User talk:BLongley/Archives/Archive04

Could you please cancel my last three edit submissions?

Bill It looks like you are online. Could you please cancel my last three edits on Weird Tales for date changes. I think it will cause problems if committed to the DB. - Thanks Kevin 22:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've gotten them. -DES ^Talk 23:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Intangibles Inc. and Other Stories

Bluesman submitted a pub-delete of NTNGBLSNCN1971 which was verified 2007-01-23 by Unapersson. The puzzle is NTNGBLSNCB1971 which you verified 2007-06-16 but it seems identical to NTNGBLSNCN1971. Do you know why you would have verified a second record rather than adding the cover artist to the first? I've left the submission on hold for you to approve/reject. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There's no comma between "Intangibles" and "Inc." in my copy. I seem to be the only person that noticed that, although my Wiki-search doesn't uncover me having asked anyone. I will now. BLongley 09:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Nebula Awards #18

Can you check to see how the Michael Bishop excerpt in this pub is actually titled? The way it is now looks rather strange. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixed - was a stray ")". I've added pub-level notes about ToC and acknowledgments for it too. (Might be accurate at title-level, can't say.) BLongley 09:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If you can get a chance to look at this excerpt, can you verify that it begins with the sentence "For nearly eight months Joshua lived in a remote portion of Zarakal's Lolitabu National Park..." and ends with an excerpt from Poe's poem ("...a dream within a dream.") That's the novel's first chapter. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly it. There's a bit of bio blurb before the story starts if you want that. BLongley 20:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I just wanted to verify which section of the novel it excerpts, so that I can update my Bishop bibliography. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

And after all that, I discover I already had that info. Oh well, the joys of Alzheimer's. MHHutchins 20:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Changed date on verified

I changed the date on your verified SWORDS AGAINST DEATH (SWRDSGNSTW1973) that I got from the 5th printing's copyright page. And added that it is assumed a 4th printing.17:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I've placed this submission on hold until you get a chance to look at it. MHHutchins 19:39, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be the sensible placing:

1. Swords Against Wizardry, (1968, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #H-73, $0.60, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones - [VERIFIED]
2. Swords Against Wizardry, (Jan 1974, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79161, $0.95, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
3. Swords Against Wizardry, (Jun 1974, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79162, $1.25, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
4. Swords Against Wizardry, (???, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79163, $1.50, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones - [VERIFIED]
5. Swords Against Wizardry, (Aug 1979, Fritz Leiber, Ace, 0-441-79164-6, $1.95, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
6. Swords Against Wizardry, (date unknown, Fritz Leiber, Ace, 0-441-79165-4, $2.25, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones

It's a lot easier to do Ace books when you have the other editions! BLongley 20:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:Edgar Pangborn.jpg and images in general

I know that you think that Template:Cover Image Data is too much work, and have not been using it. But the case for fair use in a photo of an author is rather weaker than that for a book cover, and I think that including the source info and disclaimers is therefore more important. Also, while a book image page can link to the publicatiuon, and thereby provide much of the required info, that is not true for an author image.

Would you please consider using Template:Author Image Data on this and similar images?

Thanks for the pointer, I'd been looking for that one. I certainly didn't want to have to create one myself. I thought I might have to justify one as an explanation of why a cover photograph credit was imprecise, and the other to confirm pseudonyms we haven't got yet. I've no plans to add any others. BLongley 17:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, what would it take to create a varient of Template:Cover Image Data that you would think is worth using? What is the most info you are willign to fill in on the image description page? (please note requested Feature:90159 Link locally hosted images to their wiki description pages.) If I created a version of the tempalte that required only the pub tag or ID, and advised viewers to follow the link to the pub record for the rest of the date, would that do it for you? -DES ^Talk 17:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably: I do tend to use a Pub Template for now. BLongley 17:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I have created Template:Cover Image Data2. It requires no more input than Template:P, but provides much the same boilerplate as Template:Cover Image Data. I have used it on Image:BKTG05639.jpg‎ as an example. Will this be workable for you? -DES ^Talk 00:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It definitely needs a shorter name. "P" I can get right 99% of the time. "Cover Image Data2" I'd keep going back to help for, and discovering it isn't easy to find in help either anyway. I tried "Author Image Data" for both author pics though, and in neither case was the result satisfactory to me: do the results look OK to you? BLongley 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

They look reasonable to me. What don't you like? Nothing is graven in stone, changes can certainly be made. What would you like? -DES ^Talk 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, "Source" and "Publication" were pretty much the same thing for me, so felt stilted to enter. I added a bit to the template in case Publisher owns copyright. And my "Rationale" in these cases was rather non-standard but I had to put it into "Portion used" to get it in at all. It might have been nice to make "Publication" a true Publication link as well - I can't be sure based on a sample of two, but I suspect if I ever need to do it again it'll be a scan from a publication I'm entering here. But all this can wait till a few more people have tried it: I suspect my reasons are going to remain uncommon. BLongley 17:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The reason why "Publication" was not set up as a link to a DB pub record is that a picture might well not come from the back cover of an SF work, but from a biography, or a newspaper, or a convention program, or some other such place that does not have a DB record. The reason for specifying it is that the Fair Use rules are different for unpublished works -- it is much harder for the use of an unpublished work to be held fair use. Thus I thought we want only pictures that have been published, and to know that they have been, we need to say where the picture has been published. I thought of "source" as being different, meaning where the uploader specifically got the image. If it was copied from a website this would be the URL. If the image was a scan, I would have put for Source "scan by X". But perhaps "source" is redundant -- its use could be changed or even eliminated.

I could add an optional "Tag" field which, if specified, would be a publication link. Unfortunately the MediaWiki extension which supports true "If" logic in templates has not been added to our installation -- only a few templates would use it, and I guess AL thought it was too much trouble (probably has several dependencies) for the value-added. So a tag field will leave a non-working link when omitted.

I could certainly add a field for an optional additional Rationale. Would that be a good idea, do you think? That could take the kind of things you were putting into "portion used". -DES ^Talk 20:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm REALLY trying to think of any future use I'd make of this, and so far the only thing I can think of is a picture of "Kilgore Trout" that I could scan from the publication. That would make it 3 out of 3 "from publication" sources. But an Author Image on a Pseudonym probably isn't supported. I'm happy to provide feedback on what you're doing, and agree the two examples I uploaded needed a bit of justification - but so far the templates aren't helping me, I only upload in weird cases. Questioning might be better directed at people providing images just because they want to see themselves, or actually care to see a favourite author presented a bit better, despite the image having no real bibliographical use. For the vanity-press authors we seem to be getting more and more of appearing briefly, a direct upload rather than questions about "are you the author, and are you giving us permission?" would be the main use I can see for this sort of thing. BLongley 20:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. My goal is to see an image on every author page (and on every publication page). Obviously this is impossible, in some cases there is no image to use (consider an obscure 19th C. author, for example). In other cases no one will bother to find one. But that is a goal to measure success by. Perhaps others do not agree with this goal. Anyway, my object with the templates is to make sure that we have all the info needed to make sure that our use of the images is legally defensible, and such additional data as will be useful for research purposes, without making the templates too unwieldy to be used. I'll take suggestions from anyone. No one person has, or ought to have, ultimate say, but quick response probably do tend to set the terms of the discussion, and so get extra weight -- that is the nature of discussion, in person as well as on a wiki, i think. Not fully fair, but all too human. -DES ^Talk 21:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I frankly can't see people adopting such templates until they're 1) SHORT and 2) IMMEDIATELY available from help. But thanks for trying, keep it up. BLongley 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It is essy to create an alais (redirect) for this or any template, to give it a shorter or better name. How about Cover, or Cvr, which is shorter but IMO not as memorable, or even C if you like.

As for available from the help, does Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki do the trick? If not what m,ore is needed? As for findign that, it is listed in Help:How to, which seems a pretty obvious place to look. How can we make it more obvious? -DES ^Talk 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, until recently, the "How to" section was purely for the ISFDB, NOT the Wiki. So 'What the ISFDB Wiki is for' might have been a better starting point. A "How to" section under that seems an appropriate name, but "How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki" is no good - I don't think anybody has needed help with that so far, this particular bit comes AFTER that and most people skip it. I think you want a "What you should do when uploading images" which covers the naming standard(s) for uploaded files and any templates you want applied afterwards. But I digress - it's the whole issue of template help being hard to find that needs addressing. Put template info in "Help:Editing" and people might find it in one or two clicks rather than three from a main page they aren't actually on when they need it most. BLongley 17:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll gladly add a link from Help:Editing, or from Help:Contents/Purpose or both.

I note that not everyone seems to find the templates as onerous as you do. Mhhutchins just added Template:Cover Image Data2 to about 30 images, and left a skeleton on User:Mhhutchins#Useful Templates. But i have no objections to making them as easy to find and use as possible -- quire the reverse. I welcome any suggestions on how to make them better, simpler, easier to find and to use. -DES ^Talk 20:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Mike took a lot of gentle persuading to start scanning and uploading, I think. This might have been the tipping point? Uploading images is easy, but any sort of "these are the other rules" puts people off. The fact that he's needed to leave a skeleton on his page makes me think that it's STILL not totally intuitive, though. I try to use templates when they make my life easy - P, A, T are mostly OK now, C might be good too. I know there's lots of others, but I can never find them easily even when I know one exists. And if I haven't used one for a while I'll forget the parameters, get lost in help, and do it without templates. Aim for the one-click help and we might use more templates. And if we use more templates, we might even start to use the ones only you are really pushing. (I still don't care if I'm legal because it's Fair Use, Public Domain, Out of Copyright, Copyright granted, etc - all I want is a Yes or No.) BLongley 21:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I use such skeletons (mostly off the template doc pages), not because I find the templates non-intuitive, but so that the unchanging parts can be quickly pasted in, not re-typed. I find that more complex templates often make my life easier, but obviously that doesn't mean they make everyone's life easier. As to not wanting to know why an image is legal, but just Yes or No, the problem is that they only way to determine whether is to find a why that works, in the absence of a correct why the answer is "No". The uploader must choose the proper template, or at least provide the data from which one can be chosen, or we will never know if it is legal or not. For book covers it is generally easy -- if it doesn't fit Fair Use, the answer is almost surely "No". There are exceptions (books published before 1923, for example) but actual cases where they apply are very rare in the ISFDB. -DES ^Talk 21:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Whereas I'd say that we should just ask that all uploads be legal (which I think we more or less do, if not going into much explanation of how they could be legal), and if anyone complains THEN we can check WHY it was (or wasn't). Adding the template at creation time doesn't give us any extra protection that I can see - possibly LESS, if we claimed something was Public Domain and then had to change our defence to "Creative Commons" or "Fair Use" . Or is someone CHECKING all these claims as they're made? BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Labelling every single image at upload is a lot of work that will probably never be needed - I'd like to see every publication we have get a cover-image, but even if we did that only for verified pubs that's nearly 20,000 images already. If those were all here, and all had a template filled in at say 15 seconds per template, that's about three and a half solid days of work done to preempt a problem that could be solved with a few seconds of "Don't like it? Fine, I'll delete it" or a few minutes of checking for "sorry, that looks like fair use to me". It's not as though we're inundated with complaints, is it? Yes, there's a small chance that somebody will be litigious enough to pursue a complaint further even after rectification of the problem, but they could always do that anyway - given enough resources you can destroy anyone with legal matters. My personal effort/benefit analysis says it's not worth my doing. My personal risk analysis says it's not worth doing. I won't stop anyone else doing it if they find a benefit. If Al or anyone else at risk thinks it needs doing then they can do it to my uploads, or ask me to stop adding covers to their contributions or just request I stop uploading here at all. Even if it DOES need doing to cover someone's arse, then a publication by publication basis STILL might not be the way to go: if an artist or publisher gives blanket permission for certain-sized images to be used freely, or within constraints we already impose on ourselves, then we might be better off recording such at Publisher or Artist level. BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I will admit that I was taking my cue from Wikipedia here. They have far more images on file than we do, and they do not only ask but insist that every single image be tagged with source and license data. If an image is uploaded untagged, a bot spots this and puts a msg on the uploaders talk page. If the license is still missing 7 days (or it may be down to 48 hours) later, the image is tagged for speedy deletion, and is generally deleted within hours. They do this in significant part because they found that if they didn't, images that were pretty clearly not legal were uploaded in large numbers. We are not as visible a target, but still... As to whether it really is legally required (Wikipedia is very cautious on such issues) I offered to consult an actual lawyer on what was actually required, offered to pay for a written opinion out of my own pocket, and was fairly strongly discouraged from doing so. My amateur legal reading suggests that attribution and a reasonable rationale would make it significantly harder for anyone to win a suit, and thus make it less likely that a lawyer would take it on. Total protection? No of course not. As you say anyone can sue over just about anything, if s/he is willing to spend the money. But it does decrease the risk. I think it also makes the images more valuable to have a minimum of identifying data attached directly to the image. Whether the benefits are worth the costs is a judgment call, i can't quantify either. -DES ^Talk 20:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest 1) improve Help links - I can't even find bits I wrote easily now - and 2) work on some other Wiki indexes we need: e.g. how do we find the Publisher pages we've already created? Or if we uploaded an Image and forgot what we called it, how to find it now? BLongley 21:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to do at least some of what you suggest. Let me know what you think of the results, please. -DES ^Talk 21:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, on finding images, that is one advantage of Template:Cover Image Data. it puts every image into a catagory for the artist, and another category for the publisher, automatically, as well as a general category for fair use images. Take a look at, for example Category:Artist:Bob Eggleton Images or Category:Publisher:Baen Books Images, and don't forget to look at Special:Categories. -DES ^Talk 15:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Not really the sort of thing I'm thinking of - I'm thinking of how to find something I uploaded last week that I really MUST add some extra data to. Or all of somebody's images that may not have been named with the Publication Tag. (I think that was almost recommended as a standard for magazines, wasn't it?) And the "Publisher" Category makes me think we've got yet ANOTHER set of stuff to keep in step - people have already been breaking the links between publisher records and publisher Wiki-pages. :-/ BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Still, when you can do templates that give ME a benefit then it's fine if you also get something out of it yourself. And if other people are searching by Artist or Publisher then maybe we should be using those categories on artist or publisher ISFDB entries or Wiki pages? BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

On finding recently uplaoded iamges, the upload log can be useful. (You can get to it via Special:Logs or the special pages link on the left of every wiki page (in the toolbox section).) You can filter this on the user name of the uploader, also. If you wnat to find an image older than that, you may be able to use the image list, which you can get to via Special:Allpages (or the special pages list, then pick "All pages") and select the "Image" namespace. If you know any piece of text that is on the iamge description page, you can use Special:Search and select the "Image" namespace as the search target.-DES ^Talk 20:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added a large wiki-list to Publishers, listing the publishjer wiki pages now on file, to make it easier to find them. Let me know if this looks helkpful or not. -DES ^Talk 22:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]Please indulge me as I barge into your conversation, as my name has popped up a couple of times. Here's the sequence of events that led me to uploading images:

1. Bill asks a question about my verified copy of one of the Corgi SF Collector's Library edition, with a casual aside about creating a gallery of covers for the series. I think to myself, why not just go ahead and upload the cover image of that particular pub? So, I do.
2. Wow, I say to myself, that wasn't so hard. Why don't I do a few more? So after uploading a few more, I'm beginning to feel smug and self-important. Me can do it all (as Tarzan would say). Create the pub, upload the image, verify the pub, all the time approving my own edits. Talk about feeling superior. Who needs the rest of these mugs when I can do everything on my own?
3. David comes along and softly, tactfully, diplomatically tells Bill about a template that makes adding the fair use and copyright disclaimer even easier than before. "Uh-oh," smug Mike says to himself, "I've forgotten to use the template for data info when uploading images."
4. Meek and humble Mike goes back and adds David's wonderful new and user-friendly template to each of the images that he uploaded. But wait, he forgot to change to template's <TAG> for all of the images. So he goes back to add the tags, and realizes "Hey, this isn't as easy as I thought it'd be. Maybe I should think twice about uploading more images, or just wait until I've got all the time in the world." (December 31, 2008, Retirement Day!).

BTW, after uploading all those images, the template is now ingrained in my brain. The skeleton on my user page was placed there before I started uploading. I just have to remember to add the tags! MHHutchins 00:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Tor UK

I added Publisher:Tom Doherty Associates as a stub article. I see that earlier you had added Publisher:Tor UK. My question is - do you know of any publications that use the Tor UK imprint? Marc Kupper (talk) 23:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I know I've seen "Tor UK" as the publisher of record on several pubs, but they all seem to have disappeared. What happened? Did someone do a publisher merge for those titles? MHHutchins 00:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Just checked again. It appears that they've been changed to Tor / Pan Macmillan UK. MHHutchins 00:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The imprint on the spine is Tor just like the US publications, the difference is the ISBN# is unique to the UK editions(hc & pb). These are sold in UK and Canada and have a UK and Canadian price. On the copyright page it has "First published 2007 by Tor an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd" as an example(Neal Asher's Hilldiggers). I'm not positive about this but I don't believe they're sold in the US.Kraang 01:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I also moved all the UK Tor's that were listed under the US Tor name awhile back. I also merged them all under the Tor / Pan Macmillan UK name, this was the more common form at the time.Kraang 01:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

There's more that are listed under the US Tor that probably should be changed. Do an ISBN search for "03304", and you'll find titles by Asher and others that are probably published by Tor / Pan Macmillan. MHHutchins 02:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought I had done them all, it now looks like I missed some and a our wandering bot has added some more. I'll put a list of the known ISBN's in the Wiki and then fix it to 2009. Thanks!Kraang 03:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Wow, what a lot of discussion before I even see the first message! Yes Marc, I do know of publications that use the Tor UK imprint (sort of). They do look like the US ones from spine imprint (as Kraang says) but from my small sample they are NOT sold in Canada - presumably if Tor US handles the Canadian edition Tor UK doesn't, and vice versa? I'm not totally sure it's worth a separate imprint but the books do reference www.toruk.com and www.panmacmillan.com (the former diverts to the latter though, and I suspect it's forcing a UK Tor page on me - or is there no true Tor US line mentioned there now?). I don't think "Tor / Pan Macmillan UK" is the right way to go though, if there's country separations at the "Tor" level but "Pan Macmillan" is global. It looks as though Tor (US) was actually "Tor / Tom Doherty Associates / PanMacmillan" for a while? (Not that I recommend such long publisher names, or even adding a parent publisher if it's not needed for disambiguation.) I'm not sure where Kraang's intending to put the ISBN notes, but can we keep the publisher names and wiki names in step please? It's not a difficult edit, although we may end up with lots of 'REDIRECT' pages till things settle. BLongley 18:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

All the Tor UK hc & pb's that I've seen sold in Canada have both the UK & CDN$ price on them, but no US$ price. I believe Tor/Tom Doherty Associates is still part of Pan Macmillan. If it helps I can leave the ISBN's in notes and in the Wiki.Kraang 22:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's the US Tor site[1].Kraang 22:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Changes to your verified pub Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, October 1975

I changed "fep" for content on the front inside cover. I also put Callahan's place story in a series. For some reason the short stories aren't in a series yet, I plan to add them to series when a see them. Tpi 19:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Why anyone would ever want to convert a nice logical, sortable, integer database field value to a TLA that 99% of people have never heard of is beyond me, but if the Masochistsgazine specialists want it that way it's OK by me. Putting the Callahan's stories into the Callahan series looks sensible though. BLongley 20:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's why I avoid the magazines as it seems like they have their own set of rules. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm in agreement on the page-#-vs-"fep", when it fits into the numbering scheme (as these do) without going negative or requiring made-up roman numerals or anything. (Which is why these things showed as page 2 instead of fep originally, since I was the one entering many of them in the first place.) I've been approving Tpi's changes on them, though, as I see them. It's a legal code, documented in the help; it does give the location more readily (to anyone who knows the code!), since it's not written on tablets of stone that the front cover is page 1 in a magazine; & Tpi is working hard at adding & cleaning up a lot of stuff in these Analog issues (& mostly doing very well, now that he's getting over the hump in the learning curve). Dave (davecat) 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't really recognise "legal codes" here if they're nonsense: particularly ones that I COULD change to match what I do, rather than change what I do to match what one or two people wrote about before and then left before they could defend it. But changing stuff that people are using and you're NOT does not seem polite or productive, so I let a lot of weirdnesses slip by as they don't really affect me. My magazines are being moved to near-inaccessibility to make room for more books, but as there are significant overlaps I have to know something about the magazine data-entry standards - titles and dates are important, page numbers much less so. But I doubt I'll be very vocal about anything that only affects magazines unless someone does something silly like assume all UK printings match the US ones exactly, so they should be combined. Or tries to convert "Destinies" to a magazine (which it technically is) before we get printing number support (which "Destinies" needs). And I know I have UK magazine oddities that I will be questioned about eventually, but as even the sellers sold them to me as paperbacks the confusions are understandable. But I'd always recommend questioning the standards as early as possible: hence my activity on non-genre magazine entry, even though I doubt I'll primary verify many of them. I will add many secondary ones though, so if you feel you can fix the "missing or variant date" ambiguities and omissions in Template:PublicationFields:Title please do so! It's not a purely genre magazine issue any more. BLongley 20:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Strange thing, BTW. I'd seen this entry, meant to get back & respond, couldn't remember right off whose talk page it was on. I tried searching user talk pages (& then help pages too) for "fep", & turned up absolutely nothing. Anyone have any idea why that would be so? Dave (davecat) 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Apart from "Wiki-Search is fundamentally broken"? :-/ I think it only works with significant keywords that it decides, not us. I usually get better results with Google and "site:isfdb.org" qualifiers, but even Google don't scan us often enough to be really sure if something is here or not. Maybe this is another Wiki thing to bug DES about? BLongley 20:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

By default, wiki-search only searches "articles" -- that is, pages in the "main" namespace, like Publishers. You cna change this is several ways. After every search, there is an area at the bottom laped "namespace search" on our wiki, and "advanced search" on some other versions of the software, where you can do a search and sepcify the set of namespaces to be chaecked, which can be quite handy. You can get to this directly, via Special:Search or by clicking "special pages" and then "Search". You cna also set what the inital defualt is for you personally in your wiki-preferences, whcih yoiu cna get to via Special:Preferences.

All that said, searchs are not the wiki software's strong point. A google search such as Bill suggested is often a good idea. I don't know anything much about how the wiki search is implemented, or what sorts of things it looks for, sorry. -DES ^Talk 21:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

According to this help page, the folowing are true of wiki-searches:

• Only the article content is searched - the page title is ignored.
• The article content is searched in its raw (wikitext) form - i.e., it searches the text that appears in the edit box when you click 'edit', not the rendered page. This means that content coming from an included template will not be picked up, but the target of piped links will be.
• Even if you enclose a phrase in quotes, the search looks for each word individually. e.g., if you enter "world war 2" it will return pages that contain "world" and "war" and "2".
• The search is not case-sensitive, so "MediaWiki", "mediawiki" and "MEDIAWIKI" all give the same result.

I'm not sure how much help that is, but, there it is. -DES ^Talk 21:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

See also Help:Wiki searching. -DES ^Talk 21:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Not much help, in this case. "fep" (I searched without the quotes) appears a number of times in this user talk page. I checked the user talk page box. It found absolute zilch. I think the search is broken, & I'm curious as to why & how. (When I want to do fancier searches that it doesn't support, it's broken in another way, but I understand why & how.) I did realize that in searching the help pages it might have missed the edit_pub help page etc. because "fep" probably is buried in a template & so not on the help pages themselves; but that doesn't apply to Bill's user talk page, this item. Dave (davecat) 21:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I get the same (non-)results. I don't know way. The only thig I can think of is thet the help result says "Unsuccessful searches are often caused by searching for common words like "have" and "from", which are not indexed...". Why "fep" is a "common" word i don't know - a few tests suggest that any and every three letter word is not indexed. -DES ^Talk 21:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

"fep" is not a common word, and there's very few words that short we'd actually want to be common even in ISFDB terms. (Magazine editors may disagree.) Although "Tor" and "NEL" or "NAL" are ones that I think we might want from the book side... can we add TLAs to the search within this site? (Wiki side - the database can cope, the ISFDB presentation layer gets too generous with matches...) BLongley 22:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "fep" is not a common word, that should be ommitted from search indicies. But a number of tests have suggested to me that as implemented the wiki search engine fails to index any three character word. Nothing in the documentation says that this is true -- indeed what doc I can find says that this is not true. But that is whow the ISFDB wiki seems to behave. I don't see any way documented to specifically add (or remove) words fromn the lsit of words indexed for search, nor to change the logic of the search engien in any way. Ther are various alternate search engines that can either replace or be avaialble as alternates to the default search engine -- all require installation, soem look simple, some do not. Most if not all are implemented as extensions to the Mediawiki software. I'm no sure what to advise at this point. -DES ^Talk 23:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Bill, I'll leave this and this on hold for you to look at. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The latter is fine, but what has the former got to do with me? BLongley 20:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Aha! My mind is less looney than I thought! The former was a pub verified by Hall3730 that Tpi was doing a title-remove from that looked a little odd. I knew I'd dropped a note about this somewhere... Marc Kupper (talk) 22:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure your droppings are being left in the right places, but so long as it all works out and I'm not left with the pooper-scooper duties I'm happy. (Actually, I'm more happy that I've found another dozen books bibliographically useful, and another dozen worth reading, which will give me some pleasure tomorrow when I have to shut down the computer for thunder-storm reasons.) BLongley 22:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Book club edition of Shaw's A Wreath of Stars

Can you verify whether the publisher of this edition is the Science Fiction Book Club or Readers Union? Sometime in the mid-70s, I believe the UK SFBC changed the publisher of record to Readers Union (the parent company). The only UK SFBC edition I have is from the late 70s and shows Readers Union as the publisher with the SFBC logo only on the inside front flap. Take a look at this list and you'll see that your pub would fall into the November 1976 slot. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

This is beginning to freak me out. Within minutes of my asking this question, you updated this pub and uploaded the cover image. Did my question prompt this or did that psychic connection kick in again? MHHutchins 22:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The Pub was updated by your prompting. (You're lucky, that's in my swap piles, not usually somewhere I can easily find it. Oh wait - it's been on my first swap pile for months - nobody wants it. :-/ I think I've only managed to get rid of one of such titles in the last year. ) It's Reader's Union, I think most of the other data is secondary. Like the #1118 - nothing on the pub suggests that to me. It's available (as are most of my other book club editions of anything) for swap - postage costs probably make it undesirable though. I know I don't tend to buy many books from the USA unless I'm REALLY curious - I can still acquire plenty of curiosities locally. BLongley 22:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Your Verified Pub - Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror, Second Series

In GRTSHRTSTR1949 could you confirm that the short story The Haunted Ships is listed as by 'Alan' Cunningham and not 'Allan'? Thanks Kevin 03:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's single L, even in ToC. BLongley 17:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Drat. Thank you for checking though! Kevin 01:06, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

UK pb of Merril's 10th Annual

Tuck gives the year of publication for this edition as 1967, but doesn't have a listing for the 9th Annual (which you state was published by Mayflower in 1967 also). MHHutchins 20:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the 9th is stated as 1967 by Mayflower-Dell. So if I make the 10th 1967 (which isn't stated) as well it makes them look like liars about how "Annual" it is. If Tuck had both I'd tend to trust him. But I'd kinda like to hold out till I see 11 and maybe 12, you know? If the UK editions exist, of course. BLongley 23:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The Galaxy Primes by Doc Smith

Locus #175 (June 24, 1975) gives a price of 40p for your verified edition of this title. I can't say where they got it from if it's not visible on your copy. MHHutchins 03:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

For export only I guess, although it doesn't state such: I just can't see any signs of a UK price being obscured. Why I've got one meant for export I don't know, but living so close to where the publisher was I guess there's plenty of second-hand copies from employees and such-like. BLongley 18:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Inconstant Moon

Bill, could you please "compare and contrast" my verified 1974 printing of the Sphere edition of Inconstant Moon and your verified 1977 printing? In particular, could you double check if the erroneous claim about abridgment (11 vs. 7 stories) in the 1974 printing was corrected in the 1977 printing, as seems likely? Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It definitely was corrected, if it was wrong in the first place. I've added a note to mine but obviously can't check yours. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, do you find that the Acknowledgments page only lists SIX? BLongley 23:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That's right, it's six in my copy as well. I don't know what they were smoking, but hey, it was 1974! Ahasuerus 23:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't smoking anything in 1974, but maybe they had to use source's paper to roll a proper "60's" joint or something? :-) BLongley 00:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, as per Help:Screen:NewNovel, "It is fairly common for the last page of text in a book to have a different graphic layout which may not include a page number. The "last printed page number" rule would then use a page number before the end of the work. In these cases, count forward to the end of the text and use that as the last page number," so if the last page of your printing is unnumbered (like mine is), then we may want to change the page count from 199 to 200. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, have done. I normally do this automatically now, but this was one of my early submissions. OTHER Significant content after the numbered pages doesn't apply in this case, but I know I've dithered over "excerpts from the sequel" at times. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I may need to get a scanner to upload this printing's cover. Eddie Jones' art is the same as the one on Amazon.com, but it's arranged differently. Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Please DO get a scanner and USE it! It'll stop me annoying you with verification requests for such at least! And then maybe we can reduce the number of COVERART entries that come up in "simple" title searches if we agree when COVERART actually has the same ART and can be merged... or we can decide it's Cover IMAGE and demand each is exactly as seen. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I have mentioned that I am color deficient -- who the heck designed this body anyway?! -- so art of any kind is generally not a priority. If I were to start spending my limited ISFDB time on scanning covers, I would have even less time for verifications :( On the other hand, I can see how having more scans would help with cross-verifications. Decisions, decisions... Ahasuerus 23:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall you mentioning a colour-deficiency (except that you obviously have a lack of "U"s :-) ) and in fact I think you've mentioned that some covers I've uploaded are less "vibrant" in colour than yours.

When you are color-blind/deficient, you generally go by intensity rather than by (too often unreliable) color. Some tests use this fact to identify different types of color-blindness, e.g. see the last test on this page. Ahasuerus 20:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting page, thanks, I think I'll explore more. I recall doing some colour-blindness tests as a child but my myopia and astigmatism were considered more severe: e.g. in one test they said "remove your glasses, have a look through this and read the top line". To me, there were three orange bars labelled A, B, and C: I couldn't even see that there WERE letters in each orange bar I was supposed to be able to read. (And I extrapolated from the "B" that might have been an "8" to me as well.) BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

When I look at that page on my 19" monitor at my normal distance, I pass the tests. Without glasses, I can read ONE set of numerals and that's it (Top Left). At six inches, I can read all but Top Right. The one at the bottom is interesting as without glasses I can see either the 2 or the 5 with some sort of mind-switch - I'm usually the odd person out that can see both sides of an optical illusion before I'm even told it's an illusion, so my mind is doing SOMETHING to correct faulty inputs. My eyesight is pretty faulty but fortunately correctable with the right instruments - can I assume that if I invented colour-blindness correcting specs I'd be pretty wealthy? (Or do they already exist?) BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am unaware of any way to correct for color-blindness with lenses or anything else, for that matter. Genetic engineering may fix the problem in the future, but for now most folks develop coping mechanisms when driving etc. Ahasuerus 22:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Correct. My Father was an experimental psychologist, specializing in color vision, so i know a little bit about this. In theory a virtual reality system using false colors could convert red/green differences into some other color dimension that the person involved could see, but its not really practical just yet. Actually, not a bad background idea for an SF story, but there needs to be a story there before it works. -DES ^Talk 23:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

There probably are SF stories already, but they might be in the "Synesthesia" area. "It smells purple!" or "It sounds green!". When it comes to "looks (fitb)", "fitb" probably is covered by something else with colour and/or scent and/or taste: "Lavender" or "Lemon" or "Strawberry" for instance. "I see - Marmite!" doesn't really astound. If someone has expressed the taste of Marmite in visual terms I haven't seen it yet... but I avoid "Horror" works anyway. BLongley 23:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

My big worry is that after the myopia and astigmatism I apparently can look forward to the macular degeneration that my father is suffering. :-( BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I was resistant to the extra work of scanning and uploading originally, but it is actually fairly easy and I can let the scanner work while I'm editing. My problem with Amazon UK taking DAYS to update was solved by uploading to Amazon US instead (seconds for them to update, minutes at most) and made me start doing it more often. Uploading HERE is even better (slightly larger images allowed, self-approval OK) and I even got Mike Hutchins doing it. Except that you get nagged to add extra info. Which I ignore and just add the link to the pub I want it for, as the use in the Pub record won't show as a link back to the wiki image page. DES can fix the rest if he thinks it's needed. BLongley 00:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If you add the link to the pub record using Template:P I can semi-automatiacally convert this to Template:Cover Image Data2 using AWB, as I have done for a significant group of images in the past. -DES ^Talk 16:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Verification request

Could you please check this discussion when you get a chance? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, another lazy edit on my part (or someone regularised it). No hyphen in mine. Fixed now. BLongley 00:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Ad Astra?

I have Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle which includes the essay Ad Astra? including the question mark in the title. Does your verified Vector 65 have Ad Astra or Ad Astra? with the question mark? Locus and http://www.mjckeh.demon.co.uk/vec73may.htm say there's a question mark.

Does the essay start out "At the age of 14 I decided to become an astronomer" and end with "You couldn't buy dreams like that."? The reason I ask about the contents is my publication states

“Ad Astra?” copyright © 1986 by Bob Shaw. First appeared in Vector.

At the time I verified Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle I also added a note about that copyright "implying it was published in a 1986 issue of Vector. Further research finds that it appeared in the May/June 1986 issue." Unfortunately, I can't figure out how out I came up with May/June 1986. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've no idea where the magazine is but fortunately I scanned the article. It has the question mark and starts and ends as you say. I don't know of any reason to change the copyright date unless it was revised? BLongley 15:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess we'll chalk it up as a mystery from Bermondsey Triangle. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Driftglass

This submission is an edit to your verified pub. I'm inclined to reject it but will run it by you to see if the edit adds useful data. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The Space Circus by Steffanson or Raymond

Your edition of this title is credited under the Con Steffanson title record. But there is a listing in Locus #207 (December 1977) that the first Star edition was published as by Alex Raymond. I see that the cover of yours shows Raymond as the author. Is the title page different? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid my TV & Film related books are inaccessible at the moment, but from what I remember of the series the true writer is listed on the title page, "Alex Raymond" appears to be on the cover just because that's who you EXPECT to write Flash Gordon stories. Hopefully those books will be accessible again in another week or two. BLongley 17:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You're correct that "Alex Raymond" wouldn't be the true author (he died in 1956). The true author is Ron Goulart. The credited author may be Steffanson as that was how the US edition was credited. Perhaps the Locus listing was based only on the front cover credit and not the title page, which probably states "written by Con Steffanson based on characters created by Alex Raymond." Oh well, no rush. MHHutchins 18:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, my cleaner recovered the set for me. The title page says "Alex Raymond's original story: Adapted by Con Steffanson". I think my thinking at the time is that even if Alex Raymond wrote a story like this, it was probably a comic strip we'll never add. (Although I see we seem to have four books of such here now - no contents though.) I've added a note about the title page credits but haven't promoted Alex to Co-Author status. Similar to me not crediting script-writers for film-adaptations, or TV script-writers for Buffy and X-Files books: although I think I have done such in the past, either with title-level notes or Wikipedia links to the TV shows. It just got too much work for titles nobody else seems interested in. BLongley 22:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Out of Phaze 6th printing

I have the 6th printing I match you, but I thought it should be 0000-00-00 as there is not printing date to match. Also Rschu verifies Michael Storrings as a second cover artist. I know he did the maps, but my edition does not state thw cover art. Thanks, Harry.

Date fixed. If you have the same edition, the cover artist is credited 3 lines below that date. Storrings signed the maps but is not credited for either those or the cover. BLongley 18:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

My bag I have Sweet as the ocver artist and I found 'Storrings' on the map. I appreciate the clarification. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Sir Douglas M. Price"

By the way, Bill, following up on our discussion of legal names and titles, take a look at this book by one "Sir Douglas M. Price", currently sold by Amazon. As the product description says, "You will NOT be able to put this book down until You and Your Family Experience the Full Spectrum of its' Mythical, Magical, Life Changing Events." I am sure the fact the two lonely five-star reviews, one of them calling the book "a future Pulitzer Prize winner and big screen movie", are by readers from Alabama is just a coincidence... Ahasuerus 03:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Dark Universe by Daniel Galouye

Tuck gives a date of 1967 for the first Sphere printing. Everything else (page count, price, catalog #) matches your 1970 verified edition. Could yours be a second printing? MHHutchins 05:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it definitely states "First Sphere printing, 1970" but I'm pretty sure Tuck wasn't psychic... BLongley 18:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably not, but the first volume didn't come out until 1974, so he (or his sources) had plenty of time to get confused :) Ahasuerus 16:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Lifeboat

This [2] . I transient verified my copy and added my price. £0.65 . Thrash me if my wrong. I did not remove note. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, you can take over Primary verification on it. I'll only keep the 1985 edition. BLongley 13:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Lifeboat

Dragoondelight has updated your verified Lifeboat to change the price from blank to £0.65. I approved this and re-edited to remove your note "Price obscured." Marc Kupper (talk) 00:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The Best of Leigh Bracket.

In checking my copy against your verification this. [3] . You have page 420 Map Margaret Howes. I am confused by this. The Addendum establishes the reality of the author of the essay and the maps starting on page 422. My thinking, and I fully admit I could/am completely wrong is this. Mars: By the Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars is a very short short story (fiction). The Maps would be separate as something like Mars (Maps) interiorart. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't remember doing that. Maybe I bailed over the question of "Margaret Howes" from the factual addendum as opposed to "Margaret M. Howes" from the fictional essay, with a fictional title? Or dithered over whether "Central Terran Administration" is part of the title? Either way, I don't care about Maps so adjust it whichever way you like. BLongley 17:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Harry dropped a note on my page as I had verified a copy the Doubleday hardcover. I looked at my book again and decided to do the following:

• The map is "by" the "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars" with a variant title for Margaret Howes.
• The short story Mars is more complicated. It's stated as by "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars", says "Margaret M. Howes, Secretary" at the bottom, but I'm pretty sure Leigh Brackett wrote it as her addendum reports that Margaret Howes did the map and "several closely reasoned detailed pages concerning the reasons for placement of the cities, canals, etc." but does not credit Margaret Howes for a preface to the maps. The copyright page seems to confirm this with a 1977 copyright by Leigh Brackett and a credit for the map to Margaret Howes.

I also found on Amazon The Wrong World by Margaret Howes where the "About the author" (probably copied from her book) says she did the maps and does not mention any other work for this collection.

Bill, I updated your publication but may have gotten confused on the page numbers. Could you and/or Harry please check this?

If all of this makes sense we can also make Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars a pseudonym for Leigh Brackett. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The pages match my copy. The only question I still have is why name the essay 'Map' instead of Mars? Since the assumption is Leigh Brackett wrote this little bit, which I agree with. Do you think the M. inserted between the names was a pun for Mars also? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I was wondering why I fel6t so0 conf7used... I fixed the name of the essay. Yes, I was wondering if the M. was for Mars. It seems LB had fun coming up with a way to credit/honor Margaret Howes. Hopefully her name got put in to the publisher so she got royalties for both the Doubleday printing and Ballantine reprints.

Ahh, the bingo light just clicked on. The Table of Contents in my hb edition says "Map   366" at the bottom while the map itself says "Mars". I'll add a publication note to the hb copy. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The page numbers are fine by me. The paperback has no ToC entry for this section to add confusion (as if we needed any more!) I don't know if the text is purely by Leigh Brackett, or a collaboration based on text by Margaret (possibly "M.") Howes. But as my interest in this is about the same as my interest in their respective shoe-sizes, Harry, please take over primary verification and do what you will. (Just don't spell "Brackett" the way you did in creating this thread! ;-) ) BLongley 20:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the whole thing really, but in trying to avoid something coming out of left field, I did so myself. I will verify it if you wish, though the idea that a question and you tag out is making me reticent to say something. I do not wish to offend, nor do I wish to acquire more point value verifications. As for spelling Brackett, I noted that I do miss the second t in several instances where it is used. It is either a fingering issue or typing slower than my mind formulates the sentence. Lack of coherent message content construction is a serious issue of mine. I also admit parsing into subdivisions the Afterword is a stretch, and can see once it starts where do you end. Apologies to all, Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(sticking my nose in) I must say, I dislike in general the idea of crediting fictional characters or entities (such as "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars") authors in the DB. Yes, authors frequently assign "credit" for stories, parts of stories, or in-universe essays to fictional "authors" as a form of realism (or sometimes as a joke). But that is all part of the story. We wouldn't list the Sherlock Holmes stories with a co-author credit for "John D. Watson", nor do we list the Callahan's Bar stories with a credit for "Jake Stonebender". I realize this is an odd case, but I would prefer that this be discussed a bit more before this precedent is followed. -DES ^Talk 16:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In the Bone

Just a note that I have added a Note to your verified Ace edition of In the Bone. I also added a Note to the associated Title record, which explains why this collection is sometimes dated 1987 and other times 1978. Ahasuerus 01:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fine. I added cover, changed "Marcg" to "March" and added a note about the cover being signed as I've just added Corben to the Library. BLongley 19:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

RANKINE: INTERSTELLAR TWO-FIVE

Added $AUS & $NZ prices to the record, and noticed that the hyphen also exists on the copyright page, but didn't add that to the existing note.--Bluesman 02:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

May's Intervention

I wonder if the 3 main Titles in your verified Intervention are really novellas or if they started life as novels and then got changed by an accidental merge? Ahasuerus 03:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing is probably a novel (see here). It might be useful keeping the contents for now till someone can see if they match the split in the American editions (currently listed as numbers 1 and 2 in the series although they came later and should have the same content). Unfortunately nobody's confessed to owning them yet. BLongley 18:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I have the US edition! Let's see... <sounds of book stacks being moved around> The first US volume, The Surveillance: Book One of Intervention, has the following contents:

• Prologue 1
• The Surveillance 13
• The Disclosure 161
• Appendix: The The Remillard Family Tree (unnumbered pages following page 347)

The second US volume, The Metaconcert: Book Two of Intervention contains:

• The Intervention 3
• Epilogue 280
• Appendix: The Remillard Family Tree (unnumbered pages following page 283)

The two "Appendices" are identical, so it looks like there is no new text and Del Rey simply split the text after "The Disclosure". Just in case, the first volume ends with the words "Both love and evolution act in an elitist way. And now, farewell." Ahasuerus 21:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, if you're going to read the FICTION for bibliographical reasons I guess I ought to as well - I can manage a few pages even though I haven't actually read ANY Julian May yet. Let's see... <grinding of mental gears as I figure out where the book actually IS... > OK, it's actually pretty easy, this room has books up to "Edmund Cooper", "May" should be in what used to be the dining room. BLongley 22:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's there, and not on one of the double-stacked bookcases either. I can confirm that the section called "The Disclosure" ends with the words "Both love and evolution act in an elitist way. And now, farewell." "The Intervention" starts with "Paul Remillard, my grandnephew, made an observation during his first address". Does that match? BLongley 22:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yup, it matches perfectly. Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

If so, how do we now use this data? I think the sections are useful for the US/UK split, but are unlikely to be published separately. Some are NOVEL length. COLLECTION or OMNIBUS or just move to title notes and put it back to NOVEL? BLongley 22:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I would be inclined to make them all NOVELs -- which is how they were listed by Locus and other folks -- and add notes explaining how the original book was broken up for US publication. And to think that a 673 page book was seen by somebody as too long just 20 years ago! :) Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I still find it too long to start. Anything over an inch thick is too hand-numbing to read in the bath, and don't get me started on "trade paperbacks".... BLongley 22:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as the quality of May's work goes, I am not familiar with the 200+ books that she wrote in the 1950s-1970s under a truckload of pseudonyms. Apparently many of them were juveniles, which may explain why I thought that her Saga of the Pliocene Exile sometimes read like a beefed up crossover between a YA novel and a romance novel, but it had its moments. The follow-up series, which starts with Intervention and continues with the Galactic Milieu trilogy, reportedly started well, but the resolution left a lot of readers somewhat unsatisfied according to rec.arts.sf.written reports in 1996. I am sure I will get to it one of these centuries... Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully your inclination is STILL towards NOVELs as I've just edited, noted, re-seriesed and deleted stray contents. Please check. BLongley 22:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks good! I have verified my pubs, which should take care of this area for a while :) Ahasuerus 00:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I would love it if this became an example of Peace and Harmony amongst all our editors! BLongley 01:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that reminds me! I have been meaning to mention that all upper case words like "STILL" are perceived as "shouting" in some parts of the Internet. It also makes posts harder to read, which may contribute to communications problems. I am not sure why that is so, but that's what a lot of people have observed. Perhaps a more judicious use of the Shift/CapsLock keys may help things a little :=) Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I never use the Caps Lock key, but yes I do tend to indicate a stressed word with shift. What do you suggest instead? I'm afraid most of my online habits were developed in environments without bold, italics, underlines, font-change options, etc. BLongley 15:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I tend to italicize words for emphasis and bold when something is really important. It looks like you have been experimenting with a similar approach for the last 24 hours :) Ahasuerus 00:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I tried to change, given enough practice I can usually relearn. I've even got used to DES's cover image template now he's shortened the name and I've had dozens of practice runs. That's probably easier though as it does actually save me some typing whereas italics here are more typing than just holding down shift. BLongley 19:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Tell me though - do you ever get accused of shouting when you capitalise ISFDB record types? I notice you picked on "STILL" but not "NOVELs", and have used "EDITOR" yourself today. BLongley

Yes, record types are problematic: damned if you capitalize (and shout) and damned if you don't (and confuse the reader). I suppose it's too late to ask Al to change them to 'Editor', 'Novel', etc... Ahasuerus 23:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't be really, if we can cope with a few minutes downtime. For instance, I recently got PHONE, WEB, EMAIL, FAX, LETTER entries changed on half a million records at work to "quieter" names just because I didn't like them. (And also because some daft bint of a programmer before me had had cross-referenced the two fields using such to two different reference tables, as if one of our teams might be receiving information requests by pigeon or telepathy instead.) Nobody noticed the extra time involved. Took them quite a while to notice the change anyway, but when they did it was always considered a good move. BLongley 21:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, the data may not be that hard to change, but what about the software? "Find-and-Replace" will probably work in 90% of all cases, but who knows where the other 10% may be hidden -- programmers have been known to use "creative" solutions in most unlikely places! :) Ahasuerus 21:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Phaid the Gambler

I also tried to fix The Song of Phaid the Gambler today. If that looks good too (I don't know if you have examples to hand) we might have another example for the "split novels" discussions. BLongley 01:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It so happens that I own both the US and the UK versions -- I recall purchasing both because the text was apparently revised by the US publisher -- but it may take me a little while to extricate them from the stacks. Hopefully I will verify them by the end of tomorrow. Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

They're ganging up on me! I just found The Wind's Twelve Quarters Volume II - I didn't know it had ever been split. BLongley 15:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

No rest for the wicked or at least bibliographically deranged :) Let me see if I can get my Phaids now... Ahasuerus 00:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, found/verified my NEL edition and compared the text with the Ace version(s). Added the following Note to the UK Title record: "Later revised for US publication in 2 volumes in 1986-1987. Although the first volume of the revised version ends at the end of Chapter 17, the text is different from the text at the end of Chapter 17 of the original version, so it's not clear where the break is nor is it clear what the extent of the revisions was." Ahasuerus 03:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

template ping

Please look at three example pages where a new (draft) version of {{Cover Image Data}} is in use. If this meets with approval, I will copy it over the existing template, and adjust the documentation as needed. The three examples all use the data from a cover I uploaded last night.

• User:DESiegel60/CID-test1 A page where a publication record number is specified
• User:DESiegel60/CID-test2 A page where a publication tag is specified instead
• User:DESiegel60/CID-test3 A page where neither record number nor tag is specified. This is what existing images will look like until/unless edited to insert the rn or tag, and what new images will look like if the pub rn or tag is omitted.

Please tell me what you think of these examples. This is copied from Rules and standards discussions#Template Use, because i wanted to be sure you saw it early. please respond there.

Also, i have created {{C}} as you suggested. -DES ^Talk 21:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a set of revised testcases linked from the template discussion, please do give me your views. -DES ^Talk 13:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

McDevitt: Hercules Text

Added $C price to HRTX1986 .--Bluesman 21:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine, but on rechecking I discovered mine is actually a second printing so you might want to verify this one. BLongley 13:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I came, I saw, I verified!--Bluesman 22:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ringworld Throne

Added $C price to BKTGA0821 .--Bluesman 22:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ship Errant

Added $C price to THSHPRRNT1997 .--Bluesman 17:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Fairy Tales

I see that you just uploaded a cover for Grimm's Fairy Tales, and that we have a record in the db. But the policy page says that we exclude "Fairy tales with no known author", and while the listing credits the Grimms as authors, my understanding is that they were more like folk music collectors -- they wrote down stories from the surviving oral tradition, they did not re-write them. Well, Wikipedia:Grimm's Fairy Tales says that later editions were paraphrased and rewritten, and multiple version combined. Perhaps these are not "of unknown authorship" after all. But still, just where do we want to draw the line on more or less classic fairy tales? -DES ^Talk 21:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

There is apparently a great deal of variety in this area. I was cleaning up Asimov/Greenberg's Devils the other day and spent some time digging up the first appearance of Leo Tolstoi's novelette. It reads like a fairy tale, but apparently Tolstoi was merely "inspired" by Russian folk tales and didn't base the story on any particular one. As long as the author is known, I would be inclined to include the Title(s). Ahasuerus 21:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

These had better be included, or I've wasted several hours on Grimm's Fairy Tales. The Grimms are already here - we've had the (pleasantly short) debate on Jacob/Jakob for instance. But such a book should be a good reference for people that wonder how on earth we get NOVEL entries based on such (which should please the lengthists), or want to point at the inspiration for another work here like Pâté de Foie Gras. I think the Grimms should be IN: some of their entries on grounds that they're often included in Fantasy Anthologies, some because they've inspired other SF stories that it would be useful to link back from, and some just because they're notable (or as you say, "classic") enough to get here. Hans Christian Andersen is the only other "classic fairy tale" author I can immediately think of in this area, but feel free to take this to a general discussion. There IS a line that should be drawn, somewhere:. e.g. is Baum's American Fairy Tales unwelcome? BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

What I am NOT going to do is go through every title and try and find the original German (or Teutonic, or whatever language was actually prevalent in the area at the time of collection, or publication) for each of these. I don't mind if someone else does (I can still use Jules Verne's page after such work). BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Eventually, I'd like to see all foreign language Titles traced back to their first appearances. The Locus Index and Contento often list the date of the first English translation, which is also useful, but can be misleading if we don't indicate when the story was written. In Tolstoi's case, the delta is only 4 years (1886 vs. 1890), which is not too bad, but in other cases it can be substantial. For example, we currently list Sannikov Land as a 1955 title because that's when the first English translation appeared, but apparently it was first published either in 1924 or in 1926. I am sure you will agree that it matters a great deal whether a "lost race" novel was first published in the 1920s or in the 1950s :) Unfortunately, it can take a fair amount of time to do the required research -- even the Tolstoi took 20 minutes -- but we'll get to it... eventually. Ahasuerus 14:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you might: I have no desire to learn German, and without enough knowledge to check such I wouldn't even copy the Wikipedia entries, for instance. BLongley 18:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

But I think this is useful. I also think I was wise not to buy the "Andersen and Grimm " collected fairy tales at the same time. (Or maybe I did? I haven't finished Sunday's bag of books yet. At one book a day for things like this, it could take ages to be sure.) BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The fact that many stories from Grimm's Fairy Tales have been the basis for SF stores deos not, in and of themselves, make them in. Otherwise Homer, Shakspear, and "Aesop's Fables" would all have to be in. Blish's A Case Of Conscience has a significant plot thread concerning the interpretation of Joyce, but that doesn't make the Joyce novel, nor the Homeric work it is in turn based on, IN. Grimm should be in or out on its own merits. I am not seriously arguing for tossing your work, but I was suprised you entered them, and i want to know where the line should be drawn. Is Robert Graves's Greek Myths in? It is also a classic that has influenced many SF stories. -DES ^Talk 05:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

In or out on own merits is fine by me, but if they ARE in I would have no hesitation in pointing to them when such is useful, e.g. I checked for Shakespeare's "The Tempest" when entering "Forbidden Planet". (I see it now is here if only in abridged form.) I can't say whether Grave's work should be in as I've never read it. Some of the Grimm tales would probably be out as "Animal books for very young children" in some forms, but this book as a whole isn't like that. Note also that "The older the book, the more likely we are to include it even if it is borderline eligible" and this is traceable back to 1823. BLongley 18:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Hunting on Kunderer

Was about to do a Transient Verification on LFLNCL1973 and noticed no artist credited for either cover. Found a signature on the Hunting on Kunderer cover, bottom left, but can't quite decipher it. Maybe you can recognize it? On the Lancelot cover there appears to be a signature in the shadow of the foreground figure, but it's too dark to make out, even with a magnifying glass.--Bluesman 23:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't decipher it, but now we have started gathering Signature scans it's worth uploading and asking around. Hopefully somebody will eventually connect such a cover-sig with a credited cover-artist like I recently did with Chris Foss. Best guess so far is "Brigman" so I've used that name for the current image, but it doesn't look like June Brigman's work to me. BLongley 18:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Like Brigman better than Bergman for a decipher. I don't have a scanner hooked up (have one, just never taken it out of the box). How does one "ask around"??--Bluesman 00:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I just posted on Verification Requests as it's likely to involve physical checks at some point. BLongley 15:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It now looks most likely to be "Borgman". BLongley 12:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I see The Ace SF Doubles Image Library says "Life With Lancelot (cover by Valigursky}" and "Hunting on Kunderer (cover by Bergman)". Not sure how reliable those credits are, but it might be Harry Bergman and we have a verifier for another Ace Double of that era we can ask. BLongley 19:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Double Your Pleasure says "Cover by Bergman". Ahasuerus 04:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Does it confirm Valigursky for the other side? BLongley 10:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure does! (Although he mostly used signatures to identify cover artists, so it's not infallible as the Bergman/Borgman experience suggests). One of these days I will need to reconcile its contents with what we have, but there are so many other things to work on... Ahasuerus 15:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Land's End

Added $C price to BKTG13554 .--Bluesman 17:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Man Who Ate The World

Added $NZ & $AUS to THMNWHTTHW1979 .--Bluesman 17:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Plague of Pythons

Added $AUS, $NZ & $C prices to PLGFPTHNSF1973 --Bluesman 00:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you can stop notifying me if it's only for adding prices. Do let me know if you spot any broken images on my verified pubs though, as this one was. BLongley 15:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Dickson's Pro

Just a note that I have adjusted the Notes field in one of your earliest verified pubs, the first Ace edition of Pro, to clarify the number line situation and the cover artist attribution. I have also changed the interior artwork record from "Illustrations (Pro)" to "Pro". A few more Dickson paperbacks and I can go back to magazines... Ahasuerus 03:54, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Love Not Human

I have verified the 1988 Tor edition of Dickson's Love Not Human and I see that you verified the 1981 Ace edition in March 2007. The Ace record doesn't specify the cover artist, so I assume that he wasn't credited. I have uploaded a scan of the 1988 cover and I wonder if you could check whether it matches yours -- seems unlikely, but what have we got to lose? :) Ahasuerus 01:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Mine's very different. By the way, I think you uploaded your scan under the Publication Tag for my edition. BLongley 18:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops! That's what happens when you have too many windows open... Ahasuerus 22:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Unisave

I've added the cover artist credit to your verified Axel Madsen's UNISAVE from signature on cover.Don Erikson 21:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - sample signature uploaded and note added. BLongley 10:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The Gryb

I verified the second printing of the Zebra version of The Gryb earlier today and noticed that "Humans, Go Home!" was listed as "Humans, Go Home" in the table of contents but "Humans, Go Home!" on the title page. Could you please double check your verified NEL edition and see whether it was done the same way there? Also, according to your note, the copyright page of the NEL edition makes the same claim about "Project-Spaceship"/"Problem Spaceship" as my Zebra edition. I suspect that the person who worked on the copyright page made a thinko, but I can't check Thrilling Wonder Stories at the moment since that part of my pulp collection is not exactly well organized.

1. No exclamation mark in ToC or on title page. BLongley 10:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
2. Not sure why that note is on that title record - it's nothing to do with "Project-Spaceship", just "The Problem Professor" and "Problem Spaceship". BLongley 10:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell after checking Day and the van Vogt site, the original title was "Project-Spaceship", which was subsequently changed to "The Problem Professor". "Problem Spaceship" apparently doesn't exist at all and was presumably listed on the copyright pages due to some junior editor's confusion. You know, you take one word from one title, another word from another title and pretty soon you have a big mess on your hands :) Ahasuerus 15:30, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Octagon

Just did a Transient Verification on Octagon and found an artist's signature on the bottom right corner of the cover. It is very faint and my copy is just slightly foxed there. Is yours clean enough to make it out?--Bluesman 22:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Not really - let's throw it out as a challenge for those that found "Brigman" too easy. ;-) BLongley 00:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I started Worst Sig Challenge yet but I'm already leaning towards it being Larry/Laurence "Kresek". Unfortunately I only have one other cover known to be by him and it doesn't appear to be signed - so Mike Hutchins might win this one too, as he seemed to do a lot of SFBC covers. BLongley

I think Mike wins again, do you concur? BLongley 22:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Oscar Liebman

Since you are trying to build a library of artist signatures, Bill, here is another hard-to-decode one (hard to find even!) for your viewing pleasure. According to William J. Denholm III's Lancer Checklist (in Megavore #10, 1980), it's Oscar Liebman's. Ahasuerus 03:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see it in the purple bit on the bottom right. Are you going to supply a more detailed scan? BLongley 22:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give it a shot tomorrow! Ahasuerus 03:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Bit fat juicy (1.5 Mb) image uploaded. Feel free to put it on a diet if we can keep the signature legible. Ahasuerus 01:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Will this do or do you want a bit more detail? BLongley 17:44, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Works for me! :) Ahasuerus 18:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, Sig Logo metadata added. BLongley 21:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Ping

Please take a look at Rules and standards discussions#Third example changes. I think I have managed a better version of the Cover Image Data template. I would like some feedback on this version, if you have a moment. This version has a link to the publication on the "edition" parameter, but no link if no publication record number or tag has been provided. -DES ^Talk 14:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Waldo & Magic, Inc.

This. [4] . I have an 'ersatz' copy with a good back cover. Price is U.K. 40p. Mine is spine and front impaired and I am putting it away. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, pub updated. BLongley 17:36, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Your verified pub Spectrum 5

Your verified pub. Is the story "Big Sword" credited to Pauline Ashwell or Paul Ash? In the original publication in Analog and the Berkely edition it is credited to Paul Ash.--swfritter 18:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't check unless it's handy. I am almost certain your entry is correct.--swfritter 18:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

It's handy - I've walked by it 3 or 4 times tonight while fetching another beer, just got caught up with another more urgent issue. (Helping Mike Cross with some submission issues - we may yet get another BIG set of Magazine/Fanzine data.) Otherwise you'd have had the answer in 5 minutes. BLongley 21:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

And yes, it's "Paul Ash" both in ToC and on first page of story. It's usually worth asking on anything I verified over a year ago though - I still find mistakes I cringe about now, and I'm mostly on my THIRD pass of my books. (No room to acquire more unless I release some too.) I'm normally fairly good on author credits (I have to be, with all the Aldiss and Heinlein problems) but I'm really bad on punctuation differences. BLongley 21:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! With female authors who use male pseudonyms you can never be sure when they are going to change the credit.--swfritter 18:23, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

True: I see "Alice Sheldon" isn't quite fixed yet. :-/ BLongley

More mags/fanzines - great!! You might want Mike to post an entry on The Magazine Project Page so we can avoid any collisions.--swfritter 18:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I picked a really bad time to get in touch it seems - there's been a recent death in the family. I'm not going to pressure him to do anything at the moment - he's already done more than I expected. I've been trying submissions on his behalf under the "Data Thief" ID (as you can see from the hold queue, there's still more to be done) and I've got his (HTML) database of his Magazine collection so I can look at that and suggest areas of most interest to us. I'm allowed to share that but at 8 Megabytes (zipped!) I'll rehost it, if required, rather than cause him bandwidth problems. Let me know if you're interested and I'll email you details of where to get it. BLongley 19:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Added cover artist

I have added cover artist credit for your verified edition of Ann Maxwell's NAME OF A SHADOW. Alex Ebel's signature can be seen on back cover. Don Erikson 18:28, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd forgotten I'd even got that! Checked again, and I think the front cover is clearer than the back cover. I'll still have to take your word on the surname though, it's not clear on either to me. BLongley 19:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Doom Star

Don Erikson added the note "Assumed 1st printing." to your verified pub Doom Star. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems right, although there's very little information in the book. It's actually a copyright date rather than a printing date for instance - now noted. BLongley 17:51, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Stranglers' Moon

There was a note on the Stranglers' Moon Title record to the effect that the copyright date was 1976, but the book was actually first published in 1977. I suspect that you may have left it there after verifying your 1977 Panther edition, but there was also a 1976 Pyramid edition, which is listed by Reginald. Also, my Pyramid edition of the next volume in the series, The Clockwork Traitor, is a January 1977 publication, so it's likely that Stranglers' Moon appeared some time in mid-late 1976. And so it goes :) Ahasuerus 01:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Revolt of the Galaxy

Just wondering if you meant to verify the Grafton edition of Revolt of the Galaxy? Also, I set up a VT for "Appendix: The Stanley Dynasty" based on Goldin's explanation of its origins. Ahasuerus 05:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep, verified now. BLongley 17:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Lord Tedric

Added international prices to your verified Star edition of Lord Tedric. Also, there appears to be a signature at the bottom of the back cover, but I can't decode it. "Pajo", perhaps? Ahasuerus 05:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that's Peter (A.) Jones. BLongley 17:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Good spot, thanks! Ahasuerus 19:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This is why I like the cover artist signature library - so far it's made me re-address Peter Jones, Chris Foss and Peter Elson. Hopefully many other artists will benefit. BLongley 21:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I might be talking to myself here - but Stephen Bradbury is another find I'm quite proud of. BLongley 01:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I am following it all right, just don't have anything terribly meaningful to contribute :) The ability to upload images has been quite useful and has made everything more efficient, but it's still a bit too time consuming for my taste. Perhaps once I have entered everything in my collection... By the way, do we have "Alexander"'s (probably Paul (R.) Alexander) signature on file? Ahasuerus 01:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I find a cover-scan doesn't much delay any update I do to one of my publications (find a book that needs updating, scan while I'm finding its entry here and adding notes). So long as I can quickly copy'n'paste title and pub tag it's less than a minute extra per publication. (Ignoring all DES's other options that puts data into the Wiki that we already have in the database.) When I do find something of interest - e.g. a cover Sig I'd not noticed before, or a relationship between Sig and Credited Cover Artist, I can go wander off for hours. But that's what keeps me interested here, rather than thinking "I've done all my pubs, that's it". BLongley 02:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

And no, I don't think we have "Alexander" captured yet. Feel free to add examples! I should probably add some more advice on how to find things (if you have an offline copy of the DB) that ISFDB won't let you search for online - but I don't really get a lot of feedback on what I've added so far. It's probably in the wrong place. BLongley 02:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I think your entry for the price in Malta is incorrect: Malta never used dollars. It changed from the Pound to Maltese Lira to the Euro. (This is why I don't try and regularise prices in notes - too many currencies to learn!) BLongley 17:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Hm, let me see... It says "80c" on the back cover, which, according to Wikipedia, refers to "cents":

Although using British coins, Malta did not decimalize with the UK in 1971. Instead, it adopted a decimal system in 1972, based on the lira (equal to the pound) subdivided into 1000 mils or 100 cents.

Should we change it to "Lm0.80" then? Ahasuerus 19:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I would (and already do) leave other prices as stated. With up to ten prices on mid-70s editions I've never really wanted to do much more. I've tried using the price field for some things (remember my "cheat sheet" for usual US or UK prices in given years) but prices in notes aren't really usable. I'm mildly interested if anyone explains "East Africa" prices, but I doubt it will actually be of use to anyone. BLongley 21:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Okies, I have changed the price to what the pub says, i.e. "0.80c". Ahasuerus 22:00, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If it really says "0.80c" you've got a different edition. It's just "80c" on mine. BLongley 22:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, just a random VRAM (Very Random Access Memory) malfunction! Ahasuerus 23:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) Here's a rather different set of prices: The Splintered Sunglasses Affair. Only nine, so not the record holder (I've seen ten on a single book before) but a good set indeed. I'm not sure if it's "Fl" or "FI" for the Netherlands (font doesn't seem to distinguish the two) - I suspect they had "Florins" then but that can wait till another day, I'm just giving another example of why I don't try to regularise prices in notes. BLongley 23:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

First Lensman

This. [5] . My copy matches yours but I do not understand the transient verification? You put a beautiful image into Amazon for it. It is an exquisite cover. I feel that I am missing something. Mine has the last two pages with a fold over excess not cut off. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm keeping this version, eventually I'll lose the fifth printing. I'm really running out of space for books and can't really justify keeping two, three or even four editions of the same title. Unfortunately I'm rather active on Read It, Swap It so letting one book go doesn't necessarily mean an overall net reduction in space consumed - but I've occasionally managed to swap hardbacks and trade paperbacks for my preferred formats. BLongley 22:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Then I will primary this one and add the junk I like to see and you will be freed of having the only copy. Another good cover. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:52, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The Silver Locusts

In case your ears are burning, Bill, it's because Harry has asked a question about your verified publication over on the Help Desk. Ahasuerus 00:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Diodes

Please be careful, Bill, as replacement diodes are awfully hard to find these days! Ahasuerus 11:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I know, I've not found true replacements yet - I've found some alternative little cylinders that help, but they're called "Ibuprofen" and don't seem to just plug in, they need to be taken orally. I'd quite like to hibernate for a bit (and the weather seems to suggest such would be a good move - two inches of snow in one night in October? Never happened before in my lifetime. Or even my father's.) but all I can do is relax a bit, sleep and eat well, and hope I can manage a full week at work again sometime soon. BLongley 23:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Hm, that doesn't sound very good, I am afraid. Have you heard of these semi-mythical creatures called "doctors"? I am told some of them can diagnose broken diodes quite well. Ahasuerus 00:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I have found a creature that claims to be a Doctor, and the creatures in his lair verify this. And it is this Doctor's opinion that I should "relax a bit, sleep and eat well". (Also that I should give up smoking and drinking, and he would probably suggest I gave up ISFDB editing if he knew I had this filthy habit too.) I return to his lair frequently, and he prescribes me little cylinders to deal with problems I didn't know I had. BLongley 01:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not totally sure he IS a Doctor: he looks nothing like Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton or David Tennant, for instance: perhaps I should demand evidence of his own regenerations before I rely on his advice, even if he can't teach me that trick? BLongley 01:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The Illustrated Roger Zelazny

BTW, User:MA Lloyd has updated the Notes field in your verified The Illustrated Roger Zelazny. Ahasuerus 02:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. And I have added the following Note to your verified Godling, Go Home!: "The title story is billed as "Godling Go Home!" (i.e. there is no comma) in the table of contents, but "Godling, Go Home!" on the title page. Cover art not credited." Ahasuerus 03:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Added price

I added the price to your verified 1st printing of NEL edition of Moorcock's MASTER OF THE PIT.Don Erikson 17:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Moorcock's Master of the Pit

I've placed this submission on hold. Please handle as you see fit. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks reasonable. BLongley 20:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Joyleg - Added cover artist

I have added cover artist credit to your verified Berkley Medallion edition of Ward Moore's JOYLEG.Don Erikson 23:31, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Update to Joyleg with Don's changes being:

• Publisher: Berkley -> Berkley Medallion
• Artists: (blank) -> Vincent DiFate
• Note: (blank) -> Assumed 1st printing. -Marc Kupper|talk 23:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, found the signature now. BLongley 19:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Signatures from interior art

Asa you may see on Help:List of ISFDB Templates, we have {{Sig Image Data-Int}} for signatures from interior art. It takes the same parameters as {{Sig Image Data}}, and produces a simialr display, merely with the mentions of cover art changed to interior art.

Now that an IF template is avalable, I could combine these two tempaltes, with an extra parameter to be used only in the interior case. Do you think this would be a good idea? -DES ^Talk 21:53, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Cities in Flight-change in Afterword title

This. [6] . I have the eighth Avon printing and have submitted this Afterword: The Earthmanist Culture: Cities In Flight as a Spenglerian History as shown on page 597 of my copy. This is just an advisory. Yours is probably totally different, but this is sent to keep you in the loop. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Your submission actually says "Afterword: The Earthmanist Culter: Cities In Flight as a Spenglerian History". Which is it? BLongley 21:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

It is Culture. Focused too much Spenglerian. LOL. Self taught at typing also. LOL. Reject it and I'll give it a second hack. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I let it through and adjusted - easier than retyping all the page numbers. See here. BLongley 13:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I verified it and thanks for the deletion also. I asked for the rejection, because I did not want to add problems for an unknowing moderator. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Vonnegut, Jr. or not Jr.

Bill, check out this discussion on my talk page. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

FYI, User:MA Lloyd has added Shelley Eshkar as the artist to your verified 5th printing of the Tor edition of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Ahasuerus 22:59, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The credit is actually for design rather than art, but I guess there's some art in there. I've added a note. Thanks for the heads-up! BLongley 00:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Into The Slave Nebula--only diff Kent Aug 71 add

This. [7] . My copy matches yours, but I wonder at the date only because mine has a Kent glossy add that has the FTC Report Aug '71 warning. Since it is listed for July 1972, I wonder at a eleven month gap. I wonder if Lancer had more than one printings during the period? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There's no ad in mine. BLongley 16:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Brunner's Catch a Falling Star

According to Locus #200 (March 1977) your verified copy of this title was published in February 1977. MHHutchins 06:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That's good enough for me, thanks. BLongley 18:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Simak's So Bright the Vision

Your verified edition of this title is in the September 1976 Books listing of Locus #194 (September 30, 1976). MHHutchins 00:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

That'll do nicely. BLongley 11:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Adding author web sites

FWIW - I'm approving your author updates to keep the queue clean and that the updates looked pretty straightforward. I am curious - how are you finding all of these web sites? --Marc Kupper|talk 16:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been following the web of Paranormal/Supernatural/Fututistic Romance authors, hoping to get rid of some non-genre but actually finding there's quite a few genre series we have gaps in. A lot of these authors contribute a novella or two to four-author anthologies, which takes me onto the next authors: and I find that the authors tend to cross-link to each other a lot not only here, but on their web-sites too. I'll keep a separate list of the authors to go back to, there's 31 I've found to check so far and those look to lead to many more... one uses at least seven pseudonyms! BLongley 16:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a pleasant Christmastime diversion for a bibliophile. :-) --Marc Kupper|talk 17:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

42 now and the edges of the web are becoming clearer. I'm leaving some dead-ends for the moment, I don't want to encourage people to add stuff just because the author has some extra details recorded here. Any suggestions for "Non-Genre Author Alert!" warnings? I'm going to leave this mini-project soon, I haven't actually started my Christmas break and will be returning to work Monday - and will probably have a new project when I return. BLongley 23:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Supernatural romance authors are almost as incestuous as the RPG crowd. Re: "Non-Genre Author Alert!", I am not sure what you men, Bill, could you please clarify? Ahasuerus 01:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, Karin Tabke and Bonnie Edwards don't appear to belong here, and are only in because Sunny is. It'd be nice to have a warning on the author pages themselves, but there's no Author Note field that would make it obvious and people don't always look at Bibliographic Comments. BLongley 10:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see! Yes, it would be useful to have something like that, but I don't think there is anything in the software that would support this functionality for now. And yes, it can get rather irritating when a non-genre author is stuck in our database due to a situation like that. Ahasuerus 04:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems that if the offending titles are marked non-genre then it would be apparent that a particular co-author is 100% non-genre in ISFDB. The Hard Stuff already has title notes meaning it should be safe to change to type NONGENRE. It also brings up that the robots should check for this and to not scan Amazon for those author's titles. I've gone back and forth on author notes. Sometimes I like the idea but then I also see they could be abused and would start taking over the page. One of the existing feature requests is to make it more apparent that wiki biographic or bibliographic notes exist so that someone viewing the author profile is more likely to notice and click. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I tried Tags, and now Sunny is marked as non-genre as well. Maybe only a non-genre tag will be a good warning, but then we'd have to tag the sometimes-genre author's other works with something that would make them look worth a second check. It might be simpler just to abuse an existing Author Data field. A specially-created "Author Image" would be a nice big warning, but some of the other fields would be easier. BLongley 02:04, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Ashley's History of the SF Magazine, Volume 2

Can you see whether the story by Russell & Johnson in your verified edition is titled "Seeker of To-morrow" or "Seeker of Tomorrow" (as it is in my US edition of the same title)? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

No hyphen anywhere. Fixed now. BLongley 18:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Jonah Kit

Just added various foreign prices to THJNHKTNWF1977 and was about to transient verify but the price of £0.95 does not match my copy. Mine has £0.60, and yet matches every other detail, including the picture with "Winner of the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD" banner on the bottom corner. Is yours a later printing, do we have separate pubs? Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we have the same printing, but mine is OVER-printed for prices - there's a big black block which now I look closer at it, doesn't quite conceal the fact there was something underneath. I think there was a line starting U and a second starting A, so probably had UK and Australian prices on the normal pale-blue (if that matches yours?) background. I've added notes to mine, I suggest you add yours as a separate edition with your prices, making it clear that yours is a virgin copy and mine isn't - we'll take months if not years to sort out genuine "printings" here, "over-printings" will surely take much longer, so just note for now. BLongley 01:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Stalin's Teardrops

I have the same edition (I think) of STLNSTRDRP1992 that you verified, but nowhere does "...and Other Stories" appear?! Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

You're right, a lazy verification on my part I think. I've also corrected the cover artist - he's "Mick Posen" rather than "Mike" on that book. I have to confess I've not yet read much Ian Watson, partly due to owning a particularly badly bound and printed Pictures at an Exhibition, and partly from actually meeting the guy and accidentally insulting him. BLongley 01:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Pohl anthology SF: The Great Years

Th Sphere edition of this anthology is listed as priced at 75p in Locus #199 (February 1977). Thought you might want to update the record of your price-obscured copy. MHHutchins 01:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

And another obscure price uncovered. This pub was priced at 50p (from the same source). MHHutchins 01:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, both adjusted now. BLongley 22:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Off The Wall At Callahan's-befuddled by cover art

This. [8]. I have the 2004 trade paperback edition. I clearly see the 93 Hescox on cover image, but I have 'Cover art by James Warhola' on the back cover. I am wondering if Warhola used the Hescox signature as a parody both of their craft and as a play on the book. Any idea where to go from here? Image is exactly the same as the above example. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't find my copy right now, I've left a note for my cleaner to explain where it's filed. It might be a mish-mash of various cover-art segments, but I'd have to drag them all out to be sure. BLongley 23:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, found it. There's definitely no credit to Warhola on the back cover of mine, or anywhere else obvious. Is there a "Design by Lynn Newmark" credit in yours? BLongley 18:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. Mine is First Paperback edition, August 2004. But it is a tp. Book design by Lynn Newmark. Interior illustrations by Phil Foglio. Edited by James Frenkel. I will submit it and you can get a better look. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Added cover credit

I added cover credit to your verified edition of Norton's WEB OF THE WITCH WORLD (Ace 0-441-87875-X).Don Erikson 19:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Approved, but I added a note about where the credit comes from. Good catch, I hadn't noticed the signature. BLongley 19:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Yurth Burden

I have put Don's latest Yurth Burden submission on hold since it affects your verified copy. The change seems reasonable since Norton was apparently responsible for the interior art (maps?) in other 1978 versions of this book. Ahasuerus 21:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

A quick look suggests actual interiorart on pages 31 and 59, but as the page 59 work looks like it's signed by Jack Gaughan and I see no maps please keep it on hold. I will resume normal editing at some point. (Recent edits seem to be leading into another set of new exciting webs: find an author, track down their web-page, find their other works, fill in the empty anthology contents, find new authors, repeat from step one...) BLongley 22:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm cleaning up some of the old holds. I have a copy of the first printing and the title page says "Illustrated by Jack Gaughan". The frontispiece, and illustrations on pages 31, 59 and 122 are all signed "JG". I did not see any other illustrations and so changed the interior artwork credit for these publications from Andre Norton to Jack Gaughan.

I approved Don's submission which added the INTERIORART record and then merged it with the Jack Gaughan record. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see JG on 122 as well, but where is it on 31? Top left or bottom left, or both? BLongley 21:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Lower left corner. It's tucked in immediately above a pile of three rocks. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Flag in Exile cover credit

Can you verify that the artist credited in this pub is "Larry Ruddell". There is an artist Gary Ruddell that has also been credited as "Garry Ruddell". Thanks. MHHutchins 07:44, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Definitely credited as Larry. Maybe incorrectly, we've seen problems with Baen credits before, e.g. Ken Kelly. BLongley 15:36, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

If you look at other printings of this title you'll see Gary Ruddell gets the credit. Do you think we should make "Larry" a variant? MHHutchins 17:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

We've had the first edition double-checked but I'm suspicious of the 2nd and 4th now. Call for some extra verifications first maybe? BLongley 17:57, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

M. K. Wren' Phoenix Legacy Series

I'm bugging you since you processed an edit I made earlier today. I just made an edit that I think needs to be rejected. I meant to cancel it, but hit the wrong button. I'm a little confused about how to fix this author's books. Under novels, she has books listed that are part of the series books above. They seem to be different printings. I wanted to consolidate those. What is the correct approach? If my question is not clear, please let me know. Thanks! -- JLaTondre 16:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, Ahasuerus took care of it in the time it took me to write this. -- JLaTondre 16:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

That's right, I used the "Titles" link under "Editing Tools" on the left and merged all duplicate titles. By default, "Dup Candidates" doesn't mark titles with appended/prepended series names as duplicates, although its "Similar Title Mode" may be more successful. Ahasuerus 16:42, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I clicked on that originally, but I confused myself by thinking that would merge the publications. I have to wrap my head around the idea that the title of a work and the title of a publication of that work or two different things. That throws me off sometimes. -- JLaTondre 17:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Pan edition of Jack the Bodiless

Your third Pan edition of this title probably appeared some time after August 1993, the date Locus gives for the first printing. (The trade paperback was published in March 1993). Thanks. MHHutchins 01:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Date adjusted and note added. Thanks. BLongley 15:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The Game Beyond

I have added a minor note ("Stated first Baen printing, no number line.") to your verified Baen edition of this book and changed the dates of the novel Title and the Cherryh article to 1984-11-00. Ahasuerus 03:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

And I've added the cover. Thanks. BLongley 15:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Elis(z)abeth Mann Borgese

Could you please double check whether it's Elisabeth Mann Borgese or Elizabeth Mann Borgese in your verified Star Fourteen? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Definitely "s" rather than "z" both in ToC and and start page of story. BLongley 23:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

VT and pseudonym set up, thanks! Ahasuerus 00:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Witch High

I've updated your verified Witch High.

• Added story lengths based on page count.
• Changed page count from 307 to vii+307+[5].
• Added notes about the copyright, DAW Book Number, cover credit, author blurbs, and a minor discrepancy in the wording of an author name. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Changing shortfiction content lengths to novella/novelette/short story is fine by me, no need to notify me unless you're changing from/to Novel length. The extra notes are fine too. But why change pagination to vii+307+[5] if you're not going to explain what's on the extra pages? It makes it look like we're missing some mildly important contents. BLongley 23:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Done on the note explaining the 5 pages. When writing the notes I had thought about documenting the advertising page contents as I assume that that can be used to help date later printings. What I've been trying to do recently is to at least note all of the pages. For example, the publisher calls this a 320 page book and in this case viii+307+5 does add up to 320. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The Time of the Eye

FYI, User:Orcax has credited Chris Foss as the cover artist of your verified The Time of the Eye. Ahasuerus 04:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, it has the trademark "F" signature now I look closer. BLongley 11:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Uncharted Territory

Please see User_talk:Bluesman#Uncharted_Territory. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Destinies (Premier Issue)

Have just finished entering all the interior artwork to volumes 1-2 and 1-3, with the advance permission, guidelines and helpful hints from Mike Hutchins, who had verified those two. I almost did DSTNNOVDEC78 as I've written it all out, only to realize you were the verifier. May I proceed? Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, go for it. BLongley

Astounding Science Fiction, May 1956 (UK)

Why is this on hold? --Marc Kupper|talk 01:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Because it's an interesting example of the problems with Magazine uncloneability, time-shifting, copyright problems, naming conventions, etc. I guess I've waited for comments long enough (they'd be on an archive page by now). Approved and let the chaos ensue. BLongley 20:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Chaos is normal. :-) --Marc Kupper|talk 20:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Magazine Chaos is something I rarely venture into in. Still, I can claim work pressure again from now on. And I've no idea where my magazines are now anyway. Somewhere safe that only my cleaner knows, probably. BLongley 21:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Ron Goulart's Nemo

I see that you use the formal publisher's name for this pub. At the moment it's the only pub using that publisher name. I see by the cover art that it's a Berkley Medallion publication which is the more common publisher used in the database. Would you consider changing the publisher to reduce the number of one-title publishers in the database? BTW, when's the last time you ran your script showing one-title publishers? Would it be possible to send me a copy of the list? Thanks. MHHutchins 06:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Changed. I can't recall the last time I ran the publisher scripts, I got disheartened by the number of people just carrying on with their own old styles (Thomas conneely) or even inventing new ones (Dragoondelight seems to like three part hierarchies like "Bantam Books / Bantam Dell / Random House" - I don't know why he doesn't just add "/ Bertelsmann" as well). Still, I want to do an update on my local ISFDB copy to see how my Christmas-break Anthology and collection work has affected things overall, I'll send you an update after that. If I can recall your email. BLongley 20:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I've given up on publishing names for now. It seems like a lot of work for the value returned. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The Vega Sector-Orbit reprint of Ace total or not?

This. [9] . I know this is a reprint of the ace translation, but did they reprint both novels of it like this. [10] . The PR#5 does not mention that these are separate stories by separate authors, but then Ace did not properly do many things when it created the series and so the British reprints, which as far as my one example shows, only printed the translation of the German stories. So, is it one or two? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Two stories, exactly the same titles as yours, on same pages. As you've identified who wrote which I've imported your contents. BLongley 20:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Also if you would, Do you consider the reprints of the translations a magazine or novel series? There are valid points for the Ace PR's to be a magazine due to the inclusion of many elements as the publication run went along. But, being a reprint of only the novel translation, would it not be it's own stand alone series? Apologies, for trying to put you on a hook, but the Orbit run has very limited availability in the U.S. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

With two "Novels" in (even if only in the magazine sense) I wouldn't call it a Novel. By current standards if we want it to be by Ackerman then it has to be a Magazine, if it's an Anthology then it should be credited to Scheer and Mahr as per title page. But I have no real preference either way and even an Omnibus would be fine with me. I notice yours has 7 extra pages though so I haven't merged titles. BLongley 20:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Another sidebar. PR#5 is the only one of the double novel issues which did not use the first story title for the issue. They altered it so the title is a shortened form of the first story. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

One other note: the current series mostly uses redundant "Perry Rhodan #" prefixes in the titles. The British editions don't use "#" so they're not only redundant, they're slightly misleading. BLongley 20:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, this comment kept bugging me. The Ace PR's do not have # anywhere in/on book. This was someone's creation. In fact, Bob Hall corrected me to put PR#99 etc on content title lines as I was doing PR99 etc. Often, db conventions make little/no sense to me, though I try to comply. Thanks, Harry.

Then I'm definitely against the '#'. If it really was on at least one title page I could live with it, but if it's not really there it shouldn't be in the title. Not that I think we need Series Prefixes and Numbers in Titles when it's quite clear which line is the title, which is the author, which is the series, etc, and we're creating the Series and Number anyway. That sort of thing can lead to multiple unnecessary variants for titles based on whether the series number is in digits or words for instance, when the title itself is already consistent. For instance, we could end up with "Perry Rhodan 5: The Vega Sector", "Perry Rhodan #5: The Vega Sector", "The Vega Sector: Perry Rhodan 5", "The Vega Sector: Perry Rhodan #5", "Perry Rhodan Five: The Vega Sector", "The Vega Sector: Perry Rhodan Five" as variants for no good reason. BLongley 20:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way, your note does say "Perry Rhodan (over) #5 (over) The Vega Sector" - shouldn't that be "Perry Rhodan (over) 5 (over) The Vega Sector" if there's no '#'? BLongley 20:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, I now am sure the first five Orbit reprints are multiple story (omnibus). I am just trying to tie smoe loose strings and hope Bob Hall has some definitive directions to go with the series. Personally, I think the Orbit PR's should be in a separate series, though technically they are closer to the German issues, not numbers, but idea of simple quick story with no trimmings. When I think about this series, I am amazed what a tangle publishers can create. LOL. BTW Your Orbits should be worth a pretty penny in a few years, due to their limited production and availability. Some American PR's are pricey even now. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I really doubt that - search for "Perry Rhodan" on Amazon UK and order by price Low to High, and the first 34 are all available for a penny. Plus £2.75 postage each, of course, which is why I don't just buy them for bibliographic purposes like I do when visiting Charity shops - I only pay that much for books I'll also like to read. BLongley 22:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I just looked at how much I used Amazon UK last year. I have 32 pages of orders. I don't know how they decide to paginate it, but there seems to be 11-14 orders per page. And some orders are for more than book. (I found out a while back that if I place over 9 orders in one go then my credit card company declines payment for the 10th and beyond, which is embarrassing - but multiple books from the same seller get grouped as one order, so I can order from 9 different book-sellers in one day, and frequently do.) But that seems to mean I'm buying at least one book a day on average from Amazon alone! At that rate I should catch up with Ahasuerus (if he's not buying anything new) in a mere... (taps into calculator) Ah. 45 years. I guess I have to keep on visiting charity shops and car-boot sales too. BLongley 22:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, Which Windsor are you really? Some Ace PR's are rare, but nothing is as rare as an Orbit PR over here. When vacationing bring Orbit. LOL. My book spending is too much also, but charity affairs often have better copies than bookstores and are as low as a dime. One place in Palm Springs sells paperbacks for a quarter and also usually discounts that by half. That is why I have some titles that I will never read. As for PR, it was written as light commuter reads and the translations are no better. Still it was different, but not as different as the L. Ron Hubbard decology. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If there's a market for them, I'll happily acquire as many Orbit PRs as you can sell! It would be nice to turn a pleasant expenditure into a profit: but really, even at that rate my book-buying habits are still far less expensive than my rent and food habits. About the same as my heating and power and Internet connectivity habits, maybe. Below my drinking and smoking habits for sure, and I ought to switch those around for my own good. BLongley 00:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I do tend to devastate SF sections in Charity shops, but the later L. Ron Hubbard books and Robert Jordan and David Eddings can stay there, I do like my stories to be capable of being read one-handed before I or my hand goes to sleep. (I may not actually read them that way now I have to drive to work rather than take the train, but the capability is still a general requirement except for the very exceptional books. I even stopped reading Harry Potter on wrist-strain issues.) BLongley 00:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

(Unind)I think there is a huge trend to over characterize SF and it is getting worse. More and more SF is crossing over to disaster hubris, suburban utopias, intricate romance, psycho murder analysis and plodding detective myopias. Hence larger volumes, OPUSES, of no great merit. Unfortunately, the "craft" era of SF is basically gone. We are now into the "mill" era. Give me a simple Alien landed and ate my wife. G Bless them. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep - I just added a new book by a fantasy/sf writer and decided it was non-genre despite that it's premise includes stealing a nuclear weapon, exploding it on a mountain to cause a volcano, that would reverse global warming... The bloat is also why most of my collection is books published prior to 1980 and more recently I've been reading anthologies. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Fellowship Fantastic

I've updated your verified Fellowship Fantastic

• Changed date from 2008-01-02 to 2008-01-00
• More detail in the notes
• Filled in story lengths (all of them were shortfiction)
• Went through the author blurbs and updated the author pages as needed. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The Book of John Brunner

Happy New Year Bill! I have added the interior artwork piece by Gaughan to THBKRNNRF71976. Also, I also added "The" to the beginning of the 'story' "Spartans' Epitaph at Thermopylae". I did not do a remove/add as the only place this appears is in this book, at least according to the ISFDB database. Since you are a mod, this will probably come to you. If what I did was not correct, then please let me know and I'll do it the other way. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Both changes are fine. BLongley 19:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

"A Dream of Armaggeddon"

Could you please check whether it's "A Dream of Armaggeddon" or "A Dream of Armageddon"? Ahasuerus 04:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

It was a typo. Fixed. BLongley 19:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Brunner's "Now Then"

Added a note to NWTHNPHQMB1965 that the one story Thou Good and Faithful was specially revised for this edition (from the copyright page) which also states that the original story was as by "John Loxsmith". This doesn't show up in the record. Does that mean a merge hasn't been done, or are revised stories not merged? ~Bill, --Bluesman 22:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Significant revisions tend to get recorded with a "(revised)" or "(expanded)" suffix and possibly variants are created, but they might be left as separate titles with lots of notes. It's a bit of a grey area: I know I'm not happy with what was done with Times Without Number for instance. I deliberately re-read the magazine version and the book, and seem to have won the "this is a Collection, not a Novel" argument and lost the "it's the same bloody story, I didn't notice any significant expansion or revision at all!" one. Frankly, with Brunner works, I suspect the expansions or revisions are almost all insignificant - a bit of padding and English to American English conversions. BLongley 23:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

As a sideline - we seem to have disagreements based on the exclamation mark, or lack thereof. Is yours a with or without on title-page? BLongley 23:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately I have both. The US edition has the "!" and the British one doesn't. ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

A fine example of British reserve then. ;-) I wonder which country actually invented the exclamation mark? BLongley 01:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

You could probably squeeze an MA if not a PhD out of the different ways SF is marketed in different countries :) Ahasuerus 03:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The Stone That Never Came Down

Added some notes to THSTNTHTNV1978 re: first NEL edition, no artist credited and a few prices. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

All looks fine. I should actually read the book soon - it's about my country and about this time. Even the opening weather matches. BLongley 01:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Times Without Number

TMSWTHTNMB1969 TMSWTHTNMC1975 TMSWTHTNMD1969 "Houston, we have a problem!" I always wanted to use that. :) The title record for this Brunner book is slightly out of whack as to dates. Since you are the senior of the three verifiers on the three pubs in question (Don Erikson & Scott Latham being the other two) thought I would plunk this here and drop a note to Don to check this out. Scott is still incognito, I assume? I am referring to the three Ace printings listed of the revised 1969 edition. The Ace #s are : 81270, 81271 and 81272. #81270 is correctly listed as 1969 and as the first printing of this edition. Currey lists this as the first printing of the revised edition. #81271 has a 1975 date that is probably wrong. The price of $0.95 and the lower number places it earlier than the #81272 (3rd) printing but it is listed as a 1969 pub (this one should have a date of 0000, or possibly 1974 as Brunner renewed the copyright then). The 2nd printing (#81271) is probably from 1971-2 with that $0.95 price, but should also have a date of 0000. Seems a joint effort is called for here? This definitely needs fixing. ~Bill, --Bluesman 05:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, sent my pub off to the 0000-00-00 wilderness - both Marc Kupper and I were trying to save publications from that indignity at the time we edited the pubs. Marc decided to do some variant contents based (I think) on claims from copyright pages. Times Without Number (1974 revised/expanded edition) looks to be another problem I'd rather avoid - what are the differences that make this worth yet another title? If they're worth a variant overall title, then the contents do too. If I wasn't going against another mod, I'd keep all contents the same and just note at title level that there were revisions of the 1962 edition in 1969 and 1974. BLongley 01:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there was a 1974 revision, just that Brunner re-did the copyright. I have the '81 Hamlyn edition and it notes the revisions but gives the two dates after that statement. I did a quick comparison between the 81271 Ace and the Hamlyn and they are the same. I agree it should not have a separate title. The revisions are for the notes either at the title level (preferred) or at the pub level (Lots of repetition). I doubt we'll ever return all the 0000's to "dignity" but they are usually becoming fewer in number. The odd setback here and there isn't so bad. ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:37, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Driftglass [2]

Amended the title of a story in DRFTGLSS5E1971, removing the ellipsis from "Aye, Gomorrah" to match the TOC and story title in the text. The copyright acknowledgements also have no ellipsis. ~Bill, --Bluesman 05:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Ian Watson's The Jonah Kit

I see your edition of this title has been overprinted with a new price. Bluesman has verified the same edition (first printing) with a price of £0.60, which is the price indicated in the listings of Locus #203 (August 1977). I'm not sure what the policy/standard/rule is for dating an pub with an overprinted price. Do we keep the same date or give it the 0s? What do you think? MHHutchins 20:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've no idea of the policy either. The Price Help says "Overprinted and changed prices should use the most recent price" (and no, that's not something I changed during the other edits today!) but I've no clue on whether we should stick with actual printing date or try and find an over-printing date. BLongley 20:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Big Bang

Added the interior art (also by Kirby) to the contents of BGBNG1982 with matching notes. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The Chameleon Corps

Just added a new pub (2nd Collier printing) to THCHMLNCRP1973 and in verifying the contents noticed an error in the pagination. The TOC lists the introduction as being on page "ix" when it starts on page "vii" and goes to "viii", then the book starts. There is no page "ix". Maybe the second printing left something out from the first and did the pages differently? (Not likely, just a typo I think). You might want to check yours, assuming it didn't get mislaid with the cleaner... ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

ToC actually says "xi" in mine, but yes, it's really on vii&viii. Fixed. BLongley 17:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The Panchrononicon Plot

Added the DAW catalogue and Books numbers to the notes of THPNNPLT4A1977. The image link appears to be broken. ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Not any more. BLongley 18:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The Robot in the Closet

Added the interior art (also by Kirby) to the contents of THRBTNTHCL1981 and a note. ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

When the Waker Sleeps

Added the interior art to the contents of WHNTHWKRSL1975 but not sure who it is. Just left and below the 'city' sign is a 'sigil' that night be a slanted "M" over an unslanted "W". Whelan hardly ever signs anything so nothing to compare it to. Then again, just to the right and below the same sign is "III" with a bar top and bottom that also could be an "M/W" combo. ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks similar to the cover art, except the gun is spikier on the frontispiece. BLongley 19:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The Wicked Cyborg

Added the interior art (also by Kirby) to the contents of THWCYBRG8F1978.--Bluesman 19:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

PKD's The World Jone Made

Can you see if the ISBN in this NEL paperback matches the record? That ISBN belongs to Sidgwick & Jackson who had published an earlier hardcover edition. Perhaps NEL reprinted it without changing the ISBN? Stranger still, look at this OCLC record, which gives S&J as the publisher, but the size is 18mm, a paperback! Thanks. MHHutchins 22:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It matches. By my practices, the Imprint is "New English Library" externally although the publisher internally is Sidgwick & Jackson and the agreement seems to be "Sidgwick & Jackson in Association with New English Library". Sidgwick & Jackson did occasionally print their own paperbacks with their own external branding, e.g. here - using the NEL imprint this way is not common but not totally unknown. Other examples tend to be an NEL reprint of an S&J paperback though, this appears to be first paperback edition. I've added some more notes. BLongley 22:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the notes to the Dick novel that clarify the situation. I was doing a search by ISBN and that pub stuck out like a sore thumb. MHHutchins 23:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's another one in the same situation. Perhaps NEL became a paperback imprint for the reprinting S&J's hardcovers? MHHutchins 22:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I've never quite been sure of the relationship between them. Usually S&J did hardcovers and NEL might take the paperback version, but there are these few oddities. I'd like to know what the 1975 S&J pb looked like externally. BLongley 22:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, found it: here. 1975 S&J branding, 1980 NEL. BLongley 22:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that back cover suggests we have the price of the 1975 one wrong... BLongley 22:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Look at the notes of this title and you see the price for the 1975 S&J pb should have been 50p, as the image that you found of the back cover confirms. I'll change it. MHHutchins 23:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

PKD's Dr. Bloodmoney

I updated your verified pub of this title with the month of publication (from Locus1), and the year of the afterword. I was going to merge it with the one in my 1985 pub, before I realized it may not be the same (it was first published in the 1980 Dell edition.) Mine begins "Well, I predicted wrong when I wrote Dr. Bloodmoney back in 1964." and ends "I would have enjoyed being there with them in their microcosm, their postwar West Marin world." Is this the same as yours? MHHutchins 00:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's the same. BLongley 03:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I will merge the two records. MHHutchins 03:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Bayley's Soul of the Robot

According to Locus #203 (August 1977), this pub was priced at 70p and published in May 1977. MHHutchins 19:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ta muchly, updated. Does Locus say it's a Quartet book or an Orbit one? BLongley 19:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

It's listed as a Quartet book. But it's also listed as The Soul of a Robot (as shown on the front cover, guess Gerald Bishop never bothered to open the book!) MHHutchins 22:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Someday I'll figure out who "Quartet Books" were and why they keep pinching other company logos, but it won't be any time soon I fear. :-/ BLongley 22:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Publication series

Last night I created a temporary page so that we won't lose any lists while we're waiting for the category creation. Feel free to link any other lists you may find. MHHutchins 22:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I already have done for Sphere SF classics - I may have given up at 12 of 14(?) but some enquiries in the right places might retrieve the rest. BLongley 22:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Series:Macmillan's Best of Soviet Science Fiction Series (which is no longer a Series as far as the database is concerned) added. Ahasuerus 22:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I figure the Wiki could handle these lists better than the database. Thanks for adding the Macmillan series. I'm sure that are plenty more. MHHutchins 23:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the original compiler was Marc, but I cleaned it up at one point. Still looking for an editor with a copy of Aliens, Travelers, and Other Strangers so that we could check "The Visitors". Ahasuerus 23:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I made a list of Gollancz's Collectors' Editions but can't swear to its completeness because they weren't numbered internally. Check it out to see if you can recall any others.MHHutchins 22:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I've only accidentally acquired a very few of them (TP is not a preferred format to me). I'll check to see if my few refer to others. BLongley 22:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Checked: you have all the others mine refer to. BLongley 19:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, do you think the VGSF paperbacks should be considered a series? I think they were numbered but I don't have any. MHHutchins 22:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

"VGSF" I just consider a useful imprint ("Victor Gollancz Science Fiction", maybe "Fantasy" as last word). I don't think there's anything numbered about them apart from ISBN. Although when you find a pure Spec-Fic publisher, checking all ISBNs they might have used in their range could be interesting. BLongley 22:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Mask of Chaos/The Star Virus

Added the one interior art piece, by Gaughan as usual, to the contents of STRVRSMSKC1970 and a note. ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I formally absolve you of all rights and duties involved in adding frontispieces to anything I've verified? Just ask if anything I said about the words in the book is dubious. BLongley 00:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Your wish is my less typing!! :)!! ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Zelazny's To Die in Italbar

Locus #203 (August 1977) prices this pub at 70p, and gives May 1977 as the month of publication. MHHutchins 06:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, notes added. I don't mind you updating it directly if it's just Month clarification and/or finding obscured prices. BLongley 18:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Niven & Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye

You have dated this pub as 1977 but believe it may be a reprint. Locus #203 (August 1977) has a listing for this title published by Orbit (with the same ISBN) in June 1977, but priced at 95p. Perhaps I should enter the Locus data as a separate pub, and citing the source in the notes? Thanks. MHHutchins 21:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It's stated as a reprint, my waffling is only about the "first". BLongley 22:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that the listing indicates "ni" meaning "new impression" (Brit-speak for "printing", but you would know that). MHHutchins 21:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, No. "New Impression" doesn't just mean another printing. It will be a new printing, but depending on the publisher this will mean some sort of change as well. Which may be different cover-art, a different font, an added introduction, an added afterword, anything that really doesn't justify a new ISBN. Sometimes it's a significant change that we'd want to record (particularly new text) but sometimes it's just a font-change which doesn't even affect pagination and even the cover-art is the same: so just another printing in our terms. BLongley 22:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

So we can assume safely that the June 1977 printing is not the same 95p printing of 1976 (first printing), and yours is at least the third "impression". Does it carry a 1977 date or any statement of printing history? MHHutchins 21:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

"First published in Great Britain in 1975 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, this Orbit edition first published in 1976, reprinted 1977". I read that as "Weidenfeld & Nicolson" first UK hardcover: a 1976 Orbit edition (probably first paperback, and the 95p edition Locus mentions) and mine is the second paperback printing of that paperback. Big price-jump there, but not unbelievable. BLongley 22:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd add the 95p pub as first paperback printing from Locus. Mine is the second printing of that paperback. Given the 1970s era, I'm pretty sure that Orbit didn't do hardcover editions at that time (they have done since) so I'm less worried about whether mine is a first reprint of the paperback now - I'm pretty sure it is. Whether it's a 3rd Impression gets us into all sorts of worms... we have no definition of "impression", or "edition", and even "printing" is a bit vague although I know what I mean when I point at a "printing". BLongley 22:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation of "new impression". At that time, Locus' British books listing wasn't as thorough in its data as it would become later (no cover art, no page count). It was assembled by Gerald Bishop (a Brit, I presume), and I've had to decipher some of his abbreviations because there was no printed guide. I finally figured out that "ne" meant "new edition" and "ni" meant "new impression" which I assumed was simply a new printing by a publisher who had an earlier printing of the same title. In gleaning these lists I've also discovered that British publishers weren't as ISBN happy as the Yanks tend to be. I've seen the same ISBN used for more than a decade, even if the publisher/imprint was purchased and/or changed names (e.g. Panther -> Granada, Magnum -> Methuen) with only a change in price. MHHutchins 00:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Retief & the Warlords

Found Powers' signature on the cover of RTFNDTHWRL1970 and added to the record with a note. ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Talents, Incorporated

Added to your notes for TLNTSNCRPR0000 that Currey also has a 1962 date. ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That's fine, no need to notify me of extra notes from sources I don't have. BLongley 00:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Space Station 1

Found EMSH (who else!) on the cover of SPCSTNN1962 just above the "N" in "Frank". Added that with a note. ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Land's End [2]

Added a note that the Canadian ISBN is also in/on this BKTG13554 ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixer's terminology

I see that you have been adding authors to Fixer's Talk page and marking them as "done". I have been using the following convention:

• "identified" for "found in Fixer's database and will be submitted shortly"
• "submitted" for "Fixer has submitted all eligible pubs"
• "done" for "Fixer's submissions have been approved and massaged"
• ? (currently inconsistent) for "reconciled with Amazon/OCLC/author's Web page(s)"

It looks like we may need to standardize our terminology to make sure that the page can be used as a pick list of authors who need to be processed by Fixer. If Fixer tries to resubmit the same author again, nothing bad will happen since all previously submitted pubs are automatically ineligible for re-submission. However, if Fixer thinks that an author is "done", he will not submit the author's pubs and we will have a gap in our coverage until all books in Fixer's database are processed. And it may take us a while to process all 200,000+... Ahasuerus 15:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, what do I use for "I've manually added the titles Fixer missed" and "Here's another author I identified, but I don't think Fixer can add any new titles at present?". BLongley 16:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

If Fixer has already created submissions for a particular author, then there is no harm in adding missing titles manually and marking the author as "done" on the Talk page. However, if you identify an author who hasn't been processed by Fixer, there is no easy way of telling whether Fixer may have something on file for that author, so I would mark the author "identified" and see what Fixer comes up with. Ahasuerus 20:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's see what he does with Erin Hunter. I filled in one series but as we seem to have skipped the next almost entirely I'm unsure if people and/or bots think they're not Spec-Fic. BLongley 20:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Correction - we have the other series, it's just one series is mostly sorted out with variants and the other isn't. If Fixer ensure we have the set, I'll have a stab at the lot. BLongley 21:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

And does Fixer Re-Check whether the publication is in ISFDB before submission, or is that only done once? (I.e. if we let him loose on an author I've added to, will Fixer submit duplicates?) BLongley 16:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

When Fixer runs, he checks whether the "candidate"'s ISBN is in the last downloaded/installed backup. (New backup files are installed every few days.) As of an hour ago, Fixer knows how to check for various ISBN10/ISBN13 permutations in case the ISFDB and Amazon use different ISBN formats.

Since it's possible for a pub to be added between the time Fixer's version of the backup data was generated and the time Fixer runs, there is a chance that Fixer will create a duplicate. I will teach Fixer how to use the Web API to check for potential duplicates later today. Ahasuerus 20:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be much appreciated. It's frustrating to do approvals and/or merges only to discover it's a dup that needs deleting. BLongley

Fixer will no longer create submissions if the ISBN (or its 10/13 sibling) is already on file even if it's not in the currently active backup. The next step is to teach Fixer to "Add Pub" when an identical title is on file; perhaps tomorrow. Ahasuerus 03:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a very worthwhile improvement! I particularly hate the merges where the existing title with all the Series data and notes and such isn't the default and I have to change every single checkbox. BLongley 20:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, half way there. It's a little tricky due to multiple authors, titles with Amazon-added parenthetical junk, collections-vs-novels, etc, but, with luck, should be done some time tomorrow. Ahasuerus 03:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) OK, I've tried to clarify what I did over and above approvals of Fixer submissions. Typically, if I've added the author website I've also reconciled with that for Long Fiction, but have made little or no attempt to remove or reclassify Non-Genre. If a series showed gaps, I've filled those in with at least one publication of the missing title. Short Fiction also added when in a mostly Spec-Fic publication. Lora Leigh was the big headache: I left "Men of August" books held as I suspect they're Non-Genre - feel free to reject. "Bound Hearts" just looks like bondage erotica, I will reject if nobody says different by tomorrow. I see you've held "White Hot Holidays, Vol. I" - I'm glad of that, there's several other volumes I don't want to investigate. Also "The Twelve Quickies of Christmas Vol 1" - I don't want to look at Volume II either. BLongley 22:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixer found a couple of novels and a number of anthologies (plus other editions of pre-existing books) for two of the "manually processed" authors, which, I suppose, is a good thing since it shows that our automated processes are working. Ahasuerus 03:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixer isn't finding anything I can get really excited about: "Time Travel" seems to have mostly led to "modern woman goes back in time to shag someone that would have been necrophilia otherwise", and the spin-off results are mostly Vampire-shaggers. I'm not sure what Browse Nodes to suggest (ironically, as I learnt about the Amazon Web API at work I don't have the same facilities at home to experiment), and the Amazon forums suggest Browse Nodes are on their way out anyway: so if we're going to use them we might have to do so fast. But I want Space-Ships, and Extra-Terrestrial beings, and Giant Killer Robots, and Black Holes and White Holes and Singularities, and Killo-Zap Ray-Guns, and FTL travel, and proper SF, not this "Paranormal Romance" stuff. Any ideas on a good next key-word? BLongley 22:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

If you don't like paranormal romances (and I don't think many of us do), I can ask Fixer to skip them during the first pass. I can also ask him to skip YA books. I am sure we will still have plenty of books to work on :)

I'd be very happy not to see another paranormal romance, ever, but would settle for leaving them till last. BLongley 20:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Overall, I am pleased with Fixer's progress. Of the 290,000+ books that Fixer has on file, 1,000 have been submitted and another 170,000 have been marked as "rejected" or "suspended", so we are down to under 120,000 books to wade through. Still, I suspect that raiding the Library of Congress, Melvyl, the British Library, etc will be a better way to spend our resources. Give me a few weeks... Ahasuerus 03:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Just doing Amazon.co.uk might be interesting, and hopefully shouldn't take much rework of the software. I do suspect that older UK editions (before Amazon was even started) are far less likely to appear on the US site than modern works which seem to be added to all sites nearly simultaneously. I do have a bookmarklet which, if I'm editing a US pub with a suspicious lack of British editions, will give me all the other ISBNs for that title, but I haven't memorised all UK publisher prefixes (yet!) and don't really want to work on non-English editions, so it's still a bit too manual for my liking. I suppose getting Data Thief to trawl through our known ISBNs, finding the alternatives, then seeing if we have those and reporting omissions, could be a useful task. BLongley 20:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I learned about the Browse Nodes going away or at least mutating a few months ago, which is why I used them to capture as much data as possible while they were still available. Which reminds me that I need to teach Fixer to do the same with Amazon.ca and .uk. Sigh... Ahasuerus 03:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

One thing you could do, hopefully quite easily: remove the "General" and "General AAS" browse nodes from the details Fixer puts in the mod notes. That can save five or six lines on a lot of submissions. BLongley 20:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I will add it to my list! Ahasuerus 02:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Piper's The Cosmic Computer

According to Locus #205 (October 1977), your edition of this title was published in September 1977. MHHutchins 01:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The Legion of Space

Added the month of publication to THLGNFSPCS1977, source Amazon.UK, which brings up the question:"Is the UK version of Amazon as 'schizoid' as the US one (though, of course, in a more dignified manner!)" ;-) ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't trust Amazon dates much on any of their sites. Clarifying a month might be OK though, but when they lose track of entire years I get concerned. BLongley 20:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The Abominable Earthman

I added the date to your verified 1ST Ballantine edition of Pohl's The Abominable Earthman.Don Erikson 19:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, seems fine. BLongley 19:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Tower catalog numbering

I was working on a Tower Books pub, trying to estimate the date of publication based on the catalog numbering, when I came upon one of your verified pubs. Can you see if there's a dash in the catalog number (43957 or 43-957) like others in that time period? Thanks. MHHutchins 00:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It definitely has a dash on the front cover (as shown), not so sure on the spine (that's a bit too worn). No internal reference to the number. Feel free to adjust. BLongley 00:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Magnum edition of Dick's Simulacra

According to Locus #205 (October 1977), your edition of this title was published in June 1977. Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered about having the month noted, but in this case, your paperback is the first UK edition. The hardcover was published by Eyre Methuen the next month, and it should be clear that the paperback came first. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting: the book says it was "published in association with Eyre Methuen, Ltd" but only says 1977. Feel free to adjust as many pub dates as necessary. (I'm not a first edition fanatic.) BLongley 21:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Jumping the gun

Sorry, Bill, I was on a roll approving some submissions and approved two of your Gavin Grant submissions. If it's any consolation, they were good. :) MHHutchins 19:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem, saves me some clicks on some very boring submissions. Most of this pseudonym clean-up is no fun, but I'm quite proud of what I did with T. Davis Bunn ("unfixable", eh?) despite ISFDB limitations, and what I found with Carl Dreadstone and E. K. Leyton. Ah well, back to the grind. BLongley 19:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

And Rickey R. Mallory was hard work! Pretty pointless too, as I'll never read a single one of those. :-/ BLongley 21:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The Heritage of Hastur-Cover artist?

This. [11]. I have the third printing with the same cover, but my copyright page says "Cover art by Jack Gaughan". The frontispiece is definitely signed "Jack Gaughan". Your ver says George Barr. Would please confirm, I suspect a cover change without a copyright page correction. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't work - you say there's no cover change but there is a copyright page correction. It does say George Barr in mine, but it turns out my copy is printed in Canada but with the cover printed in the USA. I guess that's why the mismatch. BLongley 18:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Not to confuse. My cover is the same as yours. You are confirming that mine (most Probably) is a case of not changing the copyright page date when changing the cover art. I will now try Marc Kupper as he has no cover image, but the first edition. I really appreciate the check as the artwork does not seem like JG. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that makes more sense. I suspect Marc's edition looks like this. BLongley 19:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

UK edition of The Chicago Conversion by Proctor

Can you re-check who is stated as the publisher of this edition? Pinnacle was the US publisher, and the ISBN is a NEL number. Could NEL have distributed the US edition in the UK? Thanks. MHHutchins 22:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, found it. Not sure how - my cleaner seems to have created a bookcase that goes "Flash Gordon", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "V", "Red Dwarf Actor's Novels and Autobiographies" (but no actual "Red Dwarf" novels), and "X-Files". It's a pretty scratched copy (they REALLY didn't want anyone to know what the original publication price was) but the NEL logo and title page credits mean it has to be NEL or "New English Library" - I must have done a lazy clone or verified such. Will fix. Thanks! BLongley 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, do you have an opinion on "Geo" versus "Geo."? I'd quite like a standard for abbreviations of personal names rather than creating even more variants. I wouldn't want to merge all "Mike"s and "Mick"s and "Michael"s but you're lucky there - my family tree has a lot of "Thom." or "Thom", or "Wm" or "Wm." though. :-/ BLongley 23:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The Comic Inferno

Added a note to THCMCNFRNQ1973 then promptly forgot to add all the foreign prices.... my 'auto-run' program needs re-booting... ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Approved, you can go back and add them. (Mine is out of reach.) BLongley 18:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Cities in Space

The introductory Essay of your verified pub CTSINSPC1991 apparently got merged some time ago with another essay of the same name. I am removing the merged title, and adding a replacement title to this pub. I am also adding cover art to this pub. I will let you know if I find anything else that has gone awry since you verified this pub. Thanks Kevin 22:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Added the cover, approved your removal, will let you do the replacement. BLongley 23:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Next submission approved. BLongley 22:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Kevin 21:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The Dragon Lensman

Just a note that I have merged Lloyd Arthur Eshbach's Introduction and David A. Kyle's Foreword in your verified Corgi printing of The Dragon Lensman with their Bantam counterparts. Kyle's foreword is fictional, so SHORTFICTION won in a titanic (not to say pantagruelian) battle with ESSAY during the merge. (You should have seen the coruscating beams of pure energy !)

Also, you note that it's a "First Corgi printing. Actually printed in America though", but the cover art looks UK-ish. I wonder if perhaps the body of the book was printed in the US while the cover was printed in the UK? Ahasuerus 02:00, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Possibly, but there's no separate printing statement for the cover. And as the printing company is Arcata Graphics of Buffalo, I'd have thought them up to doing the cover as well. But it does look a more British cover than a US one - a US cover for the UK market would usually be the Bantam one. BLongley 18:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh well, I guess this puzzle will remain unsolved until we absorb the archives of all known/suspected specfiction publishers and printers in the US/UK... Ahasuerus 21:42, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

There's lots of Bantam/Corgi "synergies" (as I suspect they'd express it now) that were used a few decades ago. "Whack a few more copies out for the Brits, just put the dog on the cover rather than the chicken". Or "what do we do with all the books we ain't got covers for? Ship them out anyway, they'll find covers if they want to sell them". The Transworld archives will be a gold-mine for someone. And the Universal-Tandem ones even more so. Did you notice this addition? At some point we're going to have to pair off US and UK verifiers and sort out what sort of practices did go on. BLongley 22:16, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that the thinking behind most cover art changes is the simple notion that the new art would help sell the book and thus pay for itself. For all we know, it may well be true -- some UK art is so different vis a vis generic US art that I am not sure how well it would sell in the US, at least outside of niche markets. Besides, different publishers have different meta-styles, e.g. compare and contrast Baen's "macho" art and DAW's "girly" art. And, of course, it helps genre artists to stay out of the poor house :) Ahasuerus 22:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Newton's Wake

Your verified pub [[12]] has a date of 2006, yet Locus1 has it as Jan. '05 Can you check as the title record shows both and I don't want to delete the wrong one. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Neither needs deleting. Mine is an apparent fourth printing of the paperback edition, after a hardback Orbit edition, if I'm reading it right. So we actually need at least two more publications added, assuming Locus refers to this one. Why so keen to delete things all of a sudden? It's definitely not safe to delete a publication that differs in any way from another edition here just because the printing isn't stated - it's only in the last year or two that we've increasingly felt the need to record a printing history. There's tens of thousands of publications here that probably don't have such. BLongley 21:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not 'keen' to delete anything. When I find a pub in a title record that lacks some data (month, page count, artist) I go looking and when I can't find anything that matches then sometimes can conclude the entry is a mistake or a duplicate. I don't like deleting either and don't submit them very often. It may seem that way when right now I'm on here 8+ hours a day. In a few weeks I'll be back to work and the frequency of any editing will drop dramatically. When in doubt I ask, especially when there's a name attached. ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Comic Inferno [2]

Changed the title of the introduction to this from "Introduction (The Book of Brian Aldiss)" to "Introduction (The Comic Inferno)" which brings up a question. The introduction is signed "Brian W. Aldiss" but the book is as by "Brian Aldiss". Should all the stories be changed to drop the "W"? ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they probably should, it's just a pain to do so. According to current help, so should the Essay - Help doesn't recognise signatures to articles, only title pages - but I think we can allow common sense here. BLongley 19:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I have put it on hold until Bill can review it. Ahasuerus 01:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly! ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sturgeon is Alive and Well . . .

I updated your verified pub's title SLVW1971 to match the current standard of "space dot space dot space dot". - Thanks Kevin 05:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)