ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive55

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This archive includes discussions from July - December 2023

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Expanded archive listing

Caramine

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=weapon+master&type=All+Titles; I don't usually dabble in old pulp but I think I stumbled across something here. Note in Caramine's record says it's a pseudonym of a SF guy; search for title and Robert Hoskins gets a few mentions in SF bibliographies but this search, https://archive.org/search?query=%22weapon+master%22+%22a.+l.+caramine%22&sin=TXT&sort=-addeddate, shows a few copies of the zine where Caramine's credit was. This review of the zine where the Hoskins credit was, http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2015/12/retrospect-science-fiction-adventures.html, mentions Newcastle and Jordan's Delight, 2 places mentioned in the Caramine story, so I think it's obvious that Hoskins reprinted the story under his own name. Also interesting is that the note here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?212773, mentions "Ac" as artist for the Hoskins story; Ac=A. Caramine? --Username (talk) 13:33, 2 July 2023 (EDT)

Jason ? Brock

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=dark+sea+within&type=All+Titles; Last item has no period after V in Brock's name; eBay copy also shows no period on contents page and Kobo preview shows no period on acknowledgements page but all-important story page wasn't seen, so if anyone owns/knows where a readable copy is it would help to decide whether it needs to be a variant or merged. --Username (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2023 (EDT)

Lee Ann Barlow / Lee Kuruganti

Lee Ann Barlow appears to be the married name of Lee Kuruganti.

• Lee Ann Barlow - 49 titles, earliest 2016-10-00.
• Lee Kuruganti - 109 titles, latest 2016-01-00.

Normally we would make Lee Kuruganti the canonical name. Are there any objections to making Lee Ann Barlow the canonical name? This will avoid having to reverse the relationship at the point where Lee Ann Barlow is the most recognized. John Scifibones 10:57, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

Ordinarily, recently published titles have more "weight" when determining "the most recognized name for the author within the SF genre", so I would be agree with the proposal if the numbers were close. However, 49 vs. 109 is rather lopsided and there is no guarantee that the artist will continue publishing as by "Lee Ann Barlow" going forward, at least at the same rate of publication. It makes me hesitant to create an exception. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:34, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

Your point regarding future publications is valid. I'll make Lee Kuruganti the canonical name for now. We can revisit if the credits equalize. John Scifibones 14:20, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

Mr. Scott

I added cover artist to American edition of The Jules Verne Companion, Steve Hofheimer, thanks to FantLab, but the British edition is confusing. Both American and British (searchable on Google Books) say "Designed by Christopher Scott" on title page. ISFDB has a Chris Scott, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?228831, with cover art credit for the British, and a Christopher Scott, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?112902, with interior art for another Peter Haining anthology. Both Scotts also have short story credits for some other Scott with the same first name; whether author Chris and author Christopher are the same guy is another question. So anyone who maybe owns the British and can verify it says "Chris" on a flap or something would help. Separating authors from artists is also needed. --Username (talk) 11:36, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

Independence Day

; . --Username (talk) 00:46, 4 July 2023 (EDT)

Manor ISBN

[1]; Killer Pack is the only Manor book which starts with 1532, just over 200 Manor books on ISFDB start with 0532, this eBay copy, https://picclick.com/Killer-Pack-Herbert-Myers-Paperbacks-From-Hell-285355696448.html, has no starting number on the spine, should it be changed from 1 to 0? --Username (talk) 22:20, 4 July 2023 (EDT)

Twilight Tales Presents, September 1998

What happened to the cover? Also, it's verified for Locus1, but where is it listed there? I thought Locus was only for books. --Rosab618 (talk) 14:08, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Twilight Tales Presents, September 1998. Galactic Central either moved the cover or had to delete it for some reason - the risk in using outside/non-ISFDB hosted covers. If it was moved, someone may be able to track it. If it is deleted, we need to find it elsewhere...

As for Locus1 - check with Ron. Part of it is that some of the things we consider magazines are considered anthologies by others (and vice versa) but the verifier can tell you what the answer is better than anyone else. Annie (talk) 14:28, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. Sorry I didn't put the link in my post. I wonder why Galactic Central deleted it… --Rosab618 (talk) 14:31, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Copyright challenge, personal information (if there was a label on it?), a mistake by someone, just moving it somewhere, a better cover was uploaded but the name not used for some reason - who knows what happened. Their covers are usually stable (unlike their links) but things happen. You can always ask them if you want :) Annie (talk) 14:38, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Locus1 actually does cover magazines in addition to books. Hope this helps. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 15:13, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

So I did ask Phil S-P, and this is what he said: "[Twilight Tales Presents] is one of those strange borderline publications that is sometimes classed as a magazine and sometimes as an anthology (I see that the ISFDb currently tries to have it both ways by listing some issues as magazines and some as anthologies!). My view is that it was an anthology series and, as such, falls outside my core remit."

Disappointing. —Rosab618 (talk) 14:32, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Linking Award details on Award Type and Award Category pages

We currently use asterisks ("*") on Award Type and Award Category pages to link to nominations without a numeric value. See 2023 Hugo Award for an example of an Award Type page which has no numeric values because only nominations have been announced: every link is an asterisk.

As User:ErsatzCulture pointed out earlier today, these asterisks are not particularly intuitive; it's hard for our users to tell that you need to click on an asterisk to see each award's detailed data. How about we replace "*" with the word "Details"? Ahasuerus (talk) 14:42, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

I think having the word "Details" would clutter up the page, especially given how those tables are displayed. Maybe use the Unicode 🛈 (U+1F6C8) or Ⓘ (U+24BE). Some other possibilities: ⎆ (U+2386), ⎘ (U+2398), ⏵ (U+23F5), Ⓓ (for "Details", U+24B9), ▶ (U+25B6), ► (U+25BA), ➤ (U+27A4), ➨ (U+27A8), ➔ (U+2794), ➜ (U+279C), ➥ (U+27A5), and ⮩ (U+2BA9). You could use one of these if "Nominated" was selected: 🅝 (U+1F15D), 🄽 (U+1F13D), 🅽 (U+1F17D), or 🇳 (U+1F1F3). If they're a finalist, there are the equivalent versions of "F": 🅕 (U+1F155), 🄵 (U+1F135), 🅵 (U+1F175), and 🇫 (U+1F1EB).

I lean toward one of these two (out of those I listed): ▶ (U+25B6), ➤ (U+27A4). If you like the letters for "Nominated" and "Finalist", then I like 🇳 (U+1F1F3) and 🇫 (U+1F1EB). This is where I found these. Looks like they also have medals, too, for first (🥇 (U+1F947)), second (🥈 (U+1F948)), and third (🥉 (U+1F949)) places. That might be a little too fancy, though. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:47, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

I'm getting horrible flashbacks of sitting in meetings where a project manager and a graphic/UI designer were having a screaming fit about whether a white-i-in-a-blue-circle, or a question-mark-in-a-circle were best icons for this sort of link ;-)

I do agree that "Details" might be a bit long, my initial thought was something like Heavy Asterisk ✱ (U+2731) and/or doing with the CSS to have a min-width on the link to make it easier to click on.

However it then struck me - "Details" is perhaps overselling things for the majority of awards - in many cases, the award detail page doesn't (IIRC) have any info that isn't already shown on the ay.cgi list page. Could we perhaps do something like this for the link text:

- if there's a number, show that (like we do at present)

- if there's a note for the award - i.e. if the award_note_id is not NULL or zero - then show "More", an arrow icon, or something else that indicates there's more info available if the user wants it. (NB: we don't care what that info is, only if it exists, so there's no need to join onto the notes table in the underlying query)

- if there's no note - i.e. award_note_id is NULL or zero - then show an asterisk, or some relatively uninteresting UI element, which facilitates clicking through to the award_details.cgi page, but doesn't mislead a user into thinking there's anything interesting to be found behind the link

ErsatzCulture (talk) 16:27, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

I believe you are correct: the only thing that the Award page shows that isn't available on higher level "list" pages is Notes. I like the idea of having some kind of indicator to distinguish award records with Notes from award records without Notes. "More" is probably the most straightforward way to do it without adding clutter to the page.

Re: Unicode characters like 🇳 and 🇫, it's a complementary idea which can be addressed separately. We can certainly use them instead of asterisks for specific "award levels". Ahasuerus (talk) 17:46, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Here's a barebones implementation (less than a half-a-dozen lines changed) of what was discussed, at least as I understood/interpreted it

My initial thought is that "More" makes that column a bit too wide; maybe instead use something like one of these images? ErsatzCulture (talk) 17:57, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

We already use "ⓘ" to indicate that a record has Notes -- see the "Translations" table on this page, so I guess we could use the same symbol on Award pages. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

FR 1579, "Display a mouse-over Notes bubble for award records with Notes", has been created. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:36, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Profit of Doom

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5712870; I'm starting to slowly go through ErsatzCulture's very useful list of books published only in the UK and this one had a note from the long-missing PV "Prof Beard" with a link to the photo, so I uploaded it. The publisher has about 20 books on ISFDB with either David Hardy or David A. Hardy as cover artist so it's very likely the same guy but a jacketed copy would need to be seen in order to know how he was credited. This book seems to have fallen off a cliff into a black hole because there's almost no info about it anywhere, so if anyone can do better and find an online copy or owns one then the artist will probably be able to be entered. Unless they didn't credit him at all. --Username (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2023 (EDT)

Russian Sheckley

https://archive.org/details/belaiasmertfanta0000shec; While fixing some title dates and adding a link to Dead Run re: Robert Sheckley's Stephen Dain novels I ran across this, an omnibus of all 5 of those books plus The Man in the Water, in case anyone fluent in Russian would like to enter that nearly 1,000-page monster. --Username (talk) 00:26, 8 July 2023 (EDT)

Series Map

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?2147; Should a map really be part of a series or is that a mistake that should be removed? --Username (talk) 10:52, 8 July 2023 (EDT)

Five Star Questions

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933215; I've done a ton of edits for Five Star books today; 2 issues: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933215, should those credits be separated since art is different? Also, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1150004, title date is November, book date is December, search of Google Books copy can't get a grasp on the copyright page credit, intro month needs adding, so anyone who can verify what's the month can fix title or book date and add month to intro. --Username (talk) 18:49, 8 July 2023 (EDT)

Trek Ladies

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5713417; There's no photo on Culbreath's Wikipedia so I found one but her writing partner Sondra Marshak has a photo of Vonda N. McIntyre on her Open Library page; I recognize it because some time ago I added 3 different versions of the same photo to her record here, each one better than the last, until I found the best one that's there now. Vonda's Open Library page has a much later photo that's correct because it shows up elsewhere online on pages re: her death. Any idea why her older photo is on the wrong page or why Culbreath's birth date on Wikipedia is several months later than what's here? Now that I think of it, it's possible Culbreath's photo isn't really her, either. Some older SF people here will probably recognize everyone and chime in. EDIT: Good Lord, it isn't her. An obituary on file770.com reveals that image is of Shirley S. Maiewski, another Trek writer, so I cancelled Culbreath and added the image to Maiewski. The mystery remains of what Culbreath and Marshak really look like and what's Culbreath's real birth date. --Username (talk) 19:06, 8 July 2023 (EDT)

Witches Wraiths Warlocks

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?916737; I added 2 links to 1971 edition and 1 to 1973 edition, plus changed title from and to & like it says on cover and title page. Sadly, PV of all 3 editions is gone and 1988 edition says and on cover so he can't be asked if it's really & on title page and the 1 eBay copy shows back cover but not title page. So does anyone own the 1988 edition? Introduction would also need re-titling if it's &. --Username (talk) 12:10, 9 July 2023 (EDT)

Robert C. Goldston

Robert C. Goldston (1927-1982) was an American author who published 4 speculative fiction novels (we have 3 on file) and a significant amount of non-SF, some of it as by "James Stark". Ahasuerus (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I have added the missing title and sent a correction to SFE. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:02, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Our record currently links him to the "James Stark" who illustrated Nebula Science Fiction in 1956-1958. A SFE contributor has suggested that the US author and the UK artist were likely two different people. Would anyone happen to know more about this issue?

Also, we don't have Goldston's exact date of death on file. In a 2017 Usenet/Google Groups discussion one of the participants claimed to be Goldston's child and wrote:

• He died at the age of 54, in Palma de Mallorca on Jan 15 1982 after a short-lived and vicious battle against renal carcinoma. His death was attended by all of his family who would be the only ones who have this information, simply because nobody ever asked us.

I hesitate to add the date to our record without additional verification, but perhaps it may point someone else in the right direction. Palma de Mallorca is a Spanish city; perhaps a local/regional/national newspaper may have mentioned it? Ahasuerus (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I would take the cautionary way and add '1982-01-00' with an accompanying note that it has to be verified. Stonecreek (talk) 10:23, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the feedback. Since we don't seem to be able to find a (semi)official source, I left it as "1982-00-00" and added the Usenet/Google Group quote to Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:57, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Re: the other point (the James Stark pseudonym): The Wikipedia entry states that he at "one time was a science-fiction cover artist under the pseudonym James Stark for Nebula Science Fiction.[6]" (the [6] referring to a now defunct source: sfcovers.net), so it seems quite possible that the two names belong to the same person, also for the cover artwork. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 10:23, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Wikipedia's article about Nebula Science Fiction mentions David A. Hardy's article Art & Artists in Robert Holdstock's 1978 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Checking page 129 of the book, I see that Hardy wrote:

• The Sottish-based magazine Nebula Science Fiction, which appeared between 1952 and 1959, also gave cover space to artists including Eddie Jones, Alan Hunter, James Stark and Gerald Quinn. Stark's covers were often just that: severe portrayals of technology against which men were mere ants.

Hardy doesn't mention the Goldston connection, which I suspect he would have done if he had been aware of it.

Galactic Central doesn't link James Stark the artist to Robert C. Goldston either.

It would appear that the only specialized bibliographic source that is not the ISFDB and that links the two people is the defunct SFcovers.net site -- see this archived Web page. It's even possible that they got the idea that the two authors/artists were the same person from us.

Given the above, I would be inclined to break the Alternate Name link and document what we know in Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:28, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I have broken the link between the two author records, deleted/adjusted the VTs as needed and added Notes to both author records. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:26, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Bear II

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive50#Bear; A copy of this was just uploaded and my edit adding a link was just approved; if anyone can stand to read it then it can be determined whether it's really genre or not. From skimming I get the feeling it's not, so deletion is possible. --Username (talk) 11:07, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Awards where the title has multiple authors, but some have declined

(This is a slightly edited version of an item I posted on Ahasuerus' page, but he suggested I post it here for wider opinion.)

S. B. Divya has announced that she declined 2 Hugo nominations. One is a novelette, and I've added an appropriate entry for that, even if I guess it's not technically official until the stats report becomes available.

The other is more awkward, as it's a joint editorship of a semiprozine. I've added a note to explain the situation, and to try to pre-empt any complaints. However, this isn't visible on the title page or her award page.

One "solution" would be to unlink the award from the title, which I think might then allow you to edit the authors? I'm definitely not going to try that without a second or third opinion, and losing the link to the title record doesn't seem good. There might be some hack with editing the award_author value to lose the leading "S. B. Divya+", but I don't think that would solve the problem with the title.cgi or eaw.cgi pages?

Ahasuerus' response:

   "Some authors/editors accepting a nomination and some authors/editors declining it" is a scenario that I don't think I have seen before. I can't think of a way to handle it given the current database schema, but perhaps I am missing something. I would suggest starting a discussion on the Community Portal to see if other editors may have other ideas.

Anyone got any thoughts on how we might be able to best handle this? ErsatzCulture (talk) 11:57, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I consider our awards pages an extension of our publication pages, not our author pages. So I'd just add a note in the second case and that will be it - in the same way how we won't delete a book just because an author is now embarrassed of it (or something). If they are on the title record and the title wins an award, we mark it as such. Annie (talk) 12:15, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

At the moment we have two types of awards: title-based awards and "everything else" awards. We also have outstanding requests to add support for author awards (FR 583), publisher awards (FR 269) and series awards (no FR yet), but no work has been done on them as of yet.

For title-based awards, we link award records directly to title records. Our software then uses the linked title's author(s) and title when displaying the award; there is no way to have an award record display different authors or a different title. Award records are then given a "nomination level", which can be anything from "win" to "finalist" to "ineligible" to "withdrawn -- nomination declined".

This approach reflects how actual awards are structured reasonably well most of the time, but we have seen borderline cases which our software didn't support. For example, if an award has no provisions for an author withdrawing a nominated title, it's possible for a text to be both "nominated" and "withdrawn".

The situation described above reflects another issue with our model. If a title has multiple authors/editors and a subset of the authors/editors declines the nomination, we have no way of capturing the scenario in the database outside of Notes.

I guess one way to handle it at the data model level would be to create a separate "accepted/declined" multi-field with one value per author. It would be fairly time-consuming to implement and we would want to make sure that this solution doesn't have any holes in it before we create an FR. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:08, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I really don't think that we need more than notes here. When all authors decline a nomination, the title is not nominated - we can handle this case already. When at least one does not decline, the title gets nominated and can even win - these are nominations for the texts, not for the authors after all. What happens if someone gets an award somewhere and a year later decides to withdraw (because they just learned about it and really dislike the body giving the award for example)? Or if whoever gives the award ignores a nomination rejection? I think we should just use the notes to document the cases where a rejection does not influence the title becoming a nominee/winner... Annie (talk) 13:33, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

For the moment, I've edited the note on her page; more than happy if someone else wants to refine the wording. I don't think we need to do anything with the EDITOR title record, as that doesn't show any author/editor names in the awards section. ErsatzCulture (talk) 14:06, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I disagree with adding this note to the author's Summary Bibliography page. It is not our function to highlight what is really a personal decision. As bibliographers, were record the award and leave it at that. I'm fine with moving the note to the award record. Even if the consensus agrees with the current placement, the comment regarding our software is inappropriate and should be removed. John Scifibones 14:53, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I agree - the note does not belong on the author note level - it should be on the award level - that is where it is relevant. I'd be ok for it to be on the title level (for better visibility) but it definitely does not belong on the author level. Annie (talk) 15:26, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

You may be unsurprised to find that I disagree. I don't think we should have a page saying "Author X was a nominee for Award Y" when they have made a clear public statement that they have not. I think people would understand if we explicit acknowledge this error is due to technical reasons; obviously it would be better if that info only appears on the page it is pertinent to (the awards tab of the author page; it's not needed on the summary, alphabetical or chronological pages), but again that's not something currently supported. As I said, I'm more than happy for others to finesse the wording, but I feel we need to acknowledge the info shown is incorrect for reasons that we're not able to fix currently.

It's barely 6 months since a blow-up which ended up with this (final para of History section, see also Talk page) and this and various luminaries criticizing this site e.g. Tor editor-in-chief, Locus reviews editor and anthologist, SFWA Director-at-Large. (There are a load more than those three, but the broken Musk-era Twitter is only showing them to me on the Android app, not the web version.) I imagine most of the editors here understand the structure of the database and site, but this stuff isn't apparent or easily understood to the wider audience. ErsatzCulture (talk) 16:45, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

I think that was blown way out of proportion. While they claim to have been trying for "over a year", they never posted here (or on any of the other discussion pages) until 14 Dec 2022 about their concerns. Once we knew about the concerns, they were completely addressed within about 5 days. Their whining on Twitter and the coverage by Sanford were extremely one-sided and rather disingenuous. My guess is that the changes submitted (whatever they were, and whenever they were) didn't include appropriate documentation. Sanford also mischaracterized an editor's rather bigoted comment as by a "moderator", which was clearly false (not everyone who posts on that noticeboard is a moderator). We try to be as accommodating as possible, but when what they are complaining about is historical, they really don't have much ground to stand on. We document information as it was at the time of publication. We don't have a Ministry of Truth that wipes out historical information. All things considered, I think we did a great job handling the issue once it was brought to our attention. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:04, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

I agree that the issue, once posted on the Moderator Noticeboard, was handled expeditiously. As I wrote below, "when Lee Mandelo asked to have our records updated to make "Lee Mandelo" the canonical name in December 2022, we requested additional information to support the notion that "Lee Mandelo" was "the most recognized in-genre name" as per the ISFDB policies. Once the supporting information was provided, the canonical name was changed."

That said, the scenario where "the changes submitted (whatever they were, and whenever they were) didn't include appropriate documentation" is fairly common. There is a big knowledge gap between casual ISFDB users and experienced ISFDB contributors, especially moderators. When reviewing a new contributor's submission which seems to go against ISFDB rules, it's important to query the contributor to determine what the intent of the submission was. It's been my experience that many seemingly wrong or even nonsensical submissions contain good information once you figure out what the submitter was trying to do. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:58, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Perhaps we should add something like the following to all database editing forms. If it was placed at the top, and made very obvious (perhaps put it in a box with a yellow background?), it might help alleviate such issues:

When submitting new information or changes to existing information, please include in the Moderator Note field references to where you got the information. This can be URLs to specific web pages, book or magazine titles and page numbers, that you spoke directly with a relevant person (please include details of the conversation), or anything else that will help us verify the changes you are submitting. This information should also be included in the publication or title note fields, as well. Doing this will help speed up the process of approving the submitted changes. Thank you!

Thoughts? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:35, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

A few things come to mind:

• We could limit the display of the proposed "yellow box" to editors with fewer than 20 Wiki posts. It would be similar to the way we color-code submission rows on the Moderator Queue page. The text could start with something like "Hi! Since you haven't made many posts on the ISFDB Wiki, it looks like you are a new editor. Please be aware that the ISFDB database and its data entry rules are complex and may not be intuitive at first glance. When submitting new information or changes to existing information, please include [etc].
• We should use "Note field" as opposed to "publication or title note fields" because the proposed box will appear on all Edit pages.
• I am not sure asking new editors to duplicate what they enter in regular Notes in Moderator Notes would be a good idea.
• This topic probably merits a separate Community Portal section since we are up to 12 levels of indentation.

Ahasuerus (talk) 13:13, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

I see three separate issues here. The first one is the accuracy of our data. The second one is the substance of ISFDB policies and what various people think of them. The third one is whether our practices match our policies.

Re: accuracy, our software doesn't let us create a comprehensive picture of award records where only some of the co-authors/co-editors declined a nomination (outside of Notes.) There are three primary ISFDB pages which display this award in an incomplete manner due to software limitations:

• the award record
• the EDITOR title record
• S. B. Divya's Award Bibliography page

I think it would be best to have a note on all 3 of these Web pages in order to make sure that we don't inadvertently mislead our users with incomplete data. At this time the Award record and the Author record already have notes while the Title record doesn't have a note.

In addition, we may want to clarify the language of the note. Something like "Note that the ISFDB award record for Escape Pod - 2022 states that it was nominated for the 2023 Hugo award, which is only partially accurate due to software limitations. One of the co-editors, S. B. Divya, declined the nomination on 2023-06-29 while the other co-editor, Mur Lafferty, remains nominated as of 2023-07-10. See the award record for details."

Re: the substance of ISFDB policies and what various people think of them, as the ISFDB FAQ says, we do not have official social media presence. If someone wants to suggest a change to the ISFDB policies, they are welcome to post on the Rules and Standards page.

Re: the issue of whether our practices match our policies, when Lee Mandelo asked to have our records updated to make "Lee Mandelo" the canonical name in December 2022, we requested additional information to support the notion that "Lee Mandelo" was "the most recognized in-genre name" as per the ISFDB policies. Once the supporting information was provided, the canonical name was changed. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:41, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

The problem comes up in several scenarios with title based awards. Those awards currently have a one to one relationship with a title record. Thus, for a title based award, we will always display the Title and Author fields from title record. I believe that schema for the awards table has its own title and author fields, and they used to be exposed and could vary from that of the title record. I had been using that feature to record differences between who was nominated vs who is on the title record when they varied, but Ahasuerus asked me to stop doing that in a prior discussion and we cleaned up any records where they differed. Aside from the current question (a nomination does not list all the editors for the magazine), we also have issues of having to enter multiple awards for a single nomination (same magazine for the 2023 Hugos, as there was a change in editors). We've had issues where the nominees for a title include someone in addition to the author of that title (see 2019 Best Art Book which was awarded to Charles Vess and Le Guin). We've also had instances where the title of the work differs from the title as published (see this 2021 Novelette nominee which was nominated as "Helicopter Story" which is the author's preferred title).

I think one way to solve these problems would be to allow the title and author fields for the award to vary from that of the linked title. I would also recommend that a single award could be linked to multiple title records. The award could then be listed in the author's award list for those authors from the award record and in all the title records that are linked. I'm not sure how radical a change that would be, though I suspect linking one award to multiple titles would be non-trivial. However, it would solve the issues noted above. I had seen Divya's announcement, but planned to wait to add the withdrawal until the Hugo statistics are published after the award ceremony. I hadn't worried about the magazine credit, because I'm used to the fact that magazine awards frequently do not reflect the persons nominated due to our software. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 19:25, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Sorry about the delay; I am still thinking about the issues raised in your comments. There are some similarities with the way we handle REVIEW records. I am also trying to figure out how any future changes may affect the outstanding FRs for series-, publisher- and author-based awards. Lots of implications to consider. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:34, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

A few thoughts after sleeping on it:

• Back when title-based award records had separate titles and author names associated with them, it could -- and did -- cause data consistency problems. Let me use a real life example. Suppose an editor creates an award record for a cover by Mel Odom and links it to the COVERART record. A year or two later another editor discovers that Mel Odom the writer and Mel Odom the artist are two different people, then changes the COVERART record to be associated with "Mel Odom (artist)". At that point the COVERART record is associated with "Mel Odom (artist)" while the award record is associated with "Mel Odom". The same thing could -- and did -- happen when editors corrected the spelling of author names and/or titles. Over time it resulted in a significant number of discrepancies.
• Adding support for "titles and title authors as stated in the award nomination" wouldn't automatically address the issue that this discussion started with. What we are dealing with is a title record with two authors and two (effective) nomination records, one "nominated" and the other one "declined", a different scenario.
• From a purely technical perspective, the way award authors were originally captured in the database was very poor. Instead of having a separate table to capture the "one title - many authors" relationship that a properly designed database would have, the award table had a single "award_author" field. If an award was associated with multiple authors, they were all entered in the same field using "+" signs as delimiters. Anyone familiar with database design knows that this is a terrible idea which causes no end of problems. If we were to separate "title authors" and "title authors as stated in the award nomination", we would need to redesign and re-implement this part of the software. It would be doable, but non-trivial given how many different Web pages and internal data structures would be affected. The same table and field(s) are used by "untitled" awards, so they would be affected as well. If we were to add support for "transliterated titles/author names" -- as may be needed to capture non-English awards -- it would make an even bigger project.
• Award committees frequently use different forms of author names, including collective names like "The Brothers Hildebrandt", interchangeably. The first ballot may use one form of the name, the final ballot another and the name on the award document a third one. We'd have to come up with data entry rules for these scenarios.
• Letting title-based awards be linked to multiple title records is an interesting idea. It would require a fair amount of work, but it wouldn't raise the same design issues that adding support for "titles and title authors as stated in the award nomination" would raise.

That's all I have been able to think of for now. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:06, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

I fired up my MySQL instance (from a 2021 backup) and I see some of what you mean. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

Although awards-related tables haven't changed since 2021, I would recommend using the latest MySQL backup file to ensure that we are all looking at the same data structures. New tables and fields are added reasonably frequently; I added recognized_domains just a couple of weeks ago. Barring that, Database Schema should be up to date and display more information than MySQL's "describe" command. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

I actually recall using the + signs in my very early days of editing here. It does look like is an intermediate table that could be used to link one award to many titles (title_awards). Of course, the software would have to be altered to look at it that way. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

I believe you are right about "title_awards": it should be able to support a "one award - many titles" relationship as it currently exists. The problem lies in the software, which assumes that there can be only one title record per "title-based award" record. For example, the "Link Award" page tells you to enter "0 to break the link" between the displayed title-based award and its title record. It would have to be changed to be more like the "Make Alternate Name" page, which lets you specify which parent-title relationship to remove. Doable, but it would take time. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

Despite the sloppiness of some award committees in changing credits and titles, I think we are trying to model a real world object (an award) that naturally has a title and authors. Since they don't necessarily match our data model (for books, etc.) we run into the problems I mentioned earlier as well as the issue that spurred this topic. I do think that having distinct award titles and authors that differ from title record titles and authors would solve this issue. We would still need to have two records in the awards table (1 for the declined nomination and 1 for the nomination). I think maybe if I explain the use case. The award records would include:

• Record 1 - Title: Escape Pod; Authors: Mur Lafferty, Valerie Valdes, Benjamin C. Kinney... (there are 7 editors, assistant editors, etc listed in the nomination; award level nomination, linked to titles 3137421 and 3133670.
• Record 2 - Title: Escape Pod; Authors: S. B. Divya, Mur Lafferty, Valerie Valdes, Benjamin C. Kinney... (there are 7 editors, assistant editors, etc listed in the nomination; award level withdrawn nomination declined, linked to titles 3137421 and 3133670. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

This is a very interesting example since it raises an issue that I haven't considered before. This nomination, like a number of other recent nominations, lists a number of people who are -- explicitly -- not editors. The list reads:

• co-editors Mur Lafferty & Valerie Valdes; Assistant editors Benjamin C. Kinney & Premee Mohamed, host Tina Connolly, producers Summer Brooks and Adam Pracht

The question that it raises in my mind is whether this award should be linked to our EDITOR record, which is limited to two co-editors. I am thinking that it's best described as an "editorial team award" and should be entered as an "untitled award" instead. Not only would it, arguably, be a more accurate representation of the relationship between the award record and other ISFDB records, but it would also make the award record appear on Benjamin C. Kinney's, Premee Mohamed's, Tina Connolly's and Adam Pracht's Award Bibliography pages (Summer Brooks doesn't have an author record in the database.) Ahasuerus (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

I would argue that entering magazine awards as untitled awards would not be what most users would expect. The category for the award, semiprozine, is for the all the issues of a magazine for a calendar year. The EDITOR title record (or records) is the only title record that we have for magazines and fanzines. I think folks would expect to see the award in question listed on those title records. This would be especially confusing if we used untitled awards only in cases where the named persons in the award for a given magazine differ from those we list in the author field of EDITOR titles for the year. I think the Escape Pod nomination is an excellent example of the issues with magazine awards. It has both multiple EDITOR records for the calendar year, and differences between persons listed on the award vs listed in our title records. I do understand that software changes would be required for any of the changes I've proposed, and that we have limited resources for making such changes. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:01, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

Both awards would be displayed in the award pages as is currently done. The software could be altered to display the records in the authors list based on the authors in the award record. Thus, S. B. Divya would show only record 2, whereas Mur Lafferty would show both records 1 & 2. The software would also be altered to display the awards on each linked title record, but the title records would not cause the linked award to propagate its authors' records.

This approach would solve the problems of not showing the non-declined nomination on Divya's award list. It would also solve the problem of having to have multiple award records in order to link to multiple title records. Lastly, this would also allow us to include authors (assistant editors, podcast hosts) that are in the official nomination, but who we don't credit in our title records. The one wrinkle I thought of after my original post, was that we potentially have variant titles or variant author names that do not exist in our database. One solution to that would be to allow the creation of titles and authors that only appear because of an award. Variants would roll up to the canonical records as they currently do.

Regarding the sub-optimal author arrangement in the awards table. I agree that it should be changed, but I don't see that it would be necessary in order to allow the author name on the award to be editable, and to allow it to differ from that of the linked title. After all, it worked that way a few years ago, until editing those fields on the award record was locked down.

Agreed that we would have to come up with rules as to what the authoritative source is for award recipients and titles. This is currently an issue. I try to match the award to the title that matches the title and name announced for the award rather than linking them to our canonical title record. They roll up anyway.

I think this approach solves a number of problems. If others agree, it still sounds like the required changes would be extensive and non trivial. Perhaps there are incremental changes that could be made to move us forward. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

@Ahasuerus re your final 2 paras. Fair point: I'll try to put something together to post over the next 2 days, although given that researching the Chengdu/Hugo stuff seems to turn up a new weird-and-wonderful thing every day (not all necessarily relevant to ISFDB), I'm not sure it might take a bit longer. ErsatzCulture (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Apologies for not coming back on this; I've been preoccupied with other things the last few days. Re. some of the points raised, I know that there was a lot of work done to get the records changed; my concern is that a lot of ill will seemed to be generated due to initial stonewalling (or at least, the perception of it) by pointing to the existing Rules & Standards as a reason not to make those changes. I'll try to get a proposal posted by Sunday at the latest. ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

No problem. Re: the "perception of stonewalling", I suspect that it's related to the previously mentioned gap between what new contributors know about the data entry rules and what moderators know about them. When a moderator says "This isn't how we enter bibliographic data", it's based on multiple layers of understanding of what the rules say and why they say what they say. In the case mentioned above, once the rules and the reasoning behind them were explained in detail, Lee Mandelo realized that we were missing a significant amount of relevant information and provided it in a follow-up comment. It clarified the situation, at which point we were able to clean up and reorganize the data quickly.

Based on that discussion we added a new entry to the ISFDB FAQ, but it's relatively short. Perhaps we should create a new Help page or template explaining that we make a distinction between legal names, socially used names and professionally used "working names" and the reasons why the data entry rules are the way they are. Basically a summary of what I wrote in response to Lee Mandelo's original post. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Sorry for making an already complicated item even more messed up, but I only just noticed Rtrace's comment from a week ago: "I had seen Divya's announcement, but planned to wait to add the withdrawal until the Hugo statistics are published after the award ceremony. I hadn't worried about the magazine credit, because I'm used to the fact that magazine awards frequently do not reflect the persons nominated due to our software." It definitely crossed my mind about whether I was jumping the gun on making those edits based on what an author said, as opposed to what the award body had publicly stated. If it had just been a regular single author record that had been declined, I wouldn't have changed anything; it was the magazine credit that concerned me. Given that was backed up by the author's statement, which mentioned both nominations, I made the (debatable, I'm more than happy to concede) decision to address both of them. Next time something like this comes up, I'll raise it here rather than making pre-emptive edits. ErsatzCulture (talk) 19:19, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

No worries, I'm just a little hesitant since the notice of declination didn't come from the official source. I suspect there are other declined nominations that we don't know about. They all should be reported in the official nomination statistics that are released after the ceremony. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

Contacting Kenneth R. Johnson

Can anyone tell me how? I found some vintage SF pornos that he should know about, and add to his bibliography, if he ever revises it. Thanks for any help. —Rosab618 (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Never mind. Phil S-P helped me get in touch with him. —Rosab618 (talk) 02:28, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Poem/Story

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5703635; If anyone's interested, I think it's a story, mod disagrees, hardly matters because it seems to be some squib from a much earlier play or something so if the link isn't added it wouldn't be much of a loss. I made a more helpful edit adding the Encyclopedia.com link I mentioned and also the archived jmichaelyates.com site, which goes back many years, because his site currently online is weird with many links going to an error page but other pages working just fine. --Username (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Username omitted one piece of important information. The Locus Index to Science Fiction lists this as a poem in their entry for Tesseracts 8 which contains the item. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 19:02, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Yeah. Also, the Encyclopedia.com mention is in the discussion with mod on my user page, not in the rejection above. Just to clarify. A reply from anyone would be helpful so I can leave this minor edit behind; I've got 1,000 others waiting to be approved. --Username (talk) 19:27, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

The work is short fiction not poetry. I've added an internet archive link onto the author's Summary Bibliography. Open the site and select the short fiction tab. Open the drop down list on your left and you will see the story. John Scifibones 19:33, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Yay. Also, RTrace, while I'm here I noticed you added some Star Trek slash fiction, Companion, and the cover artist is Gayle F. but it's signed Feyrer, who is on ISFDB as the cover artist for a later non-Trek magazine, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=gayle+f&type=Name. Whose name do you consider the parent so I can make a variant? --Username (talk) 19:40, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

OK, thanks John for finding that. I've approved the submission.

Regarding Gayle F./Gayle Feyrer, Fanlore lists her as "Gayle F" which I suspect is how she is most frequently credited. It also appears that she also uses the pseudonym "Sylvia Knight", though we have no titles using that byline. In any case, I'd go with "Gayle F." as canonical. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 07:06, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Feyrer has been made a variant. --Username (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Malcolm for President

I'm holding this submission to update this title. There is an Amazon review asserting that this is an original story, though based on characters from the television series, which would seem to make the novelization flag invalid. However, I'm not certain that this title is eligible at all. From skimming reviews, I don't detect anything speculative about the novel. I also would question whether the authors Dan Danko and Tom Mason are above the threshold. If we determine that they are, I think the title should be marked as non-genre. What are other folks' opinions on whether this title should be deleted? Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 10:04, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

I don't see anything genre or even genre-adjacent in the novel either. Nor I see a reason for the authors to be considered above threshold. So I vote to delete the book altogether. Annie (talk) 12:48, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Hearing nobody coming to this title's defense. I will zap it. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 19:43, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

Fright Night Covers

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?289979; [2]; So I have been doing some Skipp & Spector edits, the splatterpunk co-authors who were so popular back in the 80s and 90s, and I discovered that Craig Spector's homepage URL now links to some foreign (Vietnamese?) site so I replaced it with the archived version which goes all the way back to 2005. While looking through the site I found that cover linked above; the Tor edition on ISFDB shows the villain of the movie, the head vampire played by Chris Sarandon, but the cover on Spector's site shows a totally different cover with one of the villain's minions, the girlfriend of the movie's teenage hero, played by Amanda Bearse, who would become famous a few years later for playing Al Bundy's neighbor Marcy on Married With Children. So was it re-released with a different cover? Is it an early mock-up that was changed before release? I'd like to know if anyone knows. It could have been worse; they could have used another one of the villain's minions, the hero's friend Evil Ed, on the cover, played by Stephen Geoffreys, who gave up mainstream acting in the early 90s and pursued a career in hardcore gay porn. --Username (talk) 14:13, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Doubleday First Edition

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?266014; https://archive.org/search?query=clickwhistle; https://www.ebay.com/itm/153845632156; I replaced cover image with another Amazon one with a different URL that looks exactly the same but is much bigger. I wanted to add the Archive.org link but over time I've come to realize that a lot of Doubleday (and probably many other publishers) books I and others here have linked to may not have been the true first edition because, as can be seen in the links above, the 1 useful copy on eBay shows the copyright page with "First Edition" while the archived copy does not say that. So is there a way to tell which edition it is? Gutter codes or something? EDIT: Also this, https://archive.org/search?query=watkins+the-god-machine. --Username (talk) 15:58, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Zebra

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?52948; I'm trying to get this page down to zero. What I've done today is add Kensington Publishing to publisher for 1987 edition of Time-Kissed Destiny because that's what it says on title page (also added author's note on last page); first edition of Once In a Lifetime already has Kensington in it on ISFDB. So ElectricStarboard, who entered the later editions of those 2 novels, may want to chime in with whether they have Kensington on their title pages so it can be added. That Warren Smith book is 70s "non-fiction" junk about space pyramids and should be deleted. I asked NihonJoe about whether his PV copy of Book of Space says Kensington and he put my edit on hold a long time ago but never responded so I cancelled it; if he reads this maybe he can say now what it says on title page. Dracula's Guest, which I just made an edit for fixing the cover artist (turns out it's not Greg Theakston but rather the mysterious FMA, who has about a dozen ISFDB credits), has 1 copy on eBay with photos but doesn't show title page. As far as Death Screen, I don't know, can't find it anywhere. So after my Time-Kissed edit is approved and Book of Space has Kensington added, I hope, and the pyramid book is deleted, that will just leave 4 books. --Username (talk) 11:51, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Joe just fixed Book of Space; only a few more to go. --Username (talk) 12:31, 26 July 2023 (EDT)

Geller the Artist

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=geller&type=Name; M. Geller is almost certainly Martin Geller because they did covers for a single St. Martin's Press book each, one in '78 and one in '79. However, the credit for Infinite Dreams by Martin says design, not art, so probably shouldn't have any credit except in notes. So should it be moved to notes and M.'s legal name be made Martin (this is assuming, of course, that M.'s credit really says art in the book like it says in the PV's notes)? --Username (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fiction

I'd like to add this award to the ISFDB data base -- here is a list of past recipients https://media-ecology.org/Past-Awards (scroll down for Mary Shelley Award) PaulLev (talk) 20:27, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

I am not familiar with Media Ecology Association, but their Executive Board and the list of present/past officers include a number of scholars at accredited universities, so it appears to be legitimate. Award recipients include Ted Chiang, William Gibson and Ernest Cline. Curiously, they are associated with The Institute of General Semantics which was founded by Alfred Korzybski, who influenced a number of SF authors like van Vogt and Heinlein back in the day. Ahasuerus (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

I'm not sure a win for Ready Player One does much for their credibility /s —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ErsatzCulture (talk • contribs) .

I realize that it's a joke, but let me clarify for the benefit of new editors. We determine whether an award is legitimate based on what kind of organization administers it and for what purpose. Awards given by publishers or promotional/advertising companies to promote their clients' books and stories are generally not considered "real" awards for our purposes and are not included. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:07, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

Sorry - more than happy for that cheap gag to be removed/struckthrough/whatever, if you think that would be best. ErsatzCulture (talk) 13:40, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

No worries, it created an opportunity to clarify our eligibility criteria. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:09, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

But seriously, this looks like a good addition to my eyes. I have a couple of questions relating to practicalities, which maybe PaulLev knows the answer to:

* What exactly is the eligibility period? This page asking for 2024 nominations says "Open to novels, short stories, hypertexts, plays, scripts, comics, audio recordings, motion pictures, videos, and other narrative forms, published or released in 2019 or later...", so is it a rolling 5-year period? (TBH, if that's the case, that's pretty cool - one of my problems with awards is that they're all seemingly based on the past 12 months, which privileges stuff that has a lot of hype and frontloaded readership.)

* Besides that list of recipients, is there any sort of press release that has more details about the winners? I know when I've added stuff like this year's Locus finalists, when you get down to some of the more obscure categories where nominees weren't already in the database, tracking them down, working out if their pubs are eligible for inclusion here, etc can require a fair bit of legwork. If there's some info about the winners published, that would help in reducing that burden.

* I looked up 2017's winner on Amazon UK, and it doesn't appear to have any speculative element. For such works, I guess doing an "untitled award", with a note saying it's not speculative, is the way to go? (Again, any PR that describes the winning work will be helpful in determining the speculative-ness.) For awards like Goodreads Choice Mystery & Thriller category, we only add the speculative works, but given there's just a single winner here, maybe having an untitled entry will make it clearer?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ErsatzCulture (talk • contribs) .

Good questions! 1. Yes, the eligibility period is a rolling 5-years. 2. This announcement is put up on the Internet every year https://media-ecology.org/2023-MEA-Awards 3. The only criterion is "fiction" -- so, yes, in principle, there could be an award given to a work that is fiction, but not speculative fiction. But as far as I can tell, that happens very rarely. Also, the award is not given every year. PaulLev (talk) 13:10, 17 July 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I have created an Award Type record and entered these awards for the SF titles that we have on file. I didn't create "untitled" award records for non-genre titles. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:55, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! PaulLev (talk) 23:25, 24 July 2023 (EDT)

Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award

Rich Horton posted about this year's winner, and I went to add them, only to find this award doesn't currently exist in the database. TBH it's one that I only had vague awareness of, but it does have SFADB and SFE pages, and has been going for just over 20 years.

In essence, it's a single category award, just a winner, no nominees or finalists, and is to an author who the judges felt does/did not get as much attention as they deserved. Most of the past winners are names that I recognize, even if I think I've only read half-a-dozen or so of them. (Possibly the sort of scenario that the award was set up to address?)

The award's site lists who has been on the judging panel; again they're people I recognize and who are respected in the field. (Although it looks like that page hasn't been updated for a decade?) ErsatzCulture (talk) 03:57, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

I thought we already had an Award Type for this fairly well-known award, but apparently not. Must have been an oversight. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:51, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

I must confess all the less-well known awards named after people who were active years ago blur into one in my mind - the non-Astounding Campbell, Crawford, Crook, Wellman, this one - blur into one in my mind.

If and when this gets set up, I'll add all the winners - should be pretty straightforward compared to the likes of Hugo and Locus. ErsatzCulture (talk) 11:04, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

Since this is a no-brainer, I have created an Award Type record for it. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:16, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks - unless someone else beats me to it, I'll probably add all the winners on Saturday. ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:01, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

A day later than I'd promised, but these are all in now. Thanks again for adding it. ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Ahasuerus (talk) 18:27, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Alex Gordon

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?6359; The essays are by this person, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0329966/, but they may not be eligible since he usually wrote about old movies in his long-running column for Fangoria. If they are eligible, some variant is needed. --Username (talk) 10:43, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

Watson Bon-Bon

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=de+bon-bon&type=All+Titles; Copy of BBR #11 just uploaded, I made an edit adding link and adding/fixing other stuff, this Watson work was in French originally and reprinted in English in this zine, never collected, but as can be seen capitalization, subtitle, and whether it's fiction or essay are issues. So it's for someone else to decide what's best re: those things. --Username (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

Fake Ring

https://archive.org/search?query=ring00pier&sort=-addeddate; While adding links to 2 copies of Piers Anthony's 1968 Ace edition of The Ring I found a 3rd copy on Open Library but it's actually a completely different thing, a sampler of some T. A. Barron books, in case anyone thinks that's worth entering. --Username (talk) 21:30, 18 July 2023 (EDT)

Canonical name change Willard E. Hawkins from Willard Hawkins

Any objections to making Willard E. Hawkins the canonical name and Willard Hawkins the alternate? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scifibones (talk • contribs) . 05:38, 19 July 2023‎ (EDT)

No objections here. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objections, the relationship has been reversed. John Scifibones 19:00, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

Chiller

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?961199; Someone named Aardvark entered this recently. I knew I'd seen that cover art before on one of Karl Edward Wagner's horror anthologies and I had, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1435921. So it apparently originated here, not the French book. Also, I saw on OL that Chiller is "based on" a 1972 novel by Sale, The Love Bite, whatever that means. Maybe that one belongs here, too. --Username (talk) 09:16, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

Cover Artist: Ampersand Book Covers

We currently have a cover artist named Ampersand Book Covers. I just found the website for that artist and was going to add it to the existing Author record but noticed that the website shows the name as "Ampersand Book Cover Design". So far the only titles that are credited to this artist use "Ampersand Book Covers" as per the statements on their copyright pages. I have several new titles that are by this artist (not credited but definitely by this artist per the website portfolio page) and wonder if I should just use the existing artist after adding the website data and a note about the full name to the existing artist record or if I should use the full name from the website and make it a variant of the existing artist record. Thanks. Phil (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

I would credit 'Ampersand Book Covers' and a note in the canonical record. John Scifibones 14:54, 20 July 2023 (EDT).

P.S. The pub still gets a note stating that the artist is uncredited. I 'm aware you know this already, but less experienced editors might be following this thread. John Scifibones 15:39, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

Will do. Thanks. Phil (talk) 15:31, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

Green Knight

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?15963; Philfreund, Chavey, GlennMcG, letting you all know LCCN isn't on their site, should be removed and put in notes section. --Username (talk) 20:04, 19 July 2023 (EDT)

The LOC site isn't always reliable for older LCCNs. It's likely still valid, just difficult to find. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:05, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

Swedish Vampires

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5720694; After approval I'm sure those who are fluent in the language can improve upon my edit. --Username (talk) 08:52, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

Hound of Frankenstein

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?284512; I'm not sure why I added that ponderous link re: the prices in the note a long time ago because the back cover is on FantLab, but anyway, while adding a link today to FantLab and replacing cover with theirs I noticed there's no "The" on title page but there is in the first Mammoth Book of Frankenstein edition which I checked via the archived link. So if anyone can verify there's a "The" in all editions of that anthology then the story title should be separated and made a variant of the original title. Also, someone added full date to chapbook from Amazon UK but I don't know if anyone trusts them enough to add it to the story itself. --Username (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

George Wells

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?24739; I've been doing a lot of edits for old Arthur Stockwell books (there's a huge gap between the last older book and the recent ones) and came upon George Wells. As someone wrote, there may be more than one; I suspect it's 4 different guys since it's not likely a very obscure British author would write an article for an American pulp zine 25 years later and it's also not likely that the author of a cheap paperback horror novel would write a couple of stories for a semi-literary anthology series more than 20 years later. Also, cover of Taurus on Amazon has $2.95 on the cover so either the price on ISFDB, $2.50, is wrong or there's at least one reprint. EDIT: 1 copy of Taurus on eBay, it's Canadian thus the higher $2.95 price, like DAW Books in the 1980s Signet Canadian editions start number line with 2, glad someone wrote a note about that in another 1982 Canadian Signet book on ISFDB otherwise I would have entered it as a second printing. Should be approved soon; hopefully someone will upload a copy of this book to Archive.org someday. --Username (talk) 15:56, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

I noticed this morning that another editor has separated old novel & article, '82 horror novel, and recent short stories into 3 separate Wells. While looking into this I discovered there's a George O. Wells but searching for his story title inside Archive.org I discovered it's George R. Wells, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5721607, so that's a bonus. There's also a G. A. Wells that wrote a story for a 1923 issue of Weird Tales the same year that a George Wells wrote the novel from Stockwell so could that be the same person? A lot of Brits wrote stories for that zine. EDIT: Jeez, it turns out the other entry in that zine with George R. Wells is wrong, too, it's Inside of a Piece of Sugar. There's nearly 100 issues of Science and Invention on ISFDB and I doubt I came across the 1 issue with wrong names/titles so a thorough check is probably needed. EDIT: Fixed this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3036272, quotes around Loaded. --Username (talk) 08:13, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

Raw Brunettes

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1256247; Wild Women pub. history, searched on Google Books, says "first two sections" so that one should have (excerpt) after it and be separated from its full appearance in the Wordcraft book. I've been doing a lot of Wordcraft edits and their Speculative Writers series numbering is a mess, whether their fault or editors here I'm not sure, so that will probably need some discussion later on. --Username (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

Paksenarrion World Chronicles

With the publication (and entry) of Elizabeth Moon's new collection Deeds of Youth, I have created a new series named Paksenarrion World Chronicles. Would there be any objection to placing the older collection Deeds of Honor in it as number 1? I'd also like to remove the series name in the title and the cover artist (who's actually credited as the cover designer) from this publication which was sole PVed by the late Biomassbob. Phil (talk) 08:32, 22 July 2023 (EDT)

That would be fine. Please move the cover designer to the pub notes vs. completely removing. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:38, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Wrong Author and Their Variant

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5722391; I was going through Eerie, Indiana book series, got through first 4 before #5 only had a 3rd printing on Archive.org and I lost interest, but all of them (and I suspect the others, too) have a lot of missing/wrong info. Only 1 of the 4 was PV (O'Fearna) but 1 of the non-PV had a co-author who didn't co-write it. So now that I removed Mike Ford will the record for the book with his other name, Michael Thomas Ford, go away or does it have to be deleted or something? --Username (talk) 09:12, 22 July 2023 (EDT)

The proper way to deal with the parent is with a merge. I took care of it for you. John Scifibones 09:36, 22 July 2023 (EDT)

Bond, Stephen Bond

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5722846; Only 5 issues, none PV, all on Archive.org, figured I'd add links and a few minor things and that would be it, but of course I ran into trouble with the first issue (by the way, is the page count I entered correct?) because the Flying Saucer essay is by Stephen Lloyd, not Stephen Bond, but it is by Bond in the Fantastic Universe issue it originally appeared in. There's also the fact that a 2022 novel by a Stephen Lloyd was recently entered here so there goes that name. What would you like to be done? --Username (talk) 19:28, 22 July 2023 (EDT)

I accepted the edit. Yes, that page count was correct - for magazines we include the covers in the page count. As for the essay, I will unmerge it, credit it to a Stephen Lloyd (I), variant to the original, and create a new alternate name. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:33, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

3rd issue had alternate title of Kapp's story so I imported that and deleted the wrong title. This, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?327861, has no alternate title but checking UK New Worlds on Luminist.org it's "The High Road" but it's "High Road" in US issue. EDIT: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44455; it's "Waiting Grounds" in US issue, a title that apparently is not used anywhere else. EDIT: #5 seems OK so I think I'm done. I currently have 7 New Worlds edits plus 1 changing alternate title date of Kapp's story to match where it first appeared (more than 50 years earlier). --Username (talk) 10:30, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Chaos Weapon

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?9236; I added Archive.org link to 1977 US PB in PENDING edit, as note says it's DiFate on copyright page, no space, but credit here is for Di Fate. Correct name was entered here for the 2 1984 editions so 2 1977 editions (and French edition) should probably be the same; DiFate has dozens of credits here already. I count half-a-dozen active PV of this edition. --Username (talk) 11:18, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

PSP

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5722877; Is there any word on whether Phil Stephensen-Payne is going to update to https? Because there are tens of thousands of images on ISFDB from his various sites. It's not exactly true that they don't display here, they do if you right-click and choose "Open image in new tab", but still. I just added an edit to his page here adding a link to a search engine at pulpflakes.com, chose Braunbeck at random and search engine immediately opened a new tab with the philsp.com record for Gary Braunbeck. This search engine IS https; come on, Mr. Payne, do the right thing and update your sites. --Username (talk) 18:13, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Ted Koppel

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?161708; I remember adding to this page a long time ago, photo and possibly bio info, but as I came across the name just now while looking at Phil Stephensen-Payne's record I wonder if the famous newsman is the right Koppel. He was born in England but moved to America long before the 2001 UK edition of this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1275674, where a Ted Koppel was co-author. Could there be a bio in the Harness work? Anyone own a copy? I assume if there is a different SF-related Koppel the 1979 essay in Starship would be by the same guy. --Username (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2023 (EDT)

Ingalls With Dirty Faces

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5724110; I was doing a whole mess of Rachel Ingalls edits and the very last one gave me trouble; is it just me or does anyone else see the replacement cover with black smudges on it? It doesn't look like the cover does on SFE. Amazon and SFE covers look pretty much the same so no real reason to replace it, anyway, I'd just like to know if I'm seeing things. --Username (talk) 10:58, 24 July 2023 (EDT)

Rage By FMA

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?166329; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?269444; I mentioned this cover artist in my Zebra message above, FMA did covers for paperbacks in the 1970s, today while adding a link to an article about Stephen King's 1977 Richard Bachman novel Rage on the Fox News (!) website I noticed the spine (which isn't shown in the cover on ISFDB) had something that looked like a signature and it turned out it's FMA. I can't find a single mention anywhere online but I find it hard to believe a rank amateur like myself discovered something like this so if anyone can point to somewhere that mentions it I'd appreciate it. In the meantime I've made an edit adding cover artist to Rage; there's also a later British NEL PB on ISFDB with different cover art so maybe someone here can identify that artist, too. Identifying FMA would also be great. --Username (talk) 20:07, 24 July 2023 (EDT)

German J. Kirby

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?576053; Kirby died in 2001, this book is 2004, could be that the cover is re-used from some earlier English book, anyone recognize it so variant can be made? EDIT: I managed to figure this one out, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5724820, took a bit of looking because German cover here is the size of a postage stamp. I also did this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5724821. There are others which need more looking into, a Piper 7th printing with no cover and a German Good Omens cover which has 3 editions that credit Kirby but none of the English editions credit him (?); on the plus side, I saw an OL-only copy of the Berkley edition of Good Omens so I added a link to that. --Username (talk) 17:54, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

I'm slowly working through the German editions and printings of Pratchett when i get a hand on them and with that Josh Kirby's artwork. I'll merge or variant them, whenever i can. Sometimes not easy, sometimes the german publisher used cutouts, even from english backcovers.

Here's an example where i couldn't find an english pub with the same picture yet Omnibus "Gevatter Tod/Wachen Wachen". So far i only found it on an 2001 Discworld wall calendar, which isn't listed here.

This might also be the case with the german "Good Omens" covers, maybe it comes from a calendar or portfolio but was never used for an english edition.

This one i have, i'd love to contribute a better image, but it's so shiny that scanning isn't possible, even a photo is tricky. Maybe some day when i figured out how to make a useable image. Welo (talk) 04:17, 26 July 2023 (EDT)

New yellow warning for conflicting submissions

FR 1453, "New yellow warning for conflicting submissions", has been implemented. Post-submission review pages for Edit Record submissions have been updated to display yellow warnings if the currently displayed submission overlaps/conflicts with another Edit Record submission.

Please note that the new warning won't be displayed when there is a conflict between an EditPub submission and a related EditTitle submission, at least for now. This is due to performance issues, but it may be possible to address them in the future. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:27, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

Out of the Unknown

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?34126; None of the notes in the various editions really mention "Second Edition" on copyright page so someone more familiar with the history maybe can tell me which record this copy, https://archive.org/search?query=%22out+of+the+unknown%22+fantasy, belongs to so I can add a link to it. --Username (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

John Gregory

[3]; Old pulp story and 70s SF novel aren't by the same John Gregory. Also, I made an edit adding OL ID to the novel and noting the bizarre situation where OL link to Archive.org leads to a Shakespeare book; searching for novel's title displays all of these, [4]. --Username (talk) 09:13, 26 July 2023 (EDT)

Parker Poltergeist

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?860463; I was going to add something to the Parker edition's publisher name to differ it from the 40-years-later Parker but really it probably shouldn't be here, being "true" paranormal junk by an author below the threshold whose only relevant credits are some cover art many years later. Ace edition has 2 PV, one gone, one active but transient. --Username (talk) 11:06, 26 July 2023 (EDT)

"Next Submission" link for self-approvers

Self-approvers now have access to the same "Next Submission" link that moderators have on post-submission review and post-approval pages. The difference is that the self-approvers' version of the "Next Submission" link takes them to the next submission created by themselves. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

Looking for an old story

G'day, Does anybody know of any sites or forums that could help me find an old short story? Cheers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nailgun Johnny (talk • contribs) .

We have compiled a list of resources that may help identify stories and novels. It's listed in the FAQ, but it's short enough to re-post it here:

• Book Sleuth on AbeBooks
• printSF subreddit on Reddit
• rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup
• Tip of My Tongue
• What's the Name of That Book??? on Goodreads

HTH! Ahasuerus (talk) 21:32, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

Or you could just give a description of the story here and let us try to figure it out. --Username (talk) 07:56, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Award display enhancement

Award records which have Notes associated with them now display a mouse-over bubble with the Notes text, e.g. see the "Awards" section of this Title bibliography page. The presence of mouse-over information is indicated by the ⓘ character, which is the same character that we use in the "Other Titles" section to indicate the presence of Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:20, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for picking this up after I dropped the ball somewhat. One bug I just noticed: templates don't seem to be rendered in the bubble.

e.g. if you go to this year's Hugos, and scroll down to Best Series, the text is rendered as { { S|Seriesname } }. I've a feeling the rendered link might be impossible for a user to click on - as the bubble disappears if you mouseover it, although maybe keyboard navigation could get to it? - so perhaps if that just rendered as ordinary HTML text, that'd be sufficent? ErsatzCulture (talk) 10:24, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for reporting the problem. Oddly enough, the "Other Titles" section renders bubbles correctly even though it uses the same code. Let me poke around... Ahasuerus (talk) 11:14, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

And fixed. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:58, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Barzman Twinkle

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?20160; I just added 2 links in a PENDING edit to Archive.org copies of the Book Club edition, 1 from 2010, 1 from just a few weeks ago. Title has no commas on cover seen many places online, two commas on ISFDB, 1 comma on title page. I can only find club copies online so if anyone has/can find non-club copy and it only has 1 comma then all titles, regular, both editions, cover art, can be fixed to just one comma. --Username (talk) 08:56, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Helen Chen

https://fantlab.ru/art34256; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5727128; Someone familiar with Chinese name standardization can decide whether Mingjue is her legal name and needs to be added or whatever after my edit is approved. --Username (talk) 18:39, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

French Reeves-Stevens

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5727232; As usual when I make a rare attempt to enter a foreign edition I'm sure some improvements can be made after approval. I'll just mention that NooSFere calls artist Kopik and ISFDB has 4 credits for that name but it also has 1 for Copik so someone who knows can decide on parent and variant, although partial signature starts with C so that seems to be the real name. Also, what does that phrase on the back mean, Maquette Vaporetto? Online check seems to imply it means "steamboat sketch" but that can't be right. --Username (talk) 19:49, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Greg Reeves

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5727251; I don't think this is by Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Nothing about the opening pages in Amazon Look Inside matches anything in the 2 copies of Dark Matter by Reeves-Stevens on Archive.org. Maybe this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2563054, is really by Reeves-Stevens or maybe not. The novel, however, should be separated into a different author, I think. --Username (talk) 20:00, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

'Publications not in a Publication Series' pages updated

As per FR 952, 'Show covers' and 'Show Last Year First' are now available on all 'Publications not in a Publication Series' pages. Please let me know if you run into any issues with pages like https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?17013 . Ahasuerus (talk) 21:46, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Bonvissuto

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=bonvis&type=Name; I added Goodreads page (with photo) and middle name to Stephanie, added IMDB page (with 1 credit) to Steven A., and made Steve a variant of Steven A., but that S. is a mystery. No info online for the 2 story titles except the usual Locus/Philsp pages, might be Steve(n) or Stephanie, if anyone ever finds out they can make a variant. --Username (talk) 12:29, 29 July 2023 (EDT)

Bebeto

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=bebeto&type=Name; They're both wrong, I think, first record should be Bebeto DarOZ, not Bebeto Dar0Z, and the other one should be the same. Publisher who PV one of them has been gone for years so no use asking; artist has a YouTube channel as Bebeto DarOZ. --Username (talk) 16:52, 29 July 2023 (EDT)

Merlins

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?62818; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5728318; I think that very old Merlin record with missing/wrong info can be deleted. --Username (talk) 08:22, 30 July 2023 (EDT)

New yellow warning when a changed Publication date is before one of the Title dates

Post-submission review pages for Edit Publication submissions have been modified. If an EditPub submission changes the publication's date and the resulting date would be prior to one (or more) of the Title dates in the Contents section, the review page will display a yellow warning with a list of affected titles.

Please note that, at this time, the warning is only displayed for Edit Publication submissions. NewPubs, AddPubs and ClonePubs are currently not affected. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:50, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

I Purposely triggered one, very nice addition. Thanks John Scifibones 14:11, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

Glad to hear it's useful!

I believe this wraps up the software changes requested in April-July. Due to a number of reasons -- including the fact that Microsoft plans to stop security patches for Windows 10 in 2025 and the current version of Fixer requires Windows 10 -- I plan to concentrate on migrating Fixer to Linux, Python and MySQL as the next big project. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:27, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

Taurus Canada

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5721363; Am I right that like a lot of PB publishers in the 1980s, DAW Books for example, Canadian Signet editions' number lines start with 2? In other words, this is not a second printing and should be un-rejected? --Username (talk) 10:12, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Warlock of Firetop Mountain

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5730397; Some issues with this. As can be seen on the back cover, the artist is Peter Andrew Jones, not Peter Jones. Also, there's only 2 foreign editions on ISFDB that actually include the 21 numbered pages in the page count. Also, the Archive.org copy (the only FF book on the uploader's page) is messy but I think the first page would be 13-14 and the last would be 99-100 of which one of those last pages is not part of the game book, so 13-99 x 2 would be 174 pages, not 170. So if anyone owns/can get a look at the very first Puffin original edition and it says Peter Andrew Jones that would entail a bit of a nightmare because a lot of the later editions from various publishers would need to be checked to make sure they actually said Peter Jones or if they really say the full name and editors here just imported the original edition's (incorrect) artist name. First edition would also need checking to see if those first 21 pages are numbered and a manual page count would be needed to determine how many unnumbered pages there are. The artist issue arose because whoever entered the name got it from an art book and not the actual book itself, a problem which has led to many names being wrong here, of which I suspect there are many more in the FF series that will need fixing. Fun times ahead; there are hundreds of archived copies of these books. On a side note, I entered a whole bunch of fantasy illustrator photos a while back including Steve Jackson (this one and the other one from the USA who also did FF books and just coincidentally had the same name) but apparently Ian Livingstone escaped me because he has no photo so if anyone can find a good one then they can add it to his record. --Username (talk) 13:56, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

My recollection is that he was always credited as "Peter Andrew Jones" on these, and I was surprised when I saw that "Peter Jones" was recorded here as his primary name. Fighting Fantasy is pretty well documented, so it shouldn't be hard to verify this - somewhere I have a copy of You Are The Hero which covers this stuff, in addition to all the online references.

As for Ian Livingstone, there are loads of photos of him around, as he's pretty high profile in the UK, like appearing on our version of The Apprentice. The Wikipedia photo is CC BY-SA 2.0 licensed, so I assume that can be used if nothing better is found. ErsatzCulture (talk) 14:19, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

I decided to look at #2 in the series, The Citadel of Chaos, and added a link to a nasty raggedy copy of some Puffin edition which has no way to tell what printing it is because a bunch of pages are missing from the front (I just added link to title record), also added a link to another Puffin printing which some mysterious PV named PortofHamburg added not too long ago but he/she didn't specify the printing history so I made a best guess and added the link to that record, and also corrected page count for recent Scholastic edition from 232 to 236 using a later printing on Archive.org. So if just 2 books have so much to do there are dozens more waiting. Not to mention the umpteen Wizard reprints which I'm not even going to touch, although I may have added a few links to some of them long ago, hard to remember. --Username (talk) 15:07, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Gentlewomen of Evil

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5730762; Recent copy has a totally different back cover; possible reprint? Copyright page looks the same to me in both copies. Also, recent copy has a penciled-in date on the front flap and, just maybe, the bottom of the price barely visible above it, which contradicts the note someone wrote here which says there's no price in the book; someone else obviously got it from somewhere. So a little mystery here that someone may be able to figure out. --Username (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Night SHADOWS by Mary SELLERS

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?963498; RTrace just entered this, I wasted my time tracking down the ID on BookScans and adding cover image, ISBN, and price, only for the software to tell me the URL was already on file because Rosab618 entered the book back in May but spelled the name wrong, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?949221, which is probably why RTrace couldn't find it and thought it was an unentered book. So I've cancelled my edit; the recent one should probably be deleted, Reginald ID moved over, last name corrected, and ISBN that's on top of the cover should be entered. --Username (talk) 00:02, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

I've essentially merged the two publication records. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 06:52, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

Great. I also replaced Cat's Amazon cover with BookScans cover which is the same except bigger, added Goodreads ID to Bayou (they call her May, not Mary) and uploaded their cover which doesn't seem to be anywhere else, and just added archived link to Gambler, which was uploaded in March. I also learned from Gambler's dedication that she's the wife of Con Sellers so I added husband/wife A| links to both of them. I also see in Con Sellers papers at USM (which mentions he married Mary Raineri in 1943) that they include most of Mary's book titles so maybe he co-wrote them without credit? EDIT: Shouldn't ISBN be added to Night Shadows? --Username (talk) 08:17, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

No One Goes There Now

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5731000; As can be seen at the Archive.org links the real cover is totally different but no image can be found on Amazon, SFE, OL, FantLab, etc., so if someone wants to upload it from somewhere. Also, author's name is William Walling on title page so variant is wrong. --Username (talk) 00:52, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

Submission approved, author credit corrected and cover image replaced. John Scifibones 08:41, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Ralph Blum

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1794382; I added Archive.org link to UK HC of Blum's novel; there's no reason for that non-fiction book to be here because author is not "above the threshold" and book is just New Age nonsense about runes, one of many the author has written. So delete and keep the review? --Username (talk) 17:38, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

If the publication is deleted as ineligible, you must remove this REVIEW title from this publication and delete it. Then you add an ESSAY type title for the review. For example, 'Review of "The Book of Runes" by Ralph Blum' and the reviewer Paulette Minaré is the author. Often, you will see the reason an essay title is appropriate in the title. Review of the non-genre book, review of the film, etc. I suggest you allow a week for any objections. John Scifibones 18:30, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

I have deleted the one publication but do think it's best to keep the title (I've added a note): this way we don't have to undergo the change of the publication with the review. Also, we already have some only titles that way (also for awards).

But if you think it's better to emphasize the change, that'd also be okay. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:39, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

Username: Since it has been a week and Stonecreek has deleted the publication, go ahead and submit the four edits I outlined above. I'll approve when I see them.

Stonecreek: We have no policy provision for creating title records for ineligible publications. I'm surprised you would suggest this in a thread where I'm advising the proper treatment. Not only are you misleading this editor, but all the others who monitor the boards. If you think your method has merit, start a discussion on Rules and Standards. John Scifibones 16:36, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

Dating Bentley Little

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?593285; What should title date of Evil Deeds be? --Username (talk) 09:17, 3 August 2023 (EDT)

If you are referring to this title record, the date of its first appearance. 1994-05-00. John Scifibones 10:53, 3 August 2023 (EDT)

Mike Turner disambiguation

I don't "do" SFnal stuff on Facebook, but I do search for mentions of ISFDB every now and again. If there is anyone is active on FB, they might want to follow-up this comment that indicates the current Mike Turner record conflates 2 or more people. As a stopgap, I've added an author note to raise awareness of the issue. ErsatzCulture (talk) 19:37, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

IA's Worlds of Science Fiction

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5733923; PV is gone, LCCN links up to a couple of other Asimov works on LoC, cover art not credited but likely from some issue of Asimov's magazine, so if anyone knows where it came from or what to do with the LCCN. --Username (talk) 13:18, 5 August 2023 (EDT)

I found https://lccn.loc.gov/81101251. Since the printed LCCN is live, I left it, added this one as a second LCCN ID, and added a note about what we see printed in the archive.org copy and what we find on the LOC site today. --MartyD (talk) 06:50, 7 August 2023 (EDT)

Altered Ego

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5734917; It's been 13 years so nobody's rushing to replace that ragged copy; if anyone here owns it and can upload it to Archive.org so there's a complete copy that would be good, although not strictly necessary because there's an HC edition archived in 2020, too. I see a lot of Pennant copies on eBay so I don't think it's very rare. --Username (talk) 13:02, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

International Polygonics LCCN

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?180301; I just entered this publisher's edition of William O'Farrell's 1942 novel Repeat Performance and only afterwards saw LCCN on copyright page is not on LoC site; I didn't go back and remove it and add a note about it because going back sometimes erases info. I checked the dozen or so other books by the publisher on ISFDB and 1 LCCN was entered and is on their site, 1 was entered in notes as not being on their site, and the one linked above is not on their site but the previous book in the series, Nine Times Nine, is in an International Polygonics edition but hasn't been entered here (yet). 2 PV, one transient and one who has no messages on their board, so should LCCN be removed and moved to notes? Also, can someone approve my edit so I can remove and move, too. --Username (talk) 13:48, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Permabooks Problems

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?8005; I added an Archive.org link to Moon Pilot and noticed while it says it was originally published as Starfire in December ISFDB note gives it the date of the printing, October. Also, https://www.garysvintagebooks.com/product-page/son-of-flubber-by-walt-disney, where date is March with printing in January but ISFDB note has no month and note surmises that it was published in May or June because it comes between 2 other books with surrounding catalog numbers but likely months are wrong because some editors entered the printing date instead of the publication date. There's only 40+ Permabooks on ISFDB so this shouldn't be too hard to sort out. At least 2 active PV of Starfire, Rudam and Willem, so they may want to fix their month if that's the right thing to do. --Username (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Courtney and Triffids

https://archive.org/search?query=triffids+ballantine&sort=-addeddate; Third printing (not on ISFDB) says R. Courtney on copyright page; not credited in Fawcett editions but PV of 1986 Del Rey 1st printing, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?902545, decided to just make the name the canonical name, which is wrong because it's credited as R., so I think it should be changed to R. for all editions and made a variant of Richard. Also, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?356604, where all 3 are based on signatures only (all entered by me last December), so what to do with those? --Username (talk) 20:53, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Ghouls

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5735718; Invalid ISBN which does get a hit on LoC and a few sites online, so a look at that would be good by whoever approves this edit. --Username (talk) 11:17, 7 August 2023 (EDT)

Tilley

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?4506; Dark Corners was on Archive.org so I added a link and then discovered the title and several story titles/dates were also wrong so I fixed everything, I think; I also imported 4 stories into Something Else because even though someone wrote a note about titles being on WorldCat they only imported a few of them. Now here's the problem: "Medical Practice" is listed as the only new story but there's another one, "Attack of the Hiccups", which is not on ISFDB or anywhere else I can find. So if someone knows/owns/can find out that would help to complete the contents. --Username (talk) 19:55, 7 August 2023 (EDT)

Tarth?

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/dail_c_c; Just a little something I came across that someone here with connections to SFE may be able to get fixed. The last word in the title on the cover has a trailing bottom line and a middle thing that is not on the A's in "Savage" so it does say "Earth" on the cover, just printed in a fancy way. Note about "Tarth" should be changed to "Earth". --Username (talk) 11:09, 8 August 2023 (EDT)

You can send feedback using this form. They're pretty responsive. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:45, 8 August 2023 (EDT)

Done. --Username (talk) 16:26, 8 August 2023 (EDT)

Wow, John Clute ("An interesting and informative exchange. The cover script is certainly eccentric, but the standard typeface announcing Chapter 22 carries the day") and David Langford ("Thanks for this suggestion. It's an interesting theory but I'm not convinced. The flourishes belong to the A in Tarth and the first letter is thus surely a T. This is confirmed in the book's text, where chapter XXII is titled in clear capitals THE SAVAGE TARTHS -- MAN'S PROGENITORS") responded in an e-mail. I see their point; Tarths are a race of beings in the book. Oh well. --Username (talk) 09:43, 14 August 2023 (EDT)

W. P. Maynard

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2449000; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1133886; Different titles, different names, in case anyone can verify anything and merge or variant. --Username (talk) 16:56, 8 August 2023 (EDT)

It's sorted out now. Good find, John Scifibones 17:33, 8 August 2023 (EDT)

Dredd

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?4530; I added Archive.org links to both editions, copyright page of USA says UK came first but ISFDB has UK as second, also UK cover is actually same image as USA except with Boxtree on it, so if anyone knows where that yellow UK cover really belongs or what the real dates of the editions are let us know so they can be fixed. --Username (talk) 18:34, 10 August 2023 (EDT)

Canadian Sheep Look Up

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5738856; Before I leave a message to PV of this edition here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?30229, asking him to fix publisher and add month from their note, whose price is right? If it's printed in Canada then Canadian price should be correct, right? --Username (talk) 18:48, 11 August 2023 (EDT)

Angels Inc.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5739007; The only photos of the actual print book I can find are on a horrible Amazon page with the smallest (100x100) photos possible; https://www.amazon.com/N-G-L-S-Robert-Author-Bliss/dp/0072298235. If anyone can find some site with properly-sized photos then the cover can be uploaded. I'm wondering why McGraw-Hill didn't publish any genre books between 1990 and 1998 according to ISFDB and then published a weirdly priced paperback like this; another odd thing is that of the 120 other books by them on ISFDB there's only one other PB, a David Hartwell anthology, but other books with the same price are classed as TP, so that might need to be changed to TP, too, and also possibly this Bliss book. --Username (talk) 23:35, 11 August 2023 (EDT)

Boak

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=boak&type=Name; I entered an artist named Kathy Boake for some kiddie books and while doing so noticed that these people, A. Graham Boak/Graham Boak/Gray Boak, are one and the same. So if anyone can decide what the parent name should be those can all be linked together. --Username (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

ISFDB server downtime 2023-08-12 6pm

The ISFDB server will be briefly unavailable due to maintenance starting at 6pm server (Eastern Daylight) time. It should be back up after 5-10 minutes. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:12, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

The server was back up at 6:12pm. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:18, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

Brunner and Stuff

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?121; After adding many, many links to John Brunner books over the last few days I was finishing up when I noticed that there are 2 items on his page listed as anthologies that are just 2-novel doubles like the hundred or so other ones listed as omnibus. As can be seen at the link above, some of those Belmont Doubles are anthology, some omnibus, and some collection. So should those 2 Brunner anthologies be changed to omnibus and what should be the standard for the Belmonts? --Username (talk) 19:30, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

See Template:PublicationFields:PubType for all the details, but for the cases at your link:

• Multiple short fiction by same author = collection
• Multiple short fiction by different authors = anthology
• Multiple novels = omnibus

The Brunner entries (Father of Lies / Mirror Image & The Evil That Men Do / The Purloined Planet) both consist of two novellas by different authors and so are correctly entered as anthologies. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:58, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

Request for messages from international fans by a Chinese Hugo finalist - any interest in an ISFDB contribution?

This came up on Twitter a couple of days ago - the Chinese fan who uses the handle RiverFlow/河流 is planning an issue of his fanzine Zero-G SF which will have hand-written messages from fans around the world. There are some examples of what they've already received at the bottom of this Chinese language webpage.

I don't participate in any sort of offline or real-world fandom, but I wondered if there'd be interest in some sort of ISFDB contribution? I was thinking of maybe a general "Hello from ISFDB" message - precise wording to be worked here on Community Portal - with some sort of collage/grid of short handwritten individual messages from ISFDB contributors. For the latter, I was thinking maybe stuff that might fit on a square-shaped Post It note e.g.:

• Your username at ISFDB
• Your location(s) - city, state, country as appropriate, basically the sort of thing that gets put in author birthplace entries
• Date you signed it
• Possibly a short personalized message

I don't think this would be worth doing unless we have at least half-a-dozen individual contributions, preferably a dozen or more. Any interest? ErsatzCulture (talk) 09:39, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

The Twitter post says:

• If you want to send a signed, dated handwritten note in any language from anywhere in the world (but espclly Europe), wishing them well and supporting the project, email me at [snip]

I am not sure what the "project" in question is, but the ISFDB -- as an organization/project -- generally does not endorse or support other projects. We can and do link to other sites, from Wikipedia to SFE, but that doesn't mean that we support them as institutions.

Of course, ISFDB editors -- individually or in groups -- are free to contribute to and/or support any projects they want as long as they do it as individuals.

Based on the above, I would change "Hello from ISFDB" to "Hello from the following ISFDB editors". Ahasuerus (talk) 12:32, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Sorry for overstepping the mark. If anyone's interested in contributing to this, maybe a better venue is to email me at {anythingyoulike}@ersatzculture.com, and discuss it further there. ErsatzCulture (talk) 14:09, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

No worries! The Community Portal is the best place to post announcements and it's entirely possible that some editors may want to write one or more postcards. It's all good. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:08, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Ché Monro

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?367447; My old edit fixing name was finally approved and then I discovered there's 2 other records for this author, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?210757 and https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?365512, which have the same story, published within a month of each other by the same publisher, but the first name has the accent in a different place and has the ISFDB "question mark" thing after it. So 3 names, 1 story each, parent needs deciding and that 2012 story needs merging. --Username (talk) 10:47, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Sorted out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:46, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

Gordon Browne

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?14029; Story likely by another guy; this page, https://www.blackgate.com/2015/11/07/fantastic-january-1962-a-retro-review/, slags off our site about it, so maybe a (I) or something should be added to author's name. --Username (talk) 21:13, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Separated out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:48, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

Mr. Wright

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?231886; Non-fiction should probably be by Allan Wright; Alan was an old-time illustrator. --Username (talk) 21:16, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Separated them out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:36, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

Turkish Blatty

https://archive.org/search?query=seytan+blatty; A Turkish (!) edition of The Exorcist got uploaded recently in case anyone fluent wants to enter it. --Username (talk) 23:01, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

Pulphouse Dates

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?60072; Date for Landis and Frazier stories, both included in September 1991's The Best of Pulphouse, is 1991 and they are called reprints but the only entry for Issue Twelve on ISFDB is dated 1993. William F. Wu's bibliography, https://www.williamfwu.com/complete-list-of-short-fiction, has a confusing double listing for Issue Twelve, one in 1991 edited by K.K. Rusch and the other in 1993 edited by D.W. Smith, but ISFDB has them both as 1993 in Issue Twelve edited by K.K. Rusch. So I think all the original stories in Issue Twelve should really be dated 1991 unless there's something odd that I don't see. On a side note, a site named Anna's Archive uploaded several issues (#2-10 + Buried Treasures) of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine as PDF's. Authorized or not, they are there for research purposes in case anyone needs them; getting a real print copy of any of them is next to impossible because they were limited editions and most were bought up by collectors, so not exactly something you can find at your local library. --Username (talk) 12:51, 14 August 2023 (EDT)

Jane Wagner(s) ?

I do assume that there are two different Jane Wagners' works listed under [5], some by the dramaturgist & script writer, the others by a fan. Would anybody know that the two are in fact one and the same person (else, it'd be better to separate the two)? Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2023 (EDT)

Living Dead Head

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5742916; A foreign-language book I came across, as usual fluent people can probably improve after approval. One of the links I provided includes contents page in case anyone can decipher the small story titles and enter them. --Username (talk) 08:49, 16 August 2023 (EDT)

Far Out

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5743690; I was going to delete the intro because it's not in the archived copy but then I noticed that the first story starts on p. 13 but there are much fewer than 12 pages preceding it so I have a suspicion that it fell out/got ripped out from this ragged ex-library copy. So if anyone owns this edition (I was surprised page numbers for stories weren't entered and even year was wrong; I assumed most of these old SF books were pretty much taken care of long ago) they can verify if intro is there and delete if it's not. I'm not sure what the "5+" in the page count was about so I removed it. No cover images in any usable places so if anyone wants to upload one they can do so although it's just the standard boring yellow Gollancz cover. --Username (talk) 21:22, 16 August 2023 (EDT)

Smallcreep's Day

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?955909; [6]; Panther edition archived so I entered link and other stuff, says Peter C. on cover and title page, original Gollancz HC says Peter C. on cover but full name on title page as can be seen in photo linked above, so I'm mentioning this here because I can never remember if changing a name in one edition has a ripple effect; author's page has some info on it that might be erased (or not). Panther needs to be made a variant. --Username (talk) 22:03, 16 August 2023 (EDT)

Publication edit accepted, Panther edition unmerged from other, and new title varianted to old. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:02, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

DF Lewis

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1187; I've been adding links to some of this dude's hundreds of stories (and there are many more in obscure genre or non-genre publications that aren't on this site) since I've always wondered how someone whose writing was so incomprehensible and sometimes downright terrible managed to get published in so many places. It goes all the way back to when I would look forward each year to the new edition of Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror Stories which sadly ended 30 years ago. He included some Lewis tales and it always annoyed me because I knew he could have picked another story that was far better (and more horrific) but he seemed to have a touch of elitism where he would include pretentious and often barely-horror stories in each edition just to show his street cred, I guess. Anyway, many of the links I've been adding mention zines that are genre but not entered here; one that came up recently was End of the Millennium which featured Lewis in several issues. The story I added a link for was in #11 from 1999, which seems logical considering the title of the zine, but I (and the mod who initially rejected my edit) couldn't find any mention of it anywhere online except on Lewis-related sites. So if anyone can find verifiable info on any issues that would be good to enter. Take a look at this, https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/dfl-partial-bibliography/, and marvel at all those obscure publications. It's a gold mine. --Username (talk) 19:09, 17 August 2023 (EDT)

I've entered many more story links recently but I thought I'd mention that when adding a link to "Dabbling With Diabelli" found at one of the author's dozens (literally) of websites I searched for a random line of the story's text on Google since that sometimes helps in finding stories online if the title is misspelled and only got one hit, https://books.google.com/books?id=4VVSsLbba9kC, so this guy actually got one of his fictions into a book of true-life tales! Unbelievable. --Username (talk) 11:39, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

Schwalme

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=schwalm&type=Name; These 2 Germans are probably the same person; whether one is spelled wrong originally and needs to be a variant or whether it's entered wrong here and needs fixing and merging is the question. --Username (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2023 (EDT)

Good find! This is in fact documented with the entry at DNB. I'll do the necessary pseudonyming. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:07, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

Another Dracula

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=another+dracula&type=All+Titles; 1930 publication of this title says it only appeared as a serial but there it is in one of the million Peter Haining anthologies in 1982 (with no question mark). Sadly, it's a William Kimber book, rare they are, so no archived copies. Richard Dalby site's copy doesn't help with any info that's not already here so if anyone owns it maybe they can say what the title is/if it's the full serial so it can be a variant or a merge. --Username (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2023 (EDT)

Feast of Laughter

https://www.feastoflaughter.org/; I have 4 PENDING edits replacing Google Drive links to issues 1-4 with the ones currently online but #5 apparently was never entered here. Differences between print and e. Mentioning this in case anyone feels like entering it. --Username (talk) 19:38, 20 August 2023 (EDT)

Yoh-Vombis

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Rtrace#Yoh-Vombis; No help there so if anyone else can help/owns a copy a response would be appreciated. --Username (talk) 19:40, 20 August 2023 (EDT)

Phantasmagoria

● Just to let people know Phantasmagoria as listed on this site is really Phantasmagoria Special Edition. Phantasmagoria and Phantasmagoria Special Edition are two different magazines. Unless anybody minds, I’m going to have to change this soon. MLB (talk) 00:38, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

Weir - Project Hail Mary

I have the 2022 edition of this title and it contains the two pages of rocket diagrams by David Lindroth (credited, as noted in similar pubs, on the copyright page as "Rocket diagrams: © David Lindroth Inc.").

Currently, Lindroth's diagrams are titled "Project Hail Mary". So far, so good, but the diagrams are titled "Thrust Configuration" at the top left of the first of the two pages. Because they are titled, I propose retitling this title as "Thrust Configuration" (no disambiguation needed). Would this be correct? Also, there doesn't seem to be any difference to warrant separation in this title and so it could be merged. Comments please. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 04:27, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

No objection to your proposals. Seems useful and clear, and not overly burdensome for verifiers. Markwood (talk) 14:43, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

The rules (see Title-Artwork) state that Interior art should have the same title as the fiction or essay it is associated with. If it is independent of other content, and has no apparent title or caption, give it the title of the publication in which it appears, disambiguating if necessary. This, imo, implies that for art illustrating a piece of fiction (or is otherwise part of the story), it should get the title of the work it's associated with. Or, alternatively, if the work isn't associated with a title, and it has a title of its own, only then can it be entered using its title - but note that the rules don't actually say that explicitly. The TitleType/INTERIORART entry says, a.o., If the illustration has a separate title or caption, document in the illustration's Notes field. The rule doesn't state that you can use it as title for the interior art.

So, per the rules the title should stay as-is - unless, you want to argue that the illustration is in no way associated with the novel?

Concerning the duplicate title, those can be merged (seems unlikely that there'd be (meaningful) differences between editions).

PS. you can always start a rules discussion over at the R&S if you'd like... Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 06:22, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

and has no apparent title or caption, is the qualifying part of that first sentence. That's why I wrote "Because they are titled". Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:05, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

That qualifying part does not apply if it is not independent of other content. Since the art illustrates the novel (hence not independent) the novel's title is to be used per the first rules sentence, and the actual title added to the notes. Also, I cannot find it explicitly anywhere in the rules that the actual title of INTERIORART could be used any other circumstances. Merely, we can only infer (I think) from the rules text that when it is not related to anything in the publication, its actual title can (should) be used. Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 07:49, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

IF (independent AND Has_No_title) THEN Use_Pub_Title ELSE 'UNDEFINED'

If 'Has_No_title == FALSE (i.e. there -is- a title), we don't really know what to do, do we? Also, if 'independent' == FALSE (meaning, actually illustrating (part of) the work), we don't know what do do either, unless we're referring to the first sentence, which says:

IF (NOT independent) THEN Use_Pub_Title ELSE GOTO 'code above' (with NOT independent being equivalent to 'associated') MagicUnk (talk) 08:23, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Although it most likely could be stated more elegantly, this is what I get from my understanding of the Help (and implications) for Artwork; "Interior art should have the same title as the fiction or essay it is associated with. If it is independent of other content, and has no apparent title or caption, give it the title of the publication in which it appears, disambiguating if necessary.".

There are 4 scenarios to resolve:

(1) Art is independent (i.e, not associated) and is not captioned.

(2) Art is independent (i.e, not associated) and is captioned.

(3) Art is not independent (i.e, is associated) and is not captioned.

(4) Art is not independent (i.e, is associated) and is captioned.

Therefore:

If independent AND Has_No_Caption Then

Use_Pub_Title (...scenario (1))

Else

If independent Then

Use_Caption_Title (...scenario (2))

Else

If Has_No_Caption Then

Use_Associated_Title (...scenario (3))

Else

Use_Caption_Title (...scenario (4))

Endif

Endif

Endif

There is a problem if one arrives at the last instruction and the art carries a different caption to the work it is associated with, but that's beyond our purpose here.

Here and here is an example where a single piece of untitled artwork is used in both independent and associated contexts; as a frontispiece and embedded in a short story. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 23:14, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

If I'm not making an error while analyzing your logic, it boils down to: "if it has a caption, use it. In all other cases, use the associated title". Honestly, that's a simple rule, and would work for me. However, that is not what I'm reading in the current rules text. I think this warrants further discussion and clarification. Shall we move this discussion to R&S? Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 08:08, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Good idea, it would be nice to find out what the small print is :) See Interior art - do we use artwork captions in the titling. Thanks, Kev.--BanjoKev (talk) 20:43, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Server maintenance 2023-08-21 1pm EDT

The server will be briefly unavailable between 1pm and 1:05pm server (Eastern Daylight) time. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:24, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

The server is back up. Hopefully the pesky problem with one of the Wiki tables growing uncontrollably has been fixed for good. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:05, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

"Achevé D'Imprimer" and "Dépôt Légal" - possible new templates

We have thousands of French publications which use "Achevé D'Imprimer" and "Dépôt Légal" in Notes. For example, consider Aux portes de l'épouvante, which says:

• Achevé D'Imprimer = None on book
• Dépôt Légal = None on book

or take La charnière du temps:

• Achevé D'Imprimer = Publication Date
• Dépôt Légal = September 1987 (nearly matches AI)

Most of our users are presumably not familiar with these terms. How about we create simple (i.e. no parameters, just explanatory text) Notes templates of the same names explaining what they mean? Once the new templates are defined, I can create a database script to replace "Achevé D'Imprimer" and "Dépôt Légal" with "{{Achevé D'Imprimer}}" and "{{Dépôt Légal}}". Ahasuerus (talk) 13:16, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

Fine idea, which I do support! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:25, 21 August 2023 (EDT)

A quick clarification to make sure that we are all on the same page. The proposal wouldn't change the way "Achevé D'Imprimer" and "Dépôt Légal" are displayed. It would only add mouse-over bubbles explaining what the terms mean. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:38, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

Yes. But it would be a good idea for those not knowing what those terms could possibly mean. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:55, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

What about : "Achevé d'imprimer" = "printing completed on…" (note not all AIs are dated) and "Dépôt légal" = "officially registered on…" ? The "dépôt légal" also implies that the publisher is legally expected to send one or two copies of the new book to the BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France). Furthermore, it would be necessary to explain, I think, that the date of the "dépôt légal” can differ sensibly from the printing date, as it is a purely formal business, which can easily follow the date of actual publication by a few months (I know, this happened to some of my own books…). Linguist (talk) 08:45, 23 August 2023 (EDT).

Thanks for chiming in! A couple of questions to make sure that I understand the process correctly:

"Printing completed": Is this the date when the last copy of the print run was physically produced? In the US, the date when copies were physically produced and the date when they were "published", i.e. made available to the public, are often different. For example, the first printing of an edition may be printed in April and arrive in bookstores in May or June. Is it the same in France or are the "printing date" and the "publication date" so close as to be the same for most practical purposes?

"Officially registered". Can the "Dépôt légal" date precede the publication date or is it always the same as or later than the publication date? The reason I am asking is that we have come across cases where the copyright date was months or even years (!) prior to the publication date, which confused some cataloging librarians.

Ahasuerus (talk) 11:25, 23 August 2rif023 (EDT)

I didn't come across any case where the publication date precedes the "dépôt légal" date: the other way around does happen, though (for example, a higher printing doesn't need a new "dépôt légal"; usually the "dépôt légal" for the first printing is stated).

For the publication date: this seems to correspond to the "dépôt légal" for first printings, see the modern (after, say, 2012) correspondence of "dépôt légal" and date of publication per Amazon (or/also, the stated "dépôt légal" and reported month of publication at Perrypedia for the French 'Perry Rhodan' publications).

The copyright date is usually stated within French publications and is to be set apart from other dates stated. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 12:03, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Dominique: What I don't understand about your experience with belated deliverance of personal copies to the author(s) is that as I understand it you had personal copies sent to you much later than the stated "dépôt légal", is that right? (If so, this would not speak against the stated "dépôt légal" corresponding to the date of publication or distribution, I'd think). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 14:08, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

On the whole the French statements for printing & legal deposit strike me to be very similar to this (German) publication, where there are statements for the month of printing ("Printed in Germany 4/2001") as well as for the month of publication ("Deutsche Erstausgabe 6/2001") to be found (with the actual month of distributing 5/2001). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 14:38, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Ahasuerus and Christian : Yes, “achevé d'imprimer” corresponds to the date of the last copy of the run. Printing date and publication date can be indeed very close, but there's no strict rule about it. In any case, the "dépôt légal" normally comes some time after, as the books have to exist physically to be sent to the BnF. Officially, you are supposed to send some copies within three months after publication, but that delay is not always respected, for all sorts of reasons. This is from my own experience as an occasional publisher : the "dépôt légal" date has to be printed in the book before the actual registration, which can only take place after the book is printed — and sometimes months after publication, the estimated DL date being then purely theoretical. In the case of successive reprints, some publishers indicate a new DL each time, as well as the initial one, but some dont bother, and the only way to date the book is the printing date. As for a DL preceding the AI, like Christian, I don't remember coming across the case. But the copyright (not to be confused with DL) can easily precede AI and DL : quite a few re-editions only state the initial copyright of the book, although printed years after the first publication. Linguist (talk) 05:22, 24 August 2023 (EDT).

I have just met an rather interesting case in this publication : the DL is indicated as "à parution" (= as soon as published), honestly showing that a) the dépôt légal date cannot be stated precisely, and b) that DL should not be confused with publication date. Linguist (talk) 05:40, 24 August 2023 (EDT).

On the other hand, I do think it's even more misleading to use the "achevé d'imprimer", as this is per definition the date of printing, not of publication. I do think that the systems of publications in France & Germany are/were very similar: first a book is printed, and a few weeks later it is distributed/published (in many cases this id the next month). The stated "dépôt légal" is in any case closer to the date of distribution/publication (and on the point for those cases mentioned above, i. e. modern Amazon & French Perry Rhodan).

Obviously, in cases where there's no "dépôt légal" (or only one belonging to an earlier printing, or a useless one, as in your example), to use the "achevé d'imprimer" is the best you can do, if you have no other dependable information at hand, but if the first is there and valid, this should be used: the publisher gives a hint when the publication is distributed. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:00, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the clarification, Dominique!

Christian, please keep in mind that the immediate issue here is what the proposed mouseover bubbles should say -- as opposed to how we should use these dates to determine each publication's "publication date" as we define it.

Based on the discussion above, I am thinking that something like the following may work:

• Achevé D'Imprimer: Date when the last copy of the print run was physically produced
• Dépôt Légal: Estimated date when this publication will be officially registered and copies will be sent to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Some reprints may list both the original Dépôt Légal date as well as the new one while some other reprints may only list the original Dépôt Légal date.

Will this work? Also, please note that the text in mouseover bubbles is editable by ISFDB Bureaucrats, so we can easily change the wording in the future. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

Sounds good! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

(unindent) I have created two new templates. The language is similar to what I proposed above with some stylistic modifications:

• Achevé D'Imprimer: Date when the last copy of the print run was physically produced
• Dépôt Légal: Estimated date when this publication is supposed to be officially registered and copies sent to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Reprints may list either both the original Dépôt Légal date and the new one or only the original Dépôt Légal date.

Here is an example. If everything looks OK, I can create a database script and auto-update all Notes that use "Achevé D'Imprimer" and/or "Dépôt Légal". As I mentioned earlier, we can always tweak the template language later. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Help:Using_Templates_and_HTML_in_Note_Fields#Non-Linking_Templates has been update to included the new templates. I plan to auto-convert all occurrences of "Achevé D'Imprimer" and "Dépôt Légal" to templates once I finish my current tasks. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:05, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Earlier this afternoon 5,400+ Publication Notes with "Achevé D'Imprimer" and/or "Dépôt Légal" were updated automatically. The remaining 9 were updated manually. I believe we should be all set. If you come across any issues, please let me know. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:04, 3 September 2023 (EDT)

Server maintenance 2023-08-22 11am EDT

The server will be down between 11am and approximately 11:15am server (Eastern Daylight) time. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:41, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

The server is back up. The Wiki's search functionality has been restored. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:16, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

Best from F&SF: 12th Series

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5749433; Hey, active PV Kraang, Rtrace, Rudam, GlennMcG, should page count be upped by 1 with a note about last page being unnumbered? Because there's a full-page drawing after the last numbered page. --Username (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

Terese N.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5750006; It's definitely Neilsen; I did a text search on Archive.org and the only other book with the misspelled name is Newton's Cannon, but I didn't change it there because there's many editions she's credited on here for that book; I did add Archive.org links to book club HC and Del Rey PB and it's Neilsen in both, with at least 1 note here mentioning (sic) for the name but entering it under her canonical name, anyway. So if anyone cares, her name will need to be changed. Also, there seem to be 2 separate map credits that may be the same, 1 uncredited and 1 with an artist named, so that's an issue, too. --Username (talk) 22:41, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

Batman Young Readers

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1012; I added Archive.org links to all 3 and fixed/added some other stuff. What should be the standard for the titles? Either they should all start with "Batman in" or they shouldn't because Batman is the series. Which ones need fixing? --Username (talk) 11:26, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Richard Drew Publishing / Richard Drew

Any objection to merging Richard Drew into Richard Drew Publishing? John Scifibones 17:08, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Depends on how they are listed on the title pages of the publications in question. It's possible it changed over time. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:56, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Points to consider:

• From the Publisher Field Template - "Where multiple forms of a name exist, it is not important to always enter exactly the form of the name as it appears on the book. For example, an imprint may say "A Tor Book", "Tor", "Tor Books", "Tor Books Science Fiction", or "Tor: A Tom Doherty Associates Book". Sometimes several of these varying forms will be on a single book. These can be converted to a canonical form; in this case "Tor" would be the sensible choice. The ISFDB does not currently have a page to identify and document canonical forms for publishers but may do so in the future"
• There is nothing in these four which supports 'Richard Drew' as the publisher. From the above referenced template - "The publisher has in the past not been a key entity in the ISFDB.", engendering little confidence in the entries. The secondary verifications , added much later, use their own canonical names. Reginald3 uses 'Richard Drew' and British Library uses 'Drew'.
• Here are the 17 scans for Richard Drew published books currently in the internet archive. All of them show 'Richard Drew Publishing'.

I see no benefit in using both forms and 'Richard Drew Publishing' seems the most appropriate. John Scifibones 08:56, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

Chandler Award?

It looks like we don't have an Award Type for The A. Bertram Chandler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Australian Science Fiction, which is listed by SFE. It's presented by Australian Science Fiction Foundation, which, judging by the Web site, may be moribund as of 2023, but they kept the award going for 3 decades. Should we add it? Ahasuerus (talk) 21:01, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Seems like a good one to have recorded here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:23, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I created a new Award Type record and added the awards earlier today. I also discovered that we already had almost half of the awards entered under a separate Ditmar Award category. Although usually given at the same annual Australian convention, the Ditmar award and the Chandler award are two different awards given by different people (fan-voted vs. juried), so I moved the data to the new Award Type. Hopefully everything looks OK now. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:53, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Damon Wilson

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?394521; Damon is Colin's son, I was going to add links in notes to each other but this is true-crime stuff, not really eligible on here, they wrote like a thousand of these things together, so I think book should be removed and maybe just zine review kept. --Username (talk) 18:05, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

I have added notes and third party URLs to the two author records. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:01, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

So this book is eligible? Because if it is there's a whole lot of other stuff like it by them; really depressing stuff. I hope people here didn't agree at some point recently that true-crime books are eligible now for some reason because if they are there's like thousands of them; maybe this one gets by because the elder Wilson is above the threshold? On a side note, the title of this book differs from what it says on the cover. --Username (talk) 11:08, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Sorry, I missed that part. Colin Wilson is presumably "above the threshold" because he wrote a dozen SF novels and numerous books/articles about SF (like Science Fiction As Existentialism) and about SF authors like Tolkien, van Vogt, David Lindsay and Lovecraft. That's why we list his non-genre books, including his non-genre non-fiction. Some of them, like The Book of Time and From Atlantis to the Sphinx, are SF-adjacent but may not have been eligible if he were not "above the threshold". Ahasuerus (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Steir or Stier

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?79153; I added Archive.org link and cover image to Doubleday edition of Leonard Daventry's Twenty-One Billionth Paradox, cover artist on ISFDB is Pat Stier (probably taken from SFE since there's no PV), Pat Steir is a well-known artist who's a lady, I added an edit noting her birth name from Wiki, thing is Wiki says she was born in 1940, not 1938, so does anyone know when she was really born and also if anyone owns a jacketed copy of Paradox let us know because I've also made an edit making Stier a variant of Steir but it could be Steir in the book and SFE was just mistaken in which case it would just need to be corrected without a variant. --Username (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

Death Tour

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5751841; A curse on these ex-library copies with no jackets. If anyone has a jacketed copy let us know because it's possible "Joe Chiodo" may not be what's actually on the back flap or wherever it is (only site online I can find that mentions Chiodo and Death Tour together is something called Paperback Palette but artist is credited as Charles Chiodo which is definitely wrong because he's half of a well-known special effects team with his brother; they directed the all-time classic KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE in the 1980's). EDIT: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5751849; Here's a lesson in never trusting info found on a random blog. Incidentally, the blog where that wrong info came from, http://markwestwriter.blogspot.com/, is on hiatus so I hope there's nothing wrong with Mr. West. --Username (talk) 20:33, 24 August 2023 (EDT)

L. Rey

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?122809; I added Archive.org link to first book, by Colin Wilson, previous book in the series said Luis Rey for the cover, this one said Louis, I made Louis a variant of Luis and made variants of Wilson book's cover art and Spock's World, too (copy on eBay), but that UK House on the Borderland eluded me. So if anyone owns it/can find it and it does say Louis then you can variant it to Luis or change it to Luis if it says that. Then the only question will be how many of the 60+ credits by Luis really say Luis and how many actually say Louis but the editor didn't notice or they did notice but just entered his regular name, anyway. --Username (talk) 00:24, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Das große Buch der Märchen, Sagen und Gespenster

https://archive.org/search?query=dasgrossebuchder0000unse_e5m6; While adding links to some Franz Rottensteiner books I saw this one which doesn't seem to be here in case anyone German-fluent would like to enter it; it has a good selection of stories. --Username (talk) 09:52, 25 August 2023 (EDT)

Polish

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?21549; A while back I went on a long run of adding cover images and artist/author photos to books from Poland using FantLab mostly; today I accidentally stumbled on 2 more photos of Kiwerski and Kacperek and added those (plus a lot of other stuff for Kiwerski). I noticed that the above-linked publisher has very few images added, for example the 58 non-series books have a grand total of 10 images, so anyone more familiar than me with the language may want to work on this. Some of them seem to be on Google Books. A guy whose name escapes me right now was adding a lot of stuff years before I started editing, his name kept popping up as PV, but either he quit or passed on or something because a lot of his books were left unfinished with stuff missing. EDIT: Don't bother doing what I did and try to find images on Amazon by entering a search for a book's ISBN without the dashes; I tried several and got nothing except the usual car parts for sale that happen to have an ID number that matches the book or a bunch of scantily-dressed ladies on some sketchy site that offers "dates" and identifies each woman by a number, I suppose. I've seen more of those over the last few years than I can count and many of them I wish I didn't see. EDIT: I came across this, https://fantlab.ru/edition207519, which doesn't seem to be on ISFDB and is certainly genre-related. FantLab's note says it's the second English issue so there's an earlier one (not on FantLab) plus an unknown number in Polish. EDIT: Surprisingly there are only 5 publishers on ISFDB with Poland in their name but there's all sorts of stuff still to be done for them. A quick check reveals that 1) the missing cover art credit for one of Empire's Who books is a re-arranged version of the 1991 Target / Virgin English edition by Alister Pearson, 2) the Jaguar books include 5 TP and 2 PB so likely the PB should be TP, too, and Time*Out is missing cover image which is likely the same as the other editions, plus last 3 books are missing cover artists, 3) Phantom has 5 TP and 3 PB so likely the PB should be TP, too, and Card's book is missing cover image, and the 2 books with prices were entered differently (00 at the end of one of them), plus Poland was misspelled as Polan in the publisher note, 4) four of the seven Solaris books are missing cover artists and one that has an artist has an unknown format, 5) Victoria book is missing cover, searching for ISBN without dashes in Google Images only finds half-naked escort photos but I think this, https://polter.pl/ksiazki/Rozanooka-n19312, might be the right image. I'm sure I missed a few things. --Username (talk) 00:38, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Analog Yearbook

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2550; This is the only one in the series without a cover artist, note says there's no signature but I think there is, lower right corner, tried several legit (?) image enlargers online but didn't really help, someone else here may be able to identify it. I also added Archive.org links and a few other things to a whole bunch of Analog anthologies by Stanley Schmidt. --Username (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Server downtime - 2023-08-26 at 3pm

The server will be unavailable between 3pm and 3:05pm server (Daylight Saving) time. One of the temporary Wiki tables keeps growing and needs to be periodically reset before the server runs out of disk space. I am still looking for a permanent solution. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:19, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

We are back up. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:02, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Hitler's Crystal

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20092886W/Predator?edition=key%3A/books/OL27272937M; For some reason the image for Predator shows 4 covers; one looks like a thriller with a gun, one's a romance novel, but that other one ... please let it be real. Online search only finds it on lpbooks.com (Lion & Phoenix), calls it #2 in the DimeNovel series. Otherwise, very little info. I know that company was shady and didn't pay their authors but some books were still published. If anyone can find proof of the Hitler book (and assuming it's genre) let us know. A text search for publisher and title/author and title on Archive.org both only found 1 hit, a mention in a 1992 issue of Science Fiction Chronicle which also mentions a few other titles not on ISFDB. --Username (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Dark Star

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5753574; Only after I entered my edit did I notice that someone had written a price note of their own. Since this was published by an American company the $ price should be the one entered, I think, but what should be done with the UK note? Just erase it or leave it with an added "British price was" note or something similar? EDIT: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?92985; artist and essay/review writer are 2 different people. --Username (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2023 (EDT)

Add to the notes something along the lines of "British price of 7/6 from British Science-Fiction Bibliography", hence no information gets lost. Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 07:10, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Uncle Stephen

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1028679; I added FantLab cover (cover image doesn't seem to be in very many places online for some reason) to first Tartarus record which was entered in the very early days of public editing here, but the Fixer robot entered the same book from Amazon in 2019. Page count is more accurate in the first record with Roman numerals but later record does include the day, so should second record be deleted and day of publication added to date of first record? Also, ISBN aren't exactly the same so maybe that's why the robot thought the book had never been entered. Sorry, Skynet. --Username (talk) 19:51, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

FortuneCity

https://fanlore.org/wiki/List_of_FortuneCity_Fansites; This link may be useful; it contains much genre-related material. Whoever compiled this huge thing deserves a medal. --Username (talk) 11:00, 30 August 2023 (EDT)

This Incredible Adventure

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?270570; I corrected someone's cover artist entry for The Apes by Eden Phillpotts from D. Burrouches to Dorothy Burroughes as it says on SFE; weird font in cover signature fooled someone into seeing the G as a C. Book I linked above is the only other credit here that's probably by her but there's no E in her last name, info such as cover image, etc., is scarce online, so if anyone can get an image or a flap or something either it will have name with an E and can be corrected or it won't and it'll be a variant. --Username (talk) 18:59, 30 August 2023 (EDT)

Ace Fantasy

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5758148; It really says Ace Fantasy Books on title page and there are 100+ entries on ISFDB by that name. Should it really be separate or changed to just Ace Books? Should this book and the original edition (and possibly the later one if they were still using Ace Fantasy then) be Ace Books? --Username (talk) 18:46, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Saltflower

https://archive.org/search?query=saltflower; German edition in case anyone fluent wants to enter it. --Username (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Okay here it is. But, since I don't know German either, somebody is going to have translate the translator. MLB (talk) 03:37, 2 September 2023 (EDT)

Day It Rained Forever

https://www.existentialennui.com/2017/11/science-fiction-beautiful-british-book.html; I was adding Archive.org links and some other stuff to 3 different editions of Bradbury's British book (2 Penguins and a Roc), and I noticed that the original Hart-Davis has a note about some reference work having the price as 18/-, and as can be seen in the photo at the link above it is 18/-; however, the first Hart-Davis book with a price that high was about 10 years later, so I believe it might be a later printing. So if anyone knows they can do something with that, maybe another record can be created. --Username (talk) 14:36, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Jan B.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=breug&type=Name; Both named Jan are on front page ("died"), they're the same person, yes? --Username (talk) 18:48, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Alternate name established. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:04, 2 September 2023 (EDT)

Welcome to the Silent Zone

● I just put Welcome to the Silent Zone on this site, but the copywrite page states that this is a translation (Hungarian?), but I can’t find the possible original anywhere. Anybody got any ideas? MLB (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Dell 2nd Printing

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5759600; This one's annoying me because every copy on picclick/ebay is first printing; anyone own second printing so date can be fixed if it needs to be? --Username (talk) 12:29, 2 September 2023 (EDT)

Temps Morts

https://archive.org/search?query=temps-morts+maxim; I was doing a bunch of John R. Maxim edits and saw that the French translation of Time Out of Mind is on ISFDB only as part of an anthology, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?759828, but here, https://archive.org/search?query=temps-morts+maxim, are 2 editions with different names on their covers, one with the American/British HC art and the other apparently with original art, in case anyone fluent wants to enter those. Also, I thought it was funny that the only other work on ISFDB with the same title is a translation of Orson Scott Card's "Closing the Timelid"; I guess timelid has no meaning in French. --Username (talk) 11:31, 3 September 2023 (EDT)

Woman Who Married a Cloud

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1366097; https://archive.org/search?query=%22Married+a+Cloud%22; No English archived copies but I found a Polish (?) one in case anyone fluent wants to enter it so at least people who speak the language can read the stories. --Username (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2023 (EDT)

Pawel M.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=pawel+mar&type=Name; Same guy, probably, one has the little question mark thing at the end of his name, one doesn't. --Username (talk) 17:39, 3 September 2023 (EDT)

Alternate name created. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:24, 4 September 2023 (EDT)

Peter Cartur/Roger Flint Young/Peter Grainger/Forrest J. Ackerman

I submitted an edit to the page on Peter Grainger, where it reads:

---

Note that ISFDB lists Peter Cartur as a pseudonym for Peter Grainger. However, the copyright/acknowledgments for Fifty Short Science Fiction 
Tales includes:
Peter Cartur The Mist. Copyright 1952 by Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Forrest J. Ackerman.
Usually something like this would indicate that Peter Cartur is a pseudonym as copyrights need to be filed under the author's real name. It's 
not known if Forrest J. Ackerman bought the rights to this story or if Peter Cartur is one of Forrest J. Ackerman's pseudonyms.

---

Peter Cartur is not a pseudonym of Forrest J. Ackerman. Ackerman was Peter Grainger's agent, which is why he gave permission for reprinting "The Mist". (Note that the copyright, at that time, was held by Fantasy House, the publishers of F&SF where it first appeared.)

One of my sources for the assertion that "Peter Cartur" is a pseudonym of Peter Grainger, and not a pseudonym of Forrest J. Ackerman? A man named ... Forrest J. Ackerman.

I had earlier found a fanzine reference in the early 1950s in which Ackerman listed Grainger, Cartur, and Roger Flint Young among his clients. But I have found a better thing: an obituary by Ackerman for Peter Grainger, in the May 1974 issue of the fanzine Luna Monthly (#52). It's on page 8, and can be seen in full here: https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Luna/Luna52.pdf

Here's the text of the obituary: "3 authors, 1 fan, killed simultaneously. The news is greatly delayed in being made public but late in 1971 fan Peter Grainger, probably in his early 60s, a fan who at one time had one of the greatest collections of all pulp magazines (in addition to sf and fantasy), was killed by a drunken driver.

With him died Peter Cartur (“The Mist,” F&SF, and “Nor Moon by Night,” Famous Fantastic Mysteries); Max Dancey (“Two-Way Stretch,” F&SF; “Me Feel Good,” Orbit SF; and “The Loneliest Town,” Fantastic Universe); and Roger Flint Young (“Forbidden Fruit,” Amazing; “Inoculation,” Fantastic Adventures; and “Suburban Frontiers” and “Not to be Opened—” in Astounding). All three authors were pseudonyms of Grainger. He last appeared in Perry Rhodan 38 as Max Dancey in collaboration with G. Gordon Dewey with “The Keknij Escape.”

Mild mannered, soft spoken, wry humored, he never made waves in the sf field, keeping to himself and a small circle of friends, operating a secondhand book and magazine shop, as far as I know, at the end of his life. I was glad to have been his friend, gratified to have been his agent, infuriated by the way he lost his life. -- Forry Ackerman" —The preceding unsigned comment added by Hortonwho13 (talk • contribs) 11:49, September 4, 2023‎

Angel(a) Arnet

I just added 1968 Stein and Day American edition to Elizabeth Walter's The Sin-Eater and design is by Angel Arnet, who has a credit on ISFDB for a Keith Laumer book, but an Angela Arnet has a credit for a Robert Silverberg book. So if anyone knows what her real name was one can be made a variant of the other, although she seems to be credited for design (even though art style is similar for all so she probably did art), which I put in the note for Sin-Eater, so maybe her name doesn't even really belong in cover art for those other 2 and should be moved to notes, also. --Username (talk) 12:55, 4 September 2023 (EDT)

To Do List

I'm not doing any editing from Labor Day to October 1 (Halloween Season!) but if I come across anything I think needs looking into I'll mention it in this thread and maybe someone will help.

1) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?72190; Al Sarrantonio's "The Dust" is not the same as "Dust" and should be unmerged. I own the anthology Death, which is not on Archive.org, but "The Dust" was reprinted in 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories which does have at least one archived link; "Dust" is from Quietly now, a very limited edition anthology from Borderlands Press which is almost impossible to find, but it was reprinted in a later collection of his which also has an archived link. --Username (talk) 14:43, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

I have checked two pubs in my collection and confirmed that they are different stories. Unmerged and updated. Thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. Will the variant for "Dust" go away after the site is updated or does that need doing manually? --Username (talk) 17:14, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

My bad; fixed. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:22, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

2) On this list, https://wfc2023.org/in-memorium/, the following have not been updated on ISFDB with their date of death in 2022: Jill Pinkwater, Jay Wilburn, Ned Dameron, Henry Morrison, Sue Strong Hassler, Erik Arthur, Jay Faulkner. --Username (talk) 18:44, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Eleven author records updated, John Scifibones 11:06, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. https://news.ansible.uk/a425.html also mentions the death of Erik Arthur in case you were looking for extra info before adding his date. EDIT: I see Michel Bühler at the Ansible link also doesn't have a death date here so others on the list probably don't have a date, either. EDIT: I did a quick check and Bühler actually seems to be the only one; not sure why he wasn't on the other memoriam list (not considered important enough to the genre, I guess). --Username (talk) 11:21, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Arthur was entered some time ago, Bühler was just entered by Username using Bühler's Wikipedia page (thanks, me). --Username (talk) 20:56, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

3) Amazingstories.com, In Memoriam Those We Have Lost in 2022: "Fan John E. Ferraro (b.1952) died on January 13. John was an active convention attendee and helped run conventions in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas." Probably this guy, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?205939. --Username (talk) 22:54, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Here's the link to the referenced post. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:40, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

Ferraro was entered some time ago. --Username (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

4) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?33619; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jenkins_(author); Author of book died but it doesn't really belong here, I believe, because it's just about dinosaurs with no genre content. Also, short stories are by a different guy, https://www.amazon.com.be/-/en/Steven-Jenkins/dp/0993283659; Dark Moon Digest where they appeared is mentioned in his bio. --Username (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Differentiated the authors; I'd also think the dinosaur nonfiction shouldn't be here, are there more opinion? Stonecreek (talk) 01:53, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

Book does not belong here, I deleted hundreds of these years ago in a cleanup. Will remove this one to.Kraang (talk) 15:49, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

5) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?112614; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Swann. Saw he died while perusing the necrology in an old Best New Horror volume. --Username (talk) 23:08, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

Swann was just entered by Username using Swann's Wikipedia page (thanks, me). --Username (talk) 21:04, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

6) https://archive.org/details/science-fiction-conventions; I've added a few links recently to random volumes from this collection uploaded last year if there was something in them that was related to something else I happened to be editing but there's hundreds of others and I'm not big on old SF. If anyone's interested in adding more links or verifying and fixing any info they're there; you never know when they might be gone. --Username (talk) 23:20, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

7) On this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Horror_fiction_awards, there seem to be 2 literary awards not on ISFDB, Gaylactic and Nocte. Only mention in a note search on ISFDB for the former is Queer Fear II, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?342199, while Nocte is mentioned here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?665268, and here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2368403, although another award, Premio Ignotus, is mentioned so there seems to be some confusion. --Username (talk) 00:38, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

8) https://archive.org/search?query=george+martin+game-of-thrones&sort=title&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22; With the Game of Thrones spinoff Snow coming soon, supposedly, I did a search for author/title and got the page linked above. There's all sorts of stuff from various English-language editions to foreign editions to coloring books and puzzle books plus some non-fiction about the series. Many of those copies could be useful in fleshing out what's already here and possibly some aren't even here at all. --Username (talk) 15:43, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

9) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=sailing&type=Name; Jasmine linked bio on her page refers to her 2 children and one of them is Amara so something should be added to their notes to detail the mother-daughter relationship. --Username (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2023 (EDT)

Relationship added, John Scifibones 10:05, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

10) https://archive.org/details/friendsofthesanfranciscopubliclibrary?query=%22perry+rhodan%22&sin=TXT&sort=title; Big assortment of Perry Rhodan books. Text search was necessary because several were misidentified as electronic or video recordings or by ISBN instead of title; I count 43 Rhodan books. --Username (talk) 11:51, 8 September 2023 (EDT)

11) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?20806; https://www.cunninghamfuneralhome.net/obituary/lee-moler/; Moler died several years ago. --Username (talk) 22:11, 9 September 2023 (EDT)

Author record updated, John Scifibones 09:54, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

12) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?141950; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?500568; I think signature is "LeCroix 77". --Username (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2023 (EDT)

13) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?16483; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?16572; They're the same person. Variant needed. --Username (talk) 08:03, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Alternate name established, John Scifibones 09:46, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

14) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?532102; https://archive.org/search?query=blue-streak+medusa&sort=-addeddate; A Whitman sampler of editions of this book; as someone's note says it's hard to say which of the multiple printings these are, all just say 1946 on copyright page, one has no cover and the other 2 may have the same color cover, it's hard to tell because one of them is old and faded, if any experts can identify by gutter code or something similar they can add links if they want to. --Username (talk) 10:14, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

15) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=hucken&type=Name; Which is parent and which is variant? The 1974 name is actually entered wrong, https://archive.org/details/Burroughs_Bulletin_034_1974_LauraS_FIXED/page/n14/mode/1up, so his real name needs verifying. EDIT: Title is wrong, too; it's Torquasian. EDIT: https://archive.org/search?query=burroughs-bulletin&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22collection%22; I'm going to assume there are other mistakes throughout the various issues so this collection may help in fixing some of those. --Username (talk) 11:45, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

16) https://main.pemmi-con.ca/sf/in-memoriam/; People with no 2022 death date entered here: Celia Correas de Zapata, Drew Ford, Martin Barker. The Stephen Smith mentioned in the list may or may not be one of these Smiths, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?34578, and Kevin Barrett might be this guy, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?8563. --Username (talk) 12:16, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Username just entered Zapata and Barker using their Wikipedia pages (thanks, me). --Username (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

17) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=wojtow&type=Name; First 2 guys are almost certainly the same people as are the last 2 guys. --Username (talk) 12:22, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

18) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?1038; Someone's been adding recent issues of Nightmare Abbey from this publisher (there's also a one-off here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?662703). Almost all of their publications were PV by Thosengl who is almost certainly the owner, Tom English, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?127469, but he was a little shaky judging by the numerous corrections mods had to make to his edits. He hasn't been around for years (and for some reason at least 1 of his PV is by Thosengl7 who has a separate page here) and there are no copies of any of these books on Archive.org (must be a very small press) so if anyone owns anything maybe they can add/fix, in particular the series issue with 3 separate series names which almost certainly are the same. The first one, Literary Vampire, clearly says The Literary Vampire Series on the cover but "the" and "series" are in different sizes than the rest so maybe that's what led to the confusion. --Username (talk) 19:59, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

19) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?13861; Someone's recently been adding edits for Keyhoe UFO books which seems a waste of time because he's probably not above-the-threshold and those books are likely going to be removed eventually. The Perma Star one linked above should probably be removed but more importantly while searching text on Archive.org for Permabooks and Perma Star together a Simak book came up, https://archive.org/search?query=%22permabooks%22+%22perma+star%22&sin=TXT, so publisher for that edition, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?149901, should probably be Perma Star, too. Either that or Clarke book's publisher should be changed to Perma Books and Perma Star added as an imprint to both. --Username (talk) 23:32, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

20) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2447743; Jugement is probably wrong but Wiki titles it Judgment or Judgement depending on where you look, so real title needs verifying. --Username (talk) 11:36, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

21) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?334653; On the slim chance anyone owns this issue I find it hard to believe that movie review is really titled Mad MARX and not Mad MAX. I picture Groucho in the Thunderdome smoking a cigar while fighting Master Blaster. --Username (talk) 12:23, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

22) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1772293; Title of first story is wrong, it's "Pudgygate", Rusch offered it for free on her site kriswrites.com in 2011 (archived link is still working; she offered it a few times since but those don't have the text of the story anymore) and the 1995 anthology it came from, Cat Crimes Takes a Vacation, is on Archive.org. Also, Amazon preview identifies cover artist as Mega 11/Dreamstime (not sure about the first part, the font is kind of weird, might be II); problem is Dreamstime has many credits on ISFDB, some with a space separating the co-artist, some without, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=dreamstime&type=Name, so which is correct should probably be decided and wrong ones fixed. --Username (talk) 10:24, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

23) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?107565; Lawrence R. Dagstine recently created a page here so I left him a message asking if he can provide info for his 2004 collection which is very sparse here and elsewhere online. While researching him I found this, https://lawrencedagstine.com/2007/07/16/kinships-7-now-available-final-issue/. The Nova credit is on ISFDB, Silverthought is a publisher that had a fiction section at their online site years ago, but Kinships was a print magazine, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?62884, that only has #1 and a later issue entered here. Both issues have a weird web link in their title records but the page on Dagstine's site has another link on Tripod which is still mentioned a few times online but the actual site is gone except in the archived version that doesn't seem to mention the final issue. So if anyone can actually find somewhere that mentions contents of #7 or any of the other issues those can be entered here. Typing "bibliography" and "Kinships Magazine" online only found 1 author site, https://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com/bibliography-1-short-fiction-3/, which mentions a story not on ISFDB and has a May 2002 date but doesn't mention what issue that was. --Username (talk) 13:52, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

24) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=horror+of+oz&type=All+Titles; Craftlove was a pseudonym of Karr. Also, Fancyclopedia and her bio on Amazon say she wrote as Gregory Remington who has a story here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?13994, so that's likely by her, too. She also has no photo on ISFDB and her Wiki (which only has 1 small not-so-good photo) says her last name was shortened to Karr but doesn't say if that was done legally; if not, her original last name, Karmilowicz, should be her legal name. --Username (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

25) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=stinson&type=Name; J. G., Jan, Janine G., and Janine are all likely the same person; also, artist just named Stinson is almost certainly Paul Stinson who did other Leisure covers in the same style. --Username (talk) 21:38, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

26) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?326338; http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2020/03/science-fiction-magazine-dream-science.html; Author of "The Eighth Room" is credited as S. M. Baxter, not Stephen M. --Username (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

27) http://www.ravenelectrick.com/ravenswriters/index.htm; This page and the 2 other writer pages linked at the bottom of it contain photos for most of the authors and most of them have no photos on ISFDB so anyone who likes uploading author images here can get a lot from those 3 pages. --Username (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

28) https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?146553; http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2021/02/rip-jeffrey-dempsey-1959-2021.html; He died a few years ago. --Username (talk) 09:15, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Dempsey was just entered by Username using Wormwoodiana blog post (thanks, me). --Username (talk) 21:09, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Erotic Fantasy & Science Fiction Selections

● What I would like to know is Erotic Fantasy & Science Fiction Selections; an anthology series, as seen here or is it a publication series, as seen here?. MLB (talk) 01:38, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

They all seem to be unique compilations so I would go with a title series personally but either way works... Annie (talk) 12:55, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

DAW Books as an imprint

DAW Books was acquired by Astra Publishing House in July 2022. As a result, DAW Books is now an imprint of Astra Publishing House. I'm not sure when the DAW titles started having the imprint information on their copyright pages. I have started using the publisher DAW Books / Astra Publishing House for new works since that data is on the copyright page. However, the title pages still show only DAW Books. In addition, using Amazon Look-inside, I see that at least some of the ebooks published by DAW as an independent entity have had their copyright pages updated to show "DAW Books" [over] "An imprint of Astra Publishing House". Should I still just use DAW Books for continuity? If I need to make changes, there are only 6 publications to change. Phil (talk) 10:10, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

Unless there isn't any publisher information on the title page, we should be going with what's on the title page. Anything else should be added as a note. At least that's been general practice for a long time. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:34, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

OK. I'll change the 6 publications. I'm the sole PV for two of them anyway. Phil (talk) 12:58, 6 September 2023 (EDT)

If I may, you're emphasizing "we should be going with what's on the title page. Anything else should be added as a note.".

The Help screen for Publisher states "Use the official statement of publication where you can.". The official statement of publication is the copyright page. Yes/no? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 15:31, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Looking at the totality of Help:Screen:NewPub#Publisher, I note that it gives editors a lot of flexibility, e.g.:

• Imprints are often a suitable choice since they may be genre specific. A good rule of thumb is to choose a publisher name that would not surprise the reader; thus "Del Rey Books" is a better choice for that imprint than "Ballantine Books", even though Del Rey was in fact an imprint of Ballantine, because Del Rey's imprint is the prominent label on the cover of those books, whereas "Ballantine" appears only in small print at best. However, if both an imprint and a publisher are listed, and particularly if both are known for publishing genre fiction, consider listing both. For example "Del Rey / Ballantine" may be an even better choice than either "Del Rey Books" or "Ballantine Books". [emphasis added]

and:

• Where multiple forms of a name exist, it is not important to always enter exactly the form of the name as it appears on the book. For example, an imprint may say "A Tor Book", "Tor", "Tor Books", "Tor Books Science Fiction", or "Tor: A Tom Doherty Associates Book". Sometimes several of these varying forms will be on a single book. These can be converted to a canonical form; in this case "Tor" would be the sensible choice.

I haven't done much work on imprints the last few years, so I am not up to speed on what the current practices in this area are. If we could get other experienced editors' takes on this, we may be able to update Help to be more specific. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:55, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Nude French Alien

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?500568; I added to my "To Do List" thread with what I think is the cover artist but looking at edit history it was Hauck who entered the notes and he's one of those who wants nothing more to do with ISFDB so it's very unlikely he's going to respond; I'm adding this separate message so maybe someone else, possibly Stonecreek who added to Hauck's edits, will agree and enter the artist. EDIT: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?500843; https://memoriasfc.blogspot.com/2013/08/toxicofuturis-une-anthologie-de-michel.html; Maybe someone can determine signature and enter artist. Also, Hauck seems to have misspelled "signature" a bunch of times, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=siganture, so if anyone wants to they can fix those. --Username (talk) 10:47, 10 September 2023 (EDT)

2023-09-11 performance issues

The site is very slow at the moment due to hundreds of simultaneous requests apparently coming from robot accounts. I am investigating. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:33, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

It looks like it's over for now. Checking the list of IP addresses that were part of the attack, I see that a lot of them come from multiple countries, including multiple Chinese provinces, which means that the attack was at least somewhat sophisticated. Perhaps they were looking for software vulnerabilities. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:48, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Plan 9

[7]; [8]; [9]; ; After seeing that someone has been making edits for some UFO books I thought I'd search for non-fiction books with related search terms in their titles to make it easier to get rid of them and just leave the reviews, if any, although a few are by above-the-threshold authors and likely can be justified in being here. There are many others that don't have any of those terms but this will be a good start. --Username (talk) 23:45, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Night Visions 4

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?257996; I thought this was interesting. I was looking at "My Primary Verifications with Possibly Unstable "/G/" Amazon URLs" and I only have 2; The Rage by Jack Ramsay and the above title. While looking for a replacement cover I noticed that some photos have the price/publisher info on the middle left like my copy and this photo, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7502962M/Night_Visions_4_Hardshell, but others have the info on the lower left. Turns out they reprinted it at least once, https://www.etsy.com/listing/990058853/hardshell-aka-night-visions-4-paperback, note 2nd printing number line on copyright page, and oddly the Canadian price is lower (4.95) than the first (5.25). They also removed/moved some of the text on the cover. So does anyone own a copy who can check what printing they have? If you have the 2nd (or later, possibly) that can be entered and PV. You never know if they shifted the pages around, too, but only a full copy can verify that. EDIT: ISBN is also different; I left a note on Collecting Koontz's Twitter notifying them of this; they only list 1st printing and got the date wrong (1998 instead of 1988). EDIT: I just saw that way back in 2011 someone did enter what I assume is the 2nd printing, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?865302, although they didn't leave any notes about that or how they arrived at the 1990 date. I'm uploading a cover that matches my 1st printing so this other one needs a cover, too, and cover artist imported since it's the same image as the 1st. No page numbers so someone with a copy will still have to verify and enter those. EDIT: I tweeted Collecting Koontz site and got a reply thanking me and saying they fixed the date. I forgot to tell them they misspelled the title, too, as "Hardhsell", so hopefully they'll catch that and fix it; kind of hard to tell because links to the site seem to be on separate pages so they may fix it on one but not the other(s). --Username (talk) 10:06, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

2023-09-12 performance issues

The malicious robots from yesterday are back as of 12:30pm server time and hammering the site, which is causing slow response times. I am monitoring the situation and will be looking into countermeasures. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:34, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

2023-09-12 server downtime at 2:15pm

The server will be down for maintenance between 2:15pm and 2:25pm server (Eastern Daylight) time. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:58, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

We are back up. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:24, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Slow performance

Is there something going on with the server? The performance is currently pretty slow. It's taking over 10 seconds to load pages that normally load almost instantly. It's happening on both the main database and the wiki. Phil (talk) 22:39, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

It's fine this morning. Phil (talk) 10:06, 13 September 2023 (EDT)

Our hosting company, Nexcess, had issues across multiple servers on 2023-09-13 -- see https://status.nexcess.net/ for details. They appear to have been resolved. Knock on wood. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:12, 13 September 2023 (EDT)

Clearly I wasn't knocking on the right kind of wood. The server is once again experiencing problems. Contacting Al. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:14, 13 September 2023 (EDT)

The server is still experiencing massive issues. There is no ETA at this time. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:48, 13 September 2023 (EDT)

As of 5am server time, response times are back to normal. However, since we haven't resolved the underlying problems, there is no guarantee that we won't see more issues later today. We are still looking into it. Ahasuerus (talk) 05:25, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

After Hours

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?28067; After Hours was a horror magazine that ran from 1989-1995. I checked all 25 issues on ISFDB and none of them have interior art credits and none are PV so it wouldn't need checking with anyone else to add those credits which seem to always be on the contents page in the issues I've seen online. There's also the thing of having to change starting page numbers by 1 for those stories that begin with an illustration and a lot of the stories don't have lengths because editors likely added contents for most or all of the issues from Locus/Philsp and they call very short stories vi, meaning vignette, and those often are not given lengths here. There are some issues on eBay, a couple of issues on Richard Dalby's site (in the usual broken fashion for that site only one comes up when you search there, both show up when you search on Google), and I'm sure others are elsewhere (maybe a few people here actually own some issues). So if anyone wants to a lot of art credits, some by major artists, can be entered. --Username (talk) 18:32, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Down On the Farm

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive50#Stchur; RTrace just added Reginald stuff to Paddywhack, Stchur's novel about a BULLDOG FROM HELL, but questions still remain about his first novel. The 12-photo eBay copy mentioned in my old message linked above seems to be gone but there are a few others currently available. I'd still like to know who did that cool art, but I also noticed that the name on the title page of the HC is actually J. W. Stchur so book's name and title name need adjusting; whether PB uses John or not is unknown because there don't seem to be any photos of the title page online. --Username (talk) 11:53, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Entering short story and essay entries within my own Author page

Hi. I've searched Help and cannot find guidance for:

For my own Author page, how to enter a short story I've had published in an anthology or an essay I've had published in a magazine.

I'm hoping I don't have to enter the entire anthology itself. I just want my story to appear on my page.

Thanks in advance.

Jim —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jamesnemeth (talk • contribs) .

The ISFDB is a publication based database. So yes, to have a story listed, the publication it appeared in needs to be entered. You can read Help:Screen:NewPub if you wish to try entering the publication yourself. Or you can provide information on them here and someone may be willing to enter them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

Wditing - Tess Gerritsen

Hello, I kindly notice a possible review for the Author name "Tess Gerritsen". The real legal name should be "Terry Tom" (name and surname respectively). Tom is the maiden surname and Gerritsen is the husband's surname (as she get married with Jacob Gerritsen). Her children names: Josh Gerritsen (a filmmaker) and Adam Gerritsen; Her parents names: Ernest Tom and Jui Chiung Tom. She changed his name from "Terry" to "Tess" to use a name that sounded too masculine more feminine, already at the beginning of her writer career, as she personally told in some public interview.

«My real name isn’t Tess, but Terry. [...] I never really meant “Tess” as a secret identity. I took on the name way back when my first romance novel, CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT, was about to be published. Since “Terry” was considered a masculine spelling, my editor was concerned that readers might think the author was a man — and romance readers want books written by women. [...] TT would indeed be my first and middle names. (I use my maiden name, “Tom” for my middle name.)»

Sources: - Wikipedia Italian author page: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tess_Gerritsen - imdb-personal info (as "Terry Gerritsen): https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2446740/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 - Interview: https://web.archive.org/web/20140221161847/http://www.tessgerritsen.com/writers-and-secret-identities/

So I kindly ask, if it correct to modify just the legal name in "Terry Tom, adding it in the database, together with her author bame Tess Gerritsen (always used). Thank you for a feedback about and possible update. Fantacollector —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fantacollector (talk • contribs) .

I updated the legal name to "Gerritsen, Terry" as per SFE3 and en.wikipedia. For it.wikipedia, it says "born Terry Tom", not that Tom is her current legal last name. In the US, women frequently change their legal last name when married. Given the other sources, we will have to go with the assumption that is what happened here unless you have a clearer source that her current legal last name remains Tom. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:10, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

New 4-volume Gollancz Collected Stories of PKD

Last week Gollancz put out the first 2 volumes of a "The Collected Stories of PKD" series, which I entered here and here. Out of a somewhat Dickian sense of paranoia, I didn't clone the contents of the existing volumes 1 and 2, or variant to them, in case these new ones didn't match, and it turns out those suspicions were justified.

It looks like that original 5-volume series is being split into 4 volumes. The first of the new volumes has all the stories from the old volume 1, plus the first four stories from the old volume 2. The new volume 2 picks up from the old volume 2, and additionally has a dozen-or-so stories from the old volume 3. There are volumes 3 and 4 scheduled for the end of October, which will presumably cover all the remaining stories from the old 5-volume series.

Given that all this is a recipe for confusion, does anyone have any thoughts on how to record these. Varianting them to the old volumes doesn't seem to make any sense, because the middle two don't closely match the old volumes 2-4. Maybe having a new (sub?)series called something like "The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (Gollancz, 2023)" might be the best way of avoiding mixing them up with the old volumes? ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:53, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

I added Archive.org links to most (I think one was missing) of the Subterranean Press editions of his collected stories not too long ago so I thought I'd check to see what's there now and there is a British edition, https://archive.org/search?query=collected-stories+wub&sort=-addeddate. The only HarperCollins edition on ISFDB seems to be the same one, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?537594, except price is slightly less, there are no overseas prices, and number line note doesn't make sense because British paperbacks don't usually have the 9-1 (or 9-2 in this case) number line, that's an American book thing only, I'm pretty sure. Editor was Hauck, one of those people who hate this site now and want nothing to do with it anymore, so if you want to use the archived copy to correct their work I don't think they'll care much, or maybe it's an alternate non-overseas edition in which case you might want to create a new record for it. EDIT: The synopsis in the title record for the collection Beyond Lies the Wub should really be in the story's title record, I think. --Username (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

Canonical name change Richard Magahiz from Rich Magahiz

Any objections to making Richard Magahiz the canonical name and Rich Magahiz the alternate?

• 55 titles credited to Richard Magahiz.
• 29 titles credited to Rich Magahiz.
• 01 title has publications credited to each.

SFPA bios (Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Dwarf Stars, Rhysling), LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest all use Richard Magahiz. Only site I see using Rich Magahiz is Flickr. Ill add these links to the canonical name. John Scifibones 13:46, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

Sounds like a good plan to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:27, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

Yep, go ahead. Especially considering that most if not all new titles use Richard. Annie (talk) 13:57, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

changed, John Scifibones 14:08, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Azzurra

I was doing something related to Thundercats books and one of those titles isn't on Archive.org but this similarly-titled thing is, https://archive.org/search?query=princess-azzurra&sort=-addeddate, in case anyone thinks it qualifies to be here and wants to enter it. --Username (talk) 19:24, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

Noyes, Platt

I let a mod know they misspelled Alfred Noyes' first name in a note which has now been fixed but while checking to see if there were any others I came across a note about this publisher, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?57420. There are 6 copies of the Bangs book from 5 different libraries on Archive.org, https://archive.org/search?query=noyes-platt&sort=title, in case anyone wants to add links assuming they're the same printing as the one entered on ISFDB. Also, while other books are art-related there is one possible genre book, Mother Goose's Menagerie. It is not in Wells' ISFDB record. --Username (talk) 19:47, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

William Relling Collections

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?655; Tragic suicide; also tragic is that both of his collections are very rare. The Infinite Man was previewed in a 1989 200-copy convention edition but never released in a trade edition. As for Along the Midway..., a site I mentioned a while back, Anna's Archive, has both the individual story of that title and what is supposedly the collection; story was in Omni and that seems to be public domain these days (it can be read at williamflew.com) but Anna's is the only place I've seen that claims to have a copy of the book. I was at a public library today and figured, what the hell, I'll download it. After changing the .epub to a .pdf I opened it and saw the cover, the next page which has a thumbnail of the cover, and then...the collection Glimpses by Rick Hautala. It's the WRONG BOOK 😠. The review on this page, http://www.dondammassa.com/2002r3.htm, mentions 2 stories so those and the title story can be imported, at least. I made a couple of edits to it last year according to edit history. RTrace did a whole bunch of secondary verifications for Infinite Man a few months ago; is it possible someone here owns one of those convention editions (online info is unreliable; an actual copy would be great)? On the plus side, even though Glimpses came out 10 years ago nobody ever entered the contents here so if anyone cares to they can do that; Amazon has a preview which includes the contents. --Username (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Canonical name change Jay Sturner from Jason Sturner

Any objections to making Jay Sturner the canonical name and Jason Sturner an alternate?

• 23 titles credited to Jay Sturner.
• 08 titles credited to Jason Sturner
• 17 titles have publications credited to both.
• 01 title credited to Jason E. Schlismann.

The author's website (the url does use jasonsturner), Goodreads and Amazon all use Jay Sturner. SFPA Rhysling bio uses Jason Sturner (2014 & 2015 anthologies). John Scifibones 08:45, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

And Jay is the one currently in use - I'd say it is time to switch them around indeed. Annie (talk) 12:36, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

Changed, John Scifibones 20:32, 22 September 2023 (EDT)

Michel Faber - Over a Certain Threshold?

I am working on the collection Some Rain Must Fall and Other Stories. This contains a mixture of spec-fic (6 stories) and non-genre (9 stories). Could someone please advise whether the author Michel Faber is considered to be over a certain threshold so that I can deal with the non-genre stories appropriately. Teallach (talk) 13:21, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

As there has been no reply for more than two weeks, I shall proceed on the assumption that the author is above threshold. Teallach (talk) 18:14, 6 October 2023 (EDT)

Thackery T. Lambshead

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?156126; I left a message with Paulotecario about making variants of the Portuguese edition's titles but while looking up G. J. Couzens / Gary Couzens it turned out after checking Archive.org that while Gary is used elsewhere the name at the end of the "story" is G. J. so the Portuguese editor is the only one who entered it correctly here. 1st edition on ISFDB has 1 active PV, 1 non-active for a long time who seems to be semi-active now, 1 non-active but still checks in, and 1 who I think is completely gone. So at least one of them should consult with this editor about the names and making sure the English ones are correct before he makes any variants. --Username (talk) 11:52, 22 September 2023 (EDT)

Irish Odyssey

While looking on Paul Pinn's archived site for a story he co-wrote with D. F. Lewis (couldn't find it) I discovered that Pinn had several pages offering some of his short stories (some very filthy including one that is on ISFDB only as by "uncredited" that nearly caused the zine it appeared in to go out of business). I added links but the last one, https://web.archive.org/web/20011024002257/http://www.paulpinn.com/morestories/, is from an Odyssey magazine that is not one of these, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=odyssey+m&type=Magazine. The editor has a page here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?31614, with no mention of the zine. Cold Tonnage has some covers, https://www.coldtonnage.com/quicksearch/all/odyssey%20lecky, and there were at least 7 issues. Pinn's story title appears nowhere in a search on Google (the only mention of the title is a song by the 70's UK rock band Slack Alice which translates as "Soldier of the World") so I'm guessing this is a very obscure zine; if anyone can find more info a lot of new stories can probably be entered here. EDIT: Pinn died back in 2016 so I added that and other stuff to his record here. EDIT: Some of his stories are by Paul E. Pinn so if anyone knows what the E stands for his legal name can be entered. --Username (talk) 14:19, 23 September 2023 (EDT)

Irma Chilton

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?223006; Chilton doesn't seem to have any English-language books on Archive.org but many of her books were translated into Welsh and one of them on this page, https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL500489A/Irma_Chilton?mode=ebooks&sort=old, has a vampire on the cover and so is likely a genre book, in case anyone here is familiar with that language and wants to enter it or any others that qualify. --Username (talk) 10:21, 24 September 2023 (EDT)

From Time To Time

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?436; I added OL ID to original Scribner HC some time ago and today I added the Archive.org link, also added link to 1996 Scribner paperback, last page is picture credits with no page number, only one person actually entered the numbers as 303+[1], should other 304 page counts be changed to that, too, or should that be changed to 304, also should Schuck be removed from cover artists since she did design only? --Username (talk) 12:24, 25 September 2023 (EDT)

The Berserkers

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?34563; One of those uploaders that provide completely searchable copies just uploaded the USA Pocket edition of Elwood's anthology which is hard to find these days. Ex-PV Bluesman who had a problem with dates, many of which have needed fixing by me or others, seems to have confused some info on the Canadian edition's copyright page and entered the cover art as April instead of June. If someone could read the notes and decide whether it should be June then it needs fixing. Also, the HC, which I somehow never added a link to until now even though it's been there for more than 2 years, had cover artist entered as Stanislaw even though someone wrote in the note that it said Stanislow but they just decided to "fix" it, so is the rule here to enter it as is? Also, note says he's credited on back flap but there's no info like that in the archived copy (bad framing?) but there is in this badly-shot photo from eBay, [10]. EDIT: A similar Trident HC/Pocket PB case here, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?282516, where Bluesman wrote the same kind of note but in this case decided to make the month the same as the USA edition (?). I wonder how many more of these there are out there. EDIT: While looking into all this I stumbled on a recently uploaded (jacketless puke-green) copy of Joseph Elder's other anthology The Farthest Reaches so I added a link in case anyone was searching for that book. --Username (talk) 00:58, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Continuum 3

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?34539; IF US PB artist was taken from HC why is his last name spelled differently? --Username (talk) 10:53, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Dream Science Fiction

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?27851; One of my D. F. Lewis story links was just approved and it originally appeared in the above-linked magazine so mod RTrace standardized issue titles as he usually does but I discovered that Luminist has most of the issues as PDF files. While adding links and replacing broken images I discovered that the last issue which was called Winter here was actually published in July! While fixing dates I also found that a story by Andy M. Smith was actually by Andy Smith and that a story by him in another issue says Andy M. on ISFDB, Andy on Contents page, but it's A. M. on story title page. I fixed these things which should be approved soon but I'm sure there's other stuff people can find that I missed. EDIT: Also, if anyone is going to link all those Smiths together I doubt the cover art credit by Andy Smith is the same as the one who wrote those stories 20 years earlier and it's also unlikely that the recent horror anthology edited by A. M. Smith is by the same guy, either, so there might be 3 variants of the SF writer's name plus 2 separate authors. --Username (talk) 11:28, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Luminist Update

Related to my previous message, Luminist has recently updated their zine list, http://readitfree.org/FZ/FZ_updates.htm, in case anyone is looking for any of those issues. --Username (talk) 11:40, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Mondourania

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2237; https://fantlab.ru/series8593; Cover images broken but FantLab has them if they need replacing; is that Italian site dead? --Username (talk) 19:23, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Sci Fi Wire/ SyFy Wire - webzine or website?

I recently rejected an edit to change the type of the container title of this publication from NONFICTION to ESSAY. The editor, who I believe is the author of the piece, questioned me about the rejection. I stand by the rejection as the edit would have put the publication into an invalid state. However, in looking further into the record, I'm not certain whether the publication should have been added in the first place. The essay in question is a review of a television show that was posted on the Sci Fi Wire site. Our ROA specifically exclude "Works published in a web-based publication and available exclusively as a Web page" unless they are explicitly included. The two exceptions under inclusions that may apply here are: "Webzines, which are defined as online periodicals with distinct issues (note that online periodicals without distinct issues are not considered webzines)." and "Online publications available exclusively as a Web page, but only if: published by a market which makes the author eligible for SFWA membership". Unfortunately, the link to SFWAs list of markets doesn't give an easy way to determine whether Sci Fi Wire was a market back in 2009 when the piece was published. They do not appear in the current list of markets. The archived link in the publication record does show a date for the item, and appears similar to how tor.com is presented in that respect. I don't follow the SyFy site, so I'd like to ask the community whether we want to consider Sci Fi Wire/SyFy Wire to be a webzine or a website? If the former, I think the publication in question can be converted to a magazine and the essay added. If it's a website, it appears to fall outside the ROA and should be deleted. Thoughts? Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 19:29, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Since it appears to be an essay about the television show Fringe, it shouldn't be included as NONFICTION. I would consider Paul Levinson to be "above the threshold", so it could be included as an ESSAY if it's part of a distinct issue of the Sci Fi Wire. As far as I can tell (and remember), Sci Fi Wire was a blog-like news and information site about speculative fiction topics (books, TV, movies, etc.), and it never had distinct issues. Therefore, I don't think it should be included here unless it's part of a book or something that's reprinting it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:51, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for opening this discussion. I can give the following info about Sci Fi Wire: It was a continually updated news site about science fiction related matters. It published news, reviews, etc about science fiction movies and TV shows, and (in case this is relevant), it was a paying market. According to SFWA rules (I was President of the organization from 1998-2001, and am a Lifetime Member), a sale like I made to Sci Fi Wire would have counted as a professional nonfiction sale, and satisfied a criterion for admission to SFWA as an Affiliate Member. Hope this helps, and it's fine with me whatever is decided about this publication for ISFDB PaulLev (talk) 01:15, 27 September 2023 (EDT)

Watchers Out of Time

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5777341; Cover mentioned in original note has a $6.95 Canadian price so it is a later one but both it and the OL cover I added which is the same as the archived copy's cover say USA price is $4.95. If anyone can show a cover with $4.50 I'd be surprised because none online say that so I'll chalk it up to a book entered long ago with faulty info. Also, Derleth isn't credited on title page as mentioned in the note; does that change anything as to how the book is credited here? --Username (talk) 09:05, 27 September 2023 (EDT)

The $4.50 price is from Locus1. I'd suggest double checking with the verifier of the second printing, which has a $4.95 price to determine whether second printing is explicitly stated in the book. My recollection is that Carroll & Graf is sometimes sloppy about printing history. It may be that the scan you're adding is of the second printing. Regardless of that outcome, your edit doesn't deal with the author credit. You'll need to remove Derleth from the publication record for each of the C&G publications, coordinating with the verifier. You can then unmerge the C&G title records, re-merge them with each other and make them into a new variant of the current parent title. Further, the date of the existing variant should be adjusted to 2008-10-14. You'll also need to remove the contents from each C&G record and replace them with the titles as by Lovecraft only. Finally, each of those will need to be varianted to the original titles by Lovecraft and Derleth. As I've noted before, it's helpful to the moderators to indicate in the moderator notes that you're doing a multi step process and that you intend to complete the edit with the next steps. Hope that helps. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:44, 27 September 2023 (EDT)

Gay Mormon Collections

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?135658; I randomly came across Zombies for Jesus and added Archive.org link + corrected page count; no contents entered, no stories in his record, descriptions on back cover make it sound like not all the stories are genre (he has a lot of "literary" credits), https://archive.org/search?query=townsend-johnny&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22 and https://archive.org/search?query=johnny-townsend&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22 reveal that he has at least 3 other archived collections plus there are a few others that sound promising on his OL page, https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL7587355A/Johnny_Townsend?sort=old, so if anyone actually wants to read them at least some of the stories probably belong here. --Username (talk) 15:12, 27 September 2023 (EDT)

Gollancz - 10 new series titles

I had a Douglas Adams moment when I edited one of my books in the Gollancz SF series - 14 titles in a series of 10.

Well, one thing led to another and now, after reviewing over 1,300 Gollancz publications in the years 1928 to 2000, I'm proposing some new series titles.

I've only dealt with publications where a cover image is available, and have dispensed with 'Gollancz' from 'Gollancz SF', to reduce clutter.

• SF Series 1 - single zig-zag line border. example
• SF Series 2 - two zig-zag lines across top. example
• SF Series 3 - SF in black top. example
• SF Series 4 - SF in shield. example
• SF Series 5 - Gollancz SF in square box, various colours. example
• SF Series 6 - this would be the current 'Gollancz SF' series (with rounded corners) re-named. example

• Gollancz Anthology - in different genres, 2 border lines with author names/ themes within. example
• Gollancz Detection example
• Gollancz Suspense example
• Gollancz Originals example

Comments please. Kev. BanjoKev (talk) 18:06, 28 September 2023 (EDT)

This sounds good to me. If possible, I'd include the years for each in the notes for each series, possibly in the title of the series. Perhaps "Gollancz SF (1928-1935)" (the years are just an example as I have no idea the years covered by each). That will make it easier to place volumes into the appropriate series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:48, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for your input Joe. I had considered including dates in the series titles but concluded it isn't practicable. The main reason is that the series overlap considerably. As these are are arbitrarily separated out series we don't have any firm start/finish dates - our only guidance is the dating (and some are undated) for the publications we have in the database. If subsequent editions are found which fall out of range of any existing stated criteria this may be confusing/exclusionary.

On reflection, I think it might be better, as you imply, to include "Gollancz" in the titling; to read, for instance "Gollancz SF Series 1".

As can be seen from the examples, these are only serialised according to their cover layouts; I had collectors in mind whilst thinking about the whole thing. In the title containers, I would be adding notes explaining qualifying criteria (so often missing), with a link to a 'prime' example, and also something about the date range(s) for the ones we have on record. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 22:28, 6 October 2023 (EDT)

Then I suggest using similar disambiguation as used with authors or titles: "Gollancz SF Series" for the first one, then "Gollancz SF Series (2)" or "Gollancz SF Series (II)", "Gollancz SF Series (3)" or "Gollancz SF Series (III)", and so on, where the description of how to identify the series is given on the series page. I agree with the four lower series naming except for the anthology one. The example you provided doesn't show "Gollancz Anthology" (unlike the others, which show the suggested titles). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:09, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

I take your point about "Gollancz Anthology". I was looking for commonality - there are 14 publications with the cover layout like that, and they are all anthologies. To be consistent, it would be better to use the "Gollancz SF Series (n)" construction and the fact that they are anthologies would be recorded in the series title notes. Thanks for the thought. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

H. R. Giger's Necronomicon

https://archive.org/details/hr-giger-necronomicon; https://archive.org/details/hr-giger-necronomicon-1977_202309; Strangely enough this is not on ISFDB (#2 is) in case anyone fluent wants to enter it (I think later copy was just ripped from original uploader because they look the same). Language is, um, German, I think? --Username (talk) 10:28, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

C$ Tolkien

[11]; [12]; I added links to 2 of these Canadian editions today and some editors entered publisher normally and others entered it with (Canada), most are PV so a consensus should be reached about whether they belong with parent publisher names or really should be separated. --Username (talk) 12:26, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Nouveau Space Opera

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1987278; I'd like to add a link to this book but there are 2 records that seem like they're the same. One should probably be deleted or merged and, once done, I'll add the link. Earlier one was entered by Hauck (hates ISFDB now so I don't think they'd care much if their record was gone) while the other was entered much later. EDIT: The one with 667 pages is correct because last page is unnumbered; price is also correct. Also, Hauck may not have entered the other one, he just made an edit and approved a couple of others. Must have been one of those early edits before records were kept. --Username (talk) 09:53, 30 September 2023 (EDT)

Fantascienza

I was looking for something by using the term "della fantascienza" and didn't find it but these, https://archive.org/search?query=%22della+fantascienza%22&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22, came up in case any can prove useful to anyone; the Robot magazine, in particular, looks promising. --Username (talk) 10:54, 30 September 2023 (EDT)

This World Is Taboo

This World Is Taboo is currently listed as a novel with a title record note of "first appeared as 'Pariah Planet' in Amazing, July 1961". A word count of the Project Gutenberg edition (which is a transcription of the Ace Book edition) shows it to be 35,932 words (so a novella and not a novel). A comparison of the Amazing Stories, July 1961 Internet Archive scan shows the text of Pariah Planet to match that of "This World Is Taboo". So "This World Is Taboo" should be converted to a novella and varianted to "Pariah Planet". This would also require converting The Med Series from an omnibus to a collection as all contents would then be short fiction.

I will be notifying all the active verifiers of pubs containing "This World Is Taboo" and pointing them to this centralized conversation. If there are no objections, I will convert the novel to a novella in a few days. -- JLaTondre (talk) 06:42, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

No objections to converting. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 08:30, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5780069. --Username (talk) 08:35, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Works for me as well. The Project Gutenberg version of "Pariah Planet" contains 35,002 words, but the difference may be due to the extensive footers and headers (copyright statements etc) that PG tends to add. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:44, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Imported the story text of both PG versions (excluding headers, footers, page numbers) into Word and did a compare. Pariah has 34,041 words and Taboo has 35,932 words. There has been some editing between the two versions including a scattering of an additional explanatory sentence here and there. All in all, it's close enough to consider the same work. I will add an explanatory note to both title records when varianting. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:48, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Ok with me. --Glenn (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Support the change.15:58, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Works for me, thanks. PeteYoung (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Ok with me too. --Dirk P Broer (talk) 11:16, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Sounds good to me. Definitely include the above information in the note for the TITLE record. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:45, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Changes made as discussed. Thanks all. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:37, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

More than one edition?

Hi. I just heard of this at Capclave this weekend. Looked up my one published (so far) novel, 11,000 Years.

Problem: the original publisher, the late Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press, was shut down after his death. The novel is now *republished* by another publisher. I don't see "other editions", or any obvious reasonable way to add this info (which is important to me, since it *is* now back in print.

Thanks in advance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Whitroth (talk • contribs) . 08:18, 2 October 2023‎ (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3054628. --Username (talk) 11:59, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Since the new editions will have different ISBNs and publishers, they are just a new publication under the same title. You can certainly add notes to both the title and publication records as well. It looks like the tp edition was added by Fixer back in August but the ebook is yet to be added. Phil (talk) 12:35, 3 October 2023 (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?13521; If you enter anything I think the publisher should be changed in some way to differ it from the one that did magazines 50 years ago. --Username (talk) 14:27, 3 October 2023 (EDT)

Cute, Amazon. Per the Look-inside views, the publisher is actually Novus Mundi Publishing. If you want me to do the edits and clone for the ebook, I can but you can do it yourself. Phil (talk) 17:09, 3 October 2023 (EDT)

Fosses d'Iverson

https://archive.org/search?query=dan+simmons+fosses; I was doing a bunch of Dan Simmons edits and came across that French edition where they packaged his story "Iverson's Pits" into its own separate book; in case anyone here who's fluent wants to enter it. --Username (talk) 19:15, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Beyond the Doors of Death

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5781424; Title date is different than date of both editions, intro is entered with one of those dates while Broderick's original story is entered with the other date, what should the real date be for all of these? --Username (talk) 19:55, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5781813; I'm not sure which of those 3 page counts is correct. Last numbered page is 593 but there's an "About the Artist" page following it which probably shouldn't count but the editor of the Sterling edition here entered 594 and also has the Roman numerals one higher than the Fall River edition, so maybe Sterling added an extra page to the book and the last numbered page really is 594. If anyone owns Fall River, B&N first printing or Sterling all that can be checked and fixed as needed. Also, does ISFDB software know not to import titles already there? Because I think it removed intro automatically which someone added to all 3 editions. --Username (talk) 11:02, 3 October 2023 (EDT)

Jane Gaskell Sphere Editions

https://archive.org/search?query=jane+gaskell+sphere&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221967%22; Those books have prices and dates which are the same as what's on ISFDB but the covers are totally different; anybody who knows the history of these UK paperbacks where they change covers and nothing else may know what year these are really from and would like to enter them here. --Username (talk) 10:50, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Who Is N. Dalby?

https://richarddalbyslibrary.com/products/all-hallows-3-1991-the-journal-of-the-ghost-story-society-barbara-roden-christopher-roden-ash-tree-press-4; I suspect the N. Dalby credited on p. 13 is actually Richard Dalby; does anyone own this issue who can look for a signature on the artwork if there is one? --Username (talk) 19:17, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Late Victorian Gothic Tales

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?448651; I added an archived 2009 edition (7th printing) just now and was nearly fooled into cut-and-pasting the page count from the 2009 edition already on ISFDB until my usual paranoia caused me to check the copy itself only to discover count is much higher, 282 pages. Does anyone own the first printing who can check and fix count if needed? There's no edit history; I'm sure all printings are 282 and the wrong info is from Amazon or some other unreliable site. --Username (talk) 19:44, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Balzac

Looking for the year of publication by P. F. Collier & Son New York For The First Complete Translation into English Honore de Balzac in Twenty-Five volumes? There is not ISBN number. The covers are green with gold lettering and HB is embossed on the cover and binder side. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tina.adams (talk • contribs) .

I have this edition in my collection, but it's currently boxed and I can't get to it. Luckily, you can view and/or download individual volumes of this edition from Google Books, e.g. Volume 25. There is "MCM" at the bottom of the title page, which is Roman numerals for "1900". Ahasuerus (talk) 13:12, 5 October 2023 (EDT)

I too have this collection which is why I was enquiring. I inherited it along with a collection of Robert Louis Stevenson published in New York by Charles Scriberner's Sons from 1905. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tina.adams (talk • contribs) .

https://archive.org/search?query=%22+p.+f.+collier%22+balzac+volumes&sort=title. --Username (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2023 (EDT)

Nick Smith

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?41231; The Smith who wrote the 4 novels is from England and born in 1972 (I've been adding stuff to Luath Press books and his bio is on their site) so is not the same Smith who did everything else on the page. --Username (talk) 00:15, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

Novelist has been separated out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:40, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

Alexander Forbes

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?127476; A copy of Radio Gunner was uploaded earlier this year so I have an edit pending with a link, either the story is by some youngster or they reprinted something by the older guy, also FantLab has someone with a similar name who illustrated an old book that seems to be about fairies judging by some of the scanned photos (Blue Fairy, maybe?), https://fantlab.ru/art9514, but his dates don't match the novelist so probably a different Forbes, if anyone can translate maybe they can decide whether the fairy book belongs here. --Username (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

Canonical name change Xan van Rooyen from Suzanne van Rooyen

Any objections to making Xan van Rooyen the canonical name and Suzanne van Rooyen an alternate?

• 15 titles credited to Xan van Rooyen.
• 14 titles credited to Suzanne van Rooyen.

The about section on the author's website (the url does use suzannevanrooyen) is titled Xan van Rooyen and the author explicitly asks to be called Xan. All titles since 2020 are credited to Xan van Rooyen. John Scifibones 16:32, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

Sounds good to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:03, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objections, the relationship has been reversed. John Scifibones 15:07, 13 October 2023 (EDT)

ESFS

While searching for something I came across this, https://fantlab.ru/award30; I don't see that award on ISFDB so maybe this can be something useful to enter for someone. There's a few mentions of it in notes, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=esfs. --Username (talk) 13:14, 8 October 2023 (EDT)

Falcons

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5785847; I entered Book of Lyonne here nearly 2 years ago; today I came across 2 eBay listings with 12 photos each. I see the reason I didn't enter the price back then is because FantLab has a price-clipped photo but eBay copies are not clipped. I think all 8 Peake drawings are viewable; I see the lion on the frontispiece, a weird hybrid creature with an umbrella, a little man-beast smoking a cigar, the lion with a Japanese lady, a tiptoeing elephant, a couple of ducks, a monkey diving at a bird, and a group shot of a bunch of animals following the lion around a tree. I also want to clear up the Falcon Press mess which I believe I asked about a long time ago without success. Per the note the UK publisher used both Falcon Press and The Falcon Press; I suppose it's possible that the UK Frazetta book published more than 20 years after the others is by the same publisher but I doubt it. Then there's Wilson's 2 US books and a much later reprint of a Robert W. Chambers book. So we've got 1, possibly 2, UK and 1, possibly 2, US Falcons. If anyone's interested and can provide more info I'm sure we can separate all of them. --Username (talk) 19:30, 8 October 2023 (EDT)

Elizabeth Davis

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?210874; Someone recently entered Old Woman and I followed up with a PENDING edit fixing/adding stuff; the story & poem almost certainly belong to one of the other Davises but they're both contemporary so it's hard to say which. I would guess it's (I) but her webpage isn't found online and typing the titles of the story and poem together on Google gets nothing so no online bibliography, it seems. EDIT: Davis (I) webpage, https://www.elizabethdavis.mercierdavis.com/, is found if you type it directly into the URL bar but her bibliography ends in 2021; both story and poem are 2022. The search goes on. --Username (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2023 (EDT)

Smashwords Author Images

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5786282; Coming across that awful author photo annoyed me so much I tried to replace it but Amazon seems to no longer have that one and now has 2 that are equally worthless; one is an "S" image that ISFDB doesn't like and the other isn't actually a photo but some kind of cartoon drawing. I resorted to looking at the old ISFDB "image linking permissions" page and decided to try Smashwords, found his photo, checked to see how the image is supposed to be entered, and to my great surprise it worked. Then I decided to do an advanced author search for images containing either "cloudfront" or "smashwords" and got nothing. So is it possible that this will be the only Smashwords photo on ISFDB? Anyway, anyone looking for images on Amazon who can't find any or only bad ones, try Smashwords. --Username (talk) 11:13, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

230 publications use smashword images as of 13:43, 9 October 2023. John Scifibones 13:43, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

Authors is what I was referring to. Book covers are usually uploaded on many sites but photos are often unique. I searched this page, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/adv_search_selection.cgi?author, for "Author Image contains smashwords" and got nothing. --Username (talk) 17:08, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

I approved the submission, but then uploaded the image from their Amazon author page as it wasn't blurry like the Smashwords image. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:01, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

Mary M.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?60641; A mod just entered a 1984 novel with a jacket credit by Mary Mietzelfeld that I added plus other stuff, usual paranoia caused me to search for similar names and I got the link above, I imported cover credit into '85 US and Canada and changed the date, there's also a 16th printing that has the cover credit but no cover, lots of PV for various editions so they may want to look into this and figure out where the credit came from since notes imply there's no credit in the book for some or all of the editions. Only other credit on Google I can find for "Mary Meitzelfeld" is a 1970's Mario Puzo book so I'd think Mietzelfeld is the correct spelling. --Username (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2023 (EDT)

2nd Utopia Awards

I asked a few months ago if the Utopia Awards for Utopian/Climate fiction could be added, and I was told it would be better to wait for for it to have at least a second year. Since the second edition was awarded this week, could it be added to the database now? The award is connected to the Climate Fiction Conference, which was held yesterday, and it appeared on Locus Magazine, so it has some grounding. My apologies if the request is inadequate.

Thanks for the update! When we create a new Award Type, we populate the following fields:

• Short Name, e.g. "World Fantasy"
• Full Name, e. g. "World Fantasy Award"
• Awarded For, e.g. "Fantasy and horror"
• Awarded By, e.g. "Panel of judges chosen by the World Fantasy Awards Administration"
• Poll (Yes/No)
• Covers more than just SF (Yes/No)

I am trying to find information that we would need to populate these fields. So far I have had limited success. This Android Press page seems to suggest that nominees are chosen by Android Press and the winners are determined by online voters, but it's not clear. Is there an online description of the award sponsors, nominee qualifications, award categories and the award selection process? Ahasuerus (talk) 11:16, 10 October 2023 (EDT)

The nomination was also open to the public, though online voters, so both the nominees and the winners were chosen by the public. This link had the rules of the qualifications during the voting process, but it's no longer visible since it was a Google formulary (like the British SF awards), from what I recall when I voted, the focus was on speculative stories (both sci fi and fantasy) about climate fiction or with an utopian/positive bent published in the previous year. You can see the categories here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alittlebook (talk • contribs) .

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdHgetVmOb28bWcU-W3pUIFc3d6IP5GH5V6Z620bjhyTGAygg/viewform. --Username (talk) 09:37, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks to User:Alittlebook for the clarifications and to User:Username for the link to the 2023 nomination form.

The form says that the award is given to "works ... that exemplify hopeful, utopian fiction (science fiction, fantasy, climate fiction...)", which we can use to populate the "Awarded For" field.

The one outstanding question is the name of the body that administers the award, which we need for the "Awarded By" field. It would appear that it is Android Press, whose first major project was Solarpunk Magazine (2022-) and which is associated with (sponsors?) annual Climate Fiction Conferences. Is there a statement explaining the relationship between these bodies/organizations and which one(s) administer the Utopia Awards? Ahasuerus (talk) 10:43, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

From what I gathered, Solarpunk Magazine is a project done by Android Press, who created/hosted the Utopia Awards and the Climate Fiction Conference. They held a Kickstarter to fund it last year. From the description of the fundraiser, the inaugural award had their nominees chosen by an invited panel of publishing houses and magazine editors, but they shifted for public voting this year. Also, my apologies for not signing my earlier posts, I had forgotten how to, lol Alittlebook (talk) 14:06, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, the Kickstarter link is very useful. So basically the core organization behind the award is Android Press, which has 8 editors. They organize annual "Climate Fiction Conferences" and administer the Utopia Award.

We have come across publisher-administered "awards" which were actually ploys to promote the publisher's books, but in this case I don't think it's a concern. The fact that their Kickstarter was successfully funded to the tune of $5,000 is pretty convincing evidence that it's a genuine "subgenre award".

Any objections to creating a new Award Type for this award? Ahasuerus (talk) 18:57, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Oh yeah, out of 47 nominees this year, only 2 are connected to one of their branches (a poem and a single short story from the Solarpunk Magazine; the authors of both works campaigned a lot during the voting, so it didn't felt like a sketchy result, and neither of them won). I followed their proccess because I'm interested in climate fiction/solarpunk and it seemed like a genuine push for the subgenre's visibility. Alittlebook (talk) 20:09, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Outcome of the "Utopia Awards" discussion

Hearing no objection, I have created a new Award Type for "Utopia Award" as well as 9 award categories. Everything should be ready for "Add Award" submissions to be created. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:38, 14 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! I'm adding the awards little by little, just a question: the winner of the Anthology category this year was a special issue of Omenana, a magazine. It seems like I can't add awards to magazine issues, what should I do about it? Alittlebook (talk) 16:20, 15 October 2023 (EDT)

According to this list, the award was given to the July, 2022 issue aka "Issue #22" aka "Positive Visions of Democracy". As per Help:Screen:AddAward:

ISFDB supports two different types of awards. Although they are entered and modified using the same Web pages, they are quite different and it's important to understand the difference before you start entering or editing awards. The two award types are as follows:

• Title-based Awards (including Cover Art): Most awards are given to individual ISFDB titles, e.g. novels, non-fiction, short stories, cover art and so on. Note that these titles MUST already exist in ISFDB before you can add awards to them. If you want to add an award to a title that is not in ISFDB, then you have to enter that title first, wait for the submission to be approved and then enter the title's award(s).
• Other awards: ISFDB also supports awards given to individuals beyond their specific works, e.g. Lifetime Achievement awards. In addition, it supports awards given to publishers, editors, title series, and non-ISFDB items such as web sites, movies, graphic novels, and never-published stories (such as runner-ups in various "new story" awards). These awards are referred to as "Untitled Awards" because they are not associated with ISFDB title records.

In this case we are dealing with an award given to a magazine issue, which is a publication as opposed to a title. However, each MAGAZINE (or FANZINE) publication has an EDITOR title associated with it. It's displayed next to the words "Editor Title" right above the "Contents" line. If you follow the link to the EDITOR title, you will see the "Add an Award to This Title" option under "Editing Tool".

Keep in mind that an EDITOR title like "Omenana - 2022" can be shared by multiple magazine issues if they all have the same editor(s) and year of publication. Adding awards/nominations can get tricky if only one of the issues associated with the same EDITOR title is nominated. However, in this case this EDITOR title is associated with a single magazine issue, so it shouldn't be a problem.Ahasuerus (talk) 11:14, 15 October 2023 (EDT)

Got it. Just did like you said, thanks! Alittlebook (talk) 16:20, 15 October 2023 (EDT)

Vorzimer

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=vorzi&type=Name; Who should be parent? They're about even. --Username (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2023 (EDT)

Peter Vorzimer was the way he was credited in the fanzine that he edited (Abstract) while Peter J. Vorzimer was the way he was credited when writing letters to Richard E. Geis's Science Fiction Review (1st Series). Since "EDITOR" generally has more weight than "ESSAY" for the purposes of "best known within the genre", I made Peter Vorzimer the canonical name and Peter J. Vorzimer its alternate. Thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:56, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. I wonder if his disappearance after a few years had anything to do with this, https://latimes.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-woman-struck-by-au/127127953/, assuming it's the same guy; the zine WAS published in California. --Username (talk) 11:21, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Page 1 of the first issue of Abstract lists the publisher's address: 1311 N. Laurel Ave., W. Hollywood 46, Calif. The linked LA Times article has the same address, so it's the same person. I have added the middle name to the "legal name" field.

That said, the accident happened on March 17, 1954, but he continued to publish the fanzine until 1955, so it's not clear what the fallout of the accident was. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:55, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Amazon URL

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5787245; It happens now and then where a URL will be different but image looks the same and is the same size. Is there no benefit to replacing or is it better to have a newer URL? Why does this happen? --Username (talk) 13:32, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

The sizes are actually slightly different, so the images are presumably also different, although the differences are imperceptible to the naked eye. As to why Amazon has two almost identical images, it's hard to tell. Their images come from different sources and we don't know what they are, so it may be any number of things. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

EDIT: Also, my spell check doesn't like the editor's note "mis-numbers" and has a red line under the mis part; it's a legit word so I wonder if anyone else sees that, too? I did a note search and that's the only use of that word on all of ISFDB with or without the dash; editor must have been hooked on phonics that day. --Username (talk) 13:32, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Spellchecking is handled by your browser as opposed to the ISFDB server. These days most browsers come with built-in spellcheckers and they usually let you add new words like "mis-numbers" to the list of recognized words. You can also install a custom browser add-on to handle spellchecking and grammar validation if you want a more sophisticated tool. There are a number of popular ones like LanguageTool. I am not sure how useful they would be since our Notes tend to use a lot of abbreviated sentences, but there is no harm in giving them a try. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2023 (EDT)

Plant Rage

https://fantlab.ru/edition388900; I was adding a link explaining the history of Stephen King's rare The Plant and came across that weird FantLab page where it seems a Russian publisher combined both Plant and King's hard-to-find 1977 Richard Bachman novel Rage which he hasn't allowed to be reprinted as a standalone novel in the USA because it concerns school shootings. So anyone fluent in Russian may want to add that book here since it contains 2 King works that haven't been reprinted endlessly. --Username (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2023 (EDT)

By by

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?692274; OL-only archived copy, unusual for such a recent book, so I added a link and page numbers and corrected page count. I happened to notice that O'Regan's story was missing the word by at the end so I added that but I capitalized it in opposition to what this page says, https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Template:AllFields:Case, because it has a different meaning in this title rather than being "by" someone. I looked at these, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=passed+by&type=Fiction+Titles, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=passes+by&type=Fiction+Titles, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=passing+by&type=Fiction+Titles, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=pass+by&type=Fiction+Titles. Most are like O'Regan's title as I entered it with the majority being capitalized but a few aren't; also, I think Tarzia's poem in the last link is the only one that uses it in the possessive so that is probably a legitimate use of the small b. What does anyone else think? Some will need to be changed to make everything standard. --Username (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2023 (EDT)

Best of the Midwest's SFFH

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?348698; I made some edits for this book a long time ago and today found that the story by Douglas Graham is actually by D. Douglas Graham who has another story in the book by that name; I fixed that in a pending edit but while doing that I noticed that the stories are illustrated with the artists' names listed on the contents page but the search function on Google Books is not great and it's hard to find anything specific with accuracy. I see some pretty big names like Marge Simon, David Transue (who did Volume II's cover), etc. So if anyone knows how to get a look at the full copy a lot of artist credits can be entered; there seems to be no preview of Volume II but I'm guessing that's probably illustrated, too. These are rare books; the second one was recalled due to cover problems. --Username (talk) 10:37, 14 October 2023 (EDT)

Hobgoblin

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?337356; I did a lot of John Coyne edits some time ago, doing more today, a lot of his HC editions on Archive.org are book club editions which aren't on ISFDB, I'm ignoring those but this one, https://archive.org/search?query=+hobgoblin00coyn&sort=-addeddate, is interesting, it says book club on front flap but, unlike other club editions, it's much longer, 307 pages, than what's on ISFDB. Library of Congress says 304 pages. So if anyone knows what non-club edition's count is, let us know. I'd like to add a link to the archived copy somewhere. --Username (talk) 11:59, 14 October 2023 (EDT)

Maiden, Matron, Crone

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?168059; I added archived link to $7.50 edition in a PENDING edit; should the other edition be deleted? --Username (talk) 13:43, 14 October 2023 (EDT)

Duplicate deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2023 (EDT)

Christina Sng

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5790172; I've added full contents but there's a problem with the last 2 poems. Her website's bibliography says 9/02 for this (Sng's title is not seen because contents are incomplete), https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?439266, and it turns out it says "September" clearly on the cover so I don't know why it was entered here as October; do all dates need changing? Also, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?310470, where her site says "Turtle Shell" appeared in this issue but it says "The Scarecrow" here; I noticed the next poem by another author is "Scarecrow" so I have a feeling 2 poems got mixed up and Sng's title should be changed. However, that would require someone looking at an actual copy of this rare zine; can anyone help? --Username (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2023 (EDT)

Captain Shark

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?25623; Recent upload of Jaws, added a link and cover credit for famed artist Hector Garrido, none of the copies on eBay for By Pirate's Blood show copyright page, likely same artist judging by style but can't be positive, anyone own a copy? --Username (talk) 20:14, 15 October 2023 (EDT)

Puleo

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?184633; http://www.bewilderingstories.com/bios/puleo_bio.html; I came across this randomly and thought I'd start adding bios from that site for obscure people who don't have bios elsewhere online but I may have picked a very bad one to start with. There are numerous online newspaper sites from Kentucky, where the bio linked above says Puleo lives, detailing the arrest on child pornography charges of a Carl Puleo/Carl A. Puleo/Carl Anthony Puleo. I don't want to link to any of those sites but many of them include his picture (as do sites like therapist.com since that was his job before he was arrested) which show him to be a middle-aged white male, sometimes with a beard and sometimes not. Care must be taken not to associate the Puleo on ISFDB with the other one unless some proof can be found that they're one and the same. It's very unlikely that the issue of Vampire Dan's where his poem appeared can be found but his bio mentions Anotherealm, an online site which which has only been spottily entered here and which, on Archive.org, doesn't have any mention of the name Puleo in a URL search. I did add a note a long time ago to Edward E. Kramer's record here detailing the reason why his genre work ended in 2000 was because of similar charges but in that case his crimes are well-documented on his Wikipedia page and it's clearly the same person. So if anyone can find definitively that author Puleo is the same as criminal Puleo then I will add details to his record (and also his middle name, Anthony). --Username (talk) 13:21, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Please come participate...

...in this discussion on page numbering questions. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:09, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Lawrence the Artist

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?27810; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5791436; Photo was probably taken in the mid-20th century but doesn't look much better than the one taken of Jack the Ripper's last victim in 1888; also, he bears a disturbing resemblance to a certain German dictator. More to the point, FantLab says birth year is 1884 as do some other sites online; is 1886 accurate? Also, FantLab just says he died in 1960 with no day or month so the accuracy of those entered here may not be right, either. Clouding this whole issue is this, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/187880368/lawrence-sterne-stevens, which seems to be the same guy judging by the picture but says 1885; headstone says the same (and 1960) but provides no days or months. Wow; messy. --Username (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Micromania

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?482014; https://picclick.com/?q=micromania+langford; I recently uploaded the cover, it was just approved, format says TP but cover looks like HC to me, Sphere PB has totally different ISBN (and cover), so either format should be changed to HC or there is a TP edition (but there's no proof of that online). Not sure what "adapted for the UK" on Langford's site means; did Platt have an American edition first? --Username (talk) 10:18, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

AbeBooks Links

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5786883; About this rejection, it's not correct that sale links aren't accepted because there's a whole bunch of them that were, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/webpages_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&WEBPAGE_VALUE=abebooks (the first one on that page doesn't count, it's Julie Abe's Facebook site), with at least the last one being entered by me last year and accepted with no problem, so can someone suggest how I can get that link accepted? Is there a mod here who doesn't have a problem with accepting them? Most of the AbeBooks links entered on ISFDB are still working and even when the product is sold many of the listings still remain on PicClick, Google Cache, Archive.org (https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition*), etc. --Username (talk) 11:36, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

Bioshock: Rapture

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?397958; I added archived TP link in PENDING edit, nearly got fooled into "fixing" page count to 427, usual paranoia caused me to check archived PB, it's 430, so either ex-library TP is ragged and last few pages fell out/got ripped out or Tor printers messed up. Does anyone own the TP who can verify that it ends on 430 and not 427? --Username (talk) 12:44, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

Ladies of Horror Fiction Award

Hello earthlings, I come forward with another micro award I found.

The Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards (short form: LOHF Award) was horror award given to woman authors in 2020 (for works from 2019), 2021 (for works from 2020) and 2022 (for works from 2021) by a self-proclaimed grasshoots organization aimed at uplifting women authors. From what I saw, they worked mostly as a website posting reviews and the award itself, and later changed to HorrorSpotlight and seem to have dropped the award entirely after the name change. Here's the Locus Magazine post about the winners from 2020, 2021 and 2022. From what I gathered, they were juri-based (chosen by the people who mantained the Ladies of Horror Fiction website/organization), and besides the typical categories of Novel, YA, MG, Debut, Collection, Poetry Collection. Novella and Short Fiction, they also had a special category in their last year called Readers Choice, which was open for the public to vote. From what I understood from the Locus Magazine post about the Readers Choice category, they worked as honorary mentions for the 2022 LOFT Awards, since they listed ten different works with no specific sole winner. Their 2020 award also listed short fiction under honorable mentions, with no specific winners. Alittlebook (talk) 14:11, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

Our main concern with minor awards is separating legitimate awards from promotional "awards" given by publishers to their own authors as well as "awards" given by individuals to their friends. Given the fact that the Facebook page run by "Ladies of Horror Fiction" has 1.7K followers I think it's a reasonably safe bet that this falls on the "legitimate award" side and therefore eligible for inclusion. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:16, 1 November 2023 (EDT)

Good to know! I've been taking notes on awards who aren't in the database already and slowly gathering info about them, if LOHF is added I'll work on adding the winners/nominees for it after finishing Argos. Alittlebook (talk) 00:32, 2 November 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I have created a new Award Type for Ladies of Horror Fiction Fiction Award. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:39, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Bear's Lost Souls

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?211621; I added archived links in PENDING edits to 3 editions of Greg Bear's Psychlone and noticed the edition re-titled Lost Souls had a small dark cover uploaded by, um, me in 2022. Oops. It's better than the raggedy creased cover uploaded by someone else way back in 2010 but the problem is that almost every cover currently online is the same as the one I uploaded, gregbear.com, FantLab, Open Library, etc.; the creased cover image seems to have totally disappeared (except on the Wiki page here, of course) or maybe it was someone's personal copy. The one eBay copy has a far-away tiny photo with a cracked spine and someone's bookcase in the background. Then I had a vague memory that there was a site devoted to Ace Books (not Bookscans because they end in 1980 and this edition is 1982); I found a page, http://people.uncw.edu/smithms/Ace_5N4.html, but ominously clicking the book's cover link does absolutely nothing. That sparked a memory that while editing some time ago I noticed that images from that site are broken so I assume the server where the images were kept is dead. No problem, I thought, I'll go for the archived image; only problem is I got this, [13]. Here's a list of books with an image URL from that site, [14], most are PV and a few that aren't are non-fiction books that don't really belong here, although there are a few non-PV books that do belong so I'll see if I can replace those. PV of all the others should probably replace theirs, too. As for Lost Souls, chime in if you can find a good cover. --Username (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2023 (EDT)

Here is correct link for the cover image file. Unfortunately, it is spoiled by a watermark in the lower right corner. --Zlogorek (talk) 03:23, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Censored Breast

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?27207; I left a note to PV Stoecker about the last book in Ladd's record (which I've added an Archive.org link to, not approved yet) letting him know the artist stopped doing cover art in the mid-80s so that 1994 cover is likely re-used from somewhere else. While doing this I noticed the first book in Ladd's record, which has a collage on the cover, uses the girl from 1980's The Northern Girl but this book came out in 1978. Also, the US covers are censored; the 1978 book shows full nipple as do the 3 foreign editions of Northern Girl but the 3 US editions have an added lock of hair covering one of the breasts. I believe MagicUnk and Willem H. PV the 1978 book so they may want to variant or something similar to Northern Girl's cover, PV of US editions may want to add a note about the censorship, etc. --Username (talk) 11:25, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

A. Smothers

[15]; same person, 2 different websites. --Username (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

The artist's name is shown the same way (Alexa "Dok" Smothers) in both on-line pubs. It appears PeteYoung normalized the one occurrence and not the other when verifying. I will ping him. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:58, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Mondolithic

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=mondoli&type=Name; I just fixed Harry Potter cover for the second artist linked above, should that and the other cover under "Inc." have "Inc." removed so they fall under the same artist as all the others? --Username (talk) 09:54, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Again, Dangerous Visions

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5793462; The 2 Sallis titles under the heading Tissue, "At the Fitting Shop" and "53rd American Dream", are only on ISFDB in the original Doubleday edition and a 2012 Gateway e-book. Are the umbrella titles for B. Wolfe, G. Wolfe and Sallis really separate fiction of their own? This is like the Oliver Onions issue where a couple of his stories were known as "Two Trifles" but each had its own title, Ether-Hogs and Mortal, and nobody ever agreed how they should be entered so some collections have the umbrella title entered and some the individual titles. Problem is that most of Ellison's books are PV so deciding how these 3 problematic authors' stories should be entered might be a problem. Certainly at least the Sallis should be entered because as it is now it looks like they only appeared in 2 widely separated editions when they probably appeared in all of them. Also, the cover by the Dillons was used on a lot (all?) of these E-Reads editions; I remember mentioning this a long time ago but I don't think I got an answer so if anyone knows what the first use of it was then I guess all the others will need to be made a variant of it, right? --Username (talk) 19:20, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Possibly this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?250744, is where the cover art originated? --Username (talk) 19:41, 18 December 2023 (EST)

Giant Bones

[16]; https://archive.org/search?query=beagle+giant-bones&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22; I added a link in a PENDING edit for the uploaded-in-2011 copy on Archive.org but the 2023 one has a different back cover with an ISBN that only shows up in the Google search linked above in 2 places, Archive.org and Amazon.de (with no real info except "library binding" but no such edition is mentioned on the copyright page). So if anyone knows what that copy really is, book club or something else, reply here. --Username (talk) 20:09, 21 October 2023 (EDT)

Fantasy Worlds of Peter

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?28517; Note for Del Rey original edition says S. in author name isn't on title page so it (and possibly the later Del Rey edition) shouldn't be a variant but merged. --Username (talk) 20:54, 21 October 2023 (EDT)

The pub author for the verified 1979 Del Rey was already Peter Beagle. It was under the wrong title record. I unmerged it and merged it with the correct one. There is an additional problem that, while these pubs are credited to Peter Beagle, the interior contents are credited to Peter S. Beagle. Unless the contents had separate title records that had the middle initial, the contents should also be without the initial. I will ping the verifiers and point them to this discussion. Once they chime in, I will make any necessary changes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:59, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Agreed. We should drop the middle initial for the contents. Tom (talk) 09:40, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Yes, I see where the initial should be dropped. Thanks. gzuckier (talk) 22:30, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Publications' contents have been updated to be by Peter Beagle as per standards. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:33, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Server downtime -- 2023-10-22 at noon EDT

The ISFDB server will be taken down for maintenance at 12pm server time (EDT). It should be back up within 15-20 minutes. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:03, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

The server is back up. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:20, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas

I was adding ebooks to the titles in the Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas and am surprised that they are NOT marked as non-genre. They are definitely mysteries but on the face of it, I don't see any elements in them that would make them be included as genre titles, save perhaps the short story "Dracula on the Rocks". Would there be any objection to my changing the other titles to non-genre? Phil (talk) 13:57, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Checking the record number of the first edition pub, I see that it's very low. It means that the data was entered during the ISFDB 1.0 era, before we had the "non-genre" flag. I think it's safe to change the titles to non-genre.

I am more curious about Fair Wind, Fiery Star, which says "Non-genre", but the synopsis mentions a "mysterious Dutchman, a mystical sea captain". Ahasuerus (talk) 14:20, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

P.S. I have checked the last page of Fair Wind, Fiery Star, which mentions the "mysterious Dutchman". He is described ambiguously before he disappears. It's not clear whether he is real or a figment of the protagonist's imagination. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:28, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

P.P.S. I have updated the Fair Wind, Fiery Star title record, added the first (abridged) edition and changed the non-genre flag to 'No' until we can find more details. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:43, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

I have changed the titles to non-genre. Phil (talk) 15:39, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5794782. --Username (talk) 18:11, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Approved, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Farnol's Shadow

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5795005; If anyone wants to read Great Quietude in the 1970 reprint and decide whether it counts to be here then the rest of the stories can be deleted; he wrote a lot of pirate-related stuff and is one of those authors, like W. W. Jacobs, who stuck a few of his horror stories in between their "serious" fiction. --Username (talk) 20:34, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?78925; https://archive.org/search?query=%22Benyon%27s+Entanglement%22; After adding a link in a PENDING edit to a Vault of Evil review where it's mentioned that Braddon's story "Colonel Benyon's Entanglement" seems to be missing the ending in its reprint in a recent British anthology I looked on Archive.org to see if anyone had uploaded the original magazine serial and didn't see anything but did find that it is included in those two collections linked above (it's on pp. 291-337 in Meeting Her Fate and is spread across both volumes of The Dreaded Guest) and neither of which is on ISFDB although the story "The Dreaded Guest" is in another collection. So if anyone has the anthology and wants to compare the endings to see if it is really missing or if anyone wants to enter those 2 collections and possibly variant the story titles to one of the dozen names she was published under, please do. --Username (talk) 11:39, 23 October 2023 (EDT)

Midnight Tales Discussion

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Rosab618#Midnight_Tales; I think I got this figured out correctly, right? EDIT: See also https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Boskar#Cockburn. --Username (talk) 17:03, 23 October 2023 (EDT)

Fantastic Fiction Images

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5796104; I get a scary error page when I right-click and open the old image. Anyone else? --Username (talk) 01:41, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

When I try to access , I get the following error:

• 403 ERROR
• The request could not be satisfied.
• Bad request. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
• Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
• Request ID: [variable request ID]

The key word in this message is "CloudFront" -- see this Wikipedia article for a somewhat technical summary of what it does. At the most basic level, it's an Amazon service that serves as a front end for many Web sites, in this case Fantastic Fiction.

Normally I would expect CloudFront to redirect "http" links to their "https" counterparts automatically. The fact that it doesn't do it suggests that it isn't configured that way, either due to a human error or to technical issues that CloudFront or Fantastic Fiction may be experiencing this week. Since we need to change all FF-hosted "http" images to "https", it shouldn't be a big deal. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:07, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

I believe I have changed all FF-hosted author images from "http" to "https". Ahasuerus (talk) 14:14, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

Argos Award / Prêmio Argos

I have another award suggestion for the Award Directory. I had another suggestion a few posts above (I believe it got lost among the other submissions), but I think this one should be added because it's the oldest/most traditional award given to speculative fiction in Brazil. I collected the necessary information below, including their links (their website is having problems, but it can be seen here). The award is organized and voted by the members of CLFC, a Brazilian association of readers and writers of speculative fiction. It started in 2000 and is still ongoing.

• Short Name: Argos
• Full Name: Prêmio Argos / Argos Award
• Awarded For: Speculative fiction originally published in Portuguese.
• Awarded By: Clube de Leitores de Ficção Científica, a Brazilian association of readers and writers of speculative fiction.
• Poll: Yes
• Covers more than just SF: No
• Website: Website, Twitter
• Categories: Melhor Romance (Best Novel/Novella), Melhor Coletânea/Antologia (Best Anthology/Collected Works), Melhor Conto (Best Short Story/Novelette)

The category Romance (not to be confused with the genre; its how novels and novellas are called as a format in Portuguese), as mentioned above, includes both novels and novellas, while Conto includes both short stories and novelettes. Alittlebook (talk) 16:29, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

It looks like a pretty solid candidate. Twitter warns that their Web site is currently unsafe, but the Wayback Machine version appears to be comprehensive, so we should be able to recreate nominee lists. (They also have a Facebook page, but, apparently, it hasn't been updated since 2019.) I am not sure how many nominated titles the ISFDB database may be missing, but it should be doable. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:42, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

Their website has been wonky for a while, so they mostly publish their results on Twitter and on their closed group, but I'm confident I can find most of the nominated works. Thanks! Alittlebook (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

If the award type is created, just a heads up that I mistranslated one of the categories (I originally spelled it "Collected words", but its "Collected works"), but already fixed it. Alittlebook (talk) 22:59, 28 October 2023 (EDT)

If there are no objections by the end of the weekend, I will create a new award type on Monday. Ahasuerus (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2023 (EDT)

Great! I'm already working on adding at least the winners who aren't already on the Database, and slowly the rest. Alittlebook (talk) 11:32, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

All done. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Just a question: I'm already adding the award to titles ISFDB already have, and doing so I realized Argos is really erratic with the nature of their finalists: some years they release it like the Hugos, with first, second, third place and such, but others they just release the winner and the finalists, with no tiers among the finalists. How should I approach this? In the years they don't release the tiers, should I just put "1" for the winner, and "finalists" for the finalists? Alittlebook (talk) 16:10, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Yes, that's how we usually handle inconsistent "poll" awards -- see this list of "John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer / Astounding Award for the Best New Science Fiction Writer" nominees for 1973-2023 for an example. FR 1086, "Change the award year field to a drop-down list", if implemented, may help in this area, but for now it's our best bet. Thanks for working on these awards! Ahasuerus (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Perfect, thanks, I'm already on it! Just a heads up, I suggested another award a little above (Ladies of Horror Fiction, a week or so before I mentioned Argos), could you check if that one is worth cataloging here? Alittlebook (talk) 00:45, 31 October 2023 (EDT)

Done. Sorry about the delay: the first and last days of each months are usually very busy on my end as I run monthly backups, enter new light novels, etc. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:17, 1 November 2023 (EDT)

No problem! Thank you for the hard work. :) Alittlebook (talk) 00:28, 2 November 2023 (EDT)

Adventure House

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?3836; Should the 1936 item be under an alternate publisher name? --Username (talk) 18:51, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

It's very likely a carryover from the 2006 facsimile reprint edition, which has been primary verified by one of our editors. I have left a note on his Talk page to see if the reprint includes a page with the name of the original publisher. Thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

The record has been updated based on what we currently know. Ahasuerus (talk) 22:41, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

Odyssey Publications

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?26323; I have PENDING edits adding archived links to the first 5 on that list. URL for the item missing ID suggests it should be #4 (PV just forgot?) and ID for #9 was entered without a space between letters and number like the others; which is correct? --Username (talk) 23:51, 24 October 2023 (EDT)

Remember the Alamo!

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5797826; I added an archived link in a PENDING edit, someone's note mentions partial signature, it's more visible here, https://www.ebay.com/itm/364244986997, it could be one of a few Charter artists already on ISFDB or maybe someone else entirely, anyone recognize it? --Username (talk) 20:19, 25 October 2023 (EDT)

Arbor House Treasury of Nobel Prize Winners

Does anyone own the TP of the above anthology? Because the HC on Archive.org has Charles G. Waugh on title page, not Charles Waugh. Price, page numbers for stories entered and decision on whether other stories qualify, entering of preface, better cover, etc. also needed. TP seems unfindable online (wow, unfindable is a word, I thought spell-check would red-line that). --Username (talk) 19:06, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

I could ask Charles if he still has a copy of the trade paperback if no one else has it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:59, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

OK. I have a PENDING edit adding the HC. --Username (talk) 20:46, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

The Diploids

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?37801; Open Library has a record for the Gregg edition of K. Maclean's collection but the link is for a copy of the 1953 novella. I added the link to that novella just for the heck of it but noticed there's some discrepancy with titles among various editions; note in Gregg says it's a reprint of Avon but 1 story in Avon is titled "The Pyramid in the Desert" while in Gregg it's the alternate title, "And Be Merry...". Also, Manor has an alternate alternate title, "And Be Merry". So does anyone own the Gregg who can verify what it says? --Username (talk) 12:15, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

Season of the Witch

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5799039; I entered the 1985 printing of Jack Martin's (really Dennis Etchison) novelization of the 3rd Halloween movie last year and today came across the 1984 one hiding on Archive.org so I entered it. They used the same ISBN for 1982 and 1983 but the last 2 are different from it and each other. If anyone owns a copy, please check because this may have had printings well after 1985. EDIT: I remembered that I entered a later edition of #2 last year, too, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?868156, so that may also have other printings. --Username (talk) 16:58, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

The Executioner

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?950765; This is on eBay, www.ebay.com/itm/324711912241, but there's also an archived copy, https://archive.org/search?query=%22Paradine%27s+Gauntlet%22, which has the same copyright page but price is $2.50 on front cover and in barcode on back cover. How can you tell what printings these books are? Is there a gutter code or something? --Username (talk) 18:09, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

Darkening Island Cover Artist

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?251927; I added archived link to 1972 HC of this book in a PENDING edit and noticed someone entered PB cover artist with one name but wrote another name in the note. I blew up the image but it's so blurry and the signature so crappy it could be either one. I searched for "Manor Books" and book title and got 1 hit...ISFDB. So if anyone can see a copy and verify what the signature really is one of those names will need fixing. There's no Friere here and several Freire but very unlikely that any of them could be this Freire. --Username (talk) 19:10, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

All the Traps of Earth

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?283283; I added archived link in PENDING edit; it does not say "and Other Stories" on title page. Active PV AliHarlow, Willem, Dirk: the title may need changing. --Username (talk) 23:42, 27 October 2023 (EDT)

Condors

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?19977; I added cover image for Rotunda in a PENDING edit; it's the only Condor PB without a price and I didn't see one anywhere in the archived copy so if anyone knows what it is, reply here. Also, the Roquard items are clearly by a different publisher which should be differentiated in some way. EDIT: Never mind, I got it, $2.25; Open Library cover, which is the same as Archive.org cover, is very scratchy but has bold colors; problem is it isn't framed well and the price info is off the left side. Bookscans has a clear cover with slightly less bold colors and some kind of weird lens flare on the left side but I could barely make out the price through the blinding light. --Username (talk) 00:41, 28 October 2023 (EDT)

NL Psychoville

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?536129; Doing some more edits today for the recently deceased Christopher Fowler, couple of wrong covers, some other minor stuff, but the edition of Psychoville linked above only has this awful image, https://boekenbalie.nl/psychoville/463400609, online as far as I can see. If anyone can find a better one please upload it. --Username (talk) 17:46, 29 October 2023 (EDT)

Roofworld Editions

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive54#Roofworld_Arrow_Edition; I added archived link to non-PV edition in a PENDING edit so I think PV edition could be deleted now. --Username (talk) 21:52, 29 October 2023 (EDT)

I would think that given duplicates where one has a primary verification, we'd want to preserve that verification. Especially when the verifier has been active within the last six months. My recollection is also that Unapersson has taken extended breaks in the past and returned. Hopefully, she will do so again. Chris J who has a secondary verification on the other record and is active, can easily move the Locus1 verification. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 06:54, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Authorship of Dune's map

While adding a new publication to the Dune title, I noticed that there's only one pub record here that has Matt Griffin as map artist (which is in and of itself doubtful as I couldn't find conclusive evidence that he indeed was the artist), instead of Dorothy deFointaine. Comparing the map in the Ace edition (see video where it says it's 'a redesigned world map of Dune') with the original map of Dorothy deFontaine, there's almost no discernible difference between both. Since the statement 'a redesigned world map' is highly exaggerated, I'm thinking to attribute the unsigned map in the Ace edition to Dorothy deFontaine (and not to Matt Griffin) - what do you think? How should we treat these two map records? Any other way to treat these two art records? Suggestions? MagicUnk (talk) 07:47, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

It's definitely redesigned, but not redrawn. The design of the map is quite different for the new one as it uses a lot of shading not found in the original, different labeling/fonts, and placement of somethings is a little different. That said, the copyright page credits the map like this: "Map by Matt Griffin, inspired by the original by Dorothy de Fontaine". Based on that, I think the new one should be credited to both of them, especially due to the many similarities. A not could be placed on the map title page explaining all that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:46, 2 November 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Updated accordingly. MagicUnk (talk) 08:34, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

B. Farthing

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5800896; The warning message "Proposed..." doesn't show up on Google when I search for it. Should I have rejected my edit or is it correct and I should do it again and ignore the warning or should Ben be the variant of Benjamin? I already have an edit making Benjamin an alternate name of Ben. --Username (talk) 12:40, 30 October 2023 (EDT)

Benjamin should be the variant of Ben, and then the title date for the variant should be changed to match its parent (since the variant is the name of the author). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:49, 2 November 2023 (EDT)

Done (I think). --Username (talk) 12:31, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

Rageot

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=rageot&type=Publisher; I have a PENDING edit fixing/adding stuff re: someone else's recent edit for a book published by Rageot and I noticed ISFDB has records for that name which was on the title page and the longer name, Rageot-Éditeur, which was on the copyright page. So really all books should probably be merged under one name. --Username (talk) 12:30, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

Brad Steiger Stories

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5805263; I didn't change the dates of Steiger's stories but I think they're both wrong. "Detroit", being a variant title, should have the date of this anthology, I think, and "Huntsman" should have a 1966 date as copyright page says. Am I right? --Username (talk) 10:01, 5 November 2023 (EST)

Yes, titles are dated per first appearance of that form of the title. Updates made. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:51, 5 November 2023 (EST)

Amazon WEBP Images

[17]; After I replaced one a few days ago and another one today I did a search and it seems most (all?) of the images with the weird URL Amazon switched to for a while are now broken. Is there a batch fix or will they have to be changed one by one (there's several hundred)? Most are not PV. --Username (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2023 (EST)

I see what you mean. There are 806 affected publication records, 30 of them primary-verified. I could create a script to change the URLs of the unverified pubs, then we could ask the primary verifiers to check their pubs. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:25, 5 November 2023 (EST)

I'm sure you've already got something that could be repurposed for this, but if not:

https://github.com/JohnSmithDev/ISFDB-Tools/blob/master/tools/submit_edits_via_api.py

You would need to update get_bad_pub_records() to pick up the affected records - plus any additional check to not pick up verified pubs - and the regex to fix them in the first line of generate_pubdate_imagefix()

Then 'uncomment' the PUB_COVER_EDITS code in the __main__ section. ErsatzCulture (talk) 05:01, 6 November 2023 (EST)

There have been quite a few scripts to mass change URL structures over the years, e.g. this one from 2022. I plan to use it as a template later today. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:17, 6 November 2023 (EST)

I was adding an Amazon author image for Maggie Allen and the URL is weird so I did a search, [18], and these are also broken. I don't know if the batch will fix these, too. EDIT: This URL was fine, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5806113, which I got by searching for Amazon and the author's name in Google Images; however, on the author's Amazon page, https://www.amazon.ca/-/fr/Maggie-Allen/e/B00DXZNLOG, the URL is the broken one. I don't know what's up with all this but I'm sure someone else does. --Username (talk) 10:13, 6 November 2023 (EST)

I have now manually fixed the "WEBP" author URLs. All but 2 were broken. Removing the "WEBP" part fixed all of them, although a few were "S" images, so they will be caught by the cleanup reports when they next run. I think it's safe to say that we should be able to removed "WEBP" from the affected cover scans programmatically. I'll work on it later today. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:13, 6 November 2023 (EST)

Thanks. I added an image to Maxwell Alexander Drake's record and of the 4 images on his Amazon page (I think at least some people must be aware by now that only certain regional Amazon pages display all author images at the moment in the scroll bar or whatever it's called, Amazon.com and many others just show the main photo, and they seem to be getting fewer and fewer as time goes by; I find Amazon Canada and Amazon France are still good) 2 are WEBP and 2 are regular; it figures that the one I had to use wasn't as good as the others. --Username (talk) 19:33, 6 November 2023 (EST)

Outcome -- WEBP images converted

All 806 "WEBP" images have been converted. Please let me know if you come across any issues. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:17, 6 November 2023 (EST)

Untouched by Human Hands

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5806259; Actual price was a bit different than what Tuck supposedly said but since Bluesman is gone if anyone else has the Tuck book and it really says 12/- then a note about difference on flap can be added after my edit is approved. --Username (talk) 12:38, 6 November 2023 (EST)

There is a price shown here: www.ebay.com/itm/115568098201 Tom (talk) 22:07, 13 November 2023 (EST)

Faerie Tale

https://archive.org/search?query=faerie-tale&sort=title&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&and%5B%5D=firstTitle%3AF; While doing an edit for Raymond E. Feist (adding a note that he was born Gonzales, not Feist, and fixing his day of birth) I saw that, despite the dozens of editions of his great horror/fantasy novel Faerie Tale the only one archived is a Doubleday Book-of-the-Month Club edition which isn't on ISFDB! Open Library claims there are 2 previewable copies but whichever edition the other one was, it's gone now. So if anyone has one of those club indexes or wherever people get the dates/ID # from, you may want to enter this edition so at least there'll be one copy people can read easily. --Username (talk) 19:26, 6 November 2023 (EST)

I've added the BOMC edition here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:23, 7 November 2023 (EST)

Connecting books in an unnamed series

I'm currently adding two books where one is the sequel to the other, yet they are not part of a named series. Should I still add series to them (and if so what should I call it), or should I only make a not about it in the title note? /Lokal_Profil 14:34, 7 November 2023 (EST)

What are the books? Can you provide a link to them? Or have you not added them yet? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:52, 7 November 2023 (EST)

One thing that we often do when two or more titles -- or two or more series -- are part of a larger, unnamed, setting is create a new series (or super-series) and use the word "universe" in its name. One example would be the Baba Yaga Universe. It contains 2 sub-series and one collection. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:05, 7 November 2023 (EST)

This is only two books Domens dag and Råttorna. Calling it a universe feels a bit like giving it more credit than it is due =) /Lokal_Profil 18:01, 7 November 2023 (EST)

Hi! If you can't find a naming of the series or a general theme, I'd suggest to use in this case the title of the first novel, like it was done for the two novels in this series. (The second link you provided leads one to a piece of interior art ;-) ) Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:48, 8 November 2023 (EST)

If the two novels do share the same main character, there'd be the additional possibility to name the series after it, like it was done here. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 07:10, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Thanks for the many suggestions! I'll go with the title of the first novel suggestion as the main characters are not given a last name (if memory serves) and Peter & Anna is way to generic =). Appologies for the erroneous second link (that was the pub-id not the title-id), the intended one is Råttorna. /Lokal_Profil 16:53, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Pied Pipers

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1428017; I left Chavey a message about a city missing in their note about imprint on title page of Routledge edition (which I'd just added an Archive.org link to) but later saw that there was a more pressing problem; the title was wrong, missing a word and misspelling another. I later added another note about Warne edition also likely being wrong based on cover image. Looking further, I think the other 2 editions also have the wrong title; Rand McNally 1937 edition (Chavey's note says 1927, that may be yet another mistake) is on Archive.org and it says The Pied Piper of Hamelin on title page while there's no edit history for Harrap edition but notes are in Chavey's style. Problem is Chavey hasn't responded to any messages since May of last year. Any suggestions? --Username (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2023 (EST)

Their last activity in the database was on 2023-11-04, so only a few days ago. I suggest giving it a little more time for them to respond to the questions. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:33, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Letter From A Teddy Bear On ?

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:J-Sun#Letter_from_a_Teddy_Bear_on_Veteran.27s_Day; I doubt this editor will respond so if anyone else wants to say what the right way to do this is, chime in. I could have sworn this discussion took place much earlier but I see it was only last December and yet I added some weird image to my message, which I don't do, so not sure why I did that. --Username (talk) 13:46, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Varianted. Most common version used as parent per standard. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:26, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Request to add German fantastic literature price:

Hi all,

after adding the German "DSFP" award, I would like to add now the "Phantastikpreis der Stadt Wetzlar", another German fantastic price:

Translation: The “Fantasy Prize of the City of Wetzlar” has been awarded since 1983. The prize is a literary prize endowed with 4,000 euros and is awarded annually for a novel. The prize honors works from all types of fantasy, from magical realism to fantasy science fiction, utopia and horror. Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that the fantastic element - similar to Goethe's “Magician's Apprentice” - also allows real life connections to appear in a new light. The prize is awarded by the city of Wetzlar in cooperation with the Wetzlar Fantastic Library. The jury consists of literary experts from Wetzlar and the surrounding area who have a close connection to fantastic literature.

Source (in German): https://www.phantastik.eu/ausschreibungen-und-preise/phantastikpreis-der-stadt-wetzlar.html

Forgot to sign it: Jannis (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2023 (EST)

I do think it should be perfectly eligible. Stonecreek (talk) 07:06, 12 November 2023 (EST)

I agree that it appears to be eligible. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:41, 13 November 2023 (EST)

Hearing no objection, I have created a new Award Type and an Award Category for this prize. Please let me know if there are any issues with the new records, otherwise have fun entering the awards :-) Ahasuerus (talk) 15:54, 17 November 2023 (EST)

Thats great! Thanks a lot Ahasuerus, I will add the books & authors of last winners of this price, and later link the price to their works. Jannis (talk) 05:16, 18 November 2023 (EST)

Pro Se

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=pro+se&type=Publisher; If anyone knows whether these are all by the same publisher some altering to bring them under the same publisher name would be helpful. They publish pulp-style stuff in all genres; neither of the books on Archive.org, https://archive.org/search?query=pro-se-press&and%5B%5D=year%3A%222016%22, are on ISFDB, Sushi Bar... likely has some genre-related stories, probably other eligible books by them out there. --Username (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2023 (EST)

If memory serves, I used Amazon's Look Inside to look into "Pro Se" publishers/publication series at one point. Their books used a number of different forms of attribution and I couldn't figure out the logic behind it. Someone would need to do more digging to sort it all out. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:55, 13 November 2023 (EST)

Cyrano and Jules Verne

https://archive.org/search?query=airborne+alan-c; I added 2 anthologies recently, imported genre stories into Skyriders in a PENDING edit, imported 3 genre stories (Kipling, T. L. Thomas, O'Flaherty) into Airborne but there's a couple of ancient excerpts (?) that are a problem. The Cyrano title doesn't match the one on ISFDB and there is no such title by Verne here. Searching for Verne title online only got 1 hit, https://www.mwbooks.ie/pages/books/307419/alan-c-jenkins/airborne-compiled-by-alan-c-jenkins, an Irish bookseller's page for Airborne. Typing a line of text from Verne's story got nothing online. I doubt this book found some long-lost Verne story so I assume it's just a novel excerpt. Does anyone know? --Username (talk) 10:41, 13 November 2023 (EST)

Anna's Archive has a downloadable copy. According to the Acknowledgements page, the Cyrano title is a "passage from Other Worlds by Cyrano de Bergerac, translated by Geoffrey Strachan". The Verne title is a "passage from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, translated by Jacqueline Baldick". Ahasuerus (talk) 12:15, 13 November 2023 (EST)

The submission has been approved. The two titles discussed above have been added. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2023 (EST)

Book storage and moving boxes

When I packed my book collection for an interstate move last year, I mostly used the 1 cubic-foot book boxes sold by U-Haul. There were a total of about 135 boxes. I have just finished unpacking the last of them and no damage occurred to any of the books. I particularly liked that they stacked nicely and were easy to hold onto while moving them around. They were especially useful for moving and storing paperbacks. Since there always a need to put some books into storage, I recommend using these boxes. Cheers! Phil (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2023 (EST)

Mark Powers - two different people

Currently for this author we have a bunch of UK juvenile titles, and some Jim Butcher/Dresden Files comics. I'm reasonably sure these are two different people: here is the agency page for the former, and here a publisher page for the latter, with neither page acknowledging the other work.

Unless anyone objects, I propose to split these off, probably making the second one "Mark Powers (comics)" unless there are better suggestions. ErsatzCulture (talk) 13:54, 17 November 2023 (EST)

I agree. This is a page showing a pic of the Dresden comics writer. Definitely not the person shown in the two Twitter/X profiles on our author page. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:00, 17 November 2023 (EST)

The Dresden Files comics should now all be switched over to the new author record. Thanks for confirmation! ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:59, 19 November 2023 (EST)

Twitter changed to "X/Twitter"

I am seeing more and more references to "X" instead of "Twitter". I have changed the way third party links appear on bibliographic pages from "Twitter" to "X/Twitter" to reflect this. It's a trivial change, so we can always tweak it again if the name changes. Ahasuerus (talk) 22:46, 17 November 2023 (EST)

Darrell Awards

https://web.archive.org/web/20120908050157/http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~timgatewood/sf/darrell/DarrellWinners_Categories_96to12.pdf; I came across that while looking for something else entirely and since some here like entering new awards and this doesn't seem to be on ISFDB I thought I'd link it in case anyone wants to enter it if it's eligible. --Username (talk) 13:49, 19 November 2023 (EST)

Final Frontier Cover

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?13334; I noticed there was a Greg and Gregory Brodeur here, made Gregory an alternate, made variant of one of his essays and merged 3 into 1 for the other essay (a variant will need to be made of that result after, I think), noticed 1st printing of Final Frontier '88 US PB was on Archive.org so added a link, finally noticed BORIS VALLEJO is credited for a foreign edition but not for any of the others even though they have the same art, Bluesman who was PV of 2 editions is long gone so if active PV of US PB agree with PV, Welo, that added art (they didn't mention where they got it in their notes) then cover credit can be added to all with date of US PB. --Username (talk) 19:00, 19 November 2023 (EST)

The German translation states Boris Vallejo as cover artist on the copyright page. But, i wouldn't take this as given for every other release without another source to verify. At the time the german publishers weren't the reliablest for infos on the copyright pages, they had sometimes wrong infos (copied from previous pubs, but not correct). I've stumbled over a few wrong ones over time. Welo (talk) 12:31, 1 December 2023 (EST)

Patterns of the Fantastic II

https://archive.org/search?query=%22patterns+of+the+fantastic%22&sort=title; Copyright page says December 1984, title page says 1986 in roman numerals, ISFDB says May 1985. If anyone knows what's the deal here they may want to add the link where appropriate and fix dates if needed. --Username (talk) 00:22, 23 November 2023 (EST)

The title page date is on a sticker that has been applied after printing. That sticker also has "Borgo Press". So it could be Borgo was selling copies for Starmont House or they made a photographic reprint and stuck their sticker on it. May 1985 is the date Locus1 has so that might have been the source for the ISFDB record. Rtrace has secondary verified it with Clute/Nicholls and Reginald3. I will ping him to see if either of those might has some info to shed light on the situation. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:53, 23 November 2023 (EST)

Neither Reginald3 nor Clute/Nicholls mention Borgo. The former has a 1985 date while the latter has 1984. Chalker/Owings has the 1984 date. BP 300 has 1985. This is probably due to the difference between copyright and publication dates. Also from BP 300, Borgo acquired Starmont in March 1993 after having purchased Starmont's Contemporary Writers Series in 1991. If I had to guess, the sticker is likely a cancel of the Starmont publisher and perhaps the 1986 date is due to a typo (VI vs IV). With that scenario, the sticker was likely added sometime after 1993 when Borgo purchased Starmont. Chalker/Owings does note that the purchase included Starmont's back stock. Regardless, if we decided to add a new publication record for the Borgo cancel of Starmont, I don't think we can date it exactly and I'd recommend using the unknown date. Hope this helps. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:13, 23 November 2023 (EST)

I made the following changes:

• Updated the Starmont House editions with the stated publication date as per ISFDB standards. I also included a pub note on the secondary source dates and a statement that it was likely not out until after the stated publication date.
• Cloned an undated Borgo Press edition with a statement regarding Borgo Press buying Starmont House backstock & the uncertainty of the Roman numeral date's meaning.
• Added the contents.

-- JLaTondre (talk) 08:21, 25 November 2023 (EST)

ASIN

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?966441; Clicking US ASIN leads to a different magazine; I don't know if that happens often or not but I thought I'd mention it. --Username (talk) 18:07, 24 November 2023 (EST)

There are two ISFDB records sharing the same ASIN, "B0CDQWPL1Z":

• Dark Hall Press Cosmic Horror Anthology
• Savage Realms Monthly, August 2023

Their respective Edit Histories show that the 2 pubs were manually entered by the same editor on the same day. Most likely it was a copy-and-paste error. I have corrected the erroneous ASIN; thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 21:17, 24 November 2023 (EST)

Khaw & Kadrey's The Dead Take the A Train

Re. this title, I propose deleting the pub dated 2022-09-27. That was the original publication date, which was pushed back a full year. I have added this detail to the notes for actual pub when it was released (2023-10-03), so the earlier pub record is now redundant. Any objections from anyone? PeteYoung (talk) 07:43, 27 November 2023 (EST)

Would it not be better to make the pub date 8888-00-00, rather than deleting the record? That way the ISBN is still in the database in case anyone else tries adding it in future? ErsatzCulture (talk) 08:36, 27 November 2023 (EST)

Yeah, that sounds sensible. Done. PeteYoung (talk) 15:49, 27 November 2023 (EST)

ayaz daryl nielsen

Are there any objections to using lowercase for Ayaz Daryl Nielsen. I have never seen him credited any other way. John Scifibones 09:01, 27 November 2023 (EST)

Hearing no objections, the change has been made. John Scifibones 10:31, 3 December 2023 (EST)

Disabling the Synopsis field for Variant Titles

Back in April 2022 "Make This a Variant Title" 2022-04-30 was modified to move VTs' Synopsis data to their parent titles. A new cleanup report, Variant Title with Synopsis Data, was created at the same time.

The original plan was to:

• clean up any titles found by this cleanup report (1,600+ at the time)
• confirm that there were no scenarios where a VT needed to have Synopsis data
• change "Edit Title" to disable the Synopsis field for VTs

The first step was never completed, so the process stalled. I have now processed/corrected around 50 (out of 1546) affected title record. It is as we suspected. Most just needed their synopsis data to be moved to the parent titles. Some needed two synopsis entries reconciled. A few were in error, e.g. there was Notes data in the Synopsis field or vice versa. A few Synopsis values were using a language other than English, which is explicitly not allowed in Help.

Based on the above, I think it's safe to change the software to disallow entering Synopsis data for VTs. If there are no objections, I plan to work on it over the next few days. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:03, 30 November 2023 (EST)

Will this block adding a synopsis to a serial title? In at least this case, each of the serial titles is a separate novella that could justifiably have its own synopsis. Phil (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2023 (EST)

That's right, the proposed change would prevent Synopsis values from being added to SERIAL titles. I don't think it should cause significant issues since semi-standalone SERIALs are rare and could be handled the way we handled George Lowther's Superman:

• Chapters 1-2 describe Superman's planet of origin, Krypton. Chapters 3-5 deal with Clark Kent's childhood with his adoptive parents. In chapter 6, Clark goes to Metropolis and gets a job with the Daily Planet. The remaining eleven chapters deal with a mystery involving ghost ships and Nazi spies.

Ahasuerus (talk) 10:53, 2 December 2023 (EST)

That's what I thought. Hmmm. I don't think that would work in the case of Last Stand since each of the installments (Episodes) are approx. 20,000 word novellas which have differing focus characters within the pseudo-TV series framework and the summaries should be more than a couple of words each. I'm not convinced it is truly a serial anyway. Anniemod set this up initially and I've been following suit since. I could just as well see this as a series called Last Stand with the individual novellas as normal Chapbooks/Shortfiction titles. Phil (talk) 12:52, 2 December 2023 (EST)

If they have different focus characters and different plots requiring different synopses, then I agree that they sound more like linked stories than a serialization. Ahasuerus (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2023 (EST)

I'm the only PV for these. On deeper examination, I believe they are linked stories, not serials. I'm going toss a note to Annie and then convert these from serials to shortfiction, unvarianting the titles, and grouping them under the series Last Stand. Phil (talk) 07:37, 3 December 2023 (EST)

Outcome: Software has been changed

Hearing no further objections, I have changed "Edit Title" to disallow entering Synopsis data for variant titles. Template:TitleFields:Synopsis‎ has been updated as follows:

• A synopsis can only be entered for canonical titles. The software won't let you add a Synopsis to a variant title.

If you come across any issues, please let me know. All that's left is cleaning up the remaining 1400+ VTs which still have Synopsis values. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:15, 5 December 2023 (EST)

There was a minor bug in the associated cleanup report. It was causing three valid title records to appear on the report. The bug has been fixed. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:54, 6 December 2023 (EST)

Nightly cleanup reports fixed

It turns out that the recent addition of a Notes template with an apostrophe in its name -- "Achevé D’Imprimer" -- broke the automated nightly process which regenerates cleanup reports. The software was fixed a few minutes ago and everything should be back to normal tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:12, 30 November 2023 (EST)

New superseries for Glynn Stewart's Castle Federation

Would anyone object if I create a new superseries named Castle Federation Universe which would have the existing series Castle Federation as subseries #1 and Dakotan Confederacy as subseries #2? Phil (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2023 (EST)

No objection -- book covers and Goodreads reviews confirm it. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2023 (EST)

Done. Phil (talk) 21:52, 1 December 2023 (EST)

Very Special People

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5828417; A copy of the rare 1977 horror novel The Soul of Anna Klane was uploaded to Archive.org earlier this year and I just came across it, it's a second impression so I cloned it, uploader messed up because the jacket is from an awesome book about circus people (or freaks as they were called back in the day) that anyone my age probably remembers reading or at least looking at the photos. Would anything by the author, https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL529624A/Frederick_Drimmer, qualify to be on ISFDB? --Username (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2023 (EST)

Is "Frederick Drimmer" the author of The Soul of Anna Klane? The covers say the author is Terrel Miedaner. The only one from the list of Frederick Drimmer's works that looks like it might be includable is The Body Snatchers, but it depends on what it's about. All his other works seem to be nonfiction about non-genre topics. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:33, 7 December 2023 (EST)

Other works by Miedaner that might be includable include [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181242.The_Mind_s_I The Mind's I, in which he has a story or essay (not sure which as the book contains both). It has a work by Stanislaw Lem in it. I couldn't find anything else by Miedaner that could be included. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:40, 7 December 2023 (EST)

Miedaner wrote the novel, Drimmer wrote dozens of non-fiction books including some about genre-related topics that I thought might qualify. Maybe someone will find one or two with something in them that can be entered. The novel seems to have had a lot of other editions not on ISFDB including some foreign editions with weird covers so maybe someone fluent could enter those. Also, the Mind's I book you mentioned is on Archive.org, https://archive.org/search?query=terrel+miedaner, in case you think that qualifies to be entered here. --Username (talk) 12:55, 7 December 2023 (EST)

Gary Allen

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?87741; The author of None Dare... died long before the other works on his page were written so obviously by a different Allen; he has his own Wikipedia. However, I don't think there should be a variant but rather the novel removed because it's not really a novel, it's an anti-Communist diatribe by a member of the John Birch Society that's been reprinted endlessly. --Username (talk) 13:42, 7 December 2023 (EST)

Book has been deleted. Clear nongenre, nonfiction by a different author than the speculative fiction Gary Allen. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:16, 7 December 2023 (EST)

Schrecksekunden

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5830404; Does anyone recognize the cover I added? I'm almost sure I've seen it before on an English-language book; if so, artist is likely on ISFDB for that and can be added to this. --Username (talk) 09:44, 9 December 2023 (EST)

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/emergence/ and that conveniently also has From the Heart of Darkness cover. Looks like we have this. --MartyD (talk) 11:05, 9 December 2023 (EST)

The PV of the affected pub is active and a moderator, so I pointed him at this. --MartyD (talk) 11:10, 9 December 2023 (EST)

The cover of [Schrecksekunden] is correct. Regards Rudolf Rudam (talk) 05:43, 10 December 2023 (EST)

Submission approved. Cover credit added to Schrecksekunden with a publication note specifying the secondary source & new cover art record varianted to the prior one. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:19, 10 December 2023 (EST)

Aiken's World Well Lost

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?915733; I don't think Joan published a book with this title but rather it was her brother, John, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?135, so Joan's record for that book should probably be deleted. --Username (talk) 19:06, 9 December 2023 (EST)

Deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:24, 10 December 2023 (EST)

Dedications in Poems

I'm holding this submission to alter the title of this poem based on this web page from the magazine's web site. My question is whether "(For Edgar Allen Poe)" should be considered as part of the subtitle, or whether that is a separate dedication that should not be included in the title field. If we go with the latter, it could be added to the notes. My recollection is that poems occasionally have "For XXX" listed in a smaller typeface under the title though usually without the parenthesis. I don't think we usually include these as part of the title field. How do other folks feel about this. If there is disagreement, we can move this to the rules and standards page. Thoughts? Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:50, 14 December 2023 (EST)

Personally, I wouldn't include this as part of the title. It is somewhat similar to the way some sources treat additional information, for example for series - like in The Death of a Hero (Star Wars), and it is a dedication. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:35, 14 December 2023 (EST)

Dedications are a common occurrence, I never include them in the title. If someone wishes to put then in the note section, I would not object. John Scifibones 13:25, 14 December 2023 (EST)

Hearing no differing opinions, I will reject the edit. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 15:08, 22 December 2023 (EST)

Scheduled server maintenance - 3pm 2023-12-15

The ISFDB server will be down for scheduled maintenance between 3pm and roughly 3:10pm server (EST) time on 2023-12-15 (today). Ahasuerus (talk) 13:39, 15 December 2023 (EST)

The server is back up. Thank you for your patience. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:08, 15 December 2023 (EST)

Brian Keith Evenson = Brian Evenson?

Any thoughts/objections on making Brian Keith Evenson a variant of Brian Evenson? The former has just 2 pieces of short fiction in 1986 and 1989 (both with difficult to Google titles), which slightly predates the earliest work of the latter. Howevever (a) "K." is listed as the middle initial of the legal name of "Brian Evenson" (with SFE saying this it is "Keith"), and (b) the 1989 story was published by Brigham University, which Wikipedia says is where Brian Evenson got a degree and was later employed. Evenson's site doesn't have any detailed bibliography that might help clarify those two early stories are his. ErsatzCulture (talk) 14:39, 15 December 2023 (EST)

The source given for The Leading Edge, September 1989 is FictionMags Index. Checking them, they have these as the same author. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:50, 15 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks - I've now set up variants/alternates for the author and two title records. ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2023 (EST)

F. Piatti

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=co+piatti&type=Name; 2 credits for each, one should be parent assuming credits are correct; maybe they're all really spelled the same and someone just entered one or the other name wrong here. --Username (talk) 11:38, 17 December 2023 (EST)

Done. Thanks for this find! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 04:36, 18 December 2023 (EST)

Abridged editions?

Do we include abridged editions? I know we don't include dramatizations but the help doesn't seem to say anything about abridged editions. Thanks! Phil (talk) 15:02, 17 December 2023 (EST)

Sure we do! It's possible to add them to the general title (and add a note to the publication), or if the abridgement does alter the story in a major way to add it as a variant, or if another hand is credited for the abridgement to add it as a stand-alone title, like in this title. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 04:44, 18 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks for the clarification. I've started to run across a number of audio items that have abridged versions but haven't been sure if I should add them. Phil (talk) 07:37, 18 December 2023 (EST)

I have been told that abridgements are certainly accepted, but that they are never added as variants. How to deal properly with them was incorporated when dealing with translations, which are made variants but the difference in language makes it possible to distinguish them from name/author variations. ../Doug H (talk) 08:39, 18 December 2023 (EST)

That's certainly true for audio versions/readings: here it is quite a regular case that they are abridged, so they should just be added with a note under the respective title. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 12:33, 18 December 2023 (EST)

(unindent) Abridged editions are included. The FAQ says:

• If an individual story is rewritten or revised, then we create a Variant Title for it and add the nature of the changes, e.g. "expanded", "abridged" or "restored", in the Notes section. Please note that these conventions are likely to change in the foreseeable future as we beef up our software in this area.

The original Feature Request to change the software to display "relationships" between titles was created back in 2008, but it hasn't been implemented yet.

Of course, when dealing with drastically changed titles, e.g. novels reduced to excerpts or short stories expanded to novel length, we create separate title records. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:33, 19 December 2023 (EST)

To the original question - abridgements are in. I am questioning the varianting advice. I also once noted the lack of documentation on abridgements specifically. The original place I was told not to variant abridgements was in this conversation. The argument was that variants were for title / author variations or translations as a special case due to limitations in the software. Only one moderator said so, but no one contradicted, so have been going by this since. There were earlier and later discussions (I doubt I found them all) with varying degrees of agreement but no resolution.

And the FAQ reference above was answering a question about portions of a story appearing earlier in a novel that is expanded or created from a series of shorter stories. The HELP on variants says at the beginning that they are only for title and author variations, but later talks about how to deal with translations (with a link to how-to details). ../Doug H (talk) 23:50, 19 December 2023 (EST)

Help:Screen:MakeVariant says:

• Two title records are variants if they are in fact the same story, but have either a different title, or use alternate names for the author.

Translations are effectively "the same story" for our purposes, but I agree that it's not made clear in the statement above. We should probably update it. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:16, 20 December 2023 (EST)

It sounds like abridgements should not be varianted. But there's no help on how to document the relationship to the original - be it in the Notes or a linking template. ../Doug H (talk) 23:50, 19 December 2023 (EST)

I'm following this closely since most audio abridgements are significantly shorter than their unabridged brethren (should they exist for comparison). Often 2-3 hours compared to 8+ hours. The source novel is often in the 270 page range. Phil (talk) 08:57, 20 December 2023 (EST)

I would expect a version that contains only 25-33% of the original material to be considered a separate derivative work. Kind of like E. Nesbit's juvenile adaptations of William Shakespeare's works are listed as separate works with the word "(abridged)" appended to the end of the title: "A Midsummer Night's Dream (abridged)", "The Tempest (abridged)", etc. Except, of course, there would be no additional co-author. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:52, 20 December 2023 (EST)

To me, this makes the most sense. If it's significantly abridged, it should be a separate work (for example, I think the abridged audio releases of The Courtship of Princess Leia should be separate as they are only 3 hours as opposed to the unabridged version of 14 hours (finally being released in January)). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:00, 20 December 2023 (EST)

Based on this guidance, the title above has now been split into The Courtship of Princess Leia and The Courtship of Princess Leia (abridged). Phil (talk) 18:02, 20 December 2023 (EST)

Crash Override

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?659223; I added archived link and a few other things in a PENDING edit to the other book by the publisher, the novel The Secret. Publisher actually has no space between the 2 words in its name so I fixed that and then was going to check online to see if it was the same for this much later book but realized this probably shouldn't be here since it's not by a known author and it really has nothing to do with genre. So should it be deleted? --Username (talk) 10:54, 19 December 2023 (EST)

I was advised some time ago and it is my understanding that any works shortlisted for a genre award (in this case a Hugo) are considered in. This exception is called out in our policy page but only for online publications. Perhaps we should be more specific. Aside from that, my recollection from reading the book in 2018 is that it is chiefly about the Gamergate event which is tightly coupled with the Sad/Rabid Puppies movements. I don't recall how much Quinn went into the latter, but if at all, it would certainly qualify this as a book about speculative fiction. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 11:51, 19 December 2023 (EST)

OK. It's PublicAffairs in Amazon look inside so I'm going to fix that so both books on ISFDB will be by the same publisher. EDIT: There's 1 archived copy which was uploaded in May, 2021 but wasn't added until January, 2023 (?!?) so I also added a link to that. --Username (talk) 12:14, 19 December 2023 (EST)

John Allen

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?186482; Likely 3 or 4 different authors on the same page in case anyone can find info to separate some or all of them. --Username (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2023 (EST)

I split the entry into three. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:18, 20 December 2023 (EST)

Knock on Wood

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=0-671-04070-7+&type=ISBN; Cover says Vornholt; why is Friesner credited for the same book? EDIT: Also Witchopoly, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=0-671-02806-5&type=ISBN. --Username (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2023 (EST)

Deleted the two Friesner ones. All reliable sources show these two ISBNs as by Vornholt which matches cover. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:06, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Silverberg and Neverness

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:SFJuggler#The_Time_Travelers; Linking this here in case anyone else might own a copy of the Donald I. Fine edition of Neverness. Also, should we make the Silverberg thing a pub. series? There's got to be more than 2 books in it; Archive.org search isn't the most accurate and there could be books not archived that are part of the series. --Username (talk) 17:40, 27 December 2023 (EST)

I have the Donald I. Fine 1st hc edition of Zindell's Neverness. It does state "A Robert Silverberg Science Fiction Selection" on rear flap and also "RS/SF" on spine of dj. I have also discovered that Sturgeon's Godbody has the same features. Looks like a pub series to me, even if it didn't last very long and didn't have many books in it. I have Godbody so I will PV both these pubs and edit them to create and add the pub series. Teallach (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2024 (EST)

Great, thanks! A search for the exact series title on Google only finds the ISFDB record for Godbody and my message on the SFJuggler board. --Username (talk) 18:55, 2 January 2024 (EST)

Where the Southern Cross the Dog

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?326635; Does anyone own the August 2002 issue of Locus? I added cover/interior artist and intro by S. R. Tem but I can't find the titles of the stories anywhere, 3 supposedly, and it was reviewed by Edward Bryant in that issue. Maybe he mentioned them. --Username (talk) 18:05, 27 December 2023 (EST)

Ah ha, I recently added a link to 40+ years' worth of microfilmed Locus issues on Archive.org and vaguely remembered that I had asked about an issue of Locus recently. I checked that 2002 issue and yes, all 3 stories were mentioned. The one original, "Black Angel Blues", doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere at all online (until now). --Username (talk) 22:46, 17 February 2024 (EST)

Siergiejew

https://readfrom.net/michael-aronovitz/364512-the_voices_in_our_heads.html; It's Marius Siergiejew in that link, no z in first name but also no "Noistromo", I checked Unlikely Entomology issue and it is Mariusz, so both should be variants assuming all the ones under Marius "Noistromo" actually have the correct name entered; now that the link above shows there's at least one with just Marius maybe that should become the parent after name is fixed and the nickname should be the variant. I added a Blogspot link to the Marius record. --Username (talk) 18:47, 29 December 2023 (EST)

Alternate name created. I would not consider that site reliable enough to change a verified pub. Unfortunately, the verifier is no longer active so we will have to wait for someone else to re-verify it. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:58, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Webs of Time

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?54122; Does anyone think the replacement cover I used is better than the old one? Mod didn't agree. --Username (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2023 (EST)

Well, the overall quality (= colour likeness) seemed better with the amazon source, and I do assume that this source will be more stable than Fantlab (and presumably that's the line of thought Chris_J also tended towards). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:26, 30 December 2023 (EST)

I guess; anyway, my replacement cover will still be in edit history so that's something. --Username (talk) 08:53, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Fanni S.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=fanni+s&type=Name; Probably the same person, maybe entries under the first name really don't have the special "u" or maybe editors didn't enter it that way. --Username (talk) 00:21, 30 December 2023 (EST)

The three records with Suto all had Amazon Samples available which showed they should have been Sütő. Only one was verified and that verifier is showing as not active in several years. I made the changes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:46, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Great Tales of Action and Adventure

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5846199; Cover question about this '67 10th printing I just added. It says Richard Powers on copyright page but Robert Shore on back, Powers credit possibly left over from earlier printings? Should Shore be entered instead? --Username (talk) 18:23, 31 December 2023 (EST)

My copy doesn't have the credit to Shore on the back, but the cover is different than the Powers original. Seems like we should have a Richard Powers (in error) created as an alias to Shore. Tom (talk) 18:43, 2 January 2024 (EST)