User talk:Bluetyson

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Welcome!

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

Help pages
Field-by-field guide to entering new publications into the database
Help:Getting Started
What the ISFDB Wiki is for
FAQ
Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.
Wiki Conventions - How things are usually done on this wiki.
Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --MartyD 11:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

"The Other People" and Autumn Angels

Hi. Welcome, and thank you for your contributions to the ISFDB. I hope we'll see many more! I have a question about one of your submissions, and I've put it on hold while I ask you about it. You have proposed making Leigh Brackett's short story The Other People a variant title of Arthur Bryon Cover's novel Autumn Angels. This looks to me like a mistake, but would you tell me a little more about what you are trying to do with these so I can figure out what to suggest? Thanks! --MartyD 11:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

See my responses to your questions on my talk page. --MartyD 12:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Bindings

I've accepted your submissions of new pubs for several titles, but noticed that there were a few in which you used "pb" as the binding. Research has shown that these are larger than mass-market paperbacks, in which case we use "tp". OCLC gives No Good for a Corpse as 23 cm, which would make it a trade paperback. It does the same for The Reavers of Skaith. Can you please go back on those pubs that you've entered to verify that the binding given matches the ISFDB standards. Thanks for contributing. MHHutchins 16:35, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Bluetyson 22:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Brackett's "The True Death of Juanito Rodriquez"

I accepted the submission adding a non-genre magazine containing the story by Brackett, but question whether the story is either sf, horror or fantasy. The database contains records for non-genre magazines only if the stories fall into the ISFDB standards for inclusion. You will find the definitions and rules of acquistion here. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:41, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully I will get a copy sometime soon, so I will see then. Bluetyson 22:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Cover images

We can only link to images on other websites if we have explicit permission (or in the case of Amazon, implied permission.) See the list here of sites that currently grant us permission. I have removed the link given in the submission for this pub. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

And the link for this pub. MHHutchins 16:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Stark and the Star Kings

This e-book's contents appear to be quite different than that of the similarly titled omnibus here. Do you know if the novels included in the 2005 book have been omitted from the 2008 e-book from Baen? If not, I would agree that the title would not be an omnibus. If so, we need to add the remaining contents, and merge the two records. Thanks. MHHutchins 00:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Another thing. The ISBN for this pub is identical to that of the Del Rey "Best of Brackett" collection. Strange because it was published by Baen. Can you double check the numbers? Thanks. MHHutchins 00:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Here :- (and I redownloaded to check)

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Ebook Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 www.baen.com

ISBN 10: 0-345-25954-8 ISBN 13: 978-0-345-25954-7

Cover art by Doug Chaffee

First ebook, February 2008

Bluetyson 01:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Research has shown that this collection is substantially different from the omnibus, as it doesn't include the novels. Info from this webpage which gives the ISBN as 978-1-8938-8716-9. MHHutchins 00:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Wonder why the website has a different ISBN? Also how could a story ("Stark and the Star Kings") that was first published in 2005 be copyrighted in 1949? Was it slated to be published by a magazine that went belly-up before publishing it? Thanks. MHHutchins 01:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably, as far as I remember they wrote that a long long time ago, then promptly gave up on collaborating. :) Bluetyson 01:28, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate ISBNs for ebook publications

Here and here. I don't know much about ebooks, so I don't know if this is a standard practice, i.e. reusing the ISBN of a print version from another publisher. Thanks. MHHutchins 00:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, they have :-

A Baen Ebook

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN 10: 0-3453-1827-7

ISBN 13: 978-0-3453-1827-5

Cover art by Doug Chaffee

Maps by Michael Young

First ebook, February 2008

Probably got the rights to the lot from original pub. Makes sense to me. Bluetyson 01:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Not much sense to me, as these are new publications from a new publisher, who should have paid a few dollars to register a new ISBN so that there would be no confusion with another publication. :( Oh, well. Another quirk of e-publishing to learn. Thanks for the information. MHHutchins 01:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, likely to be more of those.

Now the collection contents question - I saw that you merged the stories from Stark and the Star Kings by Baen with the correct originals - did I do that right as far as including the original stories in that they appeared as 2008 entries for a bit? Bluetyson 01:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ordinarily an editor would need to go back after adding new titles to see if there are existing titles in the database. This can be done by doing an advance search by title, or use the "check for duplicate titles" function on the author's summary page. Knowing you were new, I went ahead and merged your newly-created title records with the ones already in the database. The dates have to be reconciled, and in 99.99% of the cases the earlier date is used. Now clicking on the title records in your pub record will give a listing of all publications of the stories currently in the database (in addition to giving the first publication date). When you've been here longer, you'll find there may be other steps to go through in order to get a pub in shape (merging, making variants, recording notes, adding cover art, etc.) But that can wait until you're more familiar with the database's structure. MHHutchins 01:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to mention: when entering collections, anthologies, magazines, etc. that have contents, if you leave the date field blank in the content entry fields, the system automatically gives it the date of the pub. That's why the contents were dated 2008 originally. Sometimes it best not to bother with giving dates in these fields, because this will be corrected when the record is merged with the pre-existing title record. MHHutchins 01:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Baen is particularly bad about using the print book ISBN in ebooks. They have always been careless about such niceties.--swfritter 14:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ordering of credits

It's futile to attempt an ordering of the credits for authorship or art when two or more persons are credited. The system randomly displays the credits without regard to how they're entered. Thanks. MHHutchins 00:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Couldn't remember if that was my fault, as was doing that late. Bluetyson 00:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Crediting multiple authors

I just noticed in this pub that you credited the story "Stark and the Star Kings" to "Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton". It should be individually credited to each of the authors, not a single one-line credit. This created an author record for Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton and the title record will not appear on either of the author's individual pages. There is a button below the content entry field to "Add Author". Clicking on this will open a new field to add the second author's name. This way the story will be credited for each author. When you have time, please read this help page about entering new pubs into the database. Thanks for contributing. MHHutchins 01:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok Bluetyson

Omnibus v. collection

I accepted your submission to change this title record to a collection, as you've shown that it is not an omnibus because it omits the novels of the printed book. I also removed the notes explaining your reasoning as they are no longer necessary. In addition, I had to change the type of this publication from omnibus to collection. Keep in mind, that title records and publication records are not the same. Changing one doesn't change the other. Here's a way to remember the difference: a title record can contain many publication records, but a publication record is identified with only one title record. MHHutchins 01:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Bad ISBN

Can you double-check the ISBN of this pub? Thanks. MHHutchins 01:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Merging records

With the latest round of new pub submissions accepted, there are several duplicate titles on Leigh Brackett's summary page. Would you like to attempt to merge these records? Keep in mind that the system does not consider People Of the Talisman a duplicate of People of the Talisman (note the capitalization difference) and it will not come up on the list when you use the "check for duplicates" function. But we consider them the same and they should be merged. There are certain words within titles that should not be capitalized, including "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". If you're uncomfortable with doing the merges now, I'll gladly do them for you. I'm also holding your submissions for "Sea-Kings of Mars" as they concern a situation which I don't won't to overwhelm you with at the moment. Take awhile to look over the help page, and the comments I've made above, and I'll get back with you later. I hope I haven't overloaded your brain in such a short period. Thanks. MHHutchins 01:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'd like to give it a shot - but I am not sure what function to use to do the 'merge' - can you point that out?

I see the page now - with the Titles link - I tried 'People Of the Talisman' - so you can see what I did/didn't do wrong there, and let me please. There is an 'Of' and an 'of' that came up. Thanks Bluetyson 02:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

If there is a People Of and a People of does merging them fix that, or do you have to kill one?

Just checked the record and you did it right. MHHutchins 04:00, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I will give the rest a shot then. Bluetyson 04:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Sea-Kings Of Mars

On Sea-Kings of Mars - I looked at this (and I will check with a couple of experts) - the copy of Sea-Kings of Mars in the collection from Gollancz is 125 pages of close to 400 words a page - which is around 45000 words, and which it says is taken from the original pulp publication.

My digitised Sword of Rhiannon is also around 45000 words. The Baen Sea-Kings of Mars is 45000 words. They have the same chapter titles etc., so appear to be the same.

Does someone know for sure they are different? Isfdb I think is the only place I have seen mention that one is an expansion of the other.

e.g. Fred Brown's Mouse story in the same issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories that Sea-Kings of Mars appeared in is 5-6 pages. It is around 4200 words. Sea-Kings of Mars in the large page double column small print pulp format of that mag is about 65 pages, according to the isfdb entry. Or 10-11 times 'Mouse'. Again, appearing to be around 45000 words. Bluetyson 02:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It's very likely that these are identical, as your word count bears out. The reason I held off approving the submission making the shortfiction record into a novel is because both publications here and here in which the story appear are verified. Each of the verifiers should be notified of your research and the three of you should come to a decision about the best way to handle it. I will notify each of them on their talk page, directing them to a common page (the help page). There you can present your case of changing the record and making it a variant of The Sword of Rhiannon. ISFDB etiquette requires a discussion when verified pubs are concerned. See here. MHHutchins 04:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, thanks. Which one to make it a variant of is a toss-up sort of question too I suppose. :) There's a Sword of Rhiannon magazine serial off by itself, too? Bluetyson

Another bad ISBN

Can you re-check the number for this ebook? Perhaps this is a control number? MHHutchins 04:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

And another. MHHutchins 04:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Just checked the Webscription website, and they call these numbers SKUs. You can enter them in the pub notes (or not), but they shouldn't be placed in the ISBN field, as the system generates an error if they're not valid ISBNs. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I can look at that in future to check they haven't messed it up, but I did copy it from here: ISBN10: 1011250052 - which is fairly clearly stating it is an ISBN.

Pub entered under the wrong title record

If this pub is credited to Leigh Brackett (and not "George Sanders"), this was entered under the wrong title record. This is the Brackett record and this is the Sanders record. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

ebook of "Sea-Kings" entered under the wrong title record

I'm holding the following submission:

If you look at the title under which it was entered (The Sword of Rhiannon) you'll see it doesn't match the title of the book (Sea-Kings of Mars). This happens when you choose to enter a new novel using the "Add Publication to This Title" function when the two titles don't match, but are variants of each other. If you can't find an existing title record, you can simply use the "Add New Novel" function instead. I'll reject the submission and let you enter it again as a new novel. Once we've determined that the short fiction record is actually a novel, we can merge the two title records, and make the new record a variant of The Sword of Rhiannon. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, will go Add New novel now.

ebook of The Steel Remains

$26.00 for an electronic file! Now I know why I don't buy ebooks! MHHutchins 05:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Some have stupid prices certainly. It would not take long to count how many of those they sold!

I don't buy any fiction books that are that price, period. Never will. Not even if scroll or clay tablet.

Note some others of his $7.99.

However, webscriptions Leigh Bracketts for <$4.00 when I got them, and Palo Bacigalupi's Windup Girl and Pump Six and Other Stories for $4.00 type prices. Can't beat that.

So when they have dumb prices, retailers will sometimes do things like this :- http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b79681/?si=0 Regular Club You Pay: $26.00 $22.10 Micropay Rebate: $15.60 $13.26 Cost After Rebate: $10.40 $8.84 You Save: 60% 66% Bluetyson 05:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Notes in Warriors

Hi. This is just FYI. You've been very busy! I hope you're not suffering from information overload! :-) Here's one more for you. I noticed in your update of Warriors from a Novel to an Anthology -- which is fine -- that you argued in the notes with the original typing. A prior note of the form "Data from Amazon.com 2009-11-00" comes from one of the web-crawlers ("Fixer" and "Dissembler" are the two you will notice most) and pretty much means no human entered the information. The data is also usually pre-release information, so once the book is published it tends to be even more suspect. So you don't need to justify contradictory changes in the notes the way you might if a person had entered it or two reliable sources disagreed on some point. --MartyD 11:53, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Marty. Yeah, when in the mood to do something, do a lot. :) Bluetyson 11:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for the link to the Martin site in those notes. There's a TOC for Warriors there, so I decided to add the titles and jigger the notes to reflect it. --MartyD 12:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"Stark and the Star Kings" -- really a collection?

The title type on Stark and the Star Kings is COLLECTION. Is that really correct? It looks suspicious to me, so I figured I'd ask. Seems more likely to be an ESSAY.... Thanks. --MartyD 12:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Nope, it is a collection. Given I own it, it is very unlikely to suddenly turn into an essay. ;-) Bluetyson 13:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I found it. We have it as by Brackett and Hamilton. Is the credit in The Eric John Stark Saga solely to Brackett? Since you have the collection itself, is that definitely credited to both? If we get different credits, it'll be a variant. If one is wrong, we can merge them. Thanks. --MartyD 13:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the publisher has credited the collection to both.

STARK AND THE STAR KINGS Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton

�This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Bluetyson 13:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

ebook ISBN by format

I approved this submission. When entering ebooks it is a good idea to enter the format in the notes. Each format is supposed to have a specific ISBN. Note the Fictionwise entry where there are three different documented ISBN's. I am not sure what ISBN's Kindle uses. but it is mobipocket in disguise. The ISBN for the pub submitted appears to be Secure Mobipocket. I just got through entering nearly all of my Fictionwise titles. I designated them in the notes as "Secure Mobipocket" or "Secure ereader", or "MultiFormat. PDF version" ("PDF version" could be replaced with whatever MultiFormat is being documented). I usually get the secure ereader versions because they are not device-dependent. There is actually now an initiative to require only one ISBN for all electric editions. Small press publishers are especially affected because it costs money to register each ISBN. Great end-of-the-year sale. Despite a $19.99 list this book is only $6.80. It will be interesting to see how they price King's "Under the Dome" when it is released in electronic format on December 24th. It is supposed to be the same price as the hardcover but I do not know if that is the current price or the less than $10 price upon initial release.--swfritter 16:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Also this pub should have the format documented in notes. I am sure there will be others.--swfritter 16:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

-- Ok. Yeah, multiple ISBNs for different formats is dumb, unless you are an ISBN seller.

eReader usually cheaper at Fictionwise, certainly. I actually use the Mobipocket desktop reader for some stuff, so have preferred that in the past. Most of those are now georestricted though the secure books, so I don't buy many books anymore generally, only multiformat. I am sure there will be some King sale or other because lots of people will have got it for free because of the publishing delay.

Accelerando - perhaps document a downloadable version

The link in this pub leads to an online version of the story. The ISFDB does not document online pubs, webzines, etc. Would it be better to document an online source like manybooks? They have versions which can be downloaded. Would it make more sense to make the publisher Creative Commons and perhaps "Creative Commons / Manybooks" if that source is used? Also, see here for an example of a story which has a clickable hyperlink.--swfritter 16:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, if you think so? However, Stross' site has been in existence longer than manybooks, and actually does have multiple 'downloadable' formats. The html is of course a downloadable format that can be used anyway - and read online, so that is why I choose to link to that one. Link could certainly be to the page with the dozen different varieties if that is better.

Isn't that contradictory though, not documenting online publications but adding Project Gutenberg material ad hoc? Accelerando is a well known example of an electronic version of a Hugo nominated novel. Certainly more worthy of cataloguing than random H. Beam Piper stories, in general?

The Project Gutenberg and Manybooks books are available in downloadable container files which is not quite the same as doing a File Save from a browser.--swfritter 15:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, you are also documenting some online magazines, see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?991131 - see this story from Clarkesworld (and Clarkesworld) that I noticed the other day. So your comment needs to be clarified as to what you mean, if you intended it generally.

Alastair Reynolds published an audio only story in the Guardian newspaper called 'Scales', again an author a lot more notable than Piper - how would you include that one? Bluetyson 00:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The Policy Page states "Out - Web only publications such as webzines. The problem for us is that they are not durable; anything we index could change, be reorganized, edited, updated with new versions or revisions, and so on. In addition, the URLs are not likely to be durable. So for now web only publications are not accepted into the ISFDB. In - On a provisional basis, the Helix and Clarkesworld webzines have been added primarily because they received Hugo nominations, and Subterranean Online has also been added as an SFWA qualifying publication. Other webzines may be added based upon criteria yet to be determined, a primary one being the willingness of editors to update data in a timely manner."

The Helix issues were not entered on a timely or systematic basis; our entries are unreliable and cannot be verified because the website no longer exists. The Clarkesworld entries were done in attempt to create a model for entering webzines in an acceptable manner and has been kept up to date. My hopes were that Clarkesworld would be a model for entering other webzines. Unfortunately, the Subterranean Online project was abandoned shortly after it was started. Such initiatives in a volunteer environment require a group effort and that has not materialized.--swfritter 15:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Subterranean should be easy enough - a dozen issues, easy to do story lengths (with wordcount software) only quarterly. Certainly a high quality mag as you can see from the authors. Bluetyson 15:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The Alastair Reynolds story could probably be entered as the content of a Non-Genre magazine.--swfritter 15:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, cool. The Guardian newspaper probably not going to disappear like Helix, I think. :) Bluetyson 15:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Another question then - what about the Series designation. E.g. Tim Pratt has a Marla Mason novella on sale electronically - how does stuff get entered to be part of a series? Bluetyson 15:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Series Help.--swfritter 15:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

two more Brackett questions/comments

Hi. A couple of additional questions:

Does Alpha Centauri or Die by any chance have an exclamation point at the end? We have Alpha Centauri or Die!, under which a publication of the exclamation-less version has been entered. But to get the exclamation-less version to appear properly as contents of another publication, we'd have to pull that apart and make a variant exclamation-less title. Thanks. --MartyD 16:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

No, no exclamation point in the Baen version, I double checked.

Is your Martian Quest by any chance related to Martian Quest: The Early Brackett? --MartyD 16:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

No. Completely unrelated. They are both called that because that was her first story, as far as I can tell.

Bluetyson 00:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I'll make Alpha Centauri or Die a variant, then. --MartyD 02:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Page numbers with ebooks

Perhaps not valid for this submission since it appears to be Secure Mobipocket? I generally forget to take them out when cloning ebooks and then have to re-edit. Unfortunately, there is no good way to keep the content in order without them. Although it is not a generally accepted policy, some editors have used a sequential numbering system (1, 2, 3) to do so although this can be problematic if there are a number of entries and data has to be entered later. It is probably best to leave the page numbers blank unless absolutely necessary. If any such method is used it should be documented in the notes.--swfritter 17:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am guilty of forgetting to remove them in some cases, and I was going to check them again afterwards.

There is also a page number of 1 for this pub. If there is no extra content for a novel, the novel does not show up in the contents section.--swfritter 17:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Missed that when copying it probably.

I notice from this submission that you are aware of the ebook page number issue as you appear to have removed them. You are sure keeping us busy.--swfritter 17:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

This one does have page numbers. Another possibility, and not a standard, is to leave the page numbers in and state in the notes the exact book publication these page numbers were taken from. Totally not a standard and something that would have to eventually be approved by the ISFDB group members.--swfritter 17:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think I'd remove them. Bluetyson 00:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That will definitely avoid controversy. I will remove them as I approve the entries. I don't know how quickly I will get them done. Feel free to make more submissions while they are being done.--swfritter 15:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I did a couple today, corrections/additions of stuff. I have all the Night Shade webscription books, so likely will do all those eventually. A bunch of those that sprang to mind were what I did the other day, and other books of personal interest.

Also if you do the later ones first - Chandler / Hamilton novels and the odd collection which should be quicker? Then I can work on the omnibus compilations for those, too. Bluetyson 16:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Artwork included in container

Is there are actually artwork in this publication? Sometimes the artwork for a book appears on the Fictionwise website but not with the actual downloadable publication. If the artist is not credited in the book there should be a note in the publication stating the source of the attribution. I though I am stating specifics in many of my notes they are also meant to apply in general so that other moderators can read them. The various moderators have differing experience with ebooks. Thanks.--swfritter 17:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The link there doesn't to to a book so could you let me know which one you mean? Bluetyson 00:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Hunter's Run

Somebody else approved this pub while I was looking at Fictionwise. The price there is $11.99. $1.99 in the entered pub by mistake?--swfritter 17:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, typo, sorry. I have resubmitted a price correction.

Submissions on hold

I have placed a number of submissions on hold. Most of them are anthologies/collections. My primary purpose with them is to determine what you want to do with page numbers. For practical reasons most such entries for ebooks (except PDF) are done without page numbers. If you find that an acceptable solution I can save you some work by removing those page numbers immediately after I approve the submissions. Another issue involves cloning. When a publication is cloned all of the content is included. In some cases there is extra content. An possible example is "The Big Black Mark" by A. Bertram Chandler which is a Jack Gaughan frontispiece. As a moderator I have no way of knowing whether it should be included. A common method of indicating that something is not to be included is to enter a "del" as a page number. You can also place temporary messages in the notes. Again, I am glad to see these contributions are greatly appreciated and my main purpose for putting these submissions on hold is to get them right and save you some time. It may take a couple of days to wade through these. I will also be awaiting your comments on other posts.--swfritter 18:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please delete page numbers, that would be great. Is there a function that does so? Given more and more ebooks, that would be rather useful.

I wish. It would be nice if the editor was given that option when doing a clone.--swfritter 15:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I did notice the Gaughan piece but didn't know what to do, and had noted it to look at later. Thanks for the 'del' advice. So delete the frontispiece as well if you like, or I can do it later? Bluetyson 00:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I will do them as I approve them. I usually like to leave this to the original editor just in case there is a misunderstanding but I think we are clear on this one. Before I was a moderator my monitor had many sticky notes attached.--swfritter 15:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

ISBN for The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

The ISBN listed in the pub is different than that entered at Fictinwise. In some of the others in this series the only ISBN listed at Fictionwise is the ereader ISBN. They are the same as the ISBN's listed in the pubs so I made the notation that they are ereader ISBN's although they may also be valid for secure mobipocket. At one point in time some of the Fictionwise mobipocket versions of these pubs were replaced with ereader versions.--swfritter 16:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Approved but still need work

Below are the raw addresses of the rest of the approved submissions. The only thing I did, where appropriate, was remove page numbers; The other things can probably be doing quicker and more accurately by you. You probably should document the format of the pubs entered (Mobipocket, Secure Mobipocket, etc.) in the notes. You will probably also have to use the Remove Titles From This Pub menu option to remove some interiorart and perhaps some other items (the Jean Marie Stine essay in the Valhalla novel comes to mind). There are also some pieces of short fiction, mostly Chandler, that will have to be merged with existing titles. If you have any questions you will probably get a quicker response from the Help Desk - I am generally only available for a couple of hours in the morning. The issues involved here are not generally not e-book specific.--swfritter 21:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305296

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305297

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305298

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305299

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305300

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305301

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305302

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305303

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305304

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305305

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305306

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305307

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305308

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305309

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305310

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305311

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305312

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305313

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305314

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?305315

re

ok Bluetyson 22:52, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Dreadful Skin

This pub. We do not normally include things like "Part One:" in the title. This is a case where you might want to keep the order of this stories clear by using 1, 2, 3 as page numbers. Since there are few entries the problem of added content is not likely to come up.--swfritter 21:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That's actually how it is in the book, is why I put that there, btw.

Chapterbooks - must also add short fiction content

When Scanners Live in Vain. When adding a chapterbook with short fiction content the short fiction title must be entered manually. This is different from novels. When you add a novel a publication is created and a novel title with the same title as the publication is created automatically. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that it works that way since 99% of the time the purpose of adding a chapterbook is to add a single short fiction piece. The chapterbook implementation has had a strange and tangled history. What I generally do when entering a chapterbook with a single story is to enter the title and author data in Publication Metadata section and then copy and paste that data as a content entry. At least when I remember to do so. I added the fiction title to your submission and also merged it.--swfritter 15:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

So basically it is like a one story collection is what you are saying? Bluetyson 15:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

In the vast majority of cases although is OK to have multiple entries. A couple of stories maybe and essays but once there are more than a very few entries it seems to make more sense to create a collection.--swfritter 15:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Chapterbooks may contain Interior Art records, introductions, forewords, etc. They can also be used to record non-fiction essays published as standalone chapbooks. Ahasuerus 17:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And Chapterbooks may just contain literally one or a few chapters, a level we typically don't go down to. I guess we could add (excerpt) contents to such. (Although it could also be argued that we're continuing a magazine serialisation into Chapters with things like Foundation). I'm actually quite happy to leave a Chapterbook as just that, if that's all it ever has been - but if the contents are republished the same way elsewhere they generally need to be classified as Shortfiction, which means we need the republished contents as well as the Chapterbook itself (a standalone publication). We now have the technical capabilities to deal with Chapterbooks but we haven't really established the times such capabilities should be used. At one extreme we have people that think any single-content book with less than 40,000 words must be classified as a Chapterbook, and at another extreme we have people that think anything that calls itself a Chapterbook shoudl be called such even if it's a Collection or an Anthology, and there's an uneasy truce where we mostly don't mess with what the verifiers call it. Of course, having re-enabled Chapterbook support AND allowing multiple Primary verifiers I may have led to the final Chapterbook Armageddon discussion - perhaps I should keep away from coding a bit longer till the wars are over... (Maybe this is why DES has disappeared?) :-/ BLongley 23:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Did I mention that Chapterbooks have a tangled history?--swfritter 23:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see you are giving it a fair crack to try and confuse me! :) Bluetyson 06:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The Game of Rat and Dragon

Same Chapterbook issue as above. I also gave the chapterbook the more precise date as listed on Project Gutenberg. Entered the artwork as interior art rather than cover art as is also done here. Note that I have also given the artwork its original date of publication and appended (reprint) to it. Although it is tempting, interior art work should not be merged. In some cases only one entry has been made for all the artwork for a story. In other cases all the individual pieces have been entered. Merging such such artwork would require a tedious verification process. You might want to check out the Project Gutenberg section of my user page. As Project Gutenberg titles are added I tag them in a consistent manner. Davecat has done an excellent job in this area.--swfritter 15:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I also made a note that this documents the HTML version since that is the one that has artwork - the plain text version doesn't.--swfritter 16:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The section above where I stated I have also given the artwork its original date of publication is what I initially did. When I looked at the example I referenced I noted that the same was not done so I changed the date of the art to the date of the pub to be consistent. I often put the original date but I also generally have access to the original artwork in such cases. One of those issues that should probably be resolved and documented, along with a million others.--swfritter 16:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories page numbers

The page numbers for the pub are from the book publication. They are the same in the PDF version and I made a notation in the pub to indicate such. OK? Any of the things I am doing I doing are open to question/revision depending on published standards and discussions scattered throughout the wiki pages. Except for those things for which there are solid standards I don't necessarily expect you to do everything I have done. And there are other editors who might do things differently. The level of detail is up to you.--swfritter 16:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

date of proposed merged The Rim Gods

Hi. I've placed on hold your proposed The Rim Gods merge of 1069684 with 1070660 because it specifically is keeping the 2007-12-00 date, when it pretty clearly appeared as a standalone ebook in 2007-11-00 according to that first record. Was picking the December date a mistake, or is there something else going on with that collection that's not apparent to me before coffee? Thanks. --MartyD 11:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it is most likely a keyboard operator error. The correct date is the November, if you can fix it? A Baen EBook

Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 www.baen.com

ISBN-10: 0-4417-2401-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-4417-2401-7

First ebook printing, November 2007

Bluetyson 14:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I will fix it. Thanks. --MartyD 15:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

more A. Bertram Chandler merges, etc.?

For your consideration.... In looking at the content of some of the pubs where you were merging titles, here are a few that were not merged but look like possible candidates (I don't know why Check for Duplicates does not find them):

In The Hard Way Up, "The Sleeping Beauty": 1070127 with 51995?
In Alternate Orbits, "Hall of Fame": 1070111 with 96902?
In Alternate Orbits, "The Man Who Sailed the Sky": 1070113 with 96900?

This one looks like perhaps a variant (and date change) is in order:

In The Rim Gods: The Last Dreamer variant of Last Dreamer?

This one is not directly a merge candidate, but while noticing it I figured I'd mention it in case there's a title typing error:

In John Grimes-Far Traveler Couriers, The Far Traveller: 1070665 (collection) vs. 919935 (novel).

Nice job with all of these! --MartyD 12:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"The Man Who Sailed the Sky" does show as a merge candidate because of letter case issues. The second "The" in the submitted entry should be "the": From Help: "Regularized case means that the first word is capitalized, and all later words are also capitalized except for "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". Hyphenated words have the first letter after the hyphen capitalized." I printed this out and taped it to my monitor. You can merge these by first using the menu option "Check for Duplicate Titles" from the author's bibliography page and then clicking "Similar Title Mode". When doing the merge make sure you select the title with the correct case information making sure not to include "The Man Who Could Not Stop" as one of the titles to be merged. --swfritter 14:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"The Sleeping Beauty" is a variant title of "Sleeping Beauty". It needs to be merged with the variant title rather than the canonical title. Variant titles do not show up as merge candidates. Go to the Advanced Search screen. In the ISFDB Title Search Form enter "The Sleeping Beauty" as Term 1. Enter "A. Bertram Chandler" as Term 2 and select author from the dropdown. Click "Submit Query" and a familiar option should show up. Make sure to leave the link to canonical title checked (596521 in this case).--swfritter 14:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"Hall of Fame" is not only a variant title but "of" also has a capitalized first letter. Use the same method used for "The Sleeping Beauty" making sure to select the title with the correct case information.--swfritter 14:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"The Last Dreamer". Variant Title Help. The first thing you want to do is update "The Last Dreamer" title so that date and story length information are the same as the canonical title. Edit the collection changing the entry for the story so the date is 1968-08-00. Change the length to "novelette" and submit. Once that submission is approved you will want to bring up the title record for Last Dreamer. Copy or note the numeric digits (the title record number) from the end of the web address - 54277 in this case. Bring up the title record for The Last Dreamer. Under the Editing Tools menu click "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work". Paste or type the title record number 54277 in the "Parent #" field and click "Link to Existing Parent". That should do it. Note: the series entry should always be associated with the canonical title and not variant titles.--swfritter 14:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Throw away the sticky notes

I did the short fiction merges for the chapterbooks.--swfritter 15:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

For Egan you mean? I am more a digital kind of guy. My notes are in a text file. :) Thanks! Bluetyson

Yup. And I think there was a p. k. dick and a couple of others. I might also note when you enter a story in a chapterbook/collection/anthology and you are very confident that it will be merged that along with the date you do not have to enter they story length. You can pick that up from the previously entered title in the merge as with the date. Good idea, putting the alternate ISBN's in the notes. We actually had a group of books that came through with 15 different documented ISBN's because the books were released in that many formats.--swfritter 15:27,

Yeah, that sounds right. Noticed the Dick on FW front page. I am sure there are more along with the odd Gutenberg version. Any keen Robert Silverberg fan can have a good time with these! Or James Patrick Kelly, etc. Second Variety particularly notable story. Bluetyson 15:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

16 December 2009 (UTC) Speaking of Egan, however, Asimov's published Dark Integers on their website :- http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0805/DarkINtegers.shtml - how would you deal with that? Bluetyson 15:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Given the current standards concerning web content, which I generally concur with, the only way to handle such a case is to put a link to the story in the notes of the title. The link could be invalid at any time which is a maintenance issue but it is not a maintenance issue that we do not already have for website entries that we already support.--swfritter 15:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. Slightly odd I guess it seems that audio versions of stories at a magazine are catalogued, but the text versions are not, or is it that the audio versions call themselves something in particular (series podcast/magazine) - as the Asimov's stuff doesn't even bother to collect them under 'Hugo nominated stories from Asimov's' or anything?

And the other one was - Interzone did a podcast of Crystal Nights here http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg-egan/ Bluetyson 15:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

See the Podcast section of magazines which has Transmissions from Beyond and includes the story in this podcast from TTA. I generally check for any new podcasts from them at the start of each month.--swfritter 16:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Reynolds story in the Guardian

If I remember correctly this was actually distributed as a CD. If so the the title of the pub should probably be The Guardian, June 26, 2009. Instead of entering Reynolds as the Author of the pub the editor should be entered. For non-genre magazines we use the form "Editors of the Guardian". The binding should be "audio (mp3)". Somehow the date of the story ended up as "0000-00-00". This appears to be original story so I guess it should have the date of the pub? I would think there should be something in the notes to indicate the distribution method. This is kind of an odd entry so we need as much explanation as possible. Notice that we already had an another entry for The Guardian.--swfritter 16:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, thanks. Odd, as was pretty sure I put the date in. Yes, first appearance of this. Had no idea about CD though! Bluetyson 16:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe my short term memory is not as bad as I thought - or maybe it's worse. It might have been mentioned in Locus. Even if no CD, this entry would still be valid in the podcast section where it might actually be a better fit anyway. There might be more s-f in The Guardian's podcast series. If you put a date in manually to begin with, it was not necessary since the date would have been picked up from the pub.--swfritter 16:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Podcastle - Chiang story

Unfortunately somebody stopped entry of Pod Castle data more than a year ago. Hope somebody picks it up before the website disappears. Also, unfortunately your entry is their last podcast. You entered Ted Chiang as co-editor when only Swirsky should be the editor. Changed to Swirsky only. Also, the story title is entered with a lower case "i" in "Is". Merged with story that has upper case "I". As often noted, our capitalization standards are a little unique. Changed the publisher to Escape Artists, Inc. instead of Escape Artists to be consistent with previous entries. Changed the binding to the standard "audio (mp3)" and removed "mp3" from notes; previous Podcastle entries have inconsistent binding information. I also added the editor title to the magazine series. We can worry about that one later. I think some of your previous questions may have been answered but if not please let me know which ones are still valid. Thanks!!!--swfritter 16:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, thanks - probably a couple of others of interest to me at least there I can add now have that format advice. Is why I only did one! :) Bluetyson

Feedback is good! Your early submissions have only required some minor modifications. Great blogsite. Oh, and don't forget to use colons to indent responses. Makes things a little more readable.--swfritter 15:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We probably need to readdress bindings sooner rather than later. The so-called standard "audio (mp3)" actually isn't a standard - we have hundreds of "audio (MP3)", "mp3 audio", "audio MP3 CD", and a relatively unpopular "MP3 CD". A standard probably won't help improve the online ISFDB yet as we can't search by such, but offline it might be useful. I must admit I favour a standard that immediately indicates whether it's got a physical version - i.e. I'd like "CD" to be included if they're selling a physical copy, and maybe "download" if there isn't one. But I own none, and there's issues about whether we have to deal with DVD and Blu-Ray physical versions differently, and what if they're only MP2 recordings like many of the recorded-for-digital-radio stuff I hear? BLongley 21:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We actually do have a standard for audio in pub Help - but it is followed indifferently and some entries may have been made before the standard existed.-swfritter 22:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Just provoking a discussion that might be useful to have sooner rather than later. "Standard" bindings might be nice to have as a drop-down list option, and exceptions would become clearer. And I'm sure Ahasuerus can cope with a few more things on the Feature Request queue... ;-) BLongley 21:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that would make it easier for new people to notice there are pb, tp etc. :) Bluetyson 01:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The Secret of Sinharat

I was holding a submission which wanted to merge this title with this one. Trouble is, you chose to drop the series data and note of the first one, which I believe was not intended. I will reject it, so you can create another merge submission, keeping data from this first record. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually don't remember, so killing it sounds like a good idea to me. Will check it out later. Bluetyson 01:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

ISBN on A Cruel Wind ebook

I approved your A Cruel Wind submission. The ISBN is for the hardcover. I poked around a little and could not find an ebook associated with that ISBN (the best I came up with was SKU #1597800546 on WebScription. So here I am asking: Does that ebook really reuse the hardcover's ISBN? Thanks. --MartyD 11:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

A common practice with Baen ebooks. And yes it is a flaky practice. I always try to make a notation about the source of the ISBN.--swfritter 14:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Snake Agent - ISBN in Image URL field

The value in the Image URL field in the pub looks suspiciously like an ISBN number.--swfritter 19:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Titles in Masters of Science Fiction

I approved your Masters of Science Fiction additions and made two small changes to the content titles:

I changed "Introduction" to "Introduction (Masters of Science Fiction: Essays on Science-Fiction Authors)". For certain types of common titles (the help calls them Standard titles), such as "Introduction", "Foreword", "Afterword", "Author's Note", etc., where the same title is likely to appear on different pieces in multiple publications, we add parenthetically the title of the publication in which it appears to help distinguish one from another.
I regularized the capitalization of "Locked in the Slaughterhouse: the novels of Kurt Vonnegut" to "...: The Novels ...". Capitalize a subtitle as if it were a standalone title. The help does not explicitly say so, but its Subtitle example does exactly that.

Thanks. --MartyD 11:39, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Poul Anderson merges

Hi Terry,

I've put most of these on hold for now. They are in areas either I'm a bit rusty about or are borderline/complicated (& I don't have in-depth knowledge of Anderson's output). However, I thought you'd want a bit of prompt-ish feedback (e.g. from someone in the same timezone).

("The King of Ys (excerpt)" & "The Game of Empire (excerpt)" merges I accepted 'cos it looks tidier now & the publisher of all was the same so maybe it's exactly the same excerpt in each publication. (... and 'cos my feeling is that no-one particularly cares if they are the same or not!?).)

"The Snows of Ganymede" - Because of the 2nd submission, it looks like you have the same reservations re the merge as I have. The "novel" is possibly an expansion of the earlier short fiction, do you think? Do you have a copy of the Ace double? The ISFDB record "Notes" info for the Ace double doesn't go into quite enough depth for me to tell :-( (Note: The "novel" is probably shorter than what we normally call a novel, but we have special rules about entering Ace doubles.)

David Falkyn: Star Trader - I actually agree with you 'cos they seem to be just different editions of the same collection. The new one looks like it comes from "Fixer", one of our robots for generating entries from Amazon. Two reasons I've put it on hold: 1. Whoever dealt with the "Fixer" entry put the new publication into the obvious series. _I_ just want to think about the set of series - interesting! (ISFDB doesn't do overlapping series, so I guess that is why they are as they are.) 2. Just to point out, if you were unaware: after approval, you will need to change the type of the newest of the publications to "collection" also.

"Of PIGS and MEN" - if PIGS and MEN are acronyms then I'd take the all-upper-case form. The info in the record for the publication which has it typed in as "Of Pigs and Men" just says it's all-upper within the essay. Do you have any of the publications containing the essay? If not acronyms, but all-upper-case, our rules re the case of titles imply "Of Pigs and Men", but a case (no pun intended) might be made for "Of PIGS and MEN" if Anderson had a particular reason for all upper case?? --clarkmci / j_clark 12:10, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

An active verifier (Rtrace) has the title capitalized. You might ask him to check how it appears in his pub. MHHutchins 17:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I have the magazine version of "Snows of Ganymede" and it appears to be about the same word count as the book version which is 96 pages long. At least 25k words for the mag version. The word count for the Ace Doubles does not usually approach 40k words until about 130 pages and sometimes they padded the page count with 1/2 and sometimes full blank pages at the end of chapters.--swfritter 16:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I might also note that two verified pubs are involved with the Anderson story. We haven't formalized the etiquette standards and many editors have differing ideas for which changes should be first proposed to verifiers but it is usually better to be cautious. If an editor is no longer active it is probably still a good idea to make a notation on their page when a change is made. Bureaucracy intrudes.--swfritter 20:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, Clarkmci is otherwise occupied and this submission was out there far too long. Apologies. I consider your intent to merge the two titles as a novella is both technically correct and the method I would prefer but the Ace double has been verified by four different people who consider NOVEL to be the correct entry. I made the magazine entry a variant of the title in order to indicate the connection between the two titles.--swfritter 13:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

"The True Secret of Magic" authorship + title typo

Hi. I had to reject your proposed change to The True Secret of Magic, only $1.98, Write Box 47, Portalnd, ORE.. If Crime Stories lists the author as "Joe Edwards", that credit should stay that way. To get the effect your changes suggested you wanted (to have it show up: "by Jay Lake [as by Joe Edwards]"), what you need to do is:

Make Joe Edwards a pseudonym for Jay Lake. While viewing the Edwards page, you'll see "Make/Remove a Pseudonym" in the menu at the left. Use that, and supply "Jay Lake" as the Parent Name.
Make the existing title a variant of a new parent title, where the author is Jay Lake instead of Joe Edwards. From the title's page, pick "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" from the left menu, use the bottom section of the form, replacing the author's name.

Neither of those is dependent on the other, so you can do them both at the same time. Once they're approved, the title will be displayed the way you want. If you need and help with this, let me know. --MartyD 11:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

p.s. It looks to me like "Portalnd" should really be "Portland". --MartyD 11:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)