User talk:BLongley/Archives/Archive11

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The Man Who Ate the World

Hello Bill(s), I'm not sure that this pub is indeed the first Panther printing, see this cheaper one. Hauck 15:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Quite possible. Please check "931/3p in Ireland" though. I don't think even the Irish used thirds of a penny. BLongley 16:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, it's 93 & 1/2 (i didn't even know that it was possible). Hauck 17:25, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
That makes more sense, though offhand I'd have guessed 92 and 1/2. The predecimal prices tended to be multiples of a sixpence (or half shilling) and the post-decimal prices therefore became multiples of 2 and 1/2 pence. This carried on for a few years until they abolished the halfpenny piece and the old sixpence was withdrawn. (I forget which year that was.) BLongley 17:39, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, there were "half cent" coins in the US prior to 1858 (some of them worth thousands of dollars now.) Some countries even had "1/4" coins, e.g. the "polushka" in the Russian Empire. Ahasuerus 05:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
England had farthings (well before my time though!) and "pieces of eight" apparently really existed. If anyone had a non-binary division of their smallest unit I'd be interested to hear about it. England had some funny denominations but a thrupenny-bit was three pennies and not just a quarter of a shilling or a twentieth of a crown. BLongley 00:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back!

Welcome back! Sorry to hear about the broadband situation, it must be painful (not to mention expensive) to have to load all these oversize Wiki pages via 3G.Ahasuerus 05:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm actually quite impressed with the speed, it feels about the same as my old landline broadband. I'm not sure of the costs yet - my first day using it was about 150 meg and that's apparently 5 days worth of usage by the provider's estimates, but of course there was a large number of Windows and Anti-Virus updates to download. It may yet balance out to something reasonable - now that 4G has arrived here, I don't think they dare raise the prices on 3G! BLongley 00:58, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

19 patches have been installed since October, so we have made some progress, but nothing earth-shaking. A bunch of minor bugs got fixed and various FRs have been implemented. The unmerge change required a fair amount of testing, but only because I wasn't familiar with the logic and it took me a while to wrap my brain around it. <insert a comment about old dogs and new tricks here>. Ahasuerus 05:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, unmerge was tricky which is why I got it wrong first time. (And second time it seems, thanks for catching the review link problem.) I'll try and update my local system but I want to do it carefully so I don't overwrite the experimental but successful changes I have coded. Not that I can quite remember what they all are - but "unmerge foreign title" was something a lot of non-native-English editors seemed to want - or have they done it all the hard way now? BLongley 00:58, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
A lot of foreign pubs have been unmerged by now, but it's hard to tell how many are left. OTOH, there is no harm in adding the functionality even if doesn't get used very often. Ahasuerus 23:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Other than that things are progressing apace and I hope to test the rest of the previously committed language changes next week. The only hurdle is that I took over Fixer's submissions a few weeks ago (they weren't always getting a lot of TLC) and it takes time to do them justice. The end result looks pretty good, though. Ahasuerus 05:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I suspect I was one of the major Fixer-approvers. I have no idea how to make such more appealing though. :-( BLongley 00:58, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, they were still getting processed, but as I wrote on my Talk page in Late October:
  • Once I had finished sorting out various post-retirement issues a few weeks ago, I reviewed the eventual fate of recent Fixer submissions. The results were surprisingly discouraging in that in many cases Amazon's deficiencies -- missing binding codes, garbled titles/author names, etc -- remained uncorrected. There were also missing VTs/pseudonyms, missing (or incorrect) series attributions, incorrect UK/US prices and so on. Based on these findings, I decided to send Fixer on vacation (he says that Maui is great this time of the year) and take over the approval process for a while. It's been an interesting (if time consuming) experience and I hope that I will be able to use it to make Fixer's submissions cleaner in the future.
The good news is that I was able to improve the submission logic based on what I have learned in the last 5 weeks, especially the Notes section. The bad news is that it can take a very long time to massage new submissions (including adding author links, tags, etc) and that's on top of the time that I spend pre-processing roughly 5,000+ ISBNs that Fixer finds every month. Of course, every hour that I spend on processing submissions is one hour that I can't spend on development/testing. There is got to be a better way to balance things... Ahasuerus 08:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

BLTEST

There are a couple of publication records (here and here) that are dated from 2008. Are they still needed for testing? Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 01:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

They can go, I haven't done any testing on the live server for years now. BLongley 19:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I'll delete them from the db. Mhhutchins 22:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Vectors #37 - 43: Half Foolscap

Are there any of the more common bindings that would be close to the publication format of the seven issues of Vector which are now given as "Half Foolscap"? (For background see this standards discussion.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

"Half Foolscap" is an accurate description, same way as many fanzines are A4 paper folded to make A5 booklets. I have no preference if you wish to standardise them, most of the US Magazine formats are meaningless to me. BLongley 19:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
So are they different than the earlier issues #30 - 35 or the later issues #44 - 51 all of which are verified as "quarto"? For ISFDB purposes "quarto" means approximately "Letter Size" as that term is defined by SFE III: "also called Large flat or, erroneously, Bedsheet, measuring 11.75 x 8 in (298 x 216 mm), and thus the approximate equivalent of Quarto or A4. This size also applies to large pulp or large slick. Issues are usually saddle-stapled but can be perfect bound." Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Not having any idea what is meant by "foolscap" (even less by a half of one), I found this definition on Wikipedia as a paper size of 13.5 x 17 inches. So would "half foolscap" mean 8.5 x 13.5 inches? This would be somewhat larger than both "A4" (a term which is never used in the US) which is 8.3 x 11.7 inches, and "quarto" (a term I only learned because of Locus) which is 8.5 x 11 (or "standard letter" in the US). Mhhutchins 00:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Look further down that wiki page and you'll find a second definition of foolscap as 13 x 8. That would give 6.5 * 8 for half foolscap, which seems to match the ratio of the picture better. Unfortunately I can't recall the size of my physical copies, Vector varied a lot over the years, but earlier ones were often quite small and awkwardly ratioed. BLongley 10:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, it's hard to determine which is the closest approximation to a more common term when there are two totally different definitions of the same thing. That's even more reason to come up with a better name! I guess it's not going to be the end of the world if you're unable to check your copies, but I will ask Ahasuerus not to include that format in the drop-down menu. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Variant title for short story "And Then She Found Him"

This collection that you PV'ed: In my copy of the book one of the stories is titled And Then She Found Him (no ellipsis), but the pub record currently contains the canonical title And Then She Found Him . . .. Could you please doublecheck your copy of the book whether we can change the pub to use the variant title (I'll do it if you confirm)? Thanks, Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 01:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It's going to be some time, and possibly another house-move, before I can get to it. If you're sure you have the same printing go ahead and make the change. BLongley 02:55, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Forever Free

I added extensive notes to this pub that you PV'ed. Nothing is new or has changed, but possibly the notes are too verbose for your taste, so you may want to have a look. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 03:57, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The notes are fine. Are you going to upload a better cover? BLongley 02:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charles Sheffield

Hi. Recently got a used book, that's a second printing like yours http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?297591 - which usually is not listed in any bibliographies. But luckily and interestingly enough it had an old printed receipt inside dated February 9, 1998 (by a bookstore in Singapore). So I though At the very least we can enter a year for that printing based on that. Let me know if OK. Thanks and CheerZ Viter 16:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Do note the source of the date as well though. BLongley 21:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
OK. Just submitted. Thanks Viter 08:22, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Phaze Doubt by Piers Anthony

Re: Phaze Doubt
Replacing Amazon image with correct 1st printing image from personal collection.--Astromath 07:15, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A / The Plague of Masters

Can you check the title of this story in your verified Flandry of Terra? In both my editions it's "The Plague of Masters", not "A Plague of Masters". Thanks, --Willem H. 19:50, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Wells' contribution to Apeman, Spaceman

Hello, Bill! It's especially fine to have you back! Your opinion would be welcome here.

And maybe you'd like to comment on this topic, too? Stonecreek 15:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

"Mort", by Terry Pratchett

Your verified publication of this book had developed a broken image link. I replaced it with what Amazon thinks is the cover, but you should probably check and make sure Amazon was correct. Chavey 01:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Starquake

Re: Starquake
Updating/adding notes. Notifying all verifiers.--Astromath 15:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Canadian price question

My copy of your verifies [1] has a Canadian price of C$7.50 while you note one of C$6.99. If yours is right then I have a variant marked as a 1st printing.Don Erikson 19:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

All of Them Were Empty

I added the emdash that's on the titlepage of this David Gerrold story in your verified Spaced Out. Take a look when you're unpacked. Thanks, --Willem H. 20:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A World Out of Time

Found Peter Jones' initials on the back cover of [this], under the 'Price' part of 'Recommended Price'. Also added the interior art from the chapter title pages by Tinkelman. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 10:44, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8

Quick pointer to some possible omissions: does the title page of your verified pb of The Sirian Experiments also have the subtitle "The Report by Ambien II, of the Five", as with other editions, and does your verified pb of The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 have the Afterword? My UK hc has it beginning on page 123. PeteYoung 09:32, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid all bar about 100 of my books are boxed away, and with my Dad's strange labelling system to boot. Those books would be approximately "bookcase 7, box 3" by my memory, but that and the surrounding boxes are buried away. Please don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from me. BLongley 16:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Klingon

Re: Klingon
Question about the 4 extracts/excerpts: Why was 2 labeled extract and the other 2 labeled excerpt for this pub? I have that pub but cannot tell the difference.--Astromath 18:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I added those details, better ask the other verifiers. BLongley 02:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Question about a Lin Carter book

You verified this book [2], a 3rd printing with a catalog number of UQ1062 and a price of $0.95. I have a copy that says it is a 3rd printing with UY1267 & $1.25. Could you check your copy to see if I have a variant or something. Thanx!Don Erikson 19:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Never mind! It turns I have both, so I there is a variant 3rd printing. Sorry to have bothered you.Don Erikson 19:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

A Wreath of Stars

Can you confirm the publication series into which this edition has been placed? It appears someone has changed all of the volumes into the VGSF Classics series, when at least the first twenty were called Gollancz Classic SF. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 07:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't recall owning that edition, let alone what series it should be in! BLongley 02:13, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
You did a primary verification of the record. I'll contact the primary2 verifier. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I did verify it and even uploaded the cover, so I must have it somewhere. As it is a tp I'll probably get rid of it when I do find it, but I want to improve the verification removal process first. BLongley 03:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Your verified pub. of Sladek's Keep the Giraffe Burning

Hello, Bill: a belated Happy New Year to you! If you have time for it, please take a look at this discussion. Stonecreek 14:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

And a Happy New Year to you too! (Hope it started better than mine, I was in hospital.) I've looked at the discussion but finding the book itself is probably beyond my abilities for a few weeks if not months - it's probably in a box marked "bookcase 9, box N" due to my Dad's "helpful" labelling but all I can really say is it's in bedroom two here. (I should post a photograph to show why I can't reverify much at present, but unfortunately the camera is also in one of the boxes....) BLongley 16:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
No need to post a photo: I can imagine from various movings (own and assists). The main thing is: Judging by the data available I'd really say that Dirk's book represents the first printing and our book was edited without changing the copyright page. Stonecreek 08:41, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
They say "three moves equals one fire" - well, I'm lucky that so much paper has survived I guess. I have at last sorted out broadband access here, and due to some drastic medication changes after my hospitalisation I'm keen to do ISFDB stuff again. I'm leaning towards more coding now that Ahasuerus has caught up on all the stuff I submitted last year, and have many ideas: some a bit vague still though. For instance, having invented Primary (Transient) and Primaries 2 to 5 I now feel the need to temporarily move all my books from first or early primary verifications until I can get them unpacked - do I code a one-off tool for my purposes or have another stab at fixing verifications 'properly'? (The underlying code is awful) Maybe even a Primary (Transient) 2, which requires no special coding and can be done by any Mod would do for now. So many ideas, so little clue what people want.... BLongley 10:02, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, although it would be nice to have more pv slots the idea of having to notify them all isn't appealing to me at all. Maybe it'd be possible to limit the pv'ers who have to be notified to a certain number? Stonecreek 13:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
I think there's already a Feature Request to make notifying PVers an automatic process. I'll hunt it down when I get some time: I think that as it involves the Wiki side that coding it all would be beyond my abilities, but I could at least add my thoughts on what the process should be. For instance, people should be able to opt out of being notified: Mods should be able to mark editors as inactive (and therefore pointless to message) after a certain period. If we really get complicated then we'd also code User Preferences on what types of edit need notifications. But in the short term, bring it up on Rules and Standards: there's a lot of wasted effort going on, and having to read User pages for notes about what they want to hear about, and manually judging whether an Editor is actually still active is all stuff that could be done with a change to help - much easier to do, if still as awkward to get agreement on. BLongley 21:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
For the Sladek book please see Dirk's talk page (I have added the interior art, for example). There was a note I removed about the fragmentation of Heavens Below. This didn't belong to the book in my opinion but to the shortfiction. There wasn't any authorship mentioned for this note. I would like to notify the notator, though. Did you by chance put it up (or do you know who did it)? Stonecreek 13:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Emissary

Re: Emissary
Could you check your copy? The notes say that the spine & copyright page has the correct ISBN, but on my copy, the ISBN on the spine matches the one on the back cover (which is the wrong ISBN). I'm also asking the same thing of Bluesman. Thx.--Astromath 03:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Short answer - no, I can't check it. Almost all my books are packed away and although I know which room that book must be in, it would take me weeks to reach the actual box it's packed in. Please continue without me for now. BLongley 10:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
I've checked with Bluesman and he did verify that the back & spine ISBNs are different (different check numbers). However, I found a further discrepency in the ISBN in that the ISBN on the copyright page doesn't match either the back ISBN nor the spine ISBN. I'm also discussing this with Bluesman to see if he has the same thing.
P.S. I have a similar problem with my books being boxed up, but unlike you, my boxes are not even labeled.--Astromath 13:43, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
My boxes are indeed labelled, but not the way I did it the move before last. I labelled them with the authors' surnames - e.g. "Asimov - Asprin". That seemed good when I unpacked in my new bigger house. But this time I've had to move somewhere smaller, so my Dad's idea of labelling boxes by the number of the bookcase they were on, sub-numbered by the number of the box from each bookcase that got filled, is next to useless when I can't even find space to put the bookcases up, let alone keep them all in the same order. I have 5 bookcases in usable condition as opposed to the 15 I had before, and only 2 of them have books on at the moment. I'm trying to tackle a box a day now that I'm out of hospital, but my rental agreement will be up long before I've caught up. I hope the landlord will be happy to renew, another move too soon would be heart-breaking. BLongley 20:46, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The Wrong End of Time [2]

Corrected the date for [this], somehow it had the year for the hardcover edition even though the year for the pb is on the copyright page. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:12, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I see this was addressed above but not changed. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

British 'sticker'

Think I've seen this before, but finding the discussion ..... Can you tell me what the initials TP on British stickers stand for? [Example]. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:24, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'sticker'? A Price label? I've obviously spent far too long here, the only thing that comes to mind is 'trade paperback'! BLongley 06:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Probably Thorpe & Porter (like here), and you're likely referring to this pub. IIRC it's quite impossible to remove these (f***) particular price labels without damaging the cover. It reminds me sadly of the monstrous price labels that Andromeda added to the US magazines. Hauck 14:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's the pub, one of two I recently picked up. I didn't even try to remove them, publisher/distributor labels are notoriously difficult. Even heat won't re-activate the glue. Thanks Hervé! And Bill of course, don't worry, we'll 'nudge' you when you've been here too long! ;-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

"Moderating Automated Submissions" update

As one of the "top two" Fixer approvers, could you please take a look at this section of my Talk page? TIA! Ahasuerus 00:46, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Laumer/Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude

Hi -- you verified this publication as an OMNIBUS; see this conversation for why I think it should be a COLLECTION. If you agree, would you change it to COLLECTION? If all verifiers agree I can then change the title record to COLLECTION also. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 18:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Wilhelm's The Infinity Box

I've added some notes to this record and gave the publication date from Amazon.co.uk, which appears to be infinitely better than their US counterpart in dating books this old (I think the UK publishers must have kept better records which were used to create the Amazon UK database.) Mhhutchins 19:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. I wonder if whatever database Amazon UK used is available to us mere mortals? That could give Fixer or Data Thief something to chew on for a few weeks! BLongley 20:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

A Cosmic Cornucopia - Kirby/Langford

I added LCCN/OCLC links to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?19064. You mention in your notes that the title is debatable. You might want to consider changing it to simply "A Cosmic Cornucopia" as that is the running title on the top of the pages throughout the book, it's listed that way in the LOC and on OCLC and it's the way that Paper Tiger refers to it on the back of the book itself. Just a suggestion.SFJuggler 23:48, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Records for the later issues of the Italian magazine Urania

Was it you, under your Data Thief persona, who created these records? If so, take a look at this posting ("Search anomaly"). Of course, I may be misremembering. (I think Pips did some work on the later issues as well, but he may have just been updating them.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

It rings a vague bell. IIRC, I didn't do all of them, just the ones that were easily automatable.

Zelazny's This Immortal

I've been doing a second pass on the primary verified records of my paperbacks and have finally got to the Zs (hooray!). Today I came to this record and noticed that it's not dated and that it notes there is no date or printing statement. My copy actually has the dates of the first four Ace printings on its copyright page. Can you confirm if your copy is the same or should I create a new record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I found the box marked "Zelazny/Anthologies" but it turned out to have been repacked by my Dad and there's no Zelazny in it. :-( Please continue as if I'd marked it as Transient. BLongley 16:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I went ahead and created a new record, but now I'm having second thoughts about whether the copyright page is correct. (Ace screwed up like this all the time in the 70s.) The price of $1.50 is too high for a 1974 Ace book, and Willem has verified a record for the previous catalog number that's priced $1.25 with the Fourth Printing / July 1974 statement as well. I'm waiting to hear from him to determine how to handle my new record. I'll ask Bluesman (who did a second verification of your record) to join this conversation as well. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Are there any ads in the back? The 80964 undated printing has #44F which was used between Aug.'76 and Aug.'77. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
My copy has a single page of ads (the unnumbered page after 191), but it gives no catalog numbers (is that unusual?) It's a list of all 14 Hugo and Nebula winners published by Ace, and there's the code "7H" printed below on the address form. Mhhutchins 22:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
From approximately Oct/Nov '74 and for a year, most if not all new Ace ads carried no catalog #s. Then they restarted using them. '7H' is one I have yet to come across [7, 7A-F, and 7I I've seen]. The price probably puts the printing into '75. I have editions with the 'next' ad in that number '7I' verified as early as October '75. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
It never occurred to me that one could narrow down a printing based on the code printed on ads. What do you think of a project to record all of those codes for Ace Books? It should be easy to come up with a list if we can get enough editors contributing. Mhhutchins 01:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I already have many hundreds of pubs with any ad codes noted, but the data is still pretty 'raw'. I'd like to set up a spread sheet or something like that but have no idea how to do an interactive one. Right now it's all on paper only. In only one instance have I found multiple ads with the same number but different contents. Ace does make mistakes in the ads but it's only their presence that matters. At least one appears to have been used only for a month before it was changed and the number/letter sequence advanced. There aren't that many numbers used but each has up to 13 versions [with each additional letter] from approximately '69 until about '78 when Ace went to a different system. Doing all this manually is very tedious, so I do it in bits and pieces. An interactive page something like our SFBC ones would be a real plus. --~ Bill, Bluesman 06:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The Evolution Man

Can you confirm the cover artist credit for this record? Paul Youll usually collaborates with Stephen (or Steve) Youll. This is the only one in the db for "David Youll". Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 06:56, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Again, not easily findable. I think it's going to be in one of the boxes filled from bookcase 5 in my last house, but I haven't reached those yet. BLongley 16:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup Scripts

I've cleaned up the two biggest lists that were generated by the cleanup scripts: Editor records not in a series and Reviews that create stray authors. The only two that remain with any substantial number of items are probably unfixable based on the current scripts: Authors with invalid last names and Authors with invalid spacing. The first list is packed with names with non-standard characters, which the script probably didn't take into account. The second list has so many idiocentric title suffixes, you'd have to add a dozen new exceptions to the script. The one thing that might reduce it by half would be to exclude the internet address names like ".net", ".co", ".com". If you get a chance, please look at these last two lists and see if perhaps the scripts could be tweeked a little to eliminate some of the false positives. Thanks. Mhhutchins 08:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The non-standard characters in 'Authors with invalid last names' are really at the limit of my linguistic abilities - hopefully we can persuade someone else with better language skills to tweak that. (I'm not protective over my scripts, they can be mercilessly hacked around for any good reason.) With 'Authors with invalid spacing', it would indeed be simple to add some more suffixes: but I must admit that I'd hoped to prompt some discussion on whether companies should even be listed. My own feeling is that if they're not people, they don't deserve an 'author' entry. BLongley 16:18, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the credits of such entities should only be recorded in the Note field. I would bring it up for a Rules & Standards discussion, but it seems that regardless of how many active editors we have at any given time, very few actually participate in discussions. And I don't blame them, considering just how little actually gets accomplished (except for the appearance of hidden hostilities that perk up in such discussions.) Back to the cleanup scripts: it's OK to leave them as is. I only check the last records that appear (thankfully they all show up at the bottoms of the lists). And they still serve a useful purpose, especially when editors (both new and pros) disambiguate names and forget to go back and change the last name, like the recent last name "(pseudonym)". Or when new users enter initialed names without giving a space. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Prescient Reviews in Vector

I happened upon 3 reviews in issues of Vector by Colonel John Bowles. Since the author died in 1900, I suspect the reviewer borrowed the name as a pseudonym. I would suggest disambiguating the reviewer as "Colonel John Bowles (reviewer)" or (pseudonym), or we could use "Colonel John Bowles (1833-1900)" on the author's name. I'll happily do the edits if you're busy. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:31, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget when you disambiguate such names that you go back and update the author data to give the proper last name. The system always gives the last word as the last name, and that's not always correct. In this case, it gave the last name as "(pseudonym)" and I had to change it to "Bowles". Mhhutchins 19:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I'll certainly attempt to remember going forward. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 19:59, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy for you to edit them either way. I rarely feel the urge to work on authors with so few entries, and after doing so many "Vector" entries I've been putting off some of the other huge tasks like "Matrix" or the "SFWA Bulletin"! BLongley 16:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Author image

If you can tell me who this is, and the source of the photograph, I can add the proper image license. Thanks. Mhhutchins 08:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

That's James A. Stevens and he provided the image himself. Apparently we had an old one that the photographer wanted extra money for if it was going to be used on the web. (One of the side-effects of my Speaker-to-LJ role - I get asked to do editing on their behalf.) BLongley 10:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The Starlit Corridor by Roger Mansfield

Hello, Bill! Would it be okay to change the publisher of this to Pergamon Press? (We have a lot more as by the shorter name). Stonecreek 15:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. BLongley 21:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The Arrival

Hello. Could you please check the last name of the artist in you verified 35340: is it Nielson or Neilson. Thank you! ForJohnScalzi 01:23, 6 March 2013 (UTC).

Titan vs. Titan Books

As the verifier of 59 of the 60 verified books listed with "Titan" as a publisher, I invite you to look at this conversation on "Titan" vs. "Titan Books". Chavey 05:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

'Earthblood

Can you verify the publisher of this edition? The ISBN range is for Baen, and in the notes you state it its the second Baen printing, only the publisher field gives it as Pocket. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 20:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. (Not reverified, I have no idea where it is.) BLongley 20:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

From Pole to Pole

Hi, just added the anthology The Monster-Maker and Other Science Fiction Classics and I entered a story called "From Pole to Pole: An Account of a Journey Through the Axis of the Earth; Collated from the Diaries of the Late Professor Haffkin and His Niece, Mrs. Arthur Princeps", could you check your copy of this story, which you have listed as merely "From Pole to Pole" in the anthology The Best of British SF 1 and see if it has the same subtitle, or if it even has a subtitle? MLB 01:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Vector content

Hello, Bill! If there's a time when you have access to your verified copies of Vector, please drop me a short reminder: It's on a possible double review by Paul Kincaid in #147. The title in question is this. Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 19:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

CVS access

Please note that CVS commits have been suspended until the current crop has been sorted out and the rest of the Bugs/FRs have been prioritized. There is a bit of a collision with the monthly Fixer run, but hopefully it won't take too long to eliminate the backlog. Ahasuerus 00:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything major in my recent commits so you're probably right (Sourcing made Simple being the possible exception). I'll find something else to do in the meantime. BLongley 02:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Data entropy

Hello, I saw that you upgraded the stats for the entropy of the ISFDB, perhaps it should be noted somewhere that the relative stagnation of the fullfilling of the price field may be caused by the fact that the vast majority of the french titles (4100 out of 4600 for my own library) is without a stated price. Hervé Hauck 13:10, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to note it. There's several exceptions, e.g. UK SFBC titles never had a price. BLongley 13:26, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Half foolscap, again

Have you had a chance to determine if the seven records in the database for Vector (issues #37 - 43) are close to any of the common format designations as given in the list for print magazines on this help page? Mhhutchins 00:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I've not found the issues in question and have no real urge to do so. IIRC, the format as given is perfectly correct and I would be happy to leave them as such (although I have to admit that doing so would theoretically lead to a readjustment of A5s that are actually "half A4s" and A4s that are "half A3s"). The standardisation of bindings is getting out of hand IMO, and we're actually doing some damage to the usability of the field - a foolscap fanzine will not fit into an A4 box, never has done and never will - although in this case we could at least retire foolscap and half foolscap as "archaic" options. A4 has won! BLongley 09:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it standardization. If you'd seen the first couple of lists that Ahasuerus generated of what was being entered into that field, you might think differently. There's no usage on the original lists that I've changed that could be near to an established standard. And the only discussion about format standardization has been my question about the differences between A4 and quarto. I pretty much came to the conclusion that there is no difference, but nothing concrete was settled. And no one has made any attempt to get rid of one format over the other. I also decided, after that failure to reason, to let sleeping dogs lie. I have gone through the database to correct some records for American publications which are sourced from Locus1 as "quarto", but were entered as "A4" by an Antipodean editor and others. But that's the only actual changing of records that I've done, making them consistent with the stated source. Mhhutchins 19:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The Silmarillion

I have been asked to start a discussion as to whether or not J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion should be considered a collection or a novel with multiple parts. I haven't read this book, I just listed a French translation of this book on this site. Still, it looks like a collection to me. Please enter this discussion here and weigh in on the subject. MLB 21:28, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Peter Weston vs. Malcolm Edwards

It turns out that the "Malcolm Edwards" who wrote the "Behind the Scenes" series of articles in your verified Vectors (38-49) was a pseudonym used by Peter Weston. Apparently quite a few people were confused when a bona fide Malcolm Edwards (b. 1949) began contributing to Vector (and other fanzines) a few years later. And even when the confusion was pointed out to him, he didn't have the decency to change his name to make bibliographers' lives easier! :-) Ahasuerus 05:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"The Best of Sci-Fi (Three)", by Cordelia Titcomb Smith

In verifying this book, I was surprised to see that that the story "The Roads Must Roll" was attributed to "Robert A. Heinlein", even after 4 editors had verified it, when it's actually attributed to "Robert Heinlein" (no A). I've corrected this, but I mention it just in case there's some weird situation in which there are two variants of the book. My guess is that the contents were just imported from Locus, which standardizes all attributions, and no one noticed the error. Chavey 20:58, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Donnerjack

Can you confirm that this pub was published as "Eos" and not "Avon Eos". We've separated those titles that were published by Avon from 1998 until 2000 under the name "Avon Eos", before the Avon division was sold by Hearst. The purchasing company, HarperCollins, dropped "Avon" from the name, but kept the Eos imprint. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 21:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no idea where that book is at the moment. BLongley 07:34, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Fanzines

I'm working up a template header for the fanzine magazine pages we have, which seem to have very little consistency between them. This is an effort similar to what I tried to do with the Awards pages. Since you appear to have entered most of the data for the Australian Science Fiction Review (the first one I did), I was wondering if you could take a look at that format and tell me what you think. Chavey 05:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, but I thought we were moving away from Issue Grids now that they're generated by the software? BLongley 07:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Mostly, I'm more interested in the "header" information above the grids. With a lot of the fanzines, we don't have (and can't get easily) the data to enter anything about the individual issues. Is it worth entering completely blank "placeholder" pub records just to auto-generate the grids? Can the grids handle "approximate dates", which is all we have for most fanzine issues? And is it possible to incorporate this sort of header information into the grids? Chavey 14:30, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Placeholders can be created, but unless you know, or can pretty reliably guess, the month they won't appear quite right. Approximate dates can only be entered with the '00' convention. It should be possible to derive some of the information for the 'above grid' section, like Editors and date ranges and issue counts (if placeholders are used), some would require a bit more development to record the details before it can be used for the summary. Feel free to raise the feature request(s), although I can't see them being a high priority. Now that Ahasuerus is testing again I need to bring my development environment up to date and see how he's mucked around with my code before I can really get back to work. BLongley 15:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Along these lines, I was filling out content for the 10 issues of "Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review" that we don't have included. That journal wasn't included on either our Magazines or Fanzines pages, although we did have an Issue Grid for it. So I added it to the Magazines page, then added a header page for it. On that page I just linked the issues to the Series Grid and Series List, but it looks like neither of those pages can (at present) store the kinds of information that are stored in that header page, so it seems these header are still useful. Chavey 06:40, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

A sense of wonder

Hello Bill. We both seems to have this pub with its publication (on copyright page) of December 1974. But perhaps is this information wrong, in light of this similarly dated pub, which, price-wise seems to me more likely. Perhaps our is this 1977 one. What are your thoughts about this ? Hervé Hauck 14:53, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Fratricide is a Gas

User Horzel found the artist for Fratricide is a Gas, see here. I added the credit and a note. --Willem H. 13:16, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Award search page?

I have been thinking about the best way to handle parallel development by multiple developers now that we are more or less caught up. It would appear that small-ish standalone projects would be a good way to avoid collision and effort duplication.

With that in mind there is one project that I have been mulling over for some time. It's an attempt to answer what may well be the most frequently asked question on various Web forums: "What should I read next?". We already attempt to answer this question by supporting title tags so that a person interested in, say, "space opera" can see a list of all space opera books sorted by date of publication. However, since the resulting page lists the good with the bad (and everything in between), it wouldn't be all that useful even if 100% of our titles had tags. And, since our voting system in clearly underused and doesn't appear to be getting more popular, we can't realistically use it to help prioritize the search results.

Another, and probably more profitable, way of approaching this problem is to leverage the award data that we already have on file. After all, we already have 33,000+ award records, 21,000+ of them for titles, so why not give our users a way to find titles based on the awards that they have won? We (sort of) try to do this on the ISFDB Top 100 Lists page, but the posted lists are static, haven't been updated in 10 years and don't differentiate between major and minor awards.

So how about we create a new "Award Search Page" which would list the awards that we have on file, the 5 (10?) major awards listed first. For each award we would have two drop-down lists assigning "weight" values in the 0-10 range. The first weight value would be for winning the award and the second one for getting nominated for it. At the top of the page we would have another drop-down list for "title type", the choices being "All", "Novel", "Collection", "Non-fiction", "Anthologies", "Short fiction - all types", "Short fiction - novella", etc. We could also have two fields for "From Year" and "Through Year", with a note about the year being possibly off by one. It would be nice to have another drop-down box for "Age range" with the possible values being "All", "Adult only" and "Juvenile and Young Adult only", but the results would probably be unreliable, at least until we add an "age" field to award categories. I am sure we could think of other possible design tweaks once we start digging. Perhaps default the "weight" values to 10 for major award wins, 5 for major award nominations, 2 for minor award winds and 1 for minor award nominations? And use some formula to leverage Locus "places"?

Anyway, would this project be something that you might be interested in working on? Ahasuerus 02:57, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the requirement. Do you really mean to offer up to 49 different award types for weighting before you begin the search? Even if we only pre-populated the major awards there could be an awful lot of work to do the search. BLongley 19:47, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
I would think one could set up a "default weighting", but then give users the option (e.g. via "User Preferences") to change those weightings. And there you might make it easy to "turn off" certain awards (e.g. "I don't like horror, so I want to turn off the Bram Stoker award."), but also make it possible to increase/decrease the weights for some other awards. Chavey 21:04, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree that it would be a concern, so I was thinking about pre-populating all "weight" values. As I wrote above, "Perhaps default the "weight" values to 10 for major award wins, 5 for major award nominations, 2 for minor award winds and 1 for minor award nominations?" I like the idea of creating a separate User Preferences page for award searches as well. Ahasuerus 22:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Rather than have a User-Preference page as well as a search page, I think I'd prefer just to have my search parameters saved for the next time. I doubt users will change them very often. BLongley 00:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
I suppose it will depend on the user, but, more importantly, it would be our first implementation of "saved search parameters". There is nothing wrong with saving search parameters, but it's different from our current "User Preferences"-based approach, which we use in all other cases. I think we would want to stick with one or the other approach to avoid confusion. Ahasuerus 20:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
There's no conflict - saving the parameters will need a new table to store User/Award/Win Weight/Place Weight anyway, and you can save those parameters and ALSO allow them to be edited from other places than the search page, such as User Preferences. Leave it with me for a few days and I'll see what I can come up with. I ask for a few days as I'm trying to move onto a Windows 7 PC and my XP machine when cleared of all my cruft will become redundant - i.e. fit for my parent's use! :-) BLongley 22:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Yes, if we could have a new User Preferences page for award searches and a "Use these choices in the future?" check-box on the search page, it would be the best of both worlds :-) Ahasuerus 06:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Hope it's not as bad as it sounds! Please don't overexert yourself working on the Award Search option -- I am sure the world will survive even if it is delayed :-) Ahasuerus 00:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid it could be pretty serious. I went for an Ultrasound scan yesterday, so hopefully I'll know more about it next week. BLongley 09:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, here is to hope! The good news is that the medical profession has gotten much better at fixing human bodies lately. What used to be extremely unpleasant or even fatal, can often be completely or partially mitigated with drugs or surgery -- as I know all too well :-) Ahasuerus 16:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Virgin Planet

Bill, I'd like to add the Author's Note to your verified pub of Poul Anderson's Virgin Planet. It's quite substantial, running from p.150-156. Bluesman also notified. Cheers. PeteYoung 14:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me. BLongley 22:04, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Updates to issues of Fantasy Newsletter

Biomassbob is updating issues of this title, adding cover scans (when needed) and notes (e.g. your verified record). He would have notified you himself, but is currently unable to edit the wiki, for reasons none of us are able to fully comprehend. Mhhutchins 18:09, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks OK by me, let him carry on the good work. BLongley 22:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Spectrum II/2 (Amis/Conquest)

Hi, I expanded the notes on Spectrum II, so that the content is in line with what you wrote for Spectrum IV.--Dirk P Broer 09:47, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

E. E. 'Doc' Smith - Grey Lensman (#131301)

Your note on the 1972 Panther printing says the UK price was obscured. My copy is clean, and the price was 35p.SGale 19:11, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

That'll do fine. I did get a lot of books where the prices were obscured. BLongley 06:48, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Sterling's Heavy Weather

Can you confirm that this was published under the Millennium imprint and not the Phoenix imprint which the ISBN range belongs to? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins

Short answer - no. I haven't unpacked the 5000 books when I moved here, and it looks like I'll be moving again before I unpack any. Ask me again in a few months. BLongley 06:51, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Lynette Aspey/Apsey

You verified an issue of Focus magazine with a short story by "Lynette Apsey". We have no other works by that name, but two by Lynette Aspey. Could you check whether there's any indication that her name was spelled wrong? Thanks, Chavey 02:27, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

A long time from now, in a galaxy not too far away, I might be able to check. But my books and mags are pretty unavailable at the moment. BLongley 06:45, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Title format of bi-monthly issues of periodicals

A reminder: When entering the titles of bi-monthly periodicals, you should use a dash, and not a slash, regardless of how it's stated in the publication. This standard is explained here (under "Missing or variant Dates"). The issues of this periodical will have to be corrected. If applicable, the editor records and cover art records will also have to adjusted as well. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:10, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I've never understood why magazines are immune from the 'record things exactly' principles, but feel free to fix them. BLongley 06:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't disregard the rule as far as the title goes, but because there can be a dozen different ways of recording the date of an issue (sometimes within the same issue!), a standard had to be created. "Jan-Feb 1959", "Jan.-Feb. 1959", "January/February 59", "January-February 59". The permutations are numerous. There had to be a standard established.
I personally would have gone with a slash, which makes way more sense than a dash. A dash implies a range of dates (January-February = January through February), while a slash implies both dates (January/February = January and February). Unfortunately, I wasn't involved in the discussion determining the standard. You remember when we both started here the magazine cadre pretty much kept to themselves and created standards as a separate unit without involving the rest of us. Mhhutchins 16:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Something About Eve

I added the subtitle to Cabell's Something About Eve: A Comedy of Fig-Leaves as it appears on the title page. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 02:21, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me. Never read the book, was bought for me. BLongley 06:34, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Cover art credit discovered

The artist of this publication is Bill Botten. It is listed among his works on the artist's website. Mhhutchins 18:56, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, make the change. Can't say he's a favourite artist, I've drawn better myself. BLongley 06:37, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
By the way, this is another case of wrong Amazon image. The real cover of the 1967 Sphere edition is shown here, is indeed by Bill Botten, and is in my opinion even uglier.
The cover art shown at the moment is equal to that of the Paperback Library 1970 edition, and I'd like to know who created that, maybe Michael Leonard? Horzel 12:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Spares

Bill, letting you know the note for your verified Spares may need amending; I've just added a 3rd HarperCollins (UK) printing dated 1998, whereas your note refers to a 2nd printing dated 1999. Thanks. PeteYoung 12:23, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I presume I got the 2nd printing details from here, but if those have been changed then my notes should be too. Adjust away! BLongley 06:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

SQl question

Glad to see that you are up and about, Bill! :) Ahasuerus 00:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

"Up" for limited times, and 'about' seems mostly to comprise trips to the doctor or hospital, but I'm not dead yet. Although the latest diagnosis says I've only got 12-18 months left. :-( BLongley 10:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Not that I am in a position to comment on the accuracy of the latest diagnosis, but at one point I studied Communist history where I encountered an obscure factoid. It turns out that one of the reasons why Irakli Tsereteli (Wikipedia has a mostly accurate biography), the main proponent of the socialist-liberal coalition during the Russian revolution, was so influential in the spring and summer of 1917 was that he was suffering from what was thought to be an incurable disease and reportedly had only months to live. He was seen as a heroic figure spending the last months of his life to ensure the success of his life's cause, which naturally commands respect. As luck would have it, he lived another 40+ years and outlived most of his peers. In other words, one never knows :) Ahasuerus 17:25, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether that's a suggestion to become politically active or just try and do something heroic! We might get a socialist-liberal coalition in 2015 here, as opposed to the liberal-conservative one we have now. I might last that long. I don't suppose you know anybody with a spare liver? If not, then if I disappear for more than a few months, I'd like a bit of a memorial here. 'Occasionally useful coder' will do, don't want anything too grand. BLongley 22:05, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure being heroic helps. Sometimes it's just apparently a "luck of the draw" kind of thing. For example, some 30+ years ago a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer when it was way too late to do anything to help him. His doctors gave him just a couple of months to live, telling him that the most they could do for him was to alleviate the pain. Then, quite suddenly, the cancer stopped growing and didn't bother him for a few years, so he lived a reasonably happy and pain-free life to the consternation of his doctors. Then one day the cancer started spreading again and that was it. Humans are peculiar creatures... Ahasuerus 21:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

As I recall, SQL is one of your areas of expertise and we happen to have a few outstanding questions about retrieving data from ISFDB using SQL. Would you be in a position to take a look? (I'll comment on some basic issues with the posted queries in the meantime.) Ahasuerus 00:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll certainly give it a look - Mike Cross has been very good to us over the years, it would be nice to help HIM out for once. BLongley 10:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Grim Tuesday

Can you confirm that there is an ISBN-13 in this 2004 publication? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 16:49, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Michael, I really can't check anything other than the most recent purchases I've made. They're currently filling in boxes in my spare room, and due to new government regulations on 'spare bedrooms' it looks like I'm going to have to downsize even more. The good news is that my sister has agreed to look after them until I resume a 'normal' lifestyle - whatever that is! BLongley 22:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
I understand. Do you think it likely that a May 2004 publication would have an ISBN-13? The ISO's standards for the ISBN-13 did not go into effect until January 1, 2005, and it took two years for most publishers to comply. Mhhutchins 22:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
I think the EAN standard started a bit earlier and is entirely compatible. So, like SBNs and ISBNs, the UK may have jumped the gun a little. BLongley 10:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
One of the best investments I've made in the last few years has been a bar-code scanner. It's reduced my typing errors a lot, and cost me about fifteen quid (twenty dollars?). It may have introduced some "EAN instead of ISBN" errors though. I've never been too worried about the ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 difference so long as the offsite lookups work - but it can't be too long before the 'Bookland' 978 prefix runs out and it will become impossible to trace back. BLongley 10:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

The Ringworld Engineers

I have a copy of the edition you verified here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?135321. Mine has the copyright page which indicates "First Orbit edition 1981 Reprinted 1981"

This presents a quandary - is mine the same addition as the one you verified or not? We probably don't know, but what we do know is there were two 1981 editions and yours is one of them! (As is mine). What do you think the best solution is for the way forwards?Prof beard 21:26, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

A Gift From Earth

I've added the missing Uk price to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?135571Prof beard 21:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The Deep End

Mr. Longley: I added two notes to The Deep End. If they are accepted, please check them out and see you find them acceptable. MLB 00:24, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Ghastly Beyond Belief

I've added a cover scan to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?78739 Prof beard 10:52, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I saw this book auctioned at Novacon on Saturday night. It taught me a lot about pricing - it went for over ten times the cover price, and made me feel really smug about having bought my copy for a tenth of the cover price! A very entertaining book, although it's something to read in small doses to avoid strain on the laughter muscles. BLongley 20:10, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The Messiah Stone

I added the publication date to the second printing of The Messiah Stone based on the information on the copyright page. I also changed the notes for the pub. Bob 18:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Neutron Star

Bill, would you take a look at, and/or monitor, this new Neutron Star record, relative to your verified previous record? Nimravus' note to the moderator says his has a different cover, and he'll be uploading it. I figured it would be easier to tell what's going on by looking at the two records, so I accepted the submission. Thanks. --MartyD 16:13, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Stableford collection

Hi Bill, Saw your note about the Stableford collection... I'd be happy to give a new home to the Science Fiction Review issues, the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts newsletters, as well as the all the "Stuff I can't even read beyond the title" especially Proxima. I can also commit to entering them into ISFDB. Thanks, Albinoflea 02:41, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Great, they're all yours - although there might have been a prior bid on some SFRs. Drop me a line at Bill DOT Longley AT ntlworld.com with your snail-mail address so I can guestimate postage costs. BLongley 04:50, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Just sent an email with my details. Thanks! Albinoflea 08:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Meant to mention this before I left for the holidays, but the first batch you sent arrived safely two weeks or so ago... plus you had already entered all the contents, so not much to do for me on that front. Thanks! Albinoflea 02:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Off the Wall at Callahan's - Robinson

You might want to take a look at Off the Wall at Callahan's. It's entered as a novel but it's actually a collection of graphitti, puns and songs from the previous books. Here are the LCCN and OCLC permalinks if you want to add them: http://lccn.loc.gov/93043229, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29357091. Drop me a note on my talk page if you want me to update it instead. SFJuggler 06:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Split Second

Hello, I've changed the publication date for this pub in accord with a review slip found in it.Hauck 16:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Van Vogt and Hull's Out of the Unknown

I think we've got this title incorrectly listed as a collection when it should be an anthology. However, that raises issues about how the author(s) should be listed. Please see this discussion and weigh in if you wish. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 00:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

The View from the Stars

Hi - this publication http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?112231 needs the author changing to "Walter M. Miller" as this is how it appears on the title page (and cover). This came up because I entered the earlier version http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?435989 which also lacks the "Jr" on title page (and cover). Following discussion with Mhhutchins, I've agreed to sort out both editions and their contents to reflect this. Hope you don't mind, Prof Prof beard 10:03, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Vectors

Just a heads-up that, as per the last round of discussions on the Community Portal, your verified Vectors 37-43 are about to be changed from "Half Foolscap" to "other", with "Half Foolscap" moved to the Notes field.

P.S. Hope you are feeling OK! Ahasuerus 22:44, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Protectorate by Farren

I've accepted a submission from a non-verifying editor which gives the month of publication for this record, based on data from Locus1. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:19, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Thieves' World

Hi - I noticed you verified this pub, but you didn't mention a two page uncredited piece called "A Few Remarks by Furtwan Coinpinch, Merchant", which appears just before "Shadowspawn" in my US edition, and which is not listed in the contents page. Could you check to see if it's in your edition? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Vicinity Cluster

Hi. Can I ask you to check your copy of 300291, please? I think it should be 299 pages rather than 297. In my copy, 298 is a diagram entitled Sol Sphere and 299 is a diagram entitled Vicinity Cluster. Both would appear to be part of the book even if the pages are unnumbered. Thanks. --AliHarlow 21:39, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Same question with the third volume: Kirlian Quest 300261. I think it should be 333 pages with a table on pages 332/333. --AliHarlow 21:49, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars

Please see ISFDB:Community Portal#Larry Niven.27s Rainbow Mars. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

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