough) to be listed with the novels? And the proximate case, these novellas that used to be considered full-length books? (Scott Latham 16:26, 5 Mar 2007 (CST))

Wayland Young / Wayland Hilton-Young

Hi Scott, I noticed you verified a publication with a copy of his one story in, and wondered if there was any more info in it to see if this story and this one are actually credited the exact same way or not. Also, is there any indication that the author is actually this blue-blooded bloke?
And finally, I see a similarity between R. Scott Latham and Scott Latham - any relation? BLongley 14:14, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

Hi, Bill. On a second look at the Omnibus, I find that the credit is actually W. Hilton-Young, on both the copyright pages and TOC, so I'll correct that soon. The credit for original publication is the March 19, 1953 issue of Punch, so I wouldn't be surprised if W. Hilton-Young and Wayland Hilton Young are the same person. And, yes, as Mike Christie noted above, I am that R. Scott Latham. (Scott Latham 14:35, 4 Mar 2007 (CST))

Swords Against Death

I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to make this title the reference title instead of Two Sought Adventure. This 1970 publication is the first edition of the second volume in the canonical sequence of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series. All subsequent publications should refer to this title, not Two Sought Adventure which is no longer published as such. Any help is appreciated. Mhhutchins 15:20, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

My understanding of this phenomenon is a bit shaky, but I believe this is the sequence:
First use Unmerge to remove all of the Swords Against Death publications from Two Sought Adventure.
Then, use the Titles screen to merge all of the Swords Against Death publications.
Last, relink Swords Against Death into the canonical series in its proper place.
This is something I've been meaning to attend to for some time. (Scott Latham 17:16, 4 Mar 2007 (CST))
I've followed your directions and it appears to have worked. Thanks for the assistance. Mhhutchins 18:09, 4 Mar 2007 (CST)

Space War Blues

Oops - I was not paying attention to who proposed the deletion and realized you could have just approved it yourself. I am mightly confused by your delete note for Space War Blues though. "Reason for deletion: Although this could probably be considered a fix-up of the stories listed, it adds new material, is extensively rewritten, and the component parts are re-sequenced such that O consider it a new work." From what's said on Amazon The publication does appear to be a genre novel. Why do you want to delete it? Also - Amazon lists George Barr as a co-author. As he's normally a cover artist I'd assume he did the cover for this book and we could add that as a note (explaining that he's credited on Amazon as an author and is probably the cover artist.) Marc Kupper (talk) 01:46, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

Marc, I purposely didn't approve that deletion because I wanted another moderator to agree to the deletion. Space War Blues is almost always considered a novel, and that's certainly how Lupoff and his bibliographer list it. The publication I proposed to delete was a "collection" of several short stories that were incorporated into the novel, with new material. So what I did was incorporate that information into the Title notes for the novel version and delete the collection. Does that make more sense? (Scott Latham)
This COLLECTION publication likely comes from Contento, who typically tries to be inclusive, so he lists fixups as collections.
As a general observation, fixups are slippery creatires. On the one hand, listing the stories that a fixup was based on can be misleading if they were substantially rewritten. On the other hand, we presumably want to document the relationship between the original stories and the eventual fixup in some way. We have talked about these issues in the past, but no comprehensive solution has emerged so far. Ahasuerus 18:24, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
Ahasuerus added the previous comment as I was typing this one and I got an edit conflict - hence there is some overlap in what we say.
That makes perfect sense Scott and so I went ahead with deleting the collection. What I had done before was from the publication I went to the title reference and only saw the single publication. Thus I thought you wanted to delete the one and only record and I did not realize that there was a second title record for the story as a novel that contained the same publication (as a novel). I've thought about ways we could implement these fuzzy links where stories are related but so far the "great idea" on how to do this is elusive.
I looked at the record you verified - I guess the cover artist is not credited? Amazon credits George Barr as a co-author though there's no telling where that bit of information came from. Sometimes when I see something like this I add a note that the cover artist is not credited nor is a signature visible in the book but that the cover artist might be George Barr as Amazon.com lists George Barr as a co-author for the story. I would not list George Barr in the ISFDB cover artist field without better evidence than an Amazon listing though. :-) Marc Kupper (talk) 18:33, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
And I also just got an edit conflict while trying to add the following: I agree that documenting the relationship is good, which is why I included that as a Title note. OTOH, if you read Harlan Ellison's intro and Lupoff's preface, you get a good sense that the stories gave him ideas and plot points, but are not simply reproduced verbatim, which is what I think of as a fix-up. (Scott Latham 18:38, 7 Mar 2007 (CST))
If it helps any, here's a link to what I wrote about the novel on Wikipedia. You might find the contents part of the write-up interesting. (Also on the notes "Our Own Little Mardi Grass" should be "Our Own Little Mardi Gras") Mhhutchins 18:49, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
I bow to superior research and execution: excellent article and the "collection" is now toast! (Scott Latham 20:20, 7 Mar 2007 (CST))

Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed

I submitted an update for this Harlan Ellison nonfiction collection, including all contents, and you approved it. But the title is no longer listed on Ellison's summary page. Strange, don't you think? Mhhutchins 18:18, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)

In all likelihood, the last update changed the main NONFICTION Title -- which is what the software uses to establish the Publication-Title link -- in this Publication to something else, probably an ESSAY. It's a common problem with updates and easy enought to fix: just add a new NONFICTION Title called "Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed" to the Publication and the link will be re-established. Once it goes through, you may want to check for any other Publications that used to link to this Title and relink/remerge them.
I think we may need some kind of warning when editors change publication types since it tends to cause problems. Ideally, all of these complexities would be hidden from the users, but as long as we have one active programmer (who has a family, a full time job, etc), I don't see it happening any time soon. Ahasuerus 18:47, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Time Patrol as a collection

The Time Patrol is a collection that contains two novel-length stories (+40k words) and seven shorter pieces. --Swfritter 17:06, 15 Mar 2007 (CDT)

BLongley/Sheckley

Scott, I put a Blongley mkvariant on hold because it looked reversed, and then realized that the sub had already been queried by you on Bill's page. As it turns out, it was display bug 20098, which I recognized because I've been bitten by it before. So I approved it -- since I'd put it on hold I couldn't unhold it at that point, so it already had my fingerprints on it. Anyway, sorry for poking into one you were looking at -- I assume you just forgot to put this one on hold. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 17:44, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

No worries - it worked, and (hopefully) helped me with a "Mugwump 4/Four" mkvariant approval I did. Is this something for the "new moderators guide" that I haven't found yet? ;-) BLongley 16:21, 30 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Comment on "Fondly Fahrenheit"

Could you please double check Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester STRLGHTTJM1977 and see if the story Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit is titled Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit or Comment on "Fondly Fahrenheit". See User_talk:JVjr#Comment_on_.22Fondly_Fahrenheit.22 where it turns out that Locus/Contendo only show versions with the quotes. Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:01, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The table of contents entry reads: Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit
The title page (69) reads: Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit
The running header (pp. 71) reads: (Comment on) Fondly Fahrehheit
So, there seem to be any number of answers... (Scott Latham 19:55, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT))
Thank you Scott. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:40, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

NESFA index

Scott, the NESFA index arrived today; thank you very much! I really appreciate the gift. It will certainly get used (as if I need more excuses to spend time here). Mike Christie (talk) 18:33, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The Incomplete Enchanter

Scott, i went and had alook at my copy and its the 2nd edition($0.40). The photo is the $0.35 1st edition. I've made the neccesary change and submitted it. My 2nd edition has a new cover by Emsh. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.:-)Kraang 21:20, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

That makes a lot of sense since the picture all but screamed "Powers!" :) I have removed it (http://members.cox.net/sjrohde3/images/books_d/decamp_enchant_pyrg530.jpg) from the Publication record for now to avoid confusion. Ahasuerus 21:25, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Ditto your reaction: I didn't see who else it could be! (Scott Latham 16:15, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT))

A verification request: Silverberg's MU/ugwump Four

You've verified, so presumably own / have access to, Robert Silverberg's collection The Cube Root of Uncertainty. Could you please check whether the eighth story was called "Mugwump Four" or indeed "MUgwump Four" with capital U, and possibly also whether (and how) this phrase appears in the text? (When making "Mugwump 4" from another publication its variant, the capitalization was changed, possibly in error; see the discussion at User talk:JVjr#Mugwump Four/4 or notes to 44008.) Thanks, --JVjr 05:11, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Happy to be of service!
On the copyright page: Mugwump Four
On the table of contents: MUGWUMP FOUR
On the title page (143): Mugwump Four
On the running head (pp.144-167): Mugwump Four
No use of unusual mixed case in any title, although, as pointed out on your discussion, it does appear within the story. (Scott Latham 19:12, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT))
Darnit! I was hoping you'd prove me an idiot for "correcting" an obvious protected-case title... :-(
If we can't find a definite "MUgwump" we'll have to find another example for the help, as "EXTRO" is a lousy example and JVjr has better, although none I can confirm. BLongley 20:13, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Howard Waldrop's Going Home Again

Scott, I noticed you verified this edition of Waldrop's collection. I was entering page numbers when I noticed that my copy has a printed price of $22.95 on the front inside flap, and above the barcode on the back of the dustcover. Did I pay more for my copy? :-/ Mhhutchins 18:03, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Nice catch, Michael! One of the perils of entering from a library copy where the tape holding the jacket protector covers the price. Should have double-checked in Locus before, not after, verifying. (Scott Latham 18:09, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT))

Down Here in the Dream Quarter, 1976 , Barry N. Malzberg

You verified this publication back in February. Can you get your hands on it again easily? I need to check if "The Destruction and Exculpation of Earth" • (1973) • shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg, from this book and the hc edition of "Nove 3" is the same story as "Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules by Which to Live" • shortfiction by Barry N. Malzberg, from the pb version of "Nova 3" as I suspect they are despite different dates, although the latter may have some added writing. The story I have has two 'Chapters' long, the first is "The Destruction and Exculpation of Earth", but there is a second called, "Introduction to the Second Edition" that is five paragraphs long, and ends with the words "they would offer me." Is this the same as in your book? Thanks, CoachPaul 09:56, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I have the hardcover editions of Nova 3 and Down Here in the Dream Quarter in my collection, but not the paperback edition of Nova 3. I can check my copies tomorrow to see if the text is identical. BTW, Contento doesn't list any differences, but that's not a 100% guarantee by any means. Ahasuerus 11:06, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)
In the publication I verified "The Destruction and Exculpation of Earth" is followed by an "Afterword to The Destruction and Exculpation of Earth," which is three paragraphs long, beginning "Somewhere in mid-1970, I became interested in an alternating narrative voice, a way to write a story so that first and third person could be simultaneously employed." It ends "Having said that I think I ad better say no more." I would not be surprised if the author had revised the story later, since one of the burdens of this afterword is that nobody had ever commented on it. (Scott Latham 18:42, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT))
OK, I have fleshed out and verified the hardover edition of Nova 3 (1973). It contains "Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules by Which to Live", which in turn consists of "The Destruction and Exculpation of Earth" and "Introduction to the Second Edition". The text seems to be the same as what you have in the paperback reprint of Nova 3. On the other hand, the Down in the Dream Quarter versios is quite different: it contains just the first part, i.e. "Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules by Which to Live", there is no trace of "Introduction to the Second Edition" and there are a few textual differences vis a vis the first part of the Nova 3 publication.
Here is what apparently happened with this story accoring to Malzberg's afterword in Down in the Dream Quarter: "I had no luck selling this story [...] had to wait two years until Harry Harrison, the most tolerant editor to whom I have ever sold stories, opened up Nova 3 and allowed me to give it to him in a slightly rewritten version". He doesn't explain where the second five paragraph story came from unless it was a part of the "slight revisions", although adding what is pretty much a separate story would seemingly go beyond "slighty".
In other words, the text published in Down in the Dream Quarter as "Destruction and Exculpation of Earth" is presumably the restored version of the first part of "Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules by Which to Live". Ahasuerus 00:45, 28 Apr 2007 (CDT)

John Brown's Body

Please take a look at User_talk:WimLewis#John_Brown.27s_Body where an editor has submitted an update to one of your verified publications. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:59, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

1,000 club

Thanks Scott. When I saw the verification feature I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, and have been obsessed with helping break the percentage barriers on the statistics page ever since. It makes the bibliography so much more useful. Hopefully there will be a few more members of this exclusive club before long. --Unapersson 14:08, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Adding my congratulations to the two of you! We really have Mike Christie to thank for this feature, he was the one who pushed the idea ca. June 2006 while I wasn't sure that it was worth bumping up the list of priorities. In retrospect, I couldn't be more wrong :)
BTW, Scott, you recently verified the Airmont edition of The Duplicated Man published as by "Robert Lowndes and James Blish". However, this publication is currently listed under The Duplicated Man by James Blish and Robert A. W. Lowndes, which makes it a Stray Publication under Robert Lowndes. Wouldn't we want to make it into a variant title of the "Robert A. W. Lowndes" title? Ahasuerus 16:57, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Agreed: how do I go about doing so? (This is something I've never found very clear or intuitive.) (Scott Latham 19:41, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT))
We do have two separate Title records at this time, one for The Duplicated Man as written by James Blish and Robert A. W. Lowndes and one for The Duplicated Man as written by Robert Lowndes and James Blish. The problem is that the Airmont Publication record is currently pointing to the former instead of the latter, which causes the mismatch and subsequent confusion. All you have to do is Unmerge the pub from the wrong Title and then Merge it with the right Title and all will be right with the world again! Not that it will change the fact that the novel was a big mess :) Ahasuerus 21:54, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)

In the Country of the Blind

Your proposed merge [1] got my interest as I have read/verified the story as credited by Michael Flynn. The main thing that'll change if the merge goes through is that Michael_F._Flynn's page will no longer have an "[as by Michael Flynn ]". Marc Kupper (talk) 10:01, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

As you can tell by now, on my first pass through, I missed the separate 2001 entry, which I'd guess to be your handiwork. When I finally saw it, I made a bunch of edits to try to get back to where it had been originally. I think it's okay now, except for some spurious variants, but feel free to do whatever editing you think would improve the situation. (Scott Latham 12:54, 8 May 2007 (CDT))
Yes, I added the 2001 edition stuff as it seems like the story itself was revised in 2001. I could have made it a variant title but usually reserve VTs for when the story is exactly the same and only the title is changing. At the moment things seem fine except I'm not sure why you wanted to merge the title records. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:52, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

The Mote in God's Eye

Scott, you verified this edition of the Niven & Pournelle novel. Can you double check the publication date? I've seen references to the Simon & Schuster first edition as being published in October 1974, so the first paperback would probably have been a year or so later. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:50, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Melvyl - the Catalog of the University of California Libraries suggests that the first paperback edition was published in 1975, but subsequent Timescape reprints may have used the original (1974) copyright date instead of the actual publication date. Ahasuerus 15:58, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
Both are correct: the publication in questions actually says "Simon and Schuster edition published 1974. Pocket Book edition October, 1975." I'll correct it. (Scott Latham 19:53, 8 May 2007 (CDT))

Fred Hoyle's Element 79

Hi scott i see you verified the Signet P3463 with a printing date of 1968. My copy is dated May, 1969. Also could let me know were it was printed ie. US or Canada? Thanks :-)Kraang 20:21, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

I rechecked the book and updated my listing: the Signet publication date is May, 1968, and it is printed in the United States. Hope this helps!(Scott Latham 20:00, 14 May 2007 (CDT))

David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself

Scott, can you check your verification of this edition of Gerrold's novel? Popular Library almost never gave an actual publication date, opting instead for the copyright date. It's possible that they published this paperback edition the same year as the paperback, but not likely. Thanks! Mhhutchins 18:49, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Michael, I've reset the publication to date unknown. Too bad that we eventually lose track of the sort of ephemera that would allow us to establish pub dates for the likes of Popular Library... (Scott Latham 19:11, 19 May 2007 (CDT))
Somewhere in the dark recesses of Time Warner there had to have been records of Popular Library's publications when it became Warner Books. Now that they've been sold off, do such records get transferred or destroyed? I have to believe that such grand old publishers like Charles Scribner's, Simon & Schuster, Henry Holt, and Doubleday & Co. had to have kept such records. But now that they're all part of multi-national conglomerates whose only concern is the bottom line, their histories mean nothing. Sad indeed. Mhhutchins 20:34, 19 May 2007 (CDT)
Have you folks used Jon Warren's The Official (R) Price Guide: Paperbacks (New York, House of Collectibles, 1991, ISBN 0876377932, 934p.) and, if so, have you found it to be reliable? I have a copy, but I have never done any serious cross-checking... Ahasuerus 00:48, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

Harry Harrison, The Year 2000

Scott wrote on Marc's page

I see you have done your usual meticulous job of verification of this publication. I checked my copy of Jane Frank's The Art of Richard Powers, and she confirms the cover credit you suspect. Would you like to update your verification? (Scott Latham 18:26, 19 May 2007 (CDT))
Thank you Scott. I updated the pub-notes and also set the cover artist as that source seems reliable enough. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:07, 19 May 2007 (CDT)