User talk:Willem H./Archive/01

If I don't respond in the coming weeks, I'm in the hospital for some heart surgery (or at home, recovering). But don't worry, I'll be back! Willem H. 19:18, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

When you get back on site, drop me a line (my e-mail address is accessible through my talk page (I think)) and I'll tell you all the things they DON'T prepare you for during recovery!!! ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm back home. Not yet ready to do any heavy editing, but well enough to be released from the hospital and do more than sleeping and eating. Willem H. 20:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Date formats

Please enter dates (in the "Year" and "date" fields of the database) as YYYY-MM-DD, not as simply "YYYY". If only the year is known (quite common) use "1953-00-00", not just "1953", Similalrly, if the month but not the day of the month is known (very common indeed) use "YYYY-MM-00". Thank you for your contributions. -DES ^Talk 16:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Variant for Jack the Giant-Killer

You want to create a variant title Jack the Giant Killer (with the dash). The only record currently with that title is in the omnibus reprint, which I'm inclined to believe is an error. Do you have a copy of this pub to verify which title was used for this novel? Thanks. MHHutchins 19:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've corrected the title record for Jack the Giant Killer to Jack the Giant-Killer, so there's no need to create a variant. If you find that there really is an edition published as Jack the Giant Killer, please make another submission. MHHutchins 01:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Vacant World

You propose to add Dirk Wylie as an author to this record, and then mnake it a varient of this second record. But once the author has been added, there seems to be no remaining difference between the two records, in which case a merge rather than a varient is the proper solution. Have I missed something? The submisisons are on hold, pending your response. -DES ^Talk 15:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I rejected this long-on-hold item as one of the title records involved is gone and must have gotten merged/deleted in other editing. --Marc Kupper|talk 02:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Factoring Humanity

Just to let you know that I have approved the Orb trade paperback edition of Factoring Humanity, but then changed the publication date to 2004-01-00 as per http://www.locusmag.com/index/yr2003/b45.htm#A1468 since 1998 was the date of the original Tor hc/pb publication. Hope it matches your copy! Ahasuerus 17:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The Orb trade paperback does not mention a publication date, only a copyright year. I guess 2004 is the right year, as the book does mention titles by Robert J. Sawyer that were published later than 1998. Willem H. 12:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

"Going Up!"

Just to let you know that the two "Going Up!" title records that you wanted to link as Variant Titles were actually identical, so I simply merged the two. Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Bill Johnson's "Meet Me at Apogee"

Just an FYI that I have rejected the "Make Variant" submission for this story. The two records were identical, so I just merged them instead. Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Case not a reason to make a variant title

You are wanting to make this title a variant of this title. The only difference I can see is that one has an "or" and one has an "Or". Our rules list only a certain number of words that should be entered in lowercase and "or" is not among them. Instead the two titles should be merged and the title with the "Or" should be selected as the preferred spelling. In addition, the earliest date is the preferred date. See New Pub Help where the following words are listed as the only ones that should be in all lowercase: and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". I actually have these printed out and taped to the top of my monitor. You can answer me on this page.--swfritter 00:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess you are right, and they should be merged. But then the year of this one should be changed from 1979 to 1973 (the original year of publication) Willem H. 12:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if you have done a merge yet. There are a number of ways to merge two nearly identical titles but the easiest to explain is this way: Change the 'or' in this title to 'Or' (I have already done this for you). Go to the author's bibliography page and click on Dup Candidates in the Editing Tools menu. The two identical titles should be in one of the boxes. Click both check boxes and click the Merge Selected Records. If there are any differences in the records, in this case series and date, you will then select whatever is appropriate for the merged titles. In this case you will want to select the series and the earliest dates. Let me know if you have any questions. And don't hesitate to ask questions on the Help wiki. I will reject the variant record submission. If you would rather have me do the merge let me know. Thanks.--swfritter 20:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to merge them, but the titles didn't come up on the Dup Candidate page. The rejection of my variant record submission is not yet visible. Could that be the cause? Anyway, feel free to merge the titles. Thanks. Willem H. 16:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks like somebody else has already fixed it - the only reason I didn't do it myself was to allow you to go through the process. In any case, mission accomplished.--swfritter 19:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

All Those Enduring/Endearing Old Orders

Do you actually have a physical copy of this pub? According to Locus Online, Enduring should be correct.--swfritter 00:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't. Both copies of the story I do have, agree on Enduring, so Endearing could be a misspelling, and the two should be merged. Since I'm not sure, I decided to make Endearing a variant title of Enduring. Willem H. 11:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That is definitely a better solution than merging since the discrepancy will be easier to spot. We also have a Verification Requests page where we can see if anyone has more valid information. I will put an entry out there.--swfritter 21:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks very very likely it was a misspelling. See Verification Page.--swfritter 23:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Last Orders by Aldiss

I accepted your submission to update this pub, but had to revert some of the changes. There is a method that must be used in order to change contents of a pub. If you change a content record of one pub, you will be changing the contents of every pub in which that story is published. For example you changed the title record of "Year by Year the Evil Gains" to "Within the Black Circle", so every appearance of "Year by Year..." in the database was changed to the new title. I don't think you meant to do that. Please read this help page about how to change contents in a collection. Then go back to this pub and make the necessary changes that apply to your copy of this one publication. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realise it had that impact. I'll be more careful with the rest of my Aldiss project. Willem H. 17:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Silverberg & Elwood's Epoch

Sorry, I put your submission updating this pub on hold yesterday and forgot to tell you why. You want to give this second printing the same date of the first printing. It's been my experience with Berkley pubs that they will keep the statement of the first printing's date and then add slug lines below indicating which printing this particular one is. And they don't change the catalog number. Does this appear to be the case here? Thanks. MHHutchins 03:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that was a mistake. I was busy with the Enigma stories by Aldiss, and didn't realise it was the second printing. Please reject the date. Sorry Willem H. 06:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ellipses

We've been trying to regularize the use of ellipses by placing a space between each of the dots. So " She Only Goes Out at Night ..." should be changed to " She Only Goes Out at Night . . ." regardless of how it may be printed in the publication. No variant should be created because one pub may or may not use spaces. I'll go ahead and merge those two titles. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. MHHutchins 19:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tenn's "Lemon-Green."

I'm holding your submission changing the title of this record to "The Lemon-Green Spaghetti-Loud Dynamite-Dribble Day". There is another record already with this name, and there are two pubs (one verified) under the title without a "The". Perhaps we should just let one title be a variant of the other (until it's determined that the pubs containing the record without "The" are incorrect). Let me do a little more research before making a final decision. The person who verified the pub with the non-"The" record has been on extended leave for some time now. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I have the UK version of Scott's book and it definitely has the "The". BLongley 10:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I have the verified edition, and it definitely has "The" before the title. That's why I changed it. I wanted to merge the two titles after the change. Willem H. 10:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Great! I'll approve the change and let you merge the two titles. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Wild Card: Down and Dirty

In my verified copy of this title, I entered the contents exactly as they appear in the publication. Three of the stories are split up and published as chapters throughout the book. In this copy each story is given only one title record. That's OK, but those records should not be merged with any one of the separate chapters from the other pub. You chose to merge Chapter V of each story with the single-title record. I accepted one before I realize what it had done, so I reverted it, and then rejected the other two submissions. I can't think a solution to this problem other than leaving it alone until the software is changed to handle relational connections between stories. MHHutchins 17:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. I was checking my copy of the 2nd edition. I thought they were the 5th part of stories running from Wild Cards 1 on, so I didn't look any further. Willem H. 18:13, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The Illustrated Roger Zelazny

I creatd this pub record awhile back from information on Locus1 and other sources. It was my understanding that these are illustrated adaptations of Zelazny's stories, so I created new title records for each piece adding (illustrated) to the titles so that they wouldn't be accidentally merged with the text stories' title records. I accepted your changes (I'm assuming you're working from the actual book), but still suggest that there be some way to keep these records separate. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:20, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Do they need to be separated? Does the art replace part of the text from other editions? I'm not sure I've got other versions to compare with, and the Ace copy is a pain to read. BLongley 17:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I actually own both editions, so I could compare them. Since the verified edition had the original stories, I saw no harm in doing the same with the first edition. I compared the text with the original stories, and they are abridged, but that was already stated in the notes of this pub. By the way, the Ace edition is really bad. Most of the text is the same, but the beautiful illustrations by Gray Morrow are hacked to pieces. Willem H. 18:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I still believe that the illustrated story adaptations should not have been merged with the original stories. Look how the comic book adaptations of Ray Bradbury stories are handled. Since you two guys have the actual books and are willing to stand by your decision to merge them, I'll let it go. Perhaps you can respond to any future editors who won't understand why those adaptations are listed with the versions for those of use who supply own our imagery. ;-) MHHutchins 07:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think there is one difference. The Bradbury stories are really comic book adaptations, the Zelazny stories use the original text (however abridged) with illustrations. Is there no standard for these things? Willem H. 10:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Not really. We say Comics and Graphic Novels are out (so that Bradbury shouldn't really be here) but then say "all other works by authors over a certain threshold" are in. I'd be slightly more lenient on Graphic Novels (I'd allow Graphic Novel versions of books already here) but wouldn't go as far as comics, even if collected into a big book-format Omnibus of comics. How far you have to separate text and pictures to make it an illustrated book rather than a graphic novel is questionable: I've allowed 1832 and 22248 for instance, although both were obviously originally designed to showcase the artist almost as much as the author. ("Eric" at least has been reprinted as mostly text with less art though.) I'm not totally in favour or against the merges here - I just haven't compared versions to see if they're significant abridgements. If we didn't merge, an "abridged" suffix works for me - I don't see much need for another "illustrated" suffix. But we don't have rules for use of suffixes either, and we should probably document a few (and keep them few). BLongley 19:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I've changed my Verification to Transient as it's a crap edition and I won't be keeping it. It's already falling apart and pages 65-80 seem to have gone walkabout already. Are all Byron Preiss editions this bad? BLongley 19:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Gregory FitzGerald

Just to let you know that I have put your Make Pseudonym submission for "Gregory FitzGerald"/"Gregory Fitz Gerald" on hold while we are investigating whether the "Gregory FitzGerald" form has been used or whether it's just a data entry artifact. Once a Pseudonym has been set up, it can't be cleanly deleted, so we tend to be a little more cautious with pseudonyms (and Series, which have a slew of problems of their own) than with other parts of the database, which can be rearranged at will. Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That's ok. You can probably reject my submisson by now, because "Gregory FitzGerald" has only one entry left, and according to your verification request that one is by "Gregory Fitz Gerald" also. I made the submission because FitzGerald had verified publications. Next time I'll just put up a verification request myself. Thanks! Willem H. 10:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No worries, the bogus Author record is now gone and the submission has been rejected. Unlike Variant Title relationships, Pseudonyms can't be easily undone, so we have learned to treat them with due respect :) Ahasuerus 19:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Index to the SF Magazines

In accepting your submission updating this pub, I realized that there was already a record of this pub in the database. The only difference is the publisher designation: NESFA Press vs. New England Science Fiction Association. I have the 1981 printing of this title and it has NESFA Press and logo on the front cover, but it's spelled out on the inside. MHHutchins 15:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that too. I have the 1971 hardcover edition, the one I updated. The second 1971 entry is a pamphlet. I think New England Science Fiction Association should be NESFA, my edition sais NESFA on the spine, but on the title- and copyrightpages it is written in full. Corrected this. I left the komma in the title by mistake, corrected that too. I also made the title a part of the NESFA Indexes series. With these changes things should be correct. Thanks Willem H. 16:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Strange Relations by Philip Jose Farmer

I think the confusion with this title is that the 2006 omnibus (with a 2008 paperback reprint) included the 1960 collection of the same title. Because the collection is a content of these publications, all of the omnibus publications will be listed under the collection's title record. They'll also be listed under the omnibus title record which I retitled Strange Relations (omnibus). I also deleted one of the omnibus reprints because it was a duplicate. Let me know if this clears up the situation. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:53, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I checked it, and it looks ok to me. Thanks Willem H. 19:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Pence to Pounds conversion

When entering a British pub priced in pence, convert the number to pounds by adding "£0." before the number. So "£0.95" would be used instead of "95p". Thanks. MHHutchins 19:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I try and I try, but one slipped through. Thanks Willem H. 19:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Flight to Opar by Philip Jose Farmer

I'm wondering why you changed the date of the title record to April 1976 when the first edition is dated June 1976. Also the artwork by Krenkel was entered as April 1976. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Another submission wants to date this undated printing as 1983. If you have a source it should be placed in the notes, otherwise the verifier (me) will be asked where the date came from and I wouldn't be able to say. ;-) Thanks. MHHutchins 20:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You made duplicate submissions of the Methuen 2nd printing, or the system may have duplicated it. I'll go ahead and delete one of them. MHHutchins 20:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

1 This was probably a slip of the key. I submitted a correction.

2 This is a long story, I'll try to keep it short. A very good friend of mine is webmaster of the Philip José Farmer International Bibliography. He actually collects every printing of every edition ever published by Farmer (in any language), so indirectly I have access to the publications. I'll mention him as the source for any change to an edition I don't own myself.

3 I think I hit the refresh key after submitting the Methuen edition. Sorry

Thanks for your patience with me. Willem H. 21:14, 16 March 2009 (UTC

I did a little research myself and saw that DAW #UE1865 has an October publication date and #UE1877 has a November publication date. This record's #UE1875 places it somewhere between those months. I've updated the notes accordingly. Also, I'm familiar with that great Farmer website and have used it as a source several times. It's one of the few website bibliographies that rivals the scope and coverage of the Michael Bishop bibliography that I created and maintain. Tell your friend what a wonderful job he has done. I wonder if he had the full cooperation of his subject that I have. If not, it's an even greater achievement. I've always believed that fan-maintained websites are better than most author-maintained websites. MHHutchins 21:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

My friend (Rias Nuninga) still remembered some e-mails from way back when you were building the Michael Bishop bibliography (looks like some cross fertilization took place), and he was busy developing the farmer site. He sends his greetings (Oh, yes, the Michael Bishop site...). For now I'll continue to add to and correct the Farmer entries in ISFDB. I'll try to be more careful with verified pubs, and mention my sources a bit more. By the way, in my wanderings on the internet I had come across your site. It's one of the few that tries to be complete, not only with english language publications, but with translations too. Keep up the good work. Willem H. 14:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There are very few web-based SF bibliographies that attempt to record foreign language printings. I can only name three others: the PJF International Bibliography, A. Bertram Chandler and Daughter of the Night, a Tanith Lee bibliography, the maintainers of which I used to be in touch with. If you know of any others I'd like to know. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

SFBC edition of The Classic PJF 1964-1973

I accepted your submission for a new pub of this title, but wonder about the date of publication. I see that it's from the PJF International Bibliography website, but that was derived from the printing date (Gutter code "O50" indicates a printing in December 1984.) My records show it was the February 1985 selection of the club, which is the date we use as the publication date. If you're in contact with the person who maintains that website, you might pass along the info. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll pass the information along to Rias. Thanks. Willem H. 16:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The international PJF bibliography will not change the date, as it uses the gutter code for all book club editions. I changed my entry according to the rules, and added a note. Willem H. 20:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's his prerogative, but it would be nice to let those using his site know that these are printing dates, not publication dates for book club editions. I don't suppose he would do the same for trade editions, if they contained codes indicating the dates of their printings. To each his own... MHHutchins 03:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. However, he does add notes to the publications when he uses the codes, so it is visible on his site. Willem H. 10:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Riverworld War

The artwork credits in this pub appear a little wonky. If Borth's work illustrates "Jesus on Mars" then that's how it should be titled without any parenthetical appendix. I'm also assuming that Hanke Woods' work illustrates the story "Riverworld War". Also, is the appendix to the title story part of the story's actual title. If not, then it should be placed in the title record's notes. It's not necessary to disambiguate this title as it's the only publication of the title. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Nicely pointed out. I'll make a correction for the illustrations. The appendix to Riverworld War is a subtitle, I'll change that too. Thanks. Willem H. 21:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Escape from Loki

You want to delete this second printing, but in the notes of the first you state that there was a second printing in September 1991. Why not just update this printing if it wasn't priced at $4.99? MHHutchins 19:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to clone the first edition, to avoid having to re-enter the contents and later merging them. Forgot to do so immediately, but it is ready now. Thanks Willem H. 20:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It's always better to do the cloning first, and wait for it to be accepted. Then when the moderator gets a submission to delete a pub, it's obvious that one is a duplicate. Looking at the two printings now that both appear to be identical. The second one, according to your notes, was published in September. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Every day you learn something new.... Thanks for the lesson. Willem H. 10:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Peter Phillips = Howard Browne

How certain are you that all of the Peter Phillips stories were written by Howard Browne? I find it unusual that the editor of the pulpish Amazing and Fantastic was writing stories good enough for Astounding, Galaxy, F&SF, New Worlds and Weird Tales. You would have thought his taste in editing was as good as his writing skills! When I first saw your submissions I placed them on hold, but Rkihara must have already started approving them, before I had the chance to come and question you about your sources. MHHutchins 17:09, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not 100% sure of course. It was a surprise for me to see Peter Phillips as a pseudonym. So I did some checking, and all my internet sources SF&F reading experience, Books & Book collecting and the ultimate SF web guide had no entry for Peter Phillips except as a pseudonym of Howard Browne. The MIT Index to the S-F Magazines, 1951-1965 lists all the Peter Phillips stories as by one author, half the Peter Phillips stories were already known as being by Howard Browne, one (She Who Laughs) was known under both names and they were all written in a ten year period, so that was it for me. Of course there always is a possibility that a real Peter Phillips wrote SF, but I thought it unlikely, and had no reason to doubt. I've done some more research, and found no evidence of the existence of this Peter Phillips (supposedly born in 1920(ISFDB) or 1921(Nicholls). Of course, if you are right things must be turned back. Thanks Willem H. 19:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, there is one entry for cover art by Peter Phillips. I strongly suspect this to be the work of this man, so I haven't touched that one yet. Willem H. 19:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

None of your sources state the exclusivity of the pen name. It's such a common name that it's likely that not all of these were written by Howard Browne. I just can't see an editor submitting his stories to other periodicals under a pen name. Now in his own magazines, yes. He used "Peter Phillips" in the self-edited Fantastic Adventures (August 1950) for "Well I'll Be Hexed!" Also look at this page on the FictionMags Index which lists only one "Peter Phillips" story by Browne with the others listed as by someone born in 1920. Contento's index also gives a similar listing. My own research reveals that the oft-reprinted story Manna is introduced by Terry Carr in this anthology as written by "...a British journalist of many remarkable skills..." (editor of an American pulp isn't among those listed.) This is at least one story I'm going to move back to the Peter Phillips page. I've been unable to find a printing of "She Who Laughs" as by Howard Browne. There's one for "She Didn't Bounce" in a detective magazine as written by Browne using the Phillips pen name. MHHutchins 20:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

My 1952 edition of the Day index says that Peter Phillips "may have been" used by Ziff-Davis as a house name. Tuck (vol. 3) concurs that it was a house name and lists Browne as the only known user. The rest were presumably unknown as of the early 1980s. Ahasuerus 20:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I checked Tuck before approving and Howard Browne was the only listing for Peter Phillips. Since this has become an issue, I checked my copy of Rock, and found Peter Phillips listed as a house pseudonym, with the majority of stories attributed to Howard Browne, and the rest unattributed. All of the changes I approved except one, "She Who Laughs," are unattributed. Howard Browne had used this pseudonym in Galaxy, Marvel, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Fantasy Magazine, F&SF, Infinity, and New Worlds.-Rkihara 21:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It is of course possible that I was wrong, but then it is probably the other way around, and most of the Peter Phillips stories that were listed as by Howard Browne before I started meddling should not be there. Lost Memory is an excellent example. Asimov also writes about a British journalist in The Great SF Stories 14. Perhaps only the few stories that are clearly by Howard Browne should be left there, and the others(20+) should all be moved to Peter Phillips. Again, I had no reason to suspect there were two of them writing in the same time period. Willem H. 21:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The only story by Phillips that Contento attributes to Browne is "She Didn't Bounce" which is a vignette that appeared in Suspense Magazine. He does not even credit the ones that Rock does. Peter Phillips, in fact, seems not to be Howard Browne since Contento gives him a birthdate of 1920 while Howard Browne has a birthdate of 1908. Looking at his bibliography in Contento it is highly likely that he was an English writer. Rock, and others, may be in error.--swfritter 21:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is the bibliography from Contento.

PHILLIPS, PETER (1920- ) (chron.) (assoc.)

   * * At No Extra Cost, (ss) Marvel Science Fiction Aug 1951
   * * c/o Mr. Makepeace, (ss) F&SF Feb 1954
   * * Countercharm, (vi) Slant Spr 1951
   * * Criteria, (vi) Planet Stories May 1952
   * * Death’s Bouquet, (ss) Weird Tales Sep 1948
   * * Dreams Are Sacred, (nv) Astounding Sep 1948
   * * Field Study, (ss) Galaxy Apr 1951
   * * First Man in the Moon, (vi) F&SF Sep 1954
         o F&SF (Aust.) #8 1956
         o Science-Fantasy #18 1956 
   * * Lila, (ss) Startling Stories Apr 1953
   * * Lost Memory, (ss) Galaxy May 1952
   * * Manna, (nv) Astounding Feb 1949
   * * Next Stop the Moon, (ss) London Daily Herald Oct 14-17 1957
         o New Worlds Jan 1958 
   * * No Silence for Maloeween, (ss) Weird Tales May 1948
   * * P-Plus, (nv) Astounding Aug 1949
   * * Plagiarist, (nv) New Worlds Sum 1950
   * * She Who Laughs, (ss) Galaxy Apr 1952
   * * Sylvia, (ss) Fantasy Fiction Jun 1953
   * * University, (nv) Galaxy Apr 1953
   * * Unknown Quantity, (ss) New Worlds #5 1949
   * * Variety Agent, (ss) Infinity Science Fiction Jun 1956
   * * The Warning, (ss) F&SF Sep 1953
         o F&SF (UK) Feb 1954
         o F&SF (Aust.) #3 1955 
   * * “Well I’ll Be Hexed!”, (nv) Fantastic Adventures Aug 1950
         o Fantastic Adventures Quarterly (Reissue) Win 1950

It may have been a house name for Ziff-Davis, but not for Street & Smith, World Editions, Nova Publications, or Fantasy House. I also believe Contento is mistaken when he lists "Well, I'll Be Hexed!" with the others, because it was published by Ziff-Davis in a magazine edited by Howard Browne. Dollars for doughnuts, Browne wrote that one. And it seems to be the culprit that caused the whole rigamarole. :-) MHHutchins 23:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I see two choices. Either unlink all pseudonym relations or only link those which are specifically attributed as by Browne in Rock. In either case the bibliographic notes for the authors should have a summary of the issue and the title notes for each individual story story should have a concise entry concerning the issue. We don't have a strict policy for titles appearing in verified pubs so new and moderately active editors will not be familiar with the practice but this issue certainly should have been discussed with the verifiers.--swfritter 16:30, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Osiris on Crutches

I accepted the submission making "Tincrowdor" the pseudonym for Farmer, but had to reject the variant creation. The original record of "Osiris on Crutches" had somehow become a variant of itself, so in breaking the variant to get it back into shape, one of the records was overridden by the other. And that was the one in your submission. But everything appears to be OK (for now.) As it stands, there are two publications that did not credit "Tincrowdor": Riders of the Purple Wage and Venus on the Half Shell and Others (and its variant printings). Please check to see if you agree with its present status. Thanks. MHHutchins 23:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks ok to me. In Venus on the Half-Shell and Others all stories are creditet only to Farmer, Riders of the Purple Wage does not mention Tincrowdor and Stations of the Nightmare has the story as by Farmer and Tincrowdor (not on the contents page, but with the story itself). I can't check New Dimensions 6 directly, but since that one is verified by you, it must be correct. Thanks Willem H. 06:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Epilogue (Twilight World)

You merged the two records of this title, and then made a subsequent submission adding it to a series. When the first submission for the merger was accepted, the system chose which record to retain and which to delete. It was unable to accept the second submission because that record was the one deleted. It's best that you make changes in the title record before a merge, or wait until the merger submission is accepted, then make changes in the merged title record. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Another valuable lesson. Thanks Willem H. 19:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

From These Ashes

I accepted your submission for the first printing of this title, but somehow (don't ask me to explain) it remains in the submission queue. Does it still show up in your list of pending edits? It looks like the record was created so let me know if I should just reject the dangling submission. Freaky indeed! MHHutchins 21:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The record is there, but the last 15 stories are missing. Is there a maximum number of titles that can be cloned in one publication? Please reject the submission, and I'll see what happens. If the new pub is deleted, I'll just clone again. Thanks Willem H. 21:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I've never known there to be a problem with the number of titles that can be cloned. Your saying that some of the last titles weren't included makes me think that there was a break-up somewhere between my accepting it and the system integrating it. I think we should delete the incomplete record and accept the complete one that's in the queue. Once I've accepted it you can decide which one to keep. MHHutchins 22:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's the new record that I just accepted. It appears to be complete. The system has been so slow the last few days, I can sing the "Bicycle Built for Two" dirge between the times I click and the time the website returns the page. MHHutchins 22:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The new acceptance looks ok to me. I've deleted the incomplete copy, and verified the new one. Thanks Willem H. 09:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

"Harrison Denmark" stories in Threshold

Are these stories actually credited to Denmark on the title pages of each piece? Thanks. Also, I merged the content records, but some of the poem dates were out of sequence, as the current records only show their 1981 publications in To Spin is Miracle Cat. If these were previously published in obscure sources, please update the title records with that date of first publication. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Forgot I had Levack's bibliography of Zelazny. I'll check to see if there were previous publications of some of the more obscure pieces. MHHutchins 19:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The Harrison Denmark stories are so credited. I merged them with the original entries.

I'll check the date of first publication for all stories and poems (Each entry has a date and place of first publication given). Thanks for merging the reat of the titles, it saves me a lot of work. Tomorrow I'll start on volume 2. Thanks Willem H. 20:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Satan's World cover artist identity

The "S" in a box is probably for Rick Sternbach. See if it matches the "S" in this cover. (It's to the left of the chair.) MHHutchins 19:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes!!! I made a submission for this. Thanks Willem H. 20:26, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Tales of the Flying Mountains

Something happened to your submission updating this pub. A big red error message appears on the submission that "record 995334 is not valid", and, as a moderator, I can neither approve it, nor reject it. Maybe a sysop will know how to get rid of the submission. There may have been a conflict between two submissions: one may have changed a content record which was part of a subsequent submission. MHHutchins 23:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW, this is the same pub record that Bluesman just added a page number to one of the stories. When you get a chance, read the message I left on his page about the perils of unmerging pub records from content titles, instead of removing content records from pubs. MHHutchins 23:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

My mistake I think. All went well, until I tried to add a pagenumber before the merge was accepted. See this discussion. Perhaps there should be a warning about the loss of pagenumbers on this helpscreen. I followed these instructions. Sure hope the faulty submission can be erased. Thanks Willem H. 09:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Power & Light - . . . And Call Me Conrad serial

You sure gave it the full works to this one. I might note that there is a section in Help that states "Magazines: Serial installments of a work are always given the date of the magazine in which they appear even if the work has been published previously in book or serial form." Episodes of a serial are not normally merged for two major reasons - serial reprints may have a different number of episodes and the text may very significantly in a reprinting. This is a special case in that the episodes are presumably nearly identical. I don't think it is necessary to unmerge them but you may want to explain in the pub notes for the book and title notes for the episodes the reason why they are merged. Exceptions should be documented. Also, you list the Synopsis of Part 1 as a separate work. This would not make much sense in a magazine because the subsequent parts after Part 1 are almost always preceded by a synopsis that would generally be considered part of the episode. I think it makes a certain sense to list it here because it is actually quite odd that it is included; a synopsis is usually there for readers who haven't read the previous parts or have forgotten what happened in the month since they read the previous part. Zelazny is actually credited as writing the synopsis?--swfritter 00:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I was the mod that approved the merging of these records with the F&SF records. When I first saw them in the queue I placed them on hold to let Willem know about the standards for subsequent serializations. But rather than going with my first reaction, I thought it through and came to the conclusion that those rules didn't apply in this case. First, it's not really a serial, as it is published in book form. And I made an assumption that it must be an exact reprint of the F&SF serial, otherwise what was the editor's point in placing it in this collection of the complete short fiction of Roger Zelazny? It even included the synopsis of part one, which I can confirm was written by the author, verified by Levack's Zelazny bibliography. I don't believe this is common (please let me know if I'm wrong.) Having said that, it's exceptions that make the rule (I never knew exactly what that meant!) So don't try this again Willem. Wouldn't want the magazine mods to take away your edit privileges. :-) MHHutchins 01:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

It seemed natural to do it this way, as the two parts are listed separately on the contents page, and are stated as exact reprints of the serial in F&SF. It seemed unnatural not to merge this with the original publication. The purpose of the Zelazny Project is "to print a complete collection of Roger Zelazny's short fiction and poetry, in (most likely) six hardcover volumes. We expect to include all published fiction and poetry we can find, however obscurely published, and a number of unpublished works retrieved from Zelazny's archived papers. We also expect to include the shorter early versions of several novels, several novel excerpts that were published independently as short works and a few of Zelazny's articles on topics of interest to him." This includes the serials of course, so I expected to do the same when "He Who Shapes" comes up in one of the next volumes. I'll probably ask first what to do.

As for the Synopsis of Part 1, it is credited to Zelazny, the editors even call it unusual because of the first person point of view. I asked Rkihara to check the first publication in F&SF november 1965. Probably there was no separate listing on the F&SF contents page, but there definitely is one in Power & Light, so I entered it as short fiction, with the date of first publication and a note about this. Willem H. 10:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think what Willem has done is correct and "He Who Shapes" should probably be done the same way. I recently dealt with a similar case where a Fritz Leiber (Complete Novel) serial from Fantastic Adventures was reprinted in Fantastic. It's likely that they were nearly identical and I considered the possibility that they should be merged. The reason I suggested notes about the reason why the Zelazny episodes are merged is that there is a (probably unlikely) possibility that someone else may use this a precedent for processing another serial where merging would not be appropriate. Although it makes sense to list the synopsis here since it is such an unusual case, I don't think it is necessary to list it in the magazine. Defining it as "shortfiction" is a good move. Such a definition should probably be used more often for cases where we don't have categories like vignette, etc.--swfritter 14:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm one of the editors of the Zelazny Project and the person who researched and compiled all of the material that makes up the Notes, the "A Word from Zelazny" sections, the biography, the original publication dates for each story or poem, etc. I can tell you that Zelazny wrote the Synopsis of Part One from ...And Call Me Conrad. The three reasons that I included it in the collection were that it a) provided information about the character and background that was not in Part 1; b) it was written from the first person viewpoint of Conrad and therefore was quite unusual; and c) it was written by Zelazny. I didn't include the synopsis of "He Who Shapes" because it was third-person and there was no need to reproduce that story in two parts. Moreover, I can tell you that you are also incorrect about the presumption of who wrote the various synopses for Zelazny's serials. Zelazny wrote all of them. I've seen the original manuscripts of those synopses (and own some of them) and I've also seen the correspondence in which the editors of the magazines requested that Zelazny write those synopses. But we won't be including any other synopses because we won't be including any other serials. This may beg the question as to why we included the serial version of ...And Call Me Conrad: because that's what won the Hugo Award. Not This Immortal. Lastly, I note that you listed authorship of the "A Word from Zelazny" sections as being by Zelazny himself. This is a gray area, because those "A Word from Zelazny" sections were written/assembled by me using quotes from Zelazny. Sometimes one of the "A Word from Zelazny" sections is entirely a Zelazny quote, but more often it is a combination of quotes and original material that I wrote to link it all together. So it may be more accurate to list those "A Word from Zelazny" sections as joint authorship, or maybe not, depending upon isfdb policies. Ckovacs 00:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Billenium or Billennium?

Can you check the spelling of the story in this pub? There are records for each spelling and I wanted to make sure that I merge it with the right one. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

It is definitely Billenium as I entered it. Both on the contents page and with the story itself. I added a note about the coverartist, corrected a pagenumber and submitted the merge. Thanks Willem H. 18:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8

Just a note that the Gollancz edition of this anthology has been approved. Carr's "Recommended Reading - 1978" and Brown's "The Science Fiction Year (1978)" have been removed as per the Notes field, which was updated to reflect the correct authors of these essays. Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Saves me the trouble of removing them (I cloned another edition, so I had to wait for the approval). I noticed that the cover artist had not been removed, and there was no ISBN number (perhaps I forgot to add it). Made a new submission for this. Willem H. 16:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like Michael approved the second submission before I saw your response. The record looks good except that I am not sure what "0575027274" is doing between the first and the second sentences of the Notes field. Was it some kind of cut and paste artifact? Ahasuerus 16:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Well.... That was the missing ISBN. Made a new (final) submission. Thanks! Willem H. 16:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks! Ahasuerus 16:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Crispin's Best SF series

Based on the comments placed in the notes on "Best SF 4" and "...5", I changed the title of the publications to "...Four" and "...Five". I think the title records for all the pubs that you verified should also be changed to the same as the title page. Since they were all reproduced from same sheets both hc and tp editions are probably the same, even the book club editions. If you change them, I'll approve the edits. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Title changes are submitted. I think the essays by Crispin will have to be changed too. I'll wait for the approval of the first changes. Thanks Willem H. 18:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"(The) House of the Hatchet(t)"

I see that you would like to make "House of the Hatchett" into a variant title of "The House of the Hatchet". I wonder if we are sure that The Early Fears really added a second "t" to the title? I don't have a copy, so I can't check, and I don't see anything obvious online... Ahasuerus 01:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. In the meantime, the addition of "House of the Hatchet" to the 1971 Tandem collection has been approved, so I assume that the next step will be to Remove the "The" version and merge the new version with its pre-existing counterpart, right? Ahasuerus 01:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. I don't own a copy of "The Early Fears", but I'm pretty sure "House of the Hatchet" doesn't have a double t. Google has no hits for that version, and the wikipedia page lists it with one t. Perhaps I should have merged first, and made the variant later. It's not easy to spead this kind of entry over several days (I live in the Netherlands, so when I'm working on my collection most of the moderators sleep and vice versa). I have submitted the merge in the meantime. Thanks Willem H. 11:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The merge has been approved, so the version with double-t is gone. Does that mean the variant making should be rejected, and done again? Willem H. 13:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

When you create a "merge Titles" submission, one Title is kept (and updated if needed) and all others are deleted. In this case, the Title record that was kept was the Title record that you used in the "Make Variant Title" submission, so the submission was still valid and I approved it.

One thing that I just noticed is that we have two Collection records for The House of the Hatchet. The first one was apparently first published by Tandem in 1965 and is a variant title of the 1962 collection Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. The second one was published by Panther in 1976 and its Note field says "Selections from the 1974 Neville Spearman edition of The Opener of the Way".

According to Contento, they are two different collections and the full title of the 1965 Tandem book is The House of the Hatchet and Other Tales of Horror. I see that you have verified the second (1971) printing of the book, so I wonder if you could double check the title as it appears on the title page of the collection? If it's indeed different from the 1976 version, we will want to expand it, which will help with disambiguation. In the meantime, I will add notes to these Title records to explain that they are different. Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

About the title merge submissions, I know, and I should make it a habit to write down the title records that are kept or discarded, but I always seem to press "Submit data" before I think of it. Sigh...

I noticed the two versions of "The House of the Hatchet" too. It seems that the original Arkham edition of "The Opener of the Way" was published by Panther in two volumes, The Opener of the Way and The House of the Hatchet. This title has a note about the first, the second has a note too.

You are right about the title page of "The House of the Hatchet and Other Tales of Horror". Damn the publishers who have different titles on cover and title page. I will make a submission for a title change (for the title, this will change both publications). Thanks Willem H. 18:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge instead of variant

I'm holding a submission that wants to make this record a variant of this one. They're identical so I think you meant to merge them. If so, I can go ahead and do it for you. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right. Through the Moderator noticeboard I tried to get the edit rejected, so I could do the merge instead. You can do it, or I can do it. I'll check tomorrow. Thanks Willem H. 09:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your note on the moderator board, which I usually keep an eye on. I rejected the submission and did the merge of the two titles. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Too Long a Sacrifice

I've held your submission as the change from "M. D. Broxon" to "Mildred Downey Broxon" would affect three titles rather than just your one. And we have the canonical title set up already, so I think you'd end up with a title being a variant of exactly the same title. It's a bit late for me to go research: your intention may well be right and it may have never been published by "M. D. Broxon", but even if so I'm afraid we'll have to do the change pub-by-pub with merges. I think - but I may be more drink than I thunk I am and another mod will fix it in the meantime. BLongley 21:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I did it again. I just assumed it was only my edition, but well... A good thing there are severe moderators to punish me. Please reject this edit. I will make new submissions to add the right title and remove the wrong one. Thanks Willem H. 21:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, rejected. Learning not to assume is sometimes hard here - I remember assuming that correcting a book review in a magazine would never affect anything else, as those are one-offs, aren't they? We only get one entry for a magazine. Until somebody pointed out that some authors are such noted reviewers that they can sell books of their past reviews as "literary criticism". (Damon Knight? James Blish/William Atheling?) And then I found that British versions of some US magazines had the same reviews but with different dates, etc. BLongley 22:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully I'm not a "severe" moderator, just a careful one. I'm not sure I could even suggest a way of "punishing you". No approvals until you've submitted at least 3 corrections in the "Authors that exist only due to reviews" or something? We'd never be able to enforce such even if we wanted to. I don't think there's ever going to be a punishment aspect here, at worst we'll point you at something to practice on! BLongley 22:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Too Long a Sacrifice Take 2

You added a second novel to this pub. Also, if the actual author is "Mildred Downey Broxon", it's under the wrong title record as well. In fact, I don't think any pub as by "M. D. Broxon" exists. If you need help in how to straighten it out, just ask. MHHutchins 21:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry, I just noticed that Bill was working with you on this pub. MHHutchins 21:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to take over, my "Whoa!" is done and my timezone is unhelpful. BLongley 22:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's time to ask for help. Can't find it in the help section. I tried to remove the M. D. Broxon title, but that seems to be impossible. Next I tried unmerging it from the canonical title, but that edit seems to be on hold too. I'm stunned, and I need to go to sleep now. I'll look again tomorrow. Bye for now. Willem H. 22:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

You've already done the first step. You unmerged it from the "M. D. Broxon" title record. But remember unmerging it doesn't change the title record. It just creates a new one with the EXACT SAME title and author.

1. You'll need to go to your pub record and change it's title record.
2. Clicking on the title reference link will bring up your pub's title record.
3. Edit this title record, correcting the author.
4. Once that submission's approved, use the "Remove Titles from This Pub" tool to get rid of the extra pub content record from your verified pub.
5. Go back to the Mildred Downey Broxon summary page and merge all of the duplicate title records.

There may be a step or two to go, but let's start with these. MHHutchins 02:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks so easy once you know the tricks. I made the first submission. Thanks Willem H. 11:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

First submission approved, tinker away! :) Ahasuerus 14:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Second step submitted. Next will be the merging. Thanks Willem H. 14:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Author change and title removal approved. We ended up with 4 identical Title records and one of them was a variant title of itself (ouch!), so first I had to break that variant title relationship (see Help:How to reverse a variant title relationship) and then I merged the 4 Titles. Could you please review the resulting Title record to make sure it looks OK? Thanks! Ahasuerus 14:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks perfect to me. Thanks! Willem H. 15:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Bio of a Space Tyrant Volume 4: Executive

I have approved the Note that you added to your verified edition of Bio of a Space Tyrant Volume 4: Executive, but could you please clarify what "Signature is visible on the back cover (lower left)" means? There is no artist credited in the Artist field, so is the signature illegible? Thanks! Ahasuerus 05:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to add Jim Burns. Good catch! Thanks, I made a new submission. Willem H. 05:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Approved, thanks! Ahasuerus 14:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Anthony's Crewel Lye

I'm holding your submission making Crewel Lye into a variant of Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn. I don't think this is a situation where a variant is needed. We can't be sure that the two non-verified records without the subtitle really don't have it. Looking at this Amazon image of the first edition shows the title on the cover. Also the record you wish to create as a variant is included in this unverified omnibus. Until these records can be verified I'd recommend that it be merged with the longer title. (If it were up to me I'd go with the shorter title, but that follows my belief that such subtitles don't constitute an actual variant, a discussion more suited to the Rules and Standards page.) Thanks. MHHutchins 17:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't check the omnibus. I was merging some of the author's notes by Anthony and came upon this stray version of Crewel Lye. I saw no harm in connecting it with the other versions of the novel. Feel free to reject this submission, and merge it.

PS, I'll look forward to a discussion about subtitles. This should bring out some interesting thoughts. In the case of Crewel Lye, the subtitle is on the title page, the front cover and the spine. In the next (and last) Ballantine Xanth novel the subtitle is also mentioned in the list of previous Xanth novels. The series is all about puns, and Caustic Yarn is just another one. I think in this case the long title should be preferred. Thanks Willem H. 18:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You've made a strong case that the longer title is the true title, making even stronger the case that a variant shouldn't be created. I'll merge the two titles. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

British currency

On the NEL printings of Burroughs Mars novels you used "p" instead of converting the price to pounds. MHHutchins 17:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I should have thought about it. I cloned these from later printings and didn't notice the "p". Shall I change the other pubs too? These were verified by Unapersson in 2007. I'll make new submissions for my pubs. Thanks Willem H. 18:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please change them when you get a chance. The recording of foreign currencies have changed over the years and perhaps that was the standard then. When I see one of the older methods I try to change them. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I will. I had to verify my pubs anyway, so it's easy to change the old currency if I see one. Thanks Willem H. 18:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not a big issue: frankly, it's cosmetic, and I'm not really sure why we're regularising them. It's not as though it'll be any easier to use the price data in a character field. It's nice to see the "L"s replaced with a proper "£" though, Al hasn't fixed the display logic in all cases. But there is a big issue over adding unnecessary "£" symbols to pre-decimal prices, so if you see something like "£2/6" do let me know - that would technically be two pounds and six shillings rather than the more likely two shillings and six pence. I've corrected a few series of magazines that made a "3/-" publication into a "£3" one - a twenty-fold price-increase is not good! BLongley 21:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Unpaginated pages

You state in the notes of this pub that Lupoff's introduction is not numbered, but you give it page "1" in the contents entry. Did you count backwards from the Burroughs foreword to determine the page? Or is the title page actually page 1? In similar cases of content on unpaginated pages, I start counting in Roman numerals from the first page of the book until I reach the page on which the content begins and give that number in square brackets. But if the novel starts on page 8, for example. and all the front matter is unpaginated, I'll count backwards to determine the page number. MHHutchins 17:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. I counted back from the first numbered page. Is this something you explain in the notes? I'll gladly do so (now and in future edits). Thanks Willem H. 18:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not necessary to explain in the notes field how you determined the page. But, as a personal preference, I will place that number in square brackets (similar to the method used by librarians at OCLC) to indicate that the page is unpaginated. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Domnei by Cabell

I noticed after accepting the submission for this new pub that you entered it under the wrong title record The Soul of Melicent. You'll have to unmerge it from this title record and it will have its own title record. While you're doing that you can also unmerge the other pub of the same title that is also under the wrong title record. Both appear to be collections, not novels. Looking again at your new pub, you'll see a listing for The Soul of Melicent which will be dropped automatically once your pub has been unmerged. Don't try removing it manually. If you have any questions before starting these procedures, please ask. MHHutchins 16:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Didn't catch you in time. I'm going to reject those two submissions because it's not the correct procedure to straightening out the problem. (And the variant already exists.) First unmerge the pubs from the title. MHHutchins 16:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Title unmerge submission has been accepted. You'll have to change the Ballantine editions to collections (I assume all three of them include the novelette) and merge them. These collections will contain a novel of the same name. Do not merge the collection title record with the novel title record. MHHutchins 17:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Another gotcha that got me. Submission is made. By the way, I think the third Ballantine edition this one should be deleted, as it is the same as this one. Thanks, Willem H. 17:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that first one should be deleted. Next step: change this title record to a collection. Then merge the novel's title record with this existing title record. You can choose to keep the revision appendix, or not. My preference is that it not be there and make a note in the title record that it revises the 1913 novel. But that's your call. MHHutchins 17:34, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

This should do it. As a last step I re-entered the contents in the 1972 Ballantine edition. After acceptance I'll add a note to the title record. Thanks Willem H. 17:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ps, I've been reading Cabell's author's note, and I don't think the novel was revised. Cabell only talks about restoring the title he had originally meant for it. Since it was first published as "The Soul of Melicent" it is correct that this is the canonical title. I will not (yet) add a note to the title record. Agreed? Willem H. 18:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That's good until we come up with something more definitive. OCLC record 2516207 reprints a statement from Publishers Weekly, November 20, 1920 about the first edition with this title: "A revised edition of the novel first published as 'The soul of Melicent.'" This may have been the source (erroneous or not) of the understanding that the novel was revised. You could contact Rtrace who owns a copy of an early reprint. Maybe it has a statement about a revision. MHHutchins 18:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

From an abebooks.com dealer's listing: "First edition with this title, the novel was revised from The Soul of Melicent published in 1914, apparently to capitalize on the success of Jurgen, and to add suppressed passages from the author's original manuscript." MHHutchins 18:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Collected Zelazny editions

I've accepted a couple of submissions by Ckovacs whom I'm assuming is Christopher S. Kovacs, that he was the sole writer of the notes for the NESFA Press Collected Roger Zelazny series. Credit was previously given to Grubbs and Crimmins as well. Can you verify that the credit is actually stated in the book? In his submission, Ckovacs says the sole credit is given on the copyright page, but I'm wondering how it's actually credited in the book itself, if at all. Thanks. MHHutchins 00:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Your presumption is correct; I've also written a note up above on this page (under the And Call Me Conrad section) to clarify some things. I wrote the Notes and the A Word from Zelazny sections, and the copyright page of each volume indicates at my request that the biography ("...And Call Me Roger": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 1, 2, etc.) and story notes are © Christopher S. Kovacs. I've also queried above whether each "A Word from Zelazny" section should actually indicate joint authorship because the quotes were assembled by me with original interstitial text that I wrote to link it all together. Or maybe that is still covered under the concept of editorship, I don't know. But I thought I'd draw it to your attention just so the point is considered accurately against whatever isfdb policy would say about such a matter. Ckovacs 00:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I brought this to Willem's attention because he's a primary verifier for both titles of the series, but your input is valuable. Here at the ISFDB we attribute authorship based on how it is credited in the book. We only use copyright as a back-up if there is no other credit given. For instance if no one was credited as the author of the introduction, we would show "uncredited" as the author, but with sufficient evidence create a variant record to attribute the actual author. (See the credit for the editorial in this example.) Editorship is a different matter, as a role other than author has not been established in the database. The exception being the editor attributed as the "author" of anthologies and periodicals. I accepted your submission giving you the sole credit as the author of the notes, but am hesitant to give co-authorship for the "A Word from Zelazny" pieces unless the pieces are credited as such in the book itself. There have been discussions about establishing more roles in the creation of a work, but, alas, there's been no progress toward changes in the software to achieve that goal. MHHutchins 03:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Kovacs is right about the credits on the copyright page, so his submissions are valid. Stated in Threshold (vol.1) is: "'... And Call Me Roger'": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 1" and story notes ©2009 by Christopher S. Kovacs, MD. I must have missed the "and story notes" part, so I stand corrected. There is no other credit given with the notes themselves. The "A Word from Zelazny sections" are not credited in the books. In the "Word from the Editors" it is stated that "Many of the stories and poems are followed by "A Word from Zelazny" in which the author muses about the preceding work". I placed this statement in the notes, and it was the reason for me to treat them as individual pieces. Thanks Willem H. 06:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

It's unclear to me whether you're doubting which editor wrote the "A Word from Zelazny" sections or whether you think that Zelazny wrote them. It should be very clear to anyone who reads these sections that they were not written by Zelazny. His words are placed in quotation marks amongst interstitial and framing third-person text that I wrote. Some of the "A Word from Zelazny" sections in these six volumes even refer to his death and events that occurred after. An example from the first such "A Word from Zelazny" section (after "A Rose for Ecclesiastes") in volume 1: Zelazny usually gave noncommittal answers when asked if the poet Gallinger had any resemblance to Zelazny himself, but he did give a very personal response to letter writer Clara on this very subject: “You ask me why I hated..." Another example from the second such section (after "Bok"): As Zelazny wrote in its original publication, these are “lines upon the work of hannes bok upon hearing of his death.” Hannes Bok (pseudonym for Wayne Woodard) was a well-known fantasy artist in the 1960s, and his last major work was the wraparound cover art for Zelazny’s “A Rose For Ecclesiastes” in the November 1963 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. “When I was 12 years old and wanted to write SF, I had an ambition..." Is it not evident that Zelazny did not write these sections?

And so I think it is inaccurate and insufficient to indicate that these sections were written "by Zelazny" as currently entered in the database. There are only a few instances where it might be accurate to say that Zelazny wrote an "A Word from Zelazny" section, such as after "Circe Has Her Problems" in which the entire section is a one-paragraph quote from a Zelazny interview. Except that, although those are his transcribed words, he didn't write the published interview, nor did he excerpt his words to use in conjunction with this story...

The footnotes also make clear that I assembled quotes from, at times, six or eight different sources in order to create one coherent "A Word from Zelazny" section.

If you are looking for evidence within the book as to who wrote what, you've overlooked the lengthy acknowledgments section. (I was pre-warned that no one reads acknowledgments at the back of a book; perhaps this is a case in point.) Co-editor Dave Grubbs (who put these six books together) has a short paragraph to thank the proofers, intro writers, artist, me and co-editor Ann Crimmins, etc. Co-editor Ann Crimmins (whose main role was to edit everything I wrote) has a shorter paragraph thanking Dave and me and her family. Sandwiched in between but occupying 3 pages are my acknowledgements which include the approximately 70 names and 7 university archives who helped locate and obtain, among other things, the interviews and manuscripts that became the source material for the "A Word from Zelazny" sections and the monograph "...And Call Me Roger."

We were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible and so the decision was made early on to attribute roles only in the acknowledgements sections and, where appropriate, on the copyright pages. This is, after all, a collection of Zelazny's work and not anyone else's. The one exception about attribution was the monograph for which there seemed no alternative except to clearly identify it as being written by me. I chose the wording for the copyright pages which refer to "story notes" because at that time, the story notes were arranged as Introductions (containing largely quoted remarks from Zelazny) and Afterwords (which sometimes included quoted remarks from Zelazny that would be spoilers if presented as an introduction). After seeing that it would be more aesthetically pleasing to have everything as afterwords, I rewrote the story notes so that what formerly were called Introductions became "A Word from Zelazny" and what formerly were called "afterwords" became part of "A Word from Zelazny" and the rest, simply, "Notes." I left the statement on the copyright page as is because I thought it sufficient nor did I want to appear to be claiming copyright on quotes from Zelazny.

The issue also applies to "A Word from Theodore Sturgeon and Frederik Pohl" which follows "The Furies" in volume 2 since neither collaborated to write such an essay and Sturgeon died many years ago; I quoted an excerpt from Sturgeon's essay and an excerpt from Pohl's archived letter in creating that section. In volume 3 you'll similarly see "A Word from Philip K. Dick" put together well after his death, and "A Word from Frederik Pohl" which quotes a letter to Zelazny. You'll also see "A Word from Harlan Ellison" but that one is clearly labeled as revised by Ellison specifically for volume 3.

Overall I am more than fine with how everything is attributed within the books; conversely, I am uncomfortable with how the isfdb presently singles out these sections as being written "by Zelazny" or "by Sturgeon and Pohl" etc., because that is not accurate nor even possible. Ckovacs 13:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for butting in, but I know how frustrating it is and I hope it has worked out. BTW, I think you absolutely did the job right from the first. It may have been a little rough experience, but everyone learned a lot, especially myself. Thanks for your patience, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

A suggestion. I noticed that you'd put this sentence into the Notes section for both Threshold (vol 1) and Power & Light (vol 2): "In fact the notes are written by Christopher S. Kovacs, the "A Word from Zelazny" sections quoting Zelazny from correspondence, interviews, essays etc." I think it will be clearer if you replace that one sentence with these two:

"In fact the “A Word from Zelazny,” the "A Word from [author X]," and the “Notes” sections were compiled and written by Christopher S. Kovacs. The "A Word from Zelazny" sections quoted Zelazny from correspondence, interviews, essays etc."

That same statement can be applied to the remaining four volumes, except that for volume 3 it will be necessary to add that "A Word from Harlan Ellison®" was written solely by Harlan Ellison. It is indicated that way on the copyright page and where it occurs within the book on page 352. Ckovacs 12:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I was wrestling with the right way to state this. English not being my native language doesn't make it any easier. Submissions are made. Willem H. 14:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The Squares of the City--- changes to Ballantine editions

Morning! This. [1] . You verified this, I did mine, this. [2] which resulted in adds that were previously reflected in Bill Longley's. [3] . This lead to asking Bill Bluesman about this. [4] . Apologies as I did not contact you, but I do not want to 'sandbag' you with the additions which are common to the different printings. This is just a FYI. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I added the contents to my edition. Willem H. 12:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Foundation and Earth

Sorry about the delay. Does your publication give only the international date "1987-08-00" Aug 1987 or is there another 1st printing date?Kraang 21:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering about the delay. Yes, the copyright page only states this edition, "First International Edition: August 1987". It was common practice for a while to have an international edition a few months before the first American mass market printing, and this is one of them. Thanks, Willem H. 10:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Approved, thanks!Kraang 23:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Piers Anthony submissions

A couple of the prices had commas instead of decimal points. Fixed them up. Expensive books. Great job on the Zelazny books. Certainly a learning experience.--swfritter 17:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Every now and then one slips through. It's because in the Netherlands we divide the euro's and the cents by commas, so it's a natural key for me to press. I try to stay alert. Thanks Willem H. 17:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The City and the Stars

I approved your creation of THCTNDTHSN0000, but you left the "preface" as SHORTFICTOIN, I am going to correct it to ESSAY. I leave it to you to determine if it needs to be merged with 567693. I suspect it does. -DES ^Talk 13:23, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Sharp. I would have noticed this, as I always check new publications I create, but it's good to have an extra check. I merged the prefaces. Thanks, Willem H. 17:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Natives of Space

You submitted changes to your own verified pub NTVSFSPCHJ1965 that would change the date from 1965-04-00 to 1970-06-00; change the price from $0.50 to $0.75; and add the note "Second printing. Printed in the United States od America". Is it really the case that you verified this with an incorrect date and price? Or did you intend to create a new pub to indicate a different printing? OCLC lists both a 1965 and a 1970 printing.

I have held this pending your response, just in case this was an error, to avoid loss of data. -DES ^Talk 23:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering what to do with this. It was either this, or creating a new pub and deleting this one, since price and publication date were obviously wrong (the booknumber #01950 and SBN 345-01950-4-075 were already there, the 075 in the SBN indicating a price of $0.75 and the publication date was from the first printing). So I verified this pub, and made the submission. There is also a Canadian printing that matches mine, so I made a note about this. Is there a standard for such a situation? Come to think of it, the tag for my printing would now indicate a publication date in 1965 instead of 1970, so perhaps it's better to create a new pub. Thanks Willem H. 09:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to have missed your response yesterday. Now I understand better what was going on. It is usual to make changes first and verify only after they are in, to avoid this sort of issue. It looks as if whoever initally entered this used the date of original publication, or perhaps the copyright date, rather than the publication date of the $0.75 1970 pub, or perhaps soemone added the 1970 SBN to a record originally used for the 1965 pub. Since you have a copy, and are making the record match the copy you have, I will approve your submission. The tag doesn't matter, while the last 4 characters are usually the year as initally entered, years can and do get changed as more data coems in, no one should rely on the tag to provide an accurate year, it is really just a unique identifier. -DES ^Talk 16:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I am also adding the OCLC record number. -DES ^Talk 16:19, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Clone ISBN

Still a bad ISBN? Amazon does not even list one. Neither does Abebooks so I'm wondering if there is a determinable valid ISBN.--swfritter 14:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I had come acros this page. Some of the pubs mentioned there were verified as having an ISBN with a bad checksum like one. I treated Clone the same way, because the ISBN stated on the copyright page is stated as 0-380-00013-6. Should I add Clone to this list, or should I state the bad ISBN with the # prefix? I could not find any consensus about this. Thanks, Willem H. 15:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Definitely add to the list. Consensus? Not one that I could see. Whatever it takes to make the bad checksum go away as long as the data as it appears in the pub is documented in the notes and there is a notation that the ISBN is invalid. Using the "#" seems as good as any method to enter the number.--swfritter 16:24, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Clone is added to the list, and I made a new submission with the #-prefix. Thanks for the advice. Willem H. 17:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments in "Dealing with Bad ISBNs", but if you read the rest of the discussions around it, "adding to the list and #ing the problem away" has never been intended as a permanent solution. The list is just a list of examples for (now, each round of) the discussion. We're trying to find a balance between "make the big red warning go away", "make the links work" and "use the fields as intended". Now we have multiple programmers available, we might be able to solve the disagreements via implementing features, so don't be afraid to add your opinion. I know it's a bit messy (particularly as we're already discussing ISSNs in that field in another thread, and there's incomplete fixes for the links discussed elsewhere too) but don't be afraid to express an opinion. BLongley 20:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't fear, I'm not afraid to get involved in discussions. As I'm relatively new to the ISFDB I'm a bit short on history, so there is a slight possibility that my opinion has already been expressed by someone else, or that I can't easily follow discussions that have been going on for some time on multiple levels. In the case of the bad ISBN's I had done some research in the wiki, and found the list to be a nice reference to work with. Willem H. 20:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The Platypus of Doom and Other Nihilists

Is there any mention of the Discovery series and is there an intro by Ellison? " The Harlan Ellison Discovery Series #2. Edited, and with an introduction, by Harlan Ellison."[5] If there is we should leave the series info. and add the introduction. Thanks!Kraang 00:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Questions answered, see here[6], Thanks!Kraang 01:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Nemesis: excerpt order?

In cloning your verified 2nd printing of Nemesis, I noticed my copy has the excerpts of The Gods Themselves and The End of Eternity in the opposite order from what you cite, yet falling on the same (counted) page numbers. I find that suspicious -- they have different lengths in my copy -- so I figured I'd mention it. --MartyD 11:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I must have switched them. I just submitted them in the right order. Thanks Willem H. 11:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Tales From Gavagan's Bar

I have the same printing that Dsorgen verified. In my copy the preface is sig ned by both de Camp and Pratt, and ia dated September 1952. It starts "In compiling this record of certian of the somewhat dubious episodes centering around GGavagan's, we. . .", and ends "Too little investigation has been given, and too little importance has bene attached to certian sequences of incident for which Mr. Cohen, both as a bartender and unlettered philosopher, acts as acatalytic agent." -DES ^Talk 14:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly the same as mine. Thanks Willem H. 15:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Zelazny volumes 3 and 4

I thought you'd like to know that the next two volumes in The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny have been released earlier than expected. V2 is This Mortal Mountain and V4 is Last Exit to Babylon. Publication date of June 2009, even though we indicated July 2009 on the copyright pages (there's a bibliographer's note!). They're available for order now from the NESFA Press website, and Amazon should follow suit within a couple of weeks.Ckovacs 12:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I just ordered them from NESFA. Willem H. 18:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Babel-17

Was this meant be a clone?--swfritter 14:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably. I can't access the link, not being a moderator. I cloned the Michael Hutchin's 3rd printing (Ace nr. 04592), and meant to modify it to the fourth, which I own (Ace nr. 04593). I also submitted a change for Ace nr. 04594, stated to be the 4th printing, but obviously this must be the 5th. I see now that I must have forgot to change the publication date of my copy to 1974-07-00. Made a new submission for that. Does that answer your question? Willem H. 15:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought editors could use a link like the above to look at but not approve a submission. My memory must be bad. The item I have on hold was an update, not a clone, of a Babel-17 with a date change from 1974-07-00 to 1975-10-00, and a pub note change from "Stated 4th printing" to "Stated 5th printing".--swfritter 15:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

That was the other submission. As it is the 5th printing (as explained above, Ace used to add a number with each printing), the publication date was mentioned in the notes of the 6th printing. I should have explained this in the notes of course. Thanks Willem H. 17:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Approved. So now editors are required to do math in order to enter data correctly. Thankfully it only required the fingers of one hand to figure this one out. Looks like your going to be busy with the latest Zelazny for awhile.--swfritter 21:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Yarrow

I approved your submission of Yarrow: An Autumn Tale. FYI, the convention for a page number not actually appearing in the book, but derived by counting is to place it in brackets, as [245]. -DES ^Talk 20:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

And All the Stars a Stage

Can you see if there's an ISBN printed in your verified pub of this title? There's another record for an Avon pb edition, but it has an ISBN. It's date (1971) is obviously wrong. Also, is there a leading ellipsis in the title on the title page as in these pubs? Thanks. MHHutchins 21:09, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Good catch. There is indeed an ISBN on the copyright page, 0-380-00013-X, just like the other record. I've made a submission for the ISBN, and added a few notes. Shall I delete the other record? 1971 is the copyright date.

No ellipsis anywhere in my pub, certainly not on the title page. Thanks Willem H. 21:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Borders of Infinity

I'm holding your submission updating this pub. Are the four records that you're adding to the pub really stories? I suspect they're merely connecting material that would not stand on their own. If I'm wrong I'll gladly approve the submission. I wonder if Bujold herself would consider "One" as a story and would have titled it otherwise if she did. :-) I see that Dragoondelight has done the same with his verified pub of the same title, but his doesn't have a "Four". What we have here is one of those nasty cocktails that mixes a novel, a related story collection and a fix-up that the database just isn't designed to handle very well. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I had a feeling this would raise some eyebrows. In fact it is one short story, that would stand on it's own without the references to the three stories it connects. (Miles is in a hospital for surgery, "remembers" the episodes from his life while dreaming and in the meantime solves a plot against his father). When entering the book's contents the "one, two, three, four" solution seemed to be the accepted way to deal with it (don't miss anything, be as complete as possible), so I followed Dragoondelight's example and entered the connecting material as four stories (it looks like Harry missed the fourth part at the end of the book).

This morning I did some research, and I think there is a better solution. I can't find anything by Bujold herself about this, not even in the essay Answers from Dreamweaver's Dilemma, but on Bujold's website it is called 'Linking sections of Borders of Infinity', and the Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith timeline has it as 'Borders of Infinity' (The line where Miles is 25).

I think the best solution is to enter it as short fiction under the title "Borders of Infinity", with notes of course not to confuse or merge it with the story The Borders of Infinity. I have drawn Dragoondelight's attention to this discussion, as he is the only one with a verified edition of Borders of Infinity.

Feel free to reject my submission. I will enter it again after this is resolved. Thanks Willem H. 11:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I checked my ver and the notes. I actually did not enter 'one, two, three' as shown by the contents having those extra perk connectors, which I have never figured out. I just tried to 'deal with it'. I missed 'four' completely.

For the record 'one, etc' does not work for me either. Willem's idea that it is a complete short fiction story linking the others is how I see it also.

Calling it 'Borders of Infinity' works for me (as we are just reverting to the base publication title), but I wonder if we should add another caveat while were at it. Such as (interstitial story).

Will gladly change any/all as needed/agreed upon. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a very workable solution. And yes, please make a note in the pub record as well as in the title record of the to-be-created shortfiction "Borders of Infinity" that the story was split into the four parts and "braided" with the three previously published stories. Thanks. MHHutchins 14:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That works for me also. IIRC, Bujold mentioned in the intro or afterword to one of the omnibus editions of the Miles saga that it was a pity that the rearrangement which put the stories from the BoI collection into different omnibus volumes caused the linking story to be lost (not reprinted). -DES ^Talk 15:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I made a submission to add the story to my pub, with a note. If the text is approved (again, English is not my native language) this can be adapted for the note with title record. Then the various editions Borders of Infinity can be edited. Thanks Willem H. 18:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The Moon Maid

You submitted an update to THMNMDQLGF2002, which adds several content items, and changes the type from NOVEL to OMNIBUS. Clearly this isn't a novel, but with one novel, two novellas, and six essays, i would be inclined to class it as a COLLECTION. This is a grey area. Do you know if the novellas were published separately before 2002? Why did you choose OMNIBUS rather than COLLECTION?

I have the submission on hold. -DES ^Talk 23:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

With the exception of the new essays, this would be the same omnibus as this title. I approved Willem's unmerging it from its previous connection to the novel of the same name. Once this is approved, he'll merged it with the above title record. It should be considered an omnibus because it includes a previously published novel (of the same name) along with two short novels that were previously published together as The Moon Men. I recently verified the Tuck listings for Burroughs, and this title was a particularly tangled knot, that is (currently) straightened out. MHHutchins 23:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think i would still call it a collection, but it is not a hard-and-fast distinction. I'll approve it to let him continue with needed merges. -DES ^Talk 23:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek 12(cover artist)

Willem, Bluesman wants to remove the cover artist and the note. Did you add these to your verified copy[7]? Thanks!Kraang 02:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Bluesman had notified me of this, and asked me to check again. The note and cover artist were there when I verified the pub, and I should have removed them myself. The result of his edit is fine in my opinion. Thanks. Willem H. 07:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Stimson=Stinson

My copy of the SFBC edition of A Planet Called Treason has "Paul Stimson" clearly credited as the jacket artist. Even though this is obviously an error, we can't change it "Stinson", which merging the two author records would do. So I'm going to reject your submission and ask that you make "Stimson" a pseudonym of Paul Stinson, and make variants of the "Stimson" records. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My copy of the St.Martins edition this one clearly has Stinson, so I assumed it to be a typographical error. I'll mak a new submission for my pub, and make Stimson a pseudonym. Thanks Willem H. 18:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Far and Away

Added cover image to your verified copy of this title. MHHutchins 18:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Good scan. It will take some time (months, years ... sigh) before I'm finished with my collection and have the time to start uploading scans. I am making scans, and for now I link them to my (access) database. Thanks, Willem H. 18:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's been years for me, and I've only scanned maybe fifty books out of several thousand. Many of those have cover images already, but some of them are rather crappy looking. One of these days I'll have time to replace them. (Yeah, right.) Anyway... here's another one for Nerves. BTW, these are from Bookscans. They're not as large as I'd like but they'll do as temps. MHHutchins 19:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. Sometimes I look at the things Bill Bluesman does with coverscans, and I wish I wish I had the time to do that. Willem H. 19:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I will take that as a compliment! Thanks! I thought the same way when I dithered about adding the images as I went, and then found how easy it is and frankly, it will take more time to do them later than as you go. It may seem longer to finish the go-through (and I promise you that NEVER seems to end) but the book is in your hands once, not twice, and if your 'system' is as ...... cluttered as most of our collections are, once is preferable!!! 'Tis the wisdom of the aged young Paduwan! ;-) ~BIll, --Bluesman 03:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Guild Publishing

I accepted your submission for Rama II, and have some questions about the publisher. It looks very much to be a book club. Do you know what country it was ran from? Does the book show Guild Publishing as the publisher? (In the US book club (SFBC), when they reprint a book for its members, they will keep the credit for the original trade publisher.) Does it give an actual publication date of 1989? The first edition was published in November of that year, so it seems unlikely that a book club reprint would follow so closely. It's possible and will happen in the SFBC if the original is a trade or m-m paperback, but usually hardcover reprints make take from a couple of months up to a year. Thanks for any info you can provide. MHHutchins 15:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that Guild Publishing is an imprint of the British book club (Book Club Associates or BCA),used in the late 1980's, but the books give very little information. I own six titles published by Guild Publishing and six more by BCA. They all share the CN-prefix in the book number and the lack of price and precise publishing dates.

As for Rama II, the title page states "GUILD PUBLISHING over London . New York . Sydney . Toronto" (other Guild editions state only London as city).

The copyright page states literally: This edition published 1989 by Guild Publishing by arrangement with Victor Gollancz Ltd. ©Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee 1989. CN 6217

The dust jacket is even less informative. It only credits the jacket illustration (as by Perfection Art). I tried to be as complete as posible in the notes, but there wasn't much info in the book.

In my opinion it is possible that the Guild / book club editions were sometimes published (almost) simultaneously with the first edition. I had come across another one, Fantastic Voyage II. I hope this helps a bit. A search for the CN- prefix in the ISBN field gives an interesting list of BCA and Guild books. Good luck with this. Willem H. 19:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Just entered another one that's simultaneous with the first edition, 2010: Odyssey Two. This one is published by Book Club Associates. And upcoming is 2061: Odyssey Three, again by Guild Publishing Willem H. 20:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This explains a lot. My biggest concern was giving them credit as publisher and the publication date. It's clear now that the pub actually states a publication date, well at least a year, and that's better than nothing. (The US SFBC didn't start dating their publications until a few years ago.) Doing a search of "CN" by ISBN, I see that there are quite a few records that show Guild or BCA the publisher "by arrangement with" the publisher of the trade editions. From your description, it looks like these are overstating the credit. I also googled the book club and found out that it still exists, based in the UK, and having a Fantasy & Science Fiction Book Club. If I didn't have so much on my plate, I'd dig a little deeper. It would be interesting to have a listing of its selections, but not being in the UK, nor having access to anyone who may have been a member of the club, it doesn't seem likely to happen soon. I'm still working on the last 20 (of 50) years of the US SFBC! Thanks for the info. MHHutchins 21:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I copy/pasted notes from this thread to the Rama II publication record. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, looks better that way. Saw I had forgotten to verify the pub, but there's always a second chance... Willem H. 20:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Good luck!

Heart surgery seems to be becoming an ISFDB occupational hazard, but I don't think we've lost anyone yet! BLongley 20:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Good luck with the surgery! The good news is that these days it's not as scary as it used to be. Ahasuerus 20:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Very good luck indeed. Please do heal and edit soem more soo. Can't they give you a laptop instead of a TV in the hospital room? :) -DES ^Talk 23:42, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

We'll try to save a few things for you to enter when you're back in action. I hope all goes well. --MartyD 00:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

As a former surgical case, heart as well, do take it easy!!! 7 months for me and I still don't feel 100%. Forget the laptop, flirt with the nurses!!! Time much better spent... and the care improves, too! ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

His Share of Glory

I accepted your edit to {{|P|17119|this pub}}, but I suspect that "Fires edition." is a typo. -DES ^Talk 23:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Oops... The finger is quicker than the eye. Correction submitted. Willem H. 05:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Zelazny v 4: Last Exit to Babylon

Congratulations on the effort to input volumes 3 & 4: that was quick! I don't even have my copies yet! One small quibble: you noted that it was "Doctrine of the Perfect Lie" on the TOC and "The Doctrine of the Perfect Lie" on the actual poem. The listing in the TOC is a typo: the poem is supposed to have "The" at the beginning. So the entry should really have "The" at the beginning. Ckovacs 10:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I'll submit a change for the poem and the note. I received the books last friday, so I had two whole days to enter them. By the way, if there are other entries wrong, feel free to make the changes yourself. I'm expected in the hospital tomorrow for some heart surgery, so I won't be able to do any editing in the next weeks. Willem H. 10:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

"Braxa"

I just wondered, was the Zelazny poem "Braxa" the same one that the character in "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" composes and recites? IIRC that was the name of the female dancer in that story.

I know you may not see this and respond right away -- no rush. -DES ^Talk 16:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I still have a few hours left. "Braxa" is indeed the same poem. Good memory, I wouldn't have known, it must have been thirty years since I read the story. I added a note to the title (copied from the note in Threshold) When I'm recovered a bit, I'll start adding the notes and dates of first publication to the stories and poems from the first four volumes of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. Thanks Willem H. 17:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful. Looks like RZ wrote more verse than I knew -- I must find and read some of it. Thanks and good luck. -DES ^Talk 19:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The Philosopher's Apprentice and dates

I have approved this. But please remember that it is very rare for a modern book's publication date to be know to a day, but Amazon in particular often reports dates to the day, where the specific day is generally meaningless and useless. As a result, when I am updating a record whose date has anything other than "00" for the day number, I tend to change the day to 00 unless there is specific evidence in the book, in some reliable source I have found, or in the record with a cited source, that specified a particualr day of the month for publication.

In this case there was a non-zero day, which was apparently there from before, and you left it unchanged, but there was no indication of source for the day. Was it actually in the book? -DES ^Talk 22:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know what you mean. I own this pub, and as I remember it, I zeroed the day (or something) because the month of publication was mentioned in the book. the other pub of The Philosopher's Apprentice still has days in the publication date, but i can't remember touching it. Still I can be wrong, it was one of the last things I did before entering the hospital, so my mind was elsewhere. Thanks Willem H. 20:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Just found out where I went wrong. I forgot to zero the days in the title data. Submitted this (and "The Last Witchfinder" as well) Willem H. 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Your submitted new pub for To Your Scattered Bodies Go seems to be an exact dupe of TRSCTTRDBD0000. On hold pending your response. -DES ^Talk 21:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Well... shows how sharp I am at the moment. Thanks for noticing, and please reject this. Willem H. 06:11, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The Earth Gods Are Coming

Hi Willem, I see you want to unmerge one of these pubs "Of Earth Foretold" from "The Earth Gods Are Coming", is the variant wrong or is it something else. I ask this because at my end it doesn't indicate which title is to be unmerged(no title displayed). When doing an unmerge with variants it has to be done from the variant title and you did the unmerge from the parent title "The Earth Gods Are Coming". Thanks.Kraang 02:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Do see ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard#Of Earth Foretold and above #Of Earth Foretold for previous relevant discussion. -DES ^Talk 04:22, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm practicing lots of zen and other stuff to keep from straining my heart. Please release my edit so I can go on with my life ... btw, I was unmerging the variants from the parent title. Thanks Willem H. 19:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The easier way was to break the variant link, which I've done. You can now fix "Of Earth Foretold" and then remerge as a collection. I approve the submission since it would have no effect on any of the titles.Kraang 00:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm always searching for the easiest way to do things. Next submissions are made. Willem H. 07:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I see the contents have been entered and linked, just one thing is missing and that's the title record for the collection[8]. The main title is still set to a novel and is linked to the content title of the same name. If you like I can break the variant, create the collection title record and redo the variant. :-)Kraang 01:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem is the collection title is the same as the novel title, which is a variant of another title, a bit of a knot and not something encountered often. In the end we need two identical titles one for the collection the other for the novel.Kraang 01:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, no variants needed to be broken, just a new collection title record created and merged. It can get confusing as you navigate through the various records (novel title, collection title, 2 collection pubs) called "Of Earth Foretold", but I think it is all proper if you look closely, and some confusion is inherent in the way this was published. The novel is a varient, but the collection is not. Still, this isn't as bad as when we have two collections with the same name but different contents. -DES ^Talk 01:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

This way works to, I was only suggesting the other way if Willem wanted to do it, I thought it would be less confusing. If new editors can navigate through these tangled messes it helps them learn.:-)Kraang 02:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Campbell's Analog 4

Can you check out this pub record? Tuck gives the date as 1968. The record is dated 1967, but the notes gives a statement that it was published in 1976. Also Tuck gives the price as 25/- if you wish to update the pub. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:32, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Very sharp. Slip of the keyboard I think. Edit is made in two sessions. Please ignore (or reject) the first. The second is better. Thanks Willem H. 17:51, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Not too sharp. If the date had matched Tuck's I probably would have missed the note. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Dragon's Egg

There is something a bit odd about your recent new pub submission of a 2nd printing of the pb Del Rey edition of Dragon's Egg. You date it 1983-10-00 with a price of $2.95. But DRGNSGGVJH1984 is recorded as the 3rd printing, with a price of $2.25. Either your entry is in error, or the record for the 3rd printing is in error, or the price went down, which, to say the least, unusual. I see another mod has approved this, but would you recheck, please? -DES ^Talk 20:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this when entering, so I was extra careful. I even checked Locus1 (it's not there). Mine is exactly as I entered it, so whoever entered the third printing must be wrong. I don't think prices went down in 1984. Thanks Willem H. 20:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Probably whoever it was cloned the 1981 ed and forgot to change the price. I think I'll move that price to the notes. -DES ^Talk 20:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

If the book was printed in Canada this could have a Canadian price on the cover.Kraang 21:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

That's possible. the existing record doesn't mention being printed in Canada. Since it isn't verified, no easy way to tell that I know of. -DES ^Talk 21:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right of course, but mine was printed in the USA. Title page states: A Del Rey Book over Ballantine Books . New York, copyright page states: manufactured in the United States of America Willem H. 21:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I still suspect that the $2.25 for the 3rd printing started as a clone of the first printing, not as a Canadian price, but i can't prove that either. (Canadian prices of that era were usually higher, not lower.) The only think I'm sure of is that a US price of $2.25 in 1984 is very unlikely to be correct. Until someone verifies a copy of the 3rd printing, no way to be sure. -DES ^Talk 21:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I accepted the original submission based on it being a book-in-hand. I noticed the discrepancy with the record for the 3rd printing, but because it wasn't primary verified I assumed that the problem was with it and not with Willem H.'s submission. So I came to the same conclusion as DES: "Until someone verifies a copy of the 3rd printing, no way to be sure." MHHutchins 21:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing to hold the submission based on this (and i didn't), but I thought it was worth asking Willem to double check. And while the submission looked like a book-in-hand, it might not have been, until Willem said that it was. I've entered books from secondary sources resulting in records that didn't look so very different from this one. -DES ^Talk 22:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

For now I'm still verifying the books that actually are in my posession. Only 4000 to go, so maybe I'll be ready by the end of the year (or next year...). After that there's the weirder stuff in my collection to go through, adding coverscans etc. It will take some time before I'm ready to add anything from secondary sources. Willem H. 07:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Bloodhype

Willem if you come across anymore of the Ballantines[9] with a Canadian printing and everything is identical including the price just add a note to the existing pub such as "two printing exist Canadian & US and except for the printing statement both are identical". In a case like this I don't believe two separate records are necessary. Thanks!Kraang 21:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That probably saves me a lot of work. I had come across these simultaneous USA/Canadian prntings before, but most of these had two seperate entries already. Willem H. 21:25, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Silent Multitude

Added a cover image to [this]. Both Currey and OCLC have the date of this pub as 1966. Was/is there 1969 somewhere in the book? Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing in the book itself, but it was one of the first series of ace-specials, which started in 1968. It also has a five-digit booknumber (also started in 1968) and the Ace Image Library dates it in 1969. 1966 is the copyright year (first british publication was in 1967), so I think it's safe to assume 1969 is the right yeear for this pub. I added a note too. Thanks Willem H. 06:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Think OCLC copied Currey who went by the copyright date. His attention to detail on hardcovers is quite exemplary, but not quite so on the pbs. ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

All Fools' Day

Just a heads up that I have expanded the Notes field in your verified Berkley Medallion edition of All Fools' Day. It now reads "Assumed 1st printing. No number line. Cover art not credited." Ahasuerus 00:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Adam

I just approved your submisison of a new pub for this title. However, your pub looks like a duplicate (although with more detailed data) of this pub. If so, MRDMNMHCFF1949 should probably be deleted. It often saves time to check for an existing duplicate and add info to it, rather than adding an entire new pub, if one exists. And if the existing pub has been primary verified, or has info not included in the new pub, an awkward situation may result. Just a note for the future. Thanks for all your work. -DES ^Talk 20:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I did notice this one. Checking for duplicates is one of the things I (almost) always do these days. The pub youre aiming at has a different (later) publication date, so it must be a later printing (the stated first printing can't be right, since mine is the 4th). There's also this printing, which could be the first, but has no information at all. Willem H. 08:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You are right, I apparently didn't look closely enough. I have deleted MRDMFDMQVV1948 as a duplicate -- it at any rate gives no info beyond that already present. I suppose it is possible that pocket books considered the 1949 printing a new edition for some reason, but then I would expect the catalog number to have changed. Probably an entry error, but I don't see how to be sure. Anyway thanks for taking so much trouble. -DES ^Talk 13:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Testament -- unstable Amazon LZZZZZZZ URLs

I just approved your update to your verified pub Testament. I notice that it uses an amazon LZZZZZZZ URL for the cover image. IN case you were not aware of it, such URLs are unstable -- when/if a new edition or printing with a different cover but the same ISBN comes out, Amazon makes such URLs point to the new cover, and if the book is well out of print, Amazon sometimes causes such URLs not to work at all. To gt a more stable Amazon URL:

1. Go to the amazon sales page for the publication (using the side bar link is an easy method for pubs with valid ISBNs).
2. Check if the cover image displayed is correct for the pub. Assuming it is:
3. If the image has a "view larger image" link available, click it.
4. Right-click on the displayed cover image
5. Select "Properties" for the pop-up context menu that appears
6. Copy the URL shown for "Location" in the "Image properties" section (the exact lapels may vary depending on your browser and the image involved, but it will be pretty clear which field is relevant).
7. Paste this into the address bar of another browser, or another browser tab (or edit it in any text editor).
8. If there is a section such as ._SS500_. or ._SL500_AA240_. just before the "jpg" extension, delete it leaving only a single period (dot).
9. Display the resulting URL in a browser to make sure it goes to the right image (this checks against editing errors).
10. Edit the publication record.
11. Copy the URL to the "Image URL" field.
12. Submit data.

Or you may choose to download the Amazon image, and upload it here, just as you would with any scanned image.

If the Amazon Image is already wrong, delete the "Image URL" from the publication record unless you can find a correct one, or scan and upload an accurate image. No image is better than an incorrect one.

If you already knew all or most of this, my apologies. I figured it was better to give you the info than not. -DES ^Talk 20:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I had no idea of this. The image seemed to work, so I left it alone. For now I submitted a new link to the Amazon image, in time I will be adding scanned images to all my pubs, but there's so much to do and so little time... Thanks Willem H. 08:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Glad to provide you with some useful info. -DES ^Talk 13:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

LCCNs

I notice that you have been adding LCCNs to some recent submisisons. I think this is a very good idea, and i thank you. Did you know that given an LCCN, it is easy to create a stable link to that books record in the library of Congress online catalog? See Help: How to create a link to a US Library of Congress (Loc) record for details. -DES ^Talk 15:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

There are new things to be learned every day. Thanks again for the tip. I added this to my other reminders (HTML is not my thing, and never will be, but I learned to live with it :) Willem H. 16:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes there is always more to learn, and no one is good at everything. Glad to be of some help. -DES ^Talk 16:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed on some of the recent submissions that you're using LOCC#, when the abbreviation used by the Library of Congress is LCCN ("N" stands for number so you don't have to use the pound sign.) Not that it makes much difference, but a few users might be confused. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been using "LCCN:" consistantly, I suggest this format. I agree that LOCC# may confuse some users. -DES ^Talk 15:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I changed this in my model, so future links should have LCCN. Thanks for noticing. Willem H. 15:50, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

River of Eternity

Does your copy have the statement of limitation as noted in the record for this pub? My copy has only three blank pages after page 205. MHHutchins 20:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought I was getting a bit better, but I didn't notice this one. No, only empty pages after 205. Maybe Marc Kupper has another edition? I'll ask my friend Rias Nuninga, who owns both the trade and the special edition what his copies tell him. Thanks Willem H. 21:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

According to Rias both his editions have the statement on the unnumbered page [207]. Looks like we have a misprint. I don't think it's worth of adding a new publication for this, but shall I add a note?

By the way, all copies of the book I've seen have a wrong ISBN on the frontflap of the dustjacket (0-923096-28-X) The right ISBN is 0-932096-28-X (stated on the copyright page). Is yours the same? Willem H. 18:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

(The) Land of Unreason

Can you see how this publication is titled on its title page? Both Locus #220 and OCLC don't have "The" in the title. Thanks. MHHutchins 02:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right. No 'The'. I submitted a correction. Thanks Willem H. 05:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Savage Pellucidar added cover/notation

Morning! This. [10], I added a cover, the 75¢ version, but the same art, and notation to match my copies of 75¢, 95¢ and $1.50 versions. I deleted the content entry Return to Pellucidar and replaced it with "The Return to Pellucidar" as shown on story title page. Hope you are doing well. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit. I agree with the changes, and submitted a MakeVariant for "The Return to Pellucidar". Nice scan too. Someday I'll start uploading my own scans. I'm recovering nicely, getting better every day, but still quickly tired. Willem H. 10:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Go easy, and set reasonable goals. Recovery is often up to the individual. Keep smiling! Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sphere edition of de Camp's The Clocks of Iraz

Is the price obscured on your verified copy of this title? I'm unable to find this edition listed on the British Library Integrated Catalogue. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:14, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I Must have had a very weak moment. Submitted an edit for this. Thanks Willem H. 09:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Gunn's Crisis

I have approved the changes to Gunn's Crisis(!) and set up a series for the stories and the fix-up novel. One question, though: according to your note, the title of the fifth story was "Woman of the Year" while our unverified Analog Science Fiction and Fact, April 1985 record lists it as "Mother of the Year". Could you please double check your data? Thanks! Ahasuerus 12:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes! I saw that after submitting the change. Crisis! has the title as "Woman of the Year", and (mistakenly) states the same title for the analog entry on the acknowledgements page. I copied the notes from there, so I saw it only after checking the data for my own database. Locus1 has "Woman of the Year" as a variant of "Mother of the Year". I submitted a correction for this. Thanks Willem H. 13:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Gods & Golems

Added a cover image to [this], added a couple of notes. Both Currey and OCLC mention that "del Rey" is spelled "del Ray" on the title page. How is the recovery coming along? ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

They're clever boys, Currey and OCLC. And they are right too! I added a note for this. My recovery is moving slowly forward. The operation has been five weeks ago now, and soon I will be allowed to start with the real recovery. For now I'm up to one hour walks (or slightly more), but not every day. One of these days I'll send an e-mail with more details. Willem H. 18:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Slow is better! Bones knitting simply can't be rushed. And I am certain you hit that wall where your energy just seems to STOP every day. At about 7-8 weeks it will start to recede. ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Book of PKD

Added some notes to [this], all from Currey, who notes the existence of ten lines of "First through Tenth" as being on the copyright page. Is this true? Is so, could you remove the quote marks and Currey's name from the note? Also a note to Marc Kupper's page would be appreciated as he is doing a rather exhaustive DAW research and this copyright page printing designation was quite rare in the DAWS. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Curry is right. I'll delete him and the quote marks. I think I'll ask Marc Kupper for a copy of the DAW spreadsheet. I own some 450 (most of them 70's and 80's) DAW titles, there should be some things in there he doesn't know yet. The copyright page with the ten lines of (First through Tenth printing) was used for a few months in 1973 I believe. Most titles between number 40 and 50 were that way. I'll do some more research. Most of them should be somewhere on my shelves (I firmly believe in the alphabet for placing books in the right order). Thanks Willem H. 14:51, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! I'm sure Marc will appreciate it. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:45, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Lord Tyger

I have the same third printing of the Signet edition of Farmer's Lord Tyegr and, as is currently stated in Notes, there is no date of publication stated. Do you happen to have a source for 1974-00-00 or was it already there when you verified the publication? Thanks! Ahasuerus 02:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't remember if the date was already there. In everything about Farmer my source is the PJF International Bibliography. I always??? add a note when I copy indormation from that site. I submitted a note for this pub. Thanks for noticing this. Willem H. 05:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 12:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

= The Song of Mavin Manyshaped

You submitted an edit to 47513 that would change the date to "1985-05-00", but adds a note saying "Stated Ace Original / March 1985". Should the date read 1985-03-00", or should the note read May?

I have the submission on hold, pending your response. -DES ^Talk 15:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I did??? Must have lost track of the number of fingers I counted. It should have been "1985-03-00". Good catch. Thanks, Willem H. 15:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll approve and fix. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 15:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Your update of Hominids

Please don't use HTML in title fields to provide italics or other font changes. It makes searches on titles too likely to fail. See Help:Screen:EditPub#Title_2, the section on Fonts. -DES ^Talk 19:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I have approved this but removed the italics. The result is here. -DES ^Talk 19:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I copied this from the paperback edition. Thanks for the warning, won't do it again. I submitted a merge, to remove the italics from the other entry too. Willem H. 19:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Stations of the Nightmare

Could you please check whether the cover on your verified 1982 Tor edition of Stations of the Nightmare matches the cover scan that is currently linked? My cover is completely different, so I wonder whether we have different printings or whether our scan is wrong. Thanks! Ahasuerus 04:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right. The cover shown is from the 2nd printing. I moved the link to the coverscan there. Thanks Willem H. 07:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have cross-verified the publication, added notes, set up Variant Titles to reflect the way the story titles appear on their respective title pages and set up a series for Paul Eyre. Boy, I need a vacation! :) Ahasuerus 02:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Planet of Exile / Mankind Under the Leash

I identified the month of publication for Planet of Exile / Mankind Under the Leash as October based on the information in the third printing of Planet of Exile. Thanks Kevin 04:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Elgin's Star-Anchored, Star-Angered

According to Locus #223 (Jul/Aug 1979), this was published in June 1979. It should have a gutter code starting with either "J" or "U" followed by numbers between 15 and 20, probably "J19". MHHutchins 16:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right. J19 on page 181. Does that mean Doubleday used gutter codes in all publications and not only in the book club editions? I submitted a change. Thanks for noticing. Willem H. 17:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, from mid 1958 until mid 1987, 99% of all Doubleday trade books and book club reprintings had gutter codes. MHHutchins 18:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edit to Dune

In your recent edit to this pub of Dune you added a map on an unnumbered page. The convention is to list page numbers (derived by counting) for unnumbered pages in [brackets]. Or one can use the spefcial codes listed in Help:Screen:EditPub#Page, such as "bp" (for unpaginated pages before the first numbered page) and "ep" (for unpaginated pages after the last numbered page). -DES ^Talk 20:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I know I know... where is my mind. I changed my other edition of Dune too. Thanks Willem H. 20:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I am SO jealous you have an "N-3", the mythical one itself!!! Heavy sigh...... ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Grayspace Beast

Added a cover image to [this]. OCLC credits "Illustration" to Rick Sternbach without specifying cover or interior. If there are no interior illustrations, then it's a source for the cover artist and that "in my opinion" note could be deleted. If there is interior artwork it should be noted. OCLC # is in the notes. ~BIll, --Bluesman 20:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right about Rick Sternbach, but it's indeed an interior illustration. Added this, and the LCCN. Don't know how I could have missed this, Rick Sternbach is mentioned on the title page. The cover artist stays sadly empty, and the "in my opinion" note stays for now. Thanks for noticing. Willem H. 20:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

REH's The Garden Fear

I see you're doing some clean-up of Robert E. Howard titles and wonder if you think The Garden Fear might be a typo for The Garden of Fear? The first title only appears in the two editions of Pigeons from Hell. The Ace edition was verified by a non-active editor, but you did some updating of the Zebra edition, and I thought you might have a copy. According to the Howard Works bibliography, both should be "The Garden of Fear". Thanks. MHHutchins 14:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that after my first submission, so I waited for this to be accepted. I was just about to make new submissions for this story. In my edition of Pigeons from Hell (the Zebra) it is The Garden Fear on the contents page, which is obviously a typo, as the credits and the story itself have it as The Garden of Fear. A think we can safely assume the Ace edition is the same. By the way, I would also add the story The Thing on the Roof to the Ace edition, and change credit for the Introduction to Glenn Lord. It looks the same as the Zebra edition, even the pagenumbers are the same. I'll drop a note on Unapersson's talk page about this. Thanks Willem H. 15:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the table of contents credit doesn't matter. How is it credited on it's on title page? If you think the Ace should be identical to the Zebra, you can leave on note on Unapersson's page, but go ahead and make the correction. He's been inactive for some time now. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I see you've merged the two records before I wrote the above. The merge and updates were approved. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Mechanical Mice by Maurice A. or Maurice G.

Can you check your verified copy of Adventures in Time & Space to see if "Mechanical Mice" is credited to "Maurice A. Hugi" or "Maurice G. Hugi"? I believe that typo has been perpetuated since the first edition. I have the second Ballantine printing and it incorrectly credits "Maurice A. Hugi". If you discover that the entry is incorrect use the add and remove method to correct it as the story has several reprints as by "G.". Thanks. MHHutchins 15:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. It's "Maurice A. Hugi". I made the first submission (I'll merge them afterwards). Thanks Willem H. 15:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I only noticed this because Harry (Dragoondelight) brought the error to my attention, and I had to correct my copy. MHHutchins 15:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Taverel Manor

I'm holding your submission updating this title record. By changing the author credit here, you'll also be changing the credit as it was published. It has only appeared in one publication, and I doubt that Lupoff is credited explicitly on that story's title page. (I could be wrong. Do you have a copy of Skull-Face?) There appears to be enough evidence to create a variant of Lupoff being the co-author, but we want the pub record to reflect how it's credited. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I just finished my submission of Skull-Face. That was a hard one. Yes, Lupoff is credited explicitly as co-author on the story's title page. The title page of the story has Taverel Manor* in big black letters, and in the lower left corner '*With Richard A. Lupoff.' So this was a deliberate edit. Should I have mentioned this in the story notes? Thanks Willem H. 21:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

No, that's fine. If you verify the pub, then you're verifying the credit given to the contents as well. I'll accept the submission. Another string loosened from the tangled web that is the credits for Robert E. Howard and his co-authors (necrophiliological or not). Thanks. MHHutchins 21:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

With a Finger in My I

Added a cover image and printing statement to [this]. There's a new template available that makes adding the artist credit to the image file so simple. I would add it here but there's no indication in the notes if the artist is actually credited or derived from a signature or was just there with no source noted. The process is very simple: click on the ISFDB link beside the "Hosted by" line beneath the image. This takes you to the wiki page (this only works for images hosted by us, by the way). Click on "edit this page" and the tag/file is displayed like { { C|pub tag|title } }. Insert a 3 after the C then add the artist after the | followed by | and save. Should look like this: { { C3|pub tag|artist|pub title } } obviously with no spaces between the {{ . This automatically displays the artist on the wiki page and links the image to his/her ISFDB wiki page. This can even be done for two artists by making the C3 into C3-2|pub tag|artist|artist|pub title, and even a C3-3 is available for three artists. Pretty cool! Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Added an image to [this], and with the artist credit noted, added Paul Lehr to the image: C3|YSTRDYSC1972|Paul Lehr|Yesterday's Children ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this whole new world that's opening. It pressed me into adding a note to With a Finger in My Eye and adding a website to Mati Klarwein. You can see them when they're approved. Also followed your lead and added the tag for Mati Klarwein. Indeed, very simple if you know how to do it. See you're approaching 15.000 submissions. I'll drink to that. Cheers! Willem H. 19:07, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Barefoot in the Head

Scanned in an image [I know who this artist is, I'm sure he's done some Ellison covers...] and added some notes for [this]. How are you feeling? Hiking the Alps soon?? ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I know, looks a lot like Robert Pepper, but I can't find any proof of it. No Alps for now, just flat country. Willem H. 10:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

My guess was Robert Pepper also. Probably should have a note saying it 'looks like the art of'. Alps no, running the dykes, rowing the family boat or digging those tulips? Hope you are fit to 'beat the world soon'. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking the Dillons in style but they seldom use these colors. Check out [this] cover. Has many elements from album covers of the sixties. ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Iceworld

Scanned in a cover image for [this]. Does Denholm give the artist? Seems to be no cited source. ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Denholm's list in Megavore 10 credits Steranko. He even mentions Bob Hoskins (who worked for Lancer) as source of this knowledge. I submitted a small change to the notes. Thanks Willem H. 20:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I see that you would like to replace the following note:

©1953, otherwise not dated. Date taken from William J. Denholm III's Lancer Checklist (Megavore #10, 1980).

• Artist is not credited, no visible signature. Source for Steranko not cited.

• "A Lancer Book • Complete and Unabridged" on back cover

• OCLC 11637173

with "Not dated. Date and cover artist taken from William J. Denholm III's Lancer Checklist (Megavore #10, 1980)." I understand that you are clarifying the source of the cover art attribution, but the rest seems like a rather drastic surgery, so I wonder if perhaps the current note applies to a different printing? Ahasuerus 03:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I submitted this before Blusman's edit to the notes was accepted, so it does look weird. Please reject this one, I submitted a new change that is much better. Thanks Willem H. 14:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Done, thanks! Ahasuerus 16:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A Spell for Chameleon

Can you check the catalog number for your verified copy of this title? The number on the record is not in sequence with those issued in 1977 by Del Rey, and would have been circa 1981/82. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right. number 0-345-30422-5 belongs to the 11th or 12th printing. The real ISBN is 0-345-25855-X. I submitted a change for this. Thanks Willem H. 21:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)