ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive50

This is an archive page for the Community Portal. Please do not edit the contents. To start a new discussion, please click here.
This archive includes discussions from January - June 2021

Archive Quick Links
Archives of old discussions from the Community Portal.

---

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55

---

Expanded archive listing

Naming of maps

I see we have Grishaverse (map) and Map (Grishaverse). What's the preferred nomenclature? TAWeiss 17:38, 5 January 2021 (EST)

I would say the former: Grishaverse (map) unless the map is not titled at all. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:45, 5 January 2021 (EST)

So the map is untitled. I know the map is shared across multiple books so presumably it should be named based on the series? TAWeiss 19:34, 5 January 2021 (EST)

Is it named in any of the books? If so, any that aren't named could be titled "untitled (map)" and varianted to the named one. I can see two maps using Look Inside on this pub on Amazon. One is a map of Ketterdam, and the other is likely the one you mean. Based on how every other place name is simply text, and the words "The True Sea" are in a special frame, I'd name that map "The True Sea (map)". If the other maps are the same image, I'd use that name. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:20, 6 January 2021 (EST)

Looks like the same map is split across two pages in this pub. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:23, 6 January 2021 (EST)

And in this one. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:24, 6 January 2021 (EST)

An enigmatic David J. Schow short story

My regular search on Twitter for any mentions of "isfdb" threw up this today - it's in Japanese, but the Google Translate functionality built into the Twitter web client makes it comprehensible. TL; DR: the David J. Schow collection DJStories appears to include a story with a gibberish title, that's not listed in the contents here.

What I've been able to find so far:

• The publisher's web page for this collection doesn't give any indication of this gibberish-title story being included, so it's hardly surprising it's not logged here either
• There's no preview or contents on the Amazon UK page for this collection
• Searching for the first few words of the story - as visible in the second photo attached to the tweet - found a match on Google Books, but (a) the text there doesn't appear to be the start of a story (maybe a bad Google Books scan?), and (b) the contents, copyright, intro etc pages aren't any help either. (The collection isn't in ISFDB, although it may well not be genre.)
• I suspect the "missing" story may well be what is logged here as "(scribbled graffiti)", although there's a 1-year disparity in the pub date vs what's shown on the contents page in the Twitter photo. Unfortunately the only PVer of a pub containing this story hasn't been active on ISFDB for the best part of a decade, and whilst I've traced an ebook version of one of the other Schow collections that might contains it, I don't see a atch in the Amazon or Kobo previews of the contents page.

At this point, it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle, but does anyone know more about this author's work, or can think of another approach to try to resolve this mystery? ErsatzCulture 10:26, 8 January 2021 (EST)

UPDATE: a bit more Googling uncovered a photo of the contents page of another collection on fantlab.ru that appears to confirm that this missing story and "(scribbled graffiti)" are one and the same; I'll try to update the records to explain this as best I can, but any thoughts/assistance appreciated... ErsatzCulture 10:42, 8 January 2021 (EST)

Publishers - Edit History

Publisher pages have been updated to include a standard "Edit History" link. Ahasuerus 17:51, 9 January 2021 (EST)

Series and Publication Series - Edit History

Publication Series pages have been updated to include a standard "Edit History" link. Ahasuerus 11:29, 10 January 2021 (EST)

Ditto Series pages. Ahasuerus 16:01, 10 January 2021 (EST)

Author records - Edit History (moderator-only)

Author pages have been updated to include a standard "Edit History" link. Note, however, that the link only appears if you are a moderator. The reason is that our Data Deletion Policy states:

• If a living author (or their authorized representative) requests that the ISFDB remove the author's detailed biographical information, the ISFDB will comply after confirming the requester's identity. The ISFDB will remove as much biographical data as needed in order to accommodate legitimate privacy concerns while preserving, to the extent possible, the work of the editors who have compiled the data. A note will be added to the author's record explaining what type of information has been removed and why.

If we were to make Author Edit History publicly available, it would defeat the purpose of the quoted policy. Ahasuerus 19:07, 10 January 2021 (EST)

Inscribed or Signed ?

I have a copy of Derleth: Hawk...and Dove but can't decide wether it's been signed or inscribed. Normally an inscription is a dedication to a named individual as opposed to a signed copy which merely has a signiature. My copy is signed but has she has written "Enjoy!" prior to signing. So is this a signed copy or an inscribed copy ? --Mavmaramis 10:00, 12 January 2021 (EST)

Well, it does not really make a difference for a bibliography (what we are) if it is hand-signed or inscribed to an individual. I would just call it signed (if I even mention it in the notes). Now - if the whole run is signed (separate cover and/or ISBN and so on), then it is a different story... then I would explain in the notes what the signature has. But if it is just signed during a convention/meeting and so on, it is kinda irrelevant for a bibliography. Annie 10:17, 12 January 2021 (EST)

Thanks. Actually it was more for the bibliographic listing of my collection on my personal home page rather than for a note on the actual entry. I went through my "inscribed/signed" copies adding noyes about whether it was merely signed or inscribed with a transcript of the inscription text. Would there be any objections to me making such a note on the entries of the copies I do own that are "signed" ? If yes then no worries. --Mavmaramis 04:38, 14 January 2021 (EST)

ISFDB server downtime 2021-01-13

The ISFDB server will be unavailable between roughly 6:00pm and 6:20pm Eastern Standard Time. Ahasuerus 15:53, 13 January 2021 (EST)

Everything should be back up. Ahasuerus 18:11, 13 January 2021 (EST)

Edit History changes finished

The last round of Edit History changes was deployed a few minutes ago. All submission types are now associated with Edit History pages. If you come across anything unexpected, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 17:08, 14 January 2021 (EST)

MARTIN

Hello, all. I'm thinking the novelization of George A. Romero's Martin belongs here, since it's a horror movie about a young man who believes he's a vampire, even if it's implied in the movie that he's really just crazy. Even if it's not strictly supernatural, any Romero work is genre-related. I will create a record if anyone thinks it belong here. Cheers, --Username 16:06, 18 January 2021 (EST)

For this kind of thing, it's better to post over on the ISFDB:Community Portal as more people pay attention to it. I've moved this over there (it was on the Moderator noticeboard). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:02, 18 January 2021 (EST)

I need to look into this specific book BUT non speculative horror is not considered genre in ISFDB (even if it is technically genre for horror DBs and horror awards and so on) and unless we can pass that as above threshold author book, it will not be eligible for addition if indeed the vampire thingie is merely craziness. I wish we actually allowed those books that look like Speculative Fiction on the outside but are actually not when you read them but as the rules stand now, we do not. Annie 18:09, 18 January 2021 (EST)

I entered the 1977 Stein and Day hardcover edition. There's also a 1980 Day Books paperback and a 1978 Futura British edition (which calls him "George Romero" and omits the co-author Susanna Sparrow). --Username 20:05, 11 February 2021 (EST)

N. FOSTER TYLER

So I've been fixing Kealan Patrick Burke's collections, importing titles, finding out where stories were actually first published, etc. 1 story, "Outside", says it was first published in 2011 in his collection Theater Macabre, but digging into his bibliography on archive.org revealed that this story was scheduled to be published in late 2003 or 2004 in a webzine called Necropolis edited by "N. Foster Tyler". There's no mention of Necropolis and that name anywhere on Google, but a comment on Amazon by that name has "Nathan Tyler" at the head of the comment. ISFDB has 2 interviews in Cemetery Dance conducted by Nathan Tyler in 2003 and 2005, so I'm guessing it's the same person. Anyone know more about him or if that webzine ever appeared?--Username 12:43, 19 January 2021 (EST)

José Luis Zárate and José Luis Zárate Herrera

Spotted this and this on the birthday section of the front page. Clearly it's the same person, but:

• I don't know which one should be the parent record and which the variant
• They have different legalname values, which strikes me as probably wrong, but again I wouldn't know which might be the more correct value

Anyone more knowledgeable care to clean this up? ErsatzCulture 19:19, 19 January 2021 (EST)

The one with the more titles becomes the parent until such a time when that needs changing. :) And yes - same person - look at Wiki. The Legal name was simply not researched - someone just inverted the name. The correct value is the longer one. :) I can clean up that or you can try if you prefer. Annie 23:26, 19 January 2021 (EST)

You also need to do some variants -- not just tidy up the authors' pages themselves ;) Annie 10:25, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Yes, I was just coming here to query that. Is this not something that is automated and/or has tooling to make it less onerous? This particular author isn't too bad as the alt. author doesn't have that many entries, but I could imagine it being a colossal pain if there was a particularly prolific alt. revealed after they'd written a lot of titles? ErsatzCulture 11:04, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Nope - it is done one by one manually. And yes... it can be a pain. Automating it is probably possible but then slightly different titles won't be caught and if someone makes a mistake in the direction, we will have to clean the mess. So when an alt name is created, the variants need to be done manually - to existing titles if they are there or to new ones if not. The DB is complex as it is - adding more things happening without people understanding what they are doing leads to bigger messes. It is a catch 22 sometimes... Annie 11:18, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Absolutely correct! Luckily, this happens not too frequently, but when it does, it hurts! Stonecreek 11:19, 20 January 2021 (EST)

SKELETON CREW (MAGAZINE)

So I read somewhere that "The Reploids" by Stephen King from 1988 was never reprinted in any of his collections because of its similarity to something written by P.K. Dick. Checking ISFDB I verified that was true, but a check online revealed that it WAS reprinted in a British mag, Skeleton Crew, in 1990. Checking further I found out this mag ran for 15 issues (technically 14 since one issue was a double issue) but only one was entered on ISFDB. I am making a feeble attempt with my limited skills to enter fiction from the missing magazines into ISFDB (the non-fiction is mostly outdated interviews). Some of it is by famous authors and already on ISFDB while others are not. The problem is unlike with books you can't assume the length of fiction by looking at page numbers on locusmag.com or philsp.com or wherever because many magazines break stories into chunks and say "continued on page ...". So I would appreciate help entering info from these issues, especially if someone actually owns copies of the originals and can verify lengths of stories.--Username 10:22, 22 January 2021 (EST)

Well, it seems likely that many of the shortfiction pieces published in that magazine are already in ISFDB (either because reprinted there, or reprinted later), so the length should be determinable from the existing entries for those. Stonecreek 10:57, 22 January 2021 (EST)

Fang

This, https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=549271, shows that the Fang magazine info here and elsewhere has been wrong for who knows how long. I wondered why #1 and #3 were entered on ISFDB but #2 was not, and philsp.com says contents for #2 not found, but there's an issue sitting there with a cover and info not on ISFDB. Since that comics site says Issue #1 on ISFDB is actually #2, that other issue is obviously the real #1. I will change issue # from 1 to 2 for the issue currently here and add page #'s, and then I'll enter all that info for the real issue #1. Another winner from--Username 01:29, 24 January 2021 (EST)

We enter publications as they are actually printed. That website says for issue 2, "Misprinted as issue #1". If that is the case, it should remain as entered as issue 1 with a pub note explaining it was actually the second issue. You can enter the other issue 1 as issue 1 also. We would have two issue 1s and no issue2 (and pub notes to explain why). -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:37, 24 January 2021 (EST)

This, http://www.atomicpulp.com/?page_id=10, refers to the issue where his story appears as #2, possibly the only place where someone actually knows which issue was which. I've corrected # of pages and added page #'s and an author name the previous editor missed, but I'm still figuring out how to enter that missing issue. Another winner from--Username 12:33, 24 January 2021 (EST)

Frightmares #2

Holy Jesus! This phantom issue of Frightmares has been bothering me for a long time because ISFDB and elsewhere say contents of Issue #2 are missing, but online sleuthing revealed a listing for Frightmares from Spring 1998 on the jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com bibliography section under Poetry. None of the 3 poems are in any of the issues on ISFDB and the date of the Dorr issue fits neatly between Frightmares #1 and #3, so I've identified the missing issue and will now create a record for it and enter these poems. If anyone knows any other contents of this damned issue feel free to share. Another winner from --Username 22:51, 24 January 2021 (EST)

The ISFDB FAQ and creating test submissions

While adding a new section to ISFDB:FAQ, I noticed that it currently says:

Where is a safe place for me to experiment with creating and modifying ISFDB records?

Just create new records and use them. It’s a good idea to use “Testing Your Name” for the author name and titles such as “Test Novel” to make it easy to find the records and also so that others know that you are experimenting with things. For records with Notes fields it's a good idea to include a note so that the moderators will understand what you are doing and are likely to approve your changes. When you are done you'd then delete the records.

This seems like a really bad idea and I don't think it has been our policy since the beta phase of the ISFDB 2.0 project, i.e. since early 2007. I propose that we delete this FAQ section. Ahasuerus 20:03, 25 January 2021 (EST)

Agreed MagicUnk 20:57, 25 January 2021 (EST)

I also agree. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:00, 26 January 2021 (EST)

And it's gone. Ahasuerus 19:54, 30 January 2021 (EST)

Christopher Woodforde

So among my fixing and adding on ISFDB I stumbled on the fact that records for this author's collection A Pad in the Straw were a mess. First, 1 story, "Mirror of Man's Damnation", was entered as "Mirror of Mavis Damnation" in the original 1952 ed. and the 2012 ed. but entered correctly in the 1962 ed. Also, the 1962 ed. was actually from 1964, so I changed the date and added # of pages which was previously blank. Then I decided to delete the cover that was already there and replace it with a better one only to be told that the image was already on file. Checking further, I found out it was on file because someone had entered 2 other editions of this book under the name John Woodforde even though both had covers with the correct name on it. 1 of those covers matched the one I had just tried to enter, hence the "already on file" message. I was shocked, let me tell you, and I've seen it all in my short time here. So I'd like someone who is familiar with Mr. Woodforde to check and make sure that everything is as correct as possible now. Another winner from --Username 00:54, 26 January 2021 (EST)

Please be sure to include links to each item you're discussing. It makes it a lot easier to help you if we are sure we are looking at the same entry you are. You can find assistance on using wiki markup here.

Let's address your concerns one at a time:

• It's not uncommon for there to be typos in titles. When that happens, the incorrect spelling should be varianted, the same as if a story title was released under a different name.
• Are you 100% sure there isn't both a 1962 and a 1964 printing of that title? Before deleting or correcting something, you need to be absolutely sure, and also include good notes to the moderators so we can verify the information.
• We use the information on the title page for verification. This can sometimes differ from the cover (I have a few books where they don't agree, myself). Typos do occur on the title page, as well as on the cover, and even on the copyright page. If the title page has a typo, the information should be entered as printed, and then the incorrect name can be varianted to the correct name.
• Everyone who enters stuff here is a volunteer. While we do our best to make sure things are entered correctly, we are all human and we all make mistakes here and there. There's no reason to be shocked about anything, and I would encourage you to review the information regarding Woodforde yourself, even if you aren't as familiar with his works. You'll learn something, and it will likely get done more quickly than with you making demands all over the place. We appreciate your hard work and enthusiasm, but we need to work together in a cordial manner in order to accomplish things here. As Annie noted elsewhere, you aren't the only one doing work here. If you're interested, you can see some of the stats here to see just how much work the many contributors have put into ISFDB. We appreciate everyone who contributes, even if they contribute only a single thing. Every little contribution goes toward making this site better and more useful as a resource. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:15, 26 January 2021 (EST)

Koontz

Hello my friends. So I've been correcting issues of 1980's mag The Horror Show, fixing incorrect titles and names, etc. and 1 work by Dean R. Koontz, "Weird World", confused me. It's listed as an essay on ISFDB, but is under the Fiction section in the mag ("https://richarddalbyslibrary.com/products/the-horror-show-an-adventure-in-terror-summer-1986-volume-4-issue-3-phantasm-press?_pos=14&_sid=b2f959b55&_ss=r"). It seems to be a fictional piece presented as fact, not non-fiction. Does anyone think anything should be changed? --Username 16:36, 27 January 2021 (EST)

If it's discussing the fictional world from a non-fictional POV (like an encyclopedia entry, but not written as if in the fictional world), it's an essay. If it's discussing the fictional world from the POV of someone within the fictional world (such as an encyclopedic entry written by a character within the fictional world), it's short fiction. I hope that makes sense. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:07, 27 January 2021 (EST)

Quay

So I saw on philsp.com that this mag, [1], had a cover by [2], but there's no credit for a cover artist in that record. Then I stumbled across the fact that there's multiple records for these 2 men, as The Brothers Quay, The Quay Brothers, The Quays, and they're credited by their full names, Steve Quay and Tim Quay, too. Last time I tried an edit to bring 2 related artist names together, I got an unpleasant response from someone telling me I did it wrong, so I'll just leave this info here for anyone who wants to merge all the records together for these very well-known and influential artists. --Username 09:59, 30 January 2021 (EST)

Alternate name relationships have been created. Thanks for finding this. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:46, 30 January 2021 (EST)

The Gravedigger's Tale: Fables of Fear

Hello all UK citizens out there. This Simon Clark hardcover collection from Robert Hale in 2010 was nominated for a BFA in 2011 but finding contents seems next to impossible. The basic info was entered on ISFDB nearly 10 years ago but that's it. I assume Clark's 1989 short story of the same name is in the book and the single comment for this book on Amazon mentions a story, "Seed", which I assume is "Swallowing a Dirty Seed" since that's the only title under Clark's name with the word Seed. All Clark's other collections are fully entered, so this is the only empty one. Hale is a British publisher so I assume Brits would most likely own a copy, so if anyone can provide contents that would be great. I'll enter them on ISFDB if you don't want to.--Username 12:46, 23 January 2021 (EST)

YES! I tweeted Simon Clark about this and he responded with a photo of the contents, so it was published after all, and I can enter the stories on ISFDB and complete the last Clark collection to still need contents. He said it's out of print but "will be back soon", so that's even better. Another winner from --Username 00:30, 28 January 2021 (EST)

It gets even better. There are 13 stories (how appropriate), and 4 of them seem like originals. They're not on ISFDB and give no info on Google. 1 story is not on ISFDB but comes from a 2007 British anthology titled Cthulhu's Creatures, only available as a 100-copy trade paperback, so there's a new anthology waiting to be entered. Finally, 1 story comes from the major Clive Barker anthology Hellbound Hearts but was actually misspelled on ISFDB. --Username 01:02, 28 January 2021 (EST)

Turns out only 3 of them were originals. I tweeted Mr. Clark about the original stories and he said 1 of them, "Is It Still Raining Zombies?", was actually published in the BFS 2006 Calendar! ISFDB will now have quite likely the only record on the web of the contents of The Gravedigger's Tale. God bless --Username 21:37, 30 January 2021 (EST)

Wow, someone uploaded an ex-library copy of this RARE book to archive.org in August 2020! [3]. There's only a limited preview, but I typed Introduction into the search box and it gave 2 hits, 1 of which took me to the contents page unseen in the limited preview! I can now enter the page #'s and finally lay this book to rest. I'd like to thank Simon Clark for all his help and myself for everything else. Hail --Username 10:53, 16 February 2021 (EST)

Brandon

OK, here goes. The publisher by the name of Brandon has 2 books listed, 1 from 1974 & 1 from 2017. The 1 from 1974 is by Brandon Books (according to Catalog of Copyright Entries), an American publisher of cheap paperbacks in the 60s-70s, and belongs under that publisher on ISFDB, along with the note about being based in California. The 2017 book came out about 40 years after Brandon Books stopped publishing and is from a British publisher named Brandon since the price is in pounds, so that title stays under Brandon. Now, the publisher named Brandon Books has 12 books under its name, but some of them are not by the American publisher but by an Irish publisher who reprinted Bram Stoker works along with a few modern titles from other Irish authors in the 90s, so that publisher should be separated. Also, ANNIE, don't forget to include my book cover when you move Lovers & Exorcists from Brandon to Brandon Books.--Username 18:07, 23 January 2021 (EST)

So we are looking at possibly 3 different publishers really - one in Ireland, one in UK and the US one. I will do some digging later today to see if I can cleanly split the UK/Ireland ones (we had seen weirder things happening than a press resurfacing after decades). No magic tools I am afraid - books will need to be updated manually to untangle this. Also - it will be very helpful if you include links to the records you are talking about - that way people do not need to puzzle out which records you mean if there is more than one result. :)

PS: It had been moved. You can easily do it as well technically but I updated it anyway. Annie 18:22, 23 January 2021 (EST)

Did it all myself. --Username 15:49, 2 February 2021 (EST)

Mostly - somewhere in the edits the newer Irish Brandon information got lost. :) It turned out that it is an imprint of a publisher we know well and an official revival of the 1990s one. Notes updated all over the place so they should be all sorted now.

Thanks for moving the books around! Annie 03:55, 3 February 2021 (EST)

I moved the California note from Brandon to Brandon Books but couldn't move the Ireland note because separate Brandon Books (1990's) publisher hadn't been approved by a moderator yet, so I cut and pasted info into a bookmark so when the separate publisher was approved I could paste info into it. Now I don't have to, so I will delete the bookmark. --Username 10:30, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Zork

Hell-o. So I stumbled across the 1983 novelizations of Zork by S. Meretzky on ISFDB and noticed the 1st book had a cover but the other 2 didn't. I provided covers for those 2, and then noticed on the Wikipedia page for Zork books that there may have been a 4th book, 1984's Conquest at Quendor. I thought about entering it, then grew suspicious that such a book wouldn't be entered on ISFDB already, and saw that the wiki has links to the 3 1983 books on archive.org but no link for the 4th, but there is an archive.org link to the 4th book on Google. What's the story with this book? --Username 18:50, 29 January 2021 (EST)

Sounds like the book may have been planned but never got published; if you wish for further investigation please supply at least the link to archive.org. Thanks, Stonecreek 07:35, 30 January 2021 (EST)

[4] --Username 09:19, 30 January 2021 (EST)

Here's a nice picture of all four of them : https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/complete-zork-gamebook-set-4-1795599565, so go ahead, and enter the fourth publication :) MagicUnk 10:41, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Aronovitz

Hell-o. So I stumbled across Michael Aronovitz's record on ISFDB, [5], and decided to check info about his books online, and got annoyed as I always do when I check copyright pages in books and they're full of incorrect info. So the copyright page in Seven Deadly Pleasures, [6], says "The Clever Mask" was published in Midnight Zoo in 1993, but his website michaelaronovitz.com says it was accepted but the mag folded before it saw print, which is why I couldn't find the story anywhere. 2008's "Quest for Sadness" appeared in Metal Scratches, a literary magazine so obscure the only info I could find was on archive.org (although it was just a past issues page with his name and story title on it, not the actual story itself), but the copyright page said it was also published in Studies in the Fantastic, a journal edited by S.T. Joshi. It was actually a completely different story that was published there. Finally, 2008's "Passive Passenger" was published in Down in the Dirt, an odd online/PDF publication that's been running for years and has issues online, including the one with this story, but the copyright page just mentions Scars Publications, which is the publisher of Down in the Dirt. It was also supposedly published in DemonMinds, an online/print horror zine that apparently ran for many years but seemingly died about 10 years ago. There's an archived site, demonminds.com, that has some stories you can read online, but many others you can't. I found 1 damn page on the whole site that mentions Aronovitz's name and proves he published a story there (but doesn't mention the story title), but it's a list of authors, and it's in Javascript or something because when you select a name from the list nothing happens because archive.org doesn't work well with sites that used Java. So I wonder if anyone reading this remembers reading Aronovitz's story in DemonMinds and knows what issue it was published in (there seems to be a big gap in the archives in 2008; maybe DemonMinds went through a site restructuring and lost a chunk of stuff)? I've added most of what I learned online to Aronovitz's record on ISFDB, but can't include DemonMinds until I can see his name AND story title together somewhere. --Username 18:29, 1 February 2021 (EST)

After more than 6 months I've found some new info. Turns out Aronovitz published a 2002 Xlibris collection, and the archived xlibris.com site has an excerpted story, "Quest for Sadness", https://web.archive.org/web/20030925094936/http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=16579, which was reprinted in Seven Deadly Pleasures. So it was actually much older than previously thought. If anyone knows the other 3 titles in Twisted Campfire Tales (description mentions a quartet of tales) leave a note here. --Username 17:52, 5 August 2021 (EDT)

The Arm of Mrs. Egan

Hell-o. So I noticed that the original 1951 Dent edition of this collection by W. F. Harvey, [7], is credited to William Fryer Harvey on ISFDB even though that full name was only used for the 1952 Dutton reprint, [8]. While wondering whether to change info, I saw on richarddalbyslibrary.com that 1 story, "Euphemia Witchmaid", was published in Woman's Journal (Oct 1934). I can't find another mention of this anywhere online, and there's no indication on ISFDB that this story was published earlier than the rest (except the title story which was published in 1935). Dalby's site is riddled with errors, so I hesitate to change the date unless I know it was actually published in that journal on that date. It seems to have been a British magazine that ran from 1927-2001, but I can't find any issues viewable online. Anyone know more about this? --Username 11:43, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Decadence

Hell-o. So after my success tweeting Simon Clark and finally learning the contents of his collection The Gravedigger's Tale, I went on a massive search to discover the remaining contents of Decadence, [9], an anthology from Prime Books, edited by Monica J. O'Rourke in 2002. I found most of them on (very) old author sites on archive.org, but 1 story by Jack Fisher eluded me. I thought of tweeting Ms. O'Rourke, but her Twitter seems to be a scary radical left-wing haven with no mention of any of her extensive work in the horror genre, so I thought better of it. So I ask any ISFDB user who may own a copy of this rare book to provide the name of Fisher's story, and if possible the rest of the contents so I can see what minor alterations may need to be made and so I can enter the page #'s. Another winner from --Username 23:12, 4 February 2021 (EST)

So I found another story from the rare anthology The Fear Within, by Michael T. Huyck, Jr., in the copyright page of his not-in-ISFDB collection Of Dark and Yesterday and saw that another story, "Effigies", came from the also rare anthology Decadence. The list of authors on top of the Amazon page, [10], doesn't even mention him, but he has a link on the page so obviously was in the book. It says sixteen tales were included, and there are presently 14 on ISFDB plus this Huyck story being entered, which NOW leaves that 1 Jack Fisher story as the only mystery. Someone out there must have a print copy of this book! --Username 11:26, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Dark Encounters

Hell-o. So I recently noticed William Croft Dickinson's collection, [11], didn't have page #'s for the original 1963 edition so I added them. Then I noticed the 1984 reprint didn't have them either and used the record on Fantlab to add them. Contents were out of order on ISFDB, so it took me a while to realize 1 story wasn't there, "The Black Dog of Wolf's Crag". Typing this title into Google brings up exactly ONE website, which is a listing of all the programs broadcast on BBC Radio. In 1961 this story was broadcast along with some others that aren't listed. I'm going to guess that someone decided that modern readers probably wouldn't know what the original title of the story, "Quieta Non Movere", meant, being in Latin and all, so they changed it to a more prosaic title. As always I am happy to find info little-known elsewhere, and now am wondering how best to enter this new story, whether as a variant or something else. For now I've left it under its original title, which a previous editor copied from an Amazon review without checking an actual copy of the reprint. Any classic horror fans here know more info about this mysterious title? Seems odd that an amateur like me stumbled across this. Another winner from --Username 22:54, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Obviously no one's going to reply so today I went ahead and deleted "Quieta..." from the 1984 edition and entered the new title. I gave it a 1984 date and after it's approved I suppose the right thing is to then variant it to the original title? --Username 17:15, 24 May 2021 (EDT)

Cthulhu's Creatures

Hell-o. So my creating a record in ISFDB for this rare anthology, [12], in order to include Simon Clark's original story has borne further fruit. There is exactly 1 copy on picclick.co.uk, [13], which shows the full contents. All the other stories are reprints, but if anyone wants to figure out where those stories were first published (and good luck with that, since Cthulhu Mythos fiction is a minefield of old webzines and small-press publications not found on ISFDB) now they have the info they need. --Username 20:57, 6 February 2021 (EST)

I've added all the ISFDB-known entries and created one, but two not entered as I didn't know if they were POEM or SHORTFICTION. Notes explain it. ../Doug H 11:39, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Thank you kindly, bro. I made a few tweaks; found mention of a reprint from this book that gave date as November 2007 so I corrected date; Found a site that included Joel Lane's 2 works among the poems, so I added those; corrected part of my note since it seems there were 2 originals, not 1; and deleted part of your note about Joel Lane since those are entered now. I think this is about as accurate as anybody can enter this on ISFDB unless someone gets their hands on a physical copy (HA!). --Username 17:50, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Ghoulish...

So picclick.co.uk has Doppelganger #10, [14], and there's a poem called "Ghoulish Crabs" on ISFDB that looks like "Ghoulish Grabs" on the contents page. Anyone have the issue in question to check? As I see original publications I realize there are many little errors in names and titles and page #'s on ISFDB that I correct, but "Ghoulish Grabs" sounds so stupid I won't change the title unless someone checks the story header and verifies it. --Username 12:38, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Jack Reacher

Would the Jack Reacher series be considered genre?. As far as I've seen of it (which is two movies), there doesn't seem to be anything science fiction or fantasy about it. I haven't read the books, though. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:47, 9 February 2021 (EST)

No - nothing even remotely SF in it - it is in its own reality that diverges more and more from ours (in terms of who wins elections and so on) but that is true for any thriller series. :) Annie 18:54, 9 February 2021 (EST)

That's what I thought. I've rejected the submission. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:33, 9 February 2021 (EST)

Uncanny Banquet

Alison Prince's story in this anthology, [15], is titled "The Looney" on ISFDB but "The Loony" in other books, but this, [16], shows it's spelled "The Loony" on the back cover and acknowledgements page. Verifier isn't active so anybody with a copy of this book, can you check story page and see if it's "The Loony" there, too? --Username 09:37, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Username is a moron; he didn't check Fantlab, which has a copy with photos including contents page where it's spelled "Loony"; he changed it to correct spelling. Thank you, Username, for answering your own question. You're welcome. --Username 19:41, 23 May 2021 (EDT)

German Horror Anthology

Was correcting anthology Terminal Frights on ISFDB and Brian McNaughton's story title was incorrect; 2 sites online spell it correctly, Amazon and a German site for a 1999 horror anthology which is not on ISFDB, [17]. Anyone have a copy? --Username 14:42, 11 February 2021 (EST)

Ennui

So I saw the contents of David Niall Wilson's collection Ennui and Other States of Madness, [18], were stitched together on ISFDB from several sources, which usually leads to missing or incorrect titles. That was true in this case, since 1 story was a reprint but the title was only partially entered in the collection leading to it being considered an original story, there were several reprints that were not imported into the collection, and 1 original story not entered. I found an archived site, [19], which indicates a couple of other stories entered previously as original aren't. I did what I could, but a physical copy of the book is needed to clean it up further and verify titles are written correctly and whether there's any mention of which are original and which aren't. Anyone have this book? --Username 17:57, 11 February 2021 (EST)

Red Scream

Hello my friends. So I was taking a look at this magazine which only ran for 3 issues in 2005. The second issue was only partially filled, so I checked to see if the remaining fiction was on ISFDB. 1 story was there so I imported it, "Suitcase Sam" (although date needed to be changed to magazine's date), but another story was there under a most likely mistakenly entered title. Wrath James White's story in Red Scream, [20], shows a 2014 date on ISFDB and the title "http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2019310", and was translated as "http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2018926" for a 2016 German anthology and reprinted in a 2017 German collection of White's stories. The 2014 date is because it was included in an English-language collection of White's stories, Cupid in Bondage, that's not on ISFDB. The thing is, that German title roughly translates as "Sex Plaything", which seems more like a translation of the original title in Red Scream. I suppose it's possible he wrote a sequel to the original story, but I doubt it. Not being familiar at all with White's work, I humbly ask someone out there who is to help sort this out. If it turns out they're the same story, I can import it into the magazine's contents and then never have to look at those creepy Red Scream covers again. --Username 19:46, 11 February 2021 (EST)

So, please ask the one primary verifier (who is still active): he is the person most likely able to help in this case (because quite often sources and/or original titles are stated in the copyright sections). Stonecreek 23:30, 11 February 2021 (EST)

I was right. Another winner from --Username 09:17, 12 February 2021 (EST)

Dark Offspring

Found this anthology, [21], which is completely empty on ISFDB was uploaded to archive.org back in 2010. I entered price, cover artist and introduction, but limited preview cuts the second page of stories off. Anyone with an account on archive.org can now enter into ISFDB the contents of this rare book which aren't listed anywhere online as far as I'm aware. --Username 20:00, 11 February 2021 (EST)

I discovered if you search for keywords you can get any page in a "limited preview" book and thus was able to see all contents pages, of which there were FOUR for this slim 128-page book. I persevered and entered all contents, so if someone could give them a glance after my edit is approved and make sure I entered everything correctly that would be good. Hail --Username 16:55, 16 February 2021 (EST)

Squad D

So this story, [22], written in the 1970's, was never included in any of Stephen King's collections and didn't get published until Richard Chizmar's anthology Shivers VIII in 2019, which was oddly published in Germany first. The problem is there's only 1 library with 2 copies of the book on Worldcat, so distribution seems to have been a problem. Scribd.com offers it as a standalone story but requires you to sign up to read the whole thing. However, I discovered if you click the cached version on Google and select text-only version it gives you the whole story. Oddly, the regular website's version is a mess of garbled text, while this version, [23], seems to display it properly. So here's an opportunity to read this rare story. I wonder whether I should add that link to the "Squad D" ISFDB record. Any thoughts? --Username 20:00, 11 February 2021 (EST)

I just found out something funny. Turns out Shivers VIII was published in a digital version on Amazon and the "Look Inside" is long enough to include all of "Squad D' since it's the first story. So my rambling nonsense above was pointless since there's an easier way to read this rare story. Boo to --Username 15:40, 12 February 2021 (EST)

Wow, I stumbled on an entry further up this page that said Last Dangerous Visions is being published sometime this year! Remains to be seen, but I wonder if King's story will be included among the revised contents. Rights for a King story are a lot costlier in 2021 than they were 40+ years ago. --Username 12:51, 16 February 2021 (EST)

Tags

So I was on a random ISFDB record and noticed the tag included the word "chemichal" instead of "chemical" and tried to correct the misspelling but couldn't figure out how. Then I did a tag search and found there were 6 uses of "chemichal" in a tag, all by the same moderator. Is there an easy way to correct misspelled tags? Or is that how they spell it in other countries? --Username 10:23, 12 February 2021 (EST)

No, tags are basically not editable - the only person who can fix them is the one who added them (except for a direct DB update which we mostly try not to go down to)...

Let's see - the editor who added these (Dragoondelight) had not been seen for a decade so not much chance of asking them. It looks like a simple typo (or how they spelled that word usually).

What I can do easily though is to make these private (so they are not shown on the title level when you look at it -- they will still show up if you search for them) and add them with their correct spelling to the titles (or you can add them). Or I can point our bureaucrat to the thread so he can see if changing in the DB is feasible and something he wants to do for these 6. Let me know how you want to proceed. Annie 10:44, 12 February 2021 (EST)

There is an FR to "Allow moderators to edit and merge tags". It's technically doable, but I remember being concerned about subtle differences getting unintentionally lost. For example, "werewolf"/"werewolves" or "time travel romance"/"time-travel romance" are presumably fair game, but what about "scifi romance" vs. "sf romance"? We also have composite tags like satire. thriller, humor, quirky, funny, romance, adventure, fiction, speculative fiction, which can't be fixed by editing/merging. Still, if this is becoming a bigger issue, we could move the FR up the list. Ahasuerus 19:58, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Maybe we could start discussions for any that aren't straightforward? Kind of like they have merge discussions on Wikipedia? And maybe include some sort of "redirect" from the old one in case someone ever searches for it or tries to add it? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:29, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Shivers VIII

I added page #'s to this anthology and corrected a few things, and noticed Blu Gilliand's story "Red Earth", [24], isn't in the contents pages of the copy I saw on picclick.co.uk but was entered on ISFDB. Anyone with a print copy who can verify and add page number to his story? --Username 16:07, 12 February 2021 (EST)

Midnight

[25], [26]; not sure about this one. Steven W. ISFDB record has more info so is probably the correct one. Robert is credited on some sites but the book clearly says Steven W. on the cover online. Any Christian fiction fans out there know the answer? --Username 11:54, 13 February 2021 (EST)

It really seems Robert Wise was entered erroneously: I deleted the doublette. Thanks for finding this one! Stonecreek 03:38, 15 February 2021 (EST)

The Snake Orchards

Andrew Laurance's ISFDB record was spotty, with a missing British paperback cover and several missing original British editions. I added the cover and created records for the British editions, but there's 1 odd title I didn't enter, The Snake Orchards, [27], which has a 1982 date but only has a 1984 Italian magazine reprint of the entire novel entered on ISFDB. It seems to have been a £7.95 hardcover published by Macdonald as by "Drew Lamark" but the copy on Picclick says first published in 1983 then says copyright 1982 Andre Launay, which is the author's real name. Anyone with a copy of this book who knows the page count can enter the info if they wish. Also, the other Macdonald hardcover published as by "Drew Lamark", The Medusa Horror, had a Futura paperback reprint, so perhaps The Snake Orchards did, too. --Username 19:55, 14 February 2021 (EST)

The year of 1982 likely was entered because of the copyright of 1982 as stated with the Italian publication. I'll change it to 1983 as per your evidence. Thanks, Stonecreek 03:42, 15 February 2021 (EST)

Kealan Patrick Burke

His 2008 collection The Number 121 to Pennsylvania & Others, [28], had no page #'s for the Cemetery Dance edition on ISFDB so I added them from a copy on picclick, but the last few stories were all out of order and a screenplay version of 1 of the stories wasn't entered and 1 story, "Miles At Night", was in ISFDB but not in the contents page of the actual book. Anyone with a copy of the original edition who can verify if "Miles At Night" was in the book or if it should just be deleted? There's hardly any mention of it online. I found this note at the bottom of Fantlab's Burke page, [29], and translated it into English: "In some Internet sources, the story "Miles At Night" (2008) is attributed to the author." --Username 23:44, 15 February 2021 (EST)

Cemetery Dance does not list "Miles At Night" in the original edition. The contents listed there also agrees with the contents listed in for a copy on Ebay. If it's in the later edition, it seems it was added there. --MartyD 09:40, 17 February 2021 (EST)

p.s. The Look Inside for the 2012 edition also does not show that story. I wonder if it was originally planned and then not included. --MartyD 09:50, 17 February 2021 (EST)

The Lizard's Tail

I added the reprint cover of Marc Brandel's Rain Before Seven (awesomely retitled MANIAC RENDEZVOUS) and noticed his much later 1979 novel The Lizard's Tail, which was made into one of the dumbest movies ever, Oliver Stone's (!) The Hand (starring Michael Caine!) had the original 1979 title date on ISFDB but the only edition was for a 1980 German reprint. I created a record for the original Simon & Schuster hardcover but finding all the info was tough, and it turns out the book was reprinted many times. I've seen a 1980 hardcover with a lizard's tail knocking over a vial of red ink, a French edition titled La Queue du Lezard with a lizard holding a severed tail in its mouth, a 1983 British edition with a green severed hand, a Spanish edition titled La Mano with a severed hand reaching through a window, and two editions titled The Hand, one with a cover depicting a shadowy figure with the words "the hand" in place of his actual hand and the other with a cover that just uses the artwork from the movie poster. Also, there's a cover for the German edition currently on ISFDB with completely different artwork, [30]. Anyone who owns any of these reprints should add their info to ISFDB. --Username 11:03, 17 February 2021 (EST)

I added the German edition in the database quite recently - triggered by the review of the title - and found no hard information on the original first publication (so I just varianted it to the English title). We seem to have more solid informational sources about science fiction & 'hard' fantasy, the older titles more on the slipstream side are still missing to an unknown proportion (well, hopefully it's not too high).

The other German cover image is for a pb edition that still has to be added. Stonecreek 11:28, 17 February 2021 (EST)

On archive.org there's a copy of the original edition I just entered (with no jacket) but there's also this, [31], which is interesting because it has the poster art on the cover AND the "hand made out of words" illustration I mentioned above, a few pages into the book. --Username 15:35, 17 February 2021 (EST)

I've got this one somewhere. AlainLeBris 07:41, 20 February 2021 (EST)

Debora Geary vs. Audrey Faye

Debora Geary published A Modern Witch, a series of popular urban fantasies, in 2011-2013. She then removed all of them from Amazon and restarted her career as Audrey Faye. I'm currently in the process of adding the missing Audrey Faye books. I expect that I will wrap it up tomorrow morning, at which point the number of "Audrey Faye" records will significantly exceed the number of "Debora Geary" records. Based on Template:AuthorFields:CanonicalName, which says "For authors who publish under multiple names, the canonical name is the most recognized name for that author within the genre", I plan to make "Audrey Faye" the canonical name. Ahasuerus 23:45, 17 February 2021 (EST)

Done. Ahasuerus 09:16, 18 February 2021 (EST)

dgk goldberg

So this author died in 2005 and a tribute short story collection was published early in 2008, [32], that was not on ISFDB at all until recently when I added it. Details for this book are a mess, with the ISBN on back of archive.org copy linking to a P.K. Dick book online, reprint stories wrongly attributed, original stories that aren't, her name being written at least 3 different ways, etc. I've gotten most of it done but have a few questions for anyone more familiar with her work. Her story "The Forty-Third Moment of Death" claims to be original but while searching gothic.net for a different story which I didn't find I found mention of a story by her titled "The 43rd Moment of Death" which seems to have been published sometime in 2001, though links to the story itself aren't working. Another story, "Matyr's Music", said it's from gothic.net but I'm wondering if that's really the original story and info got mixed up (and also wonder if it's really supposed to be titled "Martyr's Music"). The other story that said it's original, "Another Vietnam Story", may be since I don't see any other mention of it anywhere. Also, "Catchfence" supposedly was published in Tooth and Claw, Volume Two, one of those Lone Wolf Publications on CD-ROM that were so popular back in the late 90s/early 2000s, but I can't find anyplace that verifies it was actually published. It says "coming soon" on Lone Wolf's archived site but nothing after that. Publication notes in books are often wrong, so if anyone knows more, let me know, or tell me if I entered previous info wrong. --Username 15:40, 18 February 2021 (EST)

I found this, [33], on archive.org. I was right, it is "Martyr's Music" and it was actually published in Extremes 5, another one of those Lone Wolf CD-ROM things, not on ISFDB except the cover art in a Keith Minnion art collection. Some interesting stuff in that bibliography, so I'll leave it here for anyone who might be interested in adding or correcting anything in Goldberg's record. You'd think they would've tried to do an accurate job considering the book was supposed to be a tribute to her. --Username 17:01, 18 February 2021 (EST)

Ruskin Bond

Was looking for his story "Gone Fishing" and found it wasn't originally from his 2016 anthology The Empty House as ISFDB says but his 2007 anthology Shudders in the Dark. He seems to have edited a lot of anthologies in India with some rare contents, none of which are on ISFDB. I've seen copyright pages saying fourth printing and 2 covers for Shudders in the Dark, so I'm guessing there's a lot of confusing variants. Anyone familiar with him may want to enter some of those books if they own any. --Username 15:14, 19 February 2021 (EST)

looking for the title of a SF book

Hello, I'm French, so sorry for my English. A few years ago I read SF book I liked very much. I'd like to read it again but I don't remember the title. I'm reading now "Children of Iime" by Adrian Tchaikowski. The book I'd like to read again seems to me like a sequel of "Children of time" but it's not "Children of ruin". "Children of time" tells how a spider community was created starting from little earth-spiders . When the book I'm looking for begins, this spider community already exists. It must hibernate every year to protect from the cold. On the moon of its planet, a human vessel is hiding. The human need the help of the spider society to fix their vessel but they must wait that the spider society reach a sufficient technical level by itself to be able to do it. The book tells this story. How the human must wait, hidden, not to interfere. How the spider society grows and the links between the two societies. The book ends well. When I look at the books of Adrian Tchaikowski, it seems to me he's not the author of the book I'm looking for but I may be wrong. Could you help me to find the title and the author of the book I'm looking for ? Thank you very much. Jean-Marie —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Adrian (talk • contribs) .

Ray Russell

The last 2 stories on his page, [34], are not by the American Russell who died in 1999 but by the British R. B. Russell, who seems to have used his full name Ray Russell for some of his works. "Mathilde" is by "R. B. Russell" in Delicate Toxins per the copy on picclick.com and was reprinted in 1 of his R. B. Russell collections, Leave Your Sleep, but ISFDB has it as by Ray Russell in the Delicate Toxins record. "Company" I'm not sure about since I haven't seen the issue of Supernatural Tales where it appears and neither have I seen the issue of All Hallows where the Rhys review appears, so how his name was written in those is unknown and neither appear on the R. B. Russell record. Everything else on Ray Russell's record looks to actually be by him (there's a 2005 short story but that's just old Marvin Kaye publishing trunk stories again). --Username 11:04, 20 February 2021 (EST)

Midnight House

I did a huge cleanup for this late 90s/early-mid 2000s publisher and it was tough. The books themselves have a huge ISBN problem, with some being written incorrectly causing a bad checksum when they're entered on ISFDB and others being used multiple times for different books or being different on the cover than they are on the copyright page. Allen Koszowski's artist credit is spelled "Alan" in several books and Fantlab identified 1 cover as being the same as Koszowski did for a 1980s magazine, and I'm sure others are, too. Introductions have titles not listed on the contents page and only on the intro page itself. Problem is much info can only truly be verified by people who own copies of these books. Verifying if titles at head of stories match titles on contents page, entering missing introduction titles for several books, etc. There was also 1 book that was published long after the others, Joseph Payne Brennan's The Feaster from Afar, that was never entered here so I added it using Fantlab's copy for info since Fantlab has info for most (all?) Midnight House books, but that book didn't even bother using page #'s for the contents page and just listed the stories from #1 to #24! Then there's the matter of some of the info on Fantlab being wrong like using the wrong subtitle for Brennan's book even though the cover with the correct title is right there. Now add the fact that whoever entered these Midnight House books to ISFDB seem to have been legion, because almost every book was missing something different, whether price, cover image, cover artist, ISBN, page #'s, contents for story collections, amount of copies, etc. not to mention info that was wrong and had to be fixed. Richarddalbyslibrary.com also has copies of some of these books but finding them is hard because some don't show up when you enter title in their search box but if you enter title and website name on Google they show up. So I did some good work, but there's much I can't add or verify without actual books. So anyone who owns 1 of these rare volumes may want to add or verify what they can and leave a note here about it, and feel free to fix anything I might have done wrong. On a related note, Fritz Leiber's Midnight House books are some of the few reprinted in later editions, but the year for The Black Gondolier & Other Stories was entered incorrectly as 2001-06-00 even though the book itself clearly says 2000. I fixed it but Leiber's books are also some of the few Midnight House books on ISFDB with a PV, so I wrote a note to moderator and he said another moderator fixed the year to 2000 a long time ago, but if that's the case why didn't the record reflect that? Maybe I'm just missing something. Also, the title for Black Gondolier was varianted for later editions because they replaced "&" with "and" but a quick check seems to dispute that, so if anyone wants to take a look at that. I see that John Pelan used Midnight House for horror and Darkside Press for sci-fi, and 1 of the ISBNs I entered for a Midnight House book said it was already on file because it was used for a Darkside book! So now I'm going to do what I can with Darkside titles. Once more into the breach... --Username 16:57, 21 February 2021 (EST)

Was checking a book published by Silver Salamander and saw a note that the ISBN was the same as a later F. Leiber collection and realized Silver Salamander was run by John Pelan before he created Midnight House and Darkside Press! So now I've done what I can to clean up that publisher's books, too. --Username 09:55, 23 February 2021 (EST)

The Maze

One of my early edits on ISFDB was adding a note to the Maurice Sandoz title The Maze saying it was made into a film in 1953 (WITH A FROG MONSTER AT THE END!) So today I was looking on richarddalbyslibrary.com for an Alfred Hitchcock paperback anthology and somehow stumbled across a British edition of The Maze that was apparently published in 1953 to coincide with the movie! [35] Try to ignore the fact they misspelled his last name in the URL and twice on the page itself and marvel at the beauty of the many photos from the book. Does anyone own a copy? I have a feeling entering it on ISFDB would require a lot of very minute details about illustrations, page #'s, etc. you can't really glean from a few pages of the book. Great if someone can do that, but if not it's still nice to know it exists. What I'd really like to know is if there are any stills of THE FROG MONSTER in this edition! --Username 21:24, 21 February 2021 (EST)

More info has come to light. First, not only did they misspell his name 3 times but they misspelled the name of the publisher. Turns out it's GUILFORD and ISFDB has 2 books by them, both also by Maurice Sandoz and both also previously published by Doubleday, and NONE of which have any covers on ISFDB! Also, Fantlab has a copy of the Doubleday edition of The Maze with even more pictures, [36], including a photo of the illustrator, SALVADOR DALI, and what looks to me like a drawing of A FROG MONSTER peeking out from behind a door! There's a few odd things; a page seems to have been printed upside down in the copy on Fantlab, and the copyright page says 1945 while the Dalby copy says 1953 but Dalby seems to have used a photo of the 1945 edition's cover! Their description of the book doesn't seem to match up (that doesn't look like "navel blue" cloth to me), so who knows what the 1953 edition's cover actually looked like. Whoever tackles this mess is a brave person. I'm still hoping they used film stills for the 1953 edition so the wonderful FROG MONSTER costume can be seen in all its glory. --Username 18:19, 25 February 2021 (EST)

Now here's something odd. The first 2 photos on Fantlab are 2 different covers with the same illustration, the first being the Doubleday edition because you can see the letters "ay" at the bottom of the spine, but the next cover is the Guilford edition because you can see the letters "rd" at the bottom of the spine, but the cover itself says Doubleday Doran at the bottom! So maybe the cover on Dalby's site IS correct. I think I'll leave this book alone now and go have some cuisses de grenouilles. --Username 18:52, 25 February 2021 (EST)

1 last note to say that Fantlab has copies of Fantastic Memories and On the Verge, Sandoz' other fantasy books published in America and illustrated by Dali, with many photos so you can drool over them. I added covers and page #'s and Dali as the cover artist to the ISFDB records. --Username 19:28, 25 February 2021 (EST)

The Silver Web

I was adding several missing covers to The Silver Web issues and noticed the last issue had the same cover as a much later anthology, The Best of the Silver Web, [37], but no contents were ever entered for the anthology on ISFDB. ISFDB's date says 2008, Amazon says 2006, some sites say forthcoming, etc. Does anyone here own a copy? Even I can't dig up what stories were in it (or supposed to be in it). Man, between this book, Whispers and Shadows, Decadence, Horror: The Best of the Year 2007, Queen of the Country, etc., it seems Prime Books used to be a mess as a publisher, but that just gives me more to unearth, so God bless them. --Username 20:28, 22 February 2021 (EST)

Etchison

I added a 2014 collection by Dennis Etchison, [38], and there's 1 story I assumed was original, "The City of Dreadful Morn", but Fantlab says it's from 2003 while not saying where it's from. Typing story title on Google only gives Fantlab and Goodreads where someone listed the contents, so I'm thinking it was a story for a horror calendar or something because it only runs 4 pages and Fantlab describes it as a "micro story". Anyone who knows where it's from can add info and change date. --Username 19:06, 23 February 2021 (EST)

Written With My Left Hand

Fantlab's copy of this book provided page #'s for the original 1951 ed. and also revealed 2 stories have slight title differences. The photo of the contents page shows "Strange Disappearance..." without ISFDB's "The" and "Life and Death..." without ISFDB's "The". Anyone with a copy of this rare book who can check if titles at head of story include "THE"? If not, those titles should be changed on ISFDB; [39]. --Username 11:39, 24 February 2021 (EST)

I see from contents page in copy of 2014 Tartarus edition (which is not on ISFDB, just the 2002 edition) on richarddalbyslibrary.com that "Strange Disappearance" has "The" but "Life and Death" doesn't, so someone with a copy should check that, too. --Username 16:25, 24 February 2021 (EST)

The Alabaster Hand

I was adding page #'s to the Tandem edition, [40], and suddenly noticed the title story was misspelled as "The Alabster Hand"! Funnily enough, the only edition that spelled it correctly on ISFDB was the German one, as "Die Alabasterhand"! What likely happened was someone entered the contents for 1 edition and they were imported to other editions without someone checking to make sure they were correct. Never assume anything, even for well-known books like this one. I fixed the story title, so I think the contents are correct now. --Username 17:31, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Fehr

Added cover of 1973 Charterhouse ed. of Whitten's The Alchemist and noticed back flap had Terry Fehr as the one who did it so I added him, and discovered on ISFDB there's records for Terence Fehr, Terrence Fehr, Terrence M. Fehr, Terry Fehr, and Terry M. Fehr, all of them with art credits. Terrence M. Fehr is the only one with bio data, [41], so I guess that would be the parent, but there's no guarantee the names were really spelled that way on the actual books. So anyone with the books under any of those names can check and verify how the name is spelled and then start adding variants to the parent. --Username 00:01, 25 February 2021 (EST)

Pubs that repeatedly get rescheduled

The tp and ebook of the Gollancz UK editions of The New Horizons anthology are now showing on Amazon UK and gollancz.co.uk with another rescheduled pub date. As can be seen from the edit histories, these have been continually been pushed back since they were originally submitted back in 2019. (Which is weird, as there was a Hachette India pub of this in early 2019, so it's not like they're waiting on content to arrive, maybe some rights issue?)

Anyway, it seems crazy to me to have to keep checking and re-editing these pubs every couple of months. Are there any objections to giving them an 8888-00-00 pub date, plus an explanatory note, and only setting a real date if/when there's tangible evidence they actually came out? ErsatzCulture 11:54, 25 February 2021 (EST)

Well, then someone will need to fix them when they are actually published. At least this way they show up on the proper lists so we can quickly check them when the date is closer. I would rather put a special tag on them ("monitor date" for example) and just keep an eye on them every few weeks than set them to 8888-00-00 and forget them. Either way works... Annie 12:14, 25 February 2021 (EST)

Yeah, but trying to keep a "real" date means we might just keep re-editing and pushing it back forever more? At least this way, we'd have to do one edit to put them in 8888 limbo, and then one more if/when they actually come out?

Alternatively, could we perhaps not have some other magic year like 8888 and 0000 for this sort of repeatedly delayed pub (7777 maybe?). Other titles/pubs off the top of my head that might fall into this bucket include:

* Benjamin Rosenbaum's The Unraveling

* Charles Stross Invisible Sun

* Banks and Macleod's Culture non-fiction (?) book

Granted, I don't think the latter two have ever got close enough to a pub date to have been added to the database. These scheduled-and-then-repeatedly-delayed pubs are a different scenario to the LDV/Winds of Winter/Kingkiller vol 3/etc vapourware cases, which I suspect have never been tangible enough to be added (except for LDV) ErsatzCulture 12:37, 25 February 2021 (EST)

I think having a 7777-00-00 date that automatically populated a cleanup report would be helpful. It wouldn't get a ton of use, but it would make them easier to spot than wading through everything in 8888-00-00. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:12, 25 February 2021 (EST)

First, let me point out that adding 7777-00-00 as a "special" date would involve a significant amount of development work. There are all kinds of special clauses for handling 0000-00-00 and 8888-00-00 and they would all have to be modified.

Next, let me take a step back. What we are trying to find here is a way to label publication records so that they could be re-reviewed once their projected publication dates are in the past. Annie's idea -- using tags -- would work well for titles with one (or a few) pubs, but it would be less viable for reprints of popular titles which may have dozens of pubs.

How about we add a "Watch Future Date" button to the Publication page? It would only be displayed if the publication date is currently in the future AND the user is logged in. When clicked, it would add the publication ID to a new cleanup report. Unlike most other cleanup reports, the new report wouldn't be regenerated nightly. Instead it would display all "watched" publication records which are now in the past. Moderators would be able to remove publication records from this report once they confirm that they have been published. Ahasuerus 19:57, 25 February 2021 (EST)

We can go even lower effort than that - Notes template and report based on that. No new buttons, no issues as with the tags, no possibility for someone to decide that the button means that they somehow will have the book on a personal watch list (because they updated but cannot verify for example). Something like {{watchdate}}. Which may produce something like this: "The date of this publication had been rescheduled in the past and the currently displayed date may be incorrect". Annie 20:17, 25 February 2021 (EST)

That's a very good point. We already have cleanup reports which look for templates like "Tr", "Incomplete", "Narrator", etc, so it should be easy to implement. Ahasuerus 21:11, 25 February 2021 (EST)

The more I think about this idea, the more I like it. Any objections to adding "watchdate" as a new template and creating a cleanup report for it? Ahasuerus 20:00, 27 February 2021 (EST)

Without objection, so ordered. FR 1400 has been created. Ahasuerus 19:09, 1 March 2021 (EST)

Sounds good. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:05, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Outcome -- WatchDate template created

FR 1400 has been implemented. The new template, "WatchDate" currently expands to "Publication date is based on questionable pre-publication information and may be incorrect." The new cleanup report will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 14:20, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Brothers in Arms

This site, [42], shows the same ISBN for 1 of the Working Stiff editions as Brothers in Arms, [43]. Gauntlet edition of Working Stiff is not on ISFDB and I can't find a trace of Brothers in Arms photos online, so who knows if it belongs to both? There's at least 1 note I saw on ISFDB about a duplicated ISBN for Gauntlet, so maybe this is a problem for them. Now I'm having Silver Salamander/Midnight House/Darkside Press flashbacks, so I'll just leave it here. --Username 00:33, 26 February 2021 (EST)

Christmas Reunion

I was adding page #'s to original edition of Not Exactly Ghosts, [44], and noticed last story was titled "Christmas Re-union". Checking various sites I think it was published with the dash in reprints of the collection (and the Ghosts and Scholars anthology) and without in the American anthology Christmas Ghosts (even the British reprint on richarddalbyslibrary.com spells it without the dash). Problem is I can't locate a copy of the American 1947 Longmans edition to see if it was spelled with the dash in that book, too. If someone can verify that then the dash can be added to books that use it and Christmas Ghosts editions can use the variant without it. --Username 10:24, 26 February 2021 (EST)

Sir Andrew Caldecott

While fixing his collections I noticed 3 books in his record, [45], written long after he died, so it turns out they're by a completely different author. None are PV'd so someone can decide whether to just move them to "Andrew Caldecott" or also put a (I) after his name to differ from the older Caldecott or what have you. --Username 10:42, 26 February 2021 (EST)

Fixed. Thanks for finding. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:59, 26 February 2021 (EST)

L.T.C. Rolt

Why does the author's note in Sleep No More say "Two of the stories, 'The Cat Returns' and 'New Corner' originally appeared in Mystery Stories, and I have to thank the publishers, Messrs The World's Work, Ltd" if online sources say "The Mine" and "New Corner" were published there? Philsp is missing several issues' contents of this mag, so I'm wondering if "Cat..." was published there, too; ltcrolt.org.uk says in 1937 Rolt "Writes three ghost stories, The Mine, The Cat Returns and New Corner. Cat Returns and New Corner accepted for publication by Mystery Stories magazine", so I'm confused. Someone more familiar with Rolt's work should know the answer. --Username 02:19, 27 February 2021 (EST)

Charles Beaumont

I added page #'s to British paperback of his stories, The Edge, then saw earlier British paperback, Shadow Play, [46], had no page #'s or cover. I added cover from Amazon, but I can't find anywhere online that shows the inside of this book so I can enter the #'s. So anyone who owns this 1964 pb may want to enter that info from their copy. --Username 10:34, 27 February 2021 (EST)

Claw

[47]; shows a not-on-ISFDB edition with the revelation that it was originally just titled Claw. Later British editions added The, and American editions added Night of the. The Futura edition on ISFDB has no cover but online info shows it has the same cover and title as the Macdonald edition. --Username 11:11, 27 February 2021 (EST)

Publisher "Hard Case Crime" is actually a pub series (currently) from Titan Books?

Anyone know much about Hard Case Crime? That publisher page is pretty spartan in terms of not having any sort of note.

I came across this because Stephen King has a title "Later" coming out in a few formats in a couple of days. I was just about to submit it, based on data I've scraped from various UK sources, all of which say the publisher is Titan Books; here's the word straight from the horse's mouth.

As such, I was a bit surprised to see it already in the database, listed as from the aforementioned "Hard Case Crime" publisher. Titan Books claims this is a pub series of theirs.

Wikipedia has a page for it, but it seems a bit confused - it starts off by saying "Hard Case Crime is an American imprint..." - which I'd assume to mean a publisher in ISFDB parlance - but further on says:

> Between 2004 and 2010, Hard Case Crime was published through a collaboration between Ardai's company, Winterfall LLC, and Dorchester Publishing. Starting in 2011, Titan Books replaced Dorchester as publisher of the series.[10] Additionally, two volumes in the series, one reprinting a pair of early Lawrence Block novels, 69 Barrow Street and Strange Embrace, the other a collection of Lawrence Block short stories, Catch and Release, were published by Subterranean Press.

At the very least, the existing publisher entry should have some explanatory text similar to the above, but I wonder whether it should have a more thorough overhaul, ideally by someone who either understands the rules better than me and/or is more familiar with the history of this line? ErsatzCulture 18:28, 28 February 2021 (EST)

I agree the relationship between HCC, Dorchester and Titan needs some clarification, in particular the change from publisher to imprint. In this essay Charles Ardai goes into some detail about how Hard Case Crime came about first as a publisher in its own right; and some years later things have become a bit blurred with it's relationship to Dorchester and later Titan. Yes, it would help if things could be more clearly defined, and sorry I'm not able to offer anything more in the way of useful information. PeteYoung 23:16, 28 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks Pete. In the absence of any other opinions/insight, I've just submitted an edit to add the above URLs to the publisher page, and a brief note to say that Titan are publishing this line. At least that way, if anyone cares to revisit this in the future, they have some starting references to go with...

I will note that the ebook preview of the aforementioned Stephen King title has "A Hard Case Crime Novel" on the title page, but "Published by Titan Books" on the copyright page. Whether that means there should be a "Gallery / Saga Press" or "Gateway / Orion" style tweak to the publisher record(s?), I'll leave in someone else's hands. ErsatzCulture 18:06, 6 March 2021 (EST)

I will try to find a few of my older books from these - I am sure they were credited to a publisher "Hard Case Crime" but I need to remember where they are hiding... We may need a bigger discussion as this is not the only case where a publisher survives as a publication series/infprmal imprint later somewhere else (we tend to create these as imprints usually - the "A Hard Case Crime Novel" can imply either an imprint or a pub series, depending on how you want to read it. For example the Borzoi books which we have under Borzoi / Alfred A. Knopf say "A Borzoi Book" and have Knopf as a publisher and Borzoi used to be an imprint (although these days it is not listed as such on the publisher site. Although if you look at this pub series, the Borzoi books are also split... so same problem as with the Hard Case ones. Welcome to the fun of publishers' credits... Annie 18:24, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Small Deaths

Alison L. R. Davies' collection, [48], has a copy on richarddalbyslibrary.com which shows many photos of the book including the publication history, and it's a wonderful mess even by the usual low standard of such things, with wrong names and dates. However, some previous ISFDB editor entered the Champagne Shivers webzine where 1 story first appeared and provided a link to the archived site, which led me to discover another story on the same site, "Princess", so I provided a link to that, too, but there are a couple of other problems. 2 stories were published in the Dark Moon webzine but I don't know what the URL of that was so I can find it on archive.org. Secondly, there's a mention that 2 of the original stories in Small Deaths are due to appear in anthologies in 2003. Fresh Blood is mentioned many times on the web as 1 of the many books that got cancelled when 3F Publications went under, but I can't find a single mention anywhere about Fables of Euclid's Monkey, a CD-ROM supposedly coming from Hive Press. Hive have 2 books on ISFDB, so they were a real publisher, but the fact a search for that title brings up nothing bothers me. So does anyone know what the URL of a zine called Dark Moon from the early 2000's was, or know anything about that mysterious anthology? --Username 18:35, 28 February 2021 (EST)

Holy Jesus, after 5 months I've discovered the answer to my own question! Looking for something else, I stumbled across darkmoon.org.uk, the site where Ms. Davies' 2 stories were published, and added story links to ISFDB. Now if only I could find any info on that Hive anthology... --Username 23:40, 30 July 2021 (EDT)

Four For

PS Publishing's anthology Four for Fear has a good cover image on ISFDB showing the whole cover with all 4 authors, but when I was recently adding and fixing stuff for their other anthology Four for Fantasy, [49], I noticed whoever provided cover for that only used the front. Is there anyone who can find a good image of the whole cover with all 4 authors and replace the previous cover? --Username 20:01, 28 February 2021 (EST)

I uploaded cover myself recently. Thanks Username. You're welcome. --Username 10:28, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

Ann ?

I was adding photo and bio data to Ann Kennedy's record, [50], and turns out she's also Ann Vandermeer, [51]. So I'm adding alternate name to the Vandermeer record; I don't know if that will suffice. --Username 09:43, 1 March 2021 (EST)

Many thanks for that one! That should have been quite obvious to us, as she was born as Ann Kennedy. Stonecreek 10:59, 1 March 2021 (EST)

Joan Kahn

[52], who edited a bunch of anthologies from 1967-1987, was missing lots of covers on ISFDB. I added around a dozen, but some eluded me, specifically both British editions of Some Things Dark and Dangerous, both the American and British editions of Open at Your Own Risk (the coffin cover for the British edition, which is mistakenly called the American edition on lots of sites, shows a BCA at bottom of spine, which is Book Club Associates; I can't find any covers with H-H for Hamish Hamilton on the spine) and, most importantly to me, the British Coronet cover for Some Things Fierce & Fatal, which i found on a Tumblr site showing the cover (a creepy old lady standing at the top of a staircase) from a copy in MALTA, and which I'm sure will be rejected by the moderator. I also have a feeling some books are missing reprint editions, too. So anyone who can add to my additions, feel free. --Username 14:03, 1 March 2021 (EST)

As I suspected, the creepy Coronet cover from a bookshop in MALTA was rejected; ISFDB apparently doesn't accept any Tumblr images. All my other submitted covers seem to be in their places now, so again anyone who has covers for the few I failed to get or knows of any other editions (possibly with different covers) should add them. For God's sake someone upload that rejected cover so there's a place to see it besides MALTA! --Username 15:37, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Moorcock's Chinese Agent

Toxic published 4 books in 1999-2000, but a 5th book, [53], was never published according to moorcography.org. Amazon has a record for this edition but shows cover from an earlier reprint by a different publisher. Anyone have a galley copy of the Toxic edition of The Chinese Agent or something similar? Bookdepository.com has covers for Chinese Agent and Moorcock's Russian Intelligence, also by Toxic, but that edition isn't on ISFDB. I've learned never to believe something wasn't published in some form or another. --Username 10:23, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I'd also guess this one was not published. Stonecreek 12:50, 2 March 2021 (EST)

Dolly

Wow, look at this: [54]! 1 story by "Dolly" was reprinted in a Dark Shadows anthology in 1970 and again in a Richard Dalby anthology in 2017, but it seems (s)he published a collection in 1905 and this is on archive.org, [55]. I'll try to add it soon if no one else does. --Username 11:01, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I entered it and am awaiting approval. I'm sure someone will need to correct stuff, like the fact the cover is in color but the only usable cover online is from a reprint in black-and-white, the title and publisher are slightly different on cover vs. title page, the last story is upside-down, not being able to find the price, not being sure about story lengths because I didn't do a word count, etc. But it's there and it's rare, so yay. --Username 21:59, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Horrorstory

I entered a lot of info from my personal library recently, but I somehow overlooked my best purchase at The Strand bookstore in NYC many years ago, a sweet copy of Horrorstory: Volume Four (1990), [56], published by Underwood-Miller and collecting 3 Year's Best Horror Stories anthologies. It was a bit of work entering page #'s since contents were completely out of order on ISFDB, but after I finished I noticed that the book's contents pages had a few errors with wrong page #'s being assigned to a few stories, so I made a note explaining those discrepancies. There was a $150 limited edition, so I'd ask anyone who might have it to check their copy and see if the errors in the cheap edition are also in the expensive edition. Also, there was a Horrorstory: Volume Three and Horrorstory: Volume Five, but seems only Three had a limited edition. Was a limited edition not published for Five (the books were published backwards, so Five came out first in 1989) or has that edition just not been entered here? And were Volumes Two and One never published? My love of finding books to enter here that are not found anywhere else wants me to believe they were, but I'm guessing the previous volumes didn't sell well and the rest were scrapped. --Username 21:21, 2 March 2021 (EST)

I remembered that some time ago I stumbled across Horrorstory: Volume Five, [57], on archive.org, [58], and it says on copyright page that there's a signed edition, too, which would seem to answer my question above of whether there was a limited edition of this volume, but the odd thing is the limited editions of the other 2 volumes on ISFDB have higher ISBN #'s than the regular editions while this one has a lower #. So anyone who has Volume Five's signed edition should verify the ISBN and enter that on ISFDB. --Username 21:51, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Mindmares

Unlike all previous issues on ISFDB this issue, [59], has page #'s that go way past the total # of pages. Info was likely copied from another site without verifying. Anyone who has a copy of this issue should check why there's a discrepancy and change numbers if necessary. --Username 17:53, 4 March 2021 (EST)

Marjorie Bowen/Margaret Campbell?

I came across her novel The Fetch, [60], and found the price on archived Spectator site (but can't find a cover ANYWHERE), then found price for American edition (as The Spectral Bride) on archived NY Times site, but 1973 pb Sphere edition used the American title but calls the author Margaret Campbell and there's a Signet edition with same name and title but different cover and I see other books by Margaret Campbell that were by Marjorie Bowen and I realized this was not something I want to get into. So any Gothic fans out there who are familiar with this may want to do something with Bowen's record here to indicate some of her novels were reprinted as paperback Gothics using a different name. --Username 23:46, 4 March 2021 (EST)

Mondo Zombie

This anthology, [61], has a copy on archive.org so I entered the missing page #'s on ISFDB. However, the dates are a mess, since the title says 2006-06-00, the publication title says 2006-06-30, the cover says 2006-05-00, some of the original stories say 2006-00-00 while others say 2006-05-00, etc. There's no PV so whoever entered info just updated dates without fixing other dates, so whoever wants to fix it now, now you know. --Username 23:24, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Iniquities

I stumbled across the fact none of the 3 issues of this 90's mag, [62], had page #'s and I remembered a few years ago all 3 issues were uploaded to archive.org. They're still there so I painstakingly went through them and entered pages on ISFDB and included the interview from each issue since the previous editor only included fiction here. I assumed editor couldn't find the other info until I finished and checked philsp.com and saw all the info including page #'s and non-fiction completely entered, making my dive in the archive a waste of time. So anyone who wants to enter all the outdated reviews and other ephemera I didn't enter, it's all there. --Username 23:37, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Scapegoat-Novel-Sara-Davis

Does this seem like it's in the SF genre? https://www.amazon.com/Scapegoat-Novel-Sara-Davis/dp/0374181454/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= The various reviews via Google all say things like "Hallucinatory" and "the surreal lingering behind the mundane," and "a site with a dark power and secrets all its own", but nothing explicit enough for me to decide. Thanks. gzuckier 02:19, 8 March 2021 (EST)

Not definitive by any means, but no one so far on Goodreads has tagged it with anything suggesting SF. --MartyD 09:54, 8 March 2021 (EST)

There is nothing on the main page, but the full list of Goodreads "shelves" includes "alt-reality", "mistery-paranormal-horror" and "reality-is-not-what-it-seems". Nothing definitive, but it's been my experience that it's common for surrealism not to be tagged with explicit speculative fiction tags. Apparently readers who enjoy surrealism rarely think of it as a branch of "speculative fiction".

I would enter the book and add a note indicating that it's currently unknown whether the reported "surreal" events have a mundane explanation. Ahasuerus 10:08, 8 March 2021 (EST)

OK, sounds reasonable, thanks guys. gzuckier 15:18, 8 March 2021 (EST)

Main Page on the wiki

Our main wiki page this one contains links to Publishers/Magazines/Fanzines wiki pages which had not been maintained in years and the links there are to the wiki pages - which had been cleaning off from the server so the lists have a lot of dead links.

Should we either remove the two lines or replace them with the "Publisher Directory and Magazine Directory" links to the live DB (or create Wiki pages that lead to them)? Or alternatively, we need someone to do a LOT of updating on these 3 pages... Or at least add a note at the top explaining why we gave dead links and where the full list can be found...

Plus they teach editors how to create wiki pages for the 3 types - which we are trying to clean off - which a new editor would not know - so they may decide we do need a wiki for a new magazine they are adding... Annie 13:00, 8 March 2021 (EST)

I would move these links to Bibliographic Projects in Progress, then add some verbiage explaining their history and where to find automatically generated directories. In addition, we may want to clean up the Bibliographic Projects in Progress page: many projects listed as "Cleanup Projects not yet handled by cleanup scripts" have been actually completed or are currently handled by the nightly cleanup reports. Some outstanding projects need just a little bit of extra TLC before they can be completed, e.g. ISFDB:Non-SF Cleanup 2004. Ahasuerus 14:19, 8 March 2021 (EST)

I think that would be good to do (moving them to the projects page). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:28, 8 March 2021 (EST)

James Blish's The Quincunx of Time appears to be a novella

It seems we have wrong-title-typed this one: The German translation has at most 31,000 words, and in a quite normal English paperback the text takes less than 100 pages. Anybody against correcting the title type? Stonecreek 13:49, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Most likely a novella but some of these books have extremely small fonts in this era... Dirk has the book and is here daily - if he can get the book out and do a word count on a page, we can make sure :) If he does not have access to the book, [63] is owned by Ahasuerus, this one by Markwood and this one by Rtrace. All of them are around. So pick one or more of them and let's find out definitely instead of assuming. That's why we have the PVs listed, right? We should not be converting without discussing with at least one PV when we have that many active ones anyway... Annie 15:02, 9 March 2021 (EST)

I have consulted my verified Dell edition. There are roughly 300 words per page, sometimes less depending on the number of paragraphs and dialog lines. The text starts on page 15 and ends on page 128, but there is what amounts to 8 pages worth of blank space in the middle.

Based on the above, this novella contains 31,500 words or less. Ahasuerus 15:26, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Perfect. Thanks! Christian, go ahead and convert it then. Drop a note on the pages on all active verifiers, pointing them here and we are all set. Thanks for finding it! :) Annie 15:32, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Sure thing! That's why we, verifies, are here :-) Ahasuerus 16:18, 9 March 2021 (EST)

I can verify that the Arrow edition starts on page 15 for the story (foreword on page 9) and that 24, 25 and 26 are completely blank (between prologue and 'The Song of the Beep'). Page 106, before the epilogue, is blank too.--Dirk P Broer 07:47, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Deadly Friend

Added cover to this record for 1985 ed., [64]; it says formerly published as FRIEND but date is earlier than Friend, so someone copied wrong info off Amazon. Does anyone have copy of Deadly Friend with the correct date from copyright page (it was reprinted to coincide with the release of Wes Craven's 1986 film)? --Username 16:55, 10 March 2021 (EST)

The Abyss (Бездна) by Leonid Andreyev (Леонид Андреев)

Charles G. Waugh states that The Abyss is not fantastic horror. Several of the English translations of it have PVs: MagicKey, Dwarzel, Don Erikson, Dragoondelight, Willem H., Hauck, and Bluesman. What say any of you about it? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:35, 11 March 2021 (EST)

Well, it definitely is not fantastic horror but it may not even fall into horror properly while still being speculative - there is a set of subgenres around the decadent movement that cross in and out from the speculative and usually get classified into the horror even if they do not really fit there.

A young couple gets lost in the woods and meets 3 men who have designs on the girl and things get a bit weird from there - it is full of allegories and what's not and very mature language and imaginary but nothing remotely fantastical indeed (it used to be classified with the decadent movement in textbooks (as a precursor and early example) - probably still is for all I know). FantLab marks it as "realism" as well - which is the way to mark non-fantastical there; they don't even mark it as horror.

So it is definitely not fantastic horror BUT someone may make an argument of it being speculative anyway (so no need to mark as non-genre). I consider it non-genre personally... :)

The only active PV I am seeing is Willem so you may want to see if he had read it or can pull it and check it. Or someone should listen to the recording... Annie 12:57, 11 March 2021 (EST)

I added it to my do do list. I have seen several boxes of anthologies in the last weeks, most seem to be ok (a little black on the outside), but I have not yet cleaned any of them. --Willem 15:13, 11 March 2021 (EST)

Mayflower

[65]; I noticed previous editors weren't sure about titles, found out on Fantlab that 1st, 3rd, and 5th were spelled with number on cover but full word on title page so I changed those. However, 2nd has photos but not of title page, 4th has wrong photo of 5th title page, and 6th has no photos. Anyone who owns 2,4, or 6 should check and change title if necessary plus anywhere else in the record it uses number instead of word. --Username 18:51, 11 March 2021 (EST)

Mist

I added info to [66] and discovered 1 story title didn't match the original edition. "The Visit" is not here but a story called "Strange" is. Description of "Strange" online makes me believe they're the same story but I don't see any info anywhere about the change. Does anyone know for sure so the two titles can be linked on ISFDB? --Username 11:17, 13 March 2021 (EST)

The Mating

Been adding/fixing info for a lot of terrible "adult" books recently and this one, [67], is odd because there's no price entered on ISFDB; the ID seems to point to the price being $1.25 but cover on ISFDB has a big $1.75 sticker on it and an Amazon page I found has no price info on cover, just "Midwood". Anyone with an original cover without sticker, can you upload here and replace old cover and enter price info? --Username 12:09, 13 March 2021 (EST)

The attaching of a sticker does mean that it was applied after printing, and that can mean as well that it just was attached for a redistribution of a not-sold-out publication (like here), or one attached by a second-hand-dealer - and we don't count those as a new publication and wouldn't add an or base information for an entry on that. So, if you think the ID implies a price of $1.25, that'd be the one to add (but please add a note for the source of it to the publication). Stonecreek 13:34, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Looking closely at the image (the sticker, I mean) ;-) : it really seems to be the Canadian price. Stonecreek 13:39, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Author variants with missing/different language from their parent record

I have spent some time today looking at the internals of the author language field, after someone who shall remain nameless gave me a ticking off yesterday ;-)

Something I noticed largely by chance, is that there are nearly 1000 author records where a variant author's language doesn't match the parent. There are a few ambiguous cases - see note at the end of this item - but it looks like the majority are no-brainer cases due to initial vs full-name variants, mispelled or shortened given name etc. I don't see anything in the cleanup reports for this particular case, but would it be worth creating a report for them, to make it easy to find the low-hanging fruit?

Here's the query I'm using (which for a proper report would probably need to have the language ID turned into the actual language name, but that's easy enough):

   SELECT real_authors.author_id variant_id, real_authors.author_canonical, real_authors.author_language real_language, 
     variant_authors.author_id variant_id, variant_authors.author_canonical variant_name, 
     variant_authors.author_language variant_language
   FROM authors real_authors 
   LEFT OUTER JOIN pseudonyms p ON p.author_id = real_authors.author_id 
   LEFT OUTER JOIN authors variant_authors ON variant_authors.author_id = p.pseudonym
   WHERE (variant_authors.author_canonical IS NOT NULL AND variant_authors.author_language IS NULL and real_authors.author_language IS NOT NULL) 
     OR (variant_authors.author_language IS NOT NULL and real_authors.author_language IS NULL) 
     OR (variant_authors.author_language != real_authors.author_language)
   ORDER BY real_authors.author_canonical, variant_name;

It might be worth splitting off the checks for when both the parent and variant authors have language defined, but to different values, as these are probably not no-brainer fixes. An example is Jeffrey Lord, which has English set as the language, but seems to be a gestalt name used by French authors like Yves Bulteau and Yves Chéraqui. This particular one looks like a weird case, which maybe adds to the argument that such difference of value - as opposed to one value being missing - should be covered separately? (Another case might be multilingual authors who use different names for different languages, in which case maybe them having different language values is the correct way to handle them?) ErsatzCulture 12:42, 13 March 2021 (EST)

I am pretty sure that this report had been asked for and is waiting somewhere to be implemented. There are corner cases (authors using different names for different languages) but these to have notes on them to explain. Most of the discrepancies are clear cut and need fixing and are here based on inattention once authors are pseudonymed. :) Annie 15:07, 13 March 2021 (EST)

It sounds like the Author/Alternate Name Language Mismatches cleanup report. The report is currently empty, so I assume that all existing mismatches have been set to "ignore". Ahasuerus 17:03, 13 March 2021 (EST)

P. S. Checking the output of the query posted above and what the currently existing report finds, I see over 900 discrepancies. Let me review the code to see what's causing it... Ahasuerus 17:09, 13 March 2021 (EST)

OK, I see what's going on. The current version of the cleanup report skips author records without an assigned working language. I think I coded it that way back when we still had a lot of mismatches and I wanted to concentrate on the really bad stuff first. Let me update the logic real quick... Ahasuerus 17:19, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Is there any particular reason that report is only visible to moderators? ErsatzCulture 18:22, 13 March 2021 (EST)

I don't think so. Originally, cleanup reports were only accessible by moderators, in part because they were compiled in real time. Naturally, it put an additional load on the server and affected performance. Once all cleanup reports were moved to the nightly process, we started making them available to non-moderators. However, it's a manual process -- each cleanup report has to be explicitly added to a certain internal list.

In any event, I have created FR 1402, updated the report to include authors without a working language and made the report available to all editors. The data should become available tomorrow morning. Thanks for identifying the issue! Ahasuerus 19:37, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Salambo Forest

[68] and [69] are the same according to [70]. Unlike with the other relationship between Night of the Wolf and Moonglow which at least are both under Forest's name, these 2 are not linked at all. Spell is revised but should still be linked to original novel somehow, but how? --Username 22:43, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Well, we have some titles as by Salambo Forest, but only one as by Hytes. So Hytes should be made into a pseudonym of Forest (on the author level) and the Hytes title should be varianted to the existing Forest title (on the title level). Come on, just try it! Stonecreek 06:03, 14 March 2021 (EDT)

Hagberg

Sean Flannery,[71], is the same as this guy but not recognized as such on ISFDB: [72]. --Username 22:53, 14 March 2021 (EDT)

That's a simple fix: just make the existing entry for The Trinity Factor a variant under the real name, then variant the pseudonym to the real name. I've done that now. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:59, 15 March 2021 (EDT)

Allbeury

[73] seems wrong to me. 1 of the Mysterious Press editions has the cover from the British edition and has an ISBN on the cover which doesn't match any edition. I'm not familiar with this author but I think there's some confusion here. --Username 09:45, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

Dangerous Visions

I came across the luminist.org PDF of Robert Bloch's collection The Living Demons (Sphere edition) and used it to enter page #'s and a few other things here. 1 interesting thing is they have a PDF of the 1983 trade paperback of Dangerous Visions (even though it says 1967 on the download page, which is the original date). I didn't think much of it until I realized the only photos of the cover online seem to be this PDF and a copy on eBay. The 1983 tp of Again, Dangerous Visions is on Amazon and I added that cover here, but the link to the ISBN for Dangerous Visions brings up a totally different cover that's obviously for another edition (Amazon is the worst). So here's the link, [74], in case anyone knows how to upload that cover to the correct edition here. --Username 17:06, 16 March 2021 (EDT)

Missing Cover for Blood Rare

[75] had no price but that was easily found as it was reviewed in several 1963 newspapers.com pages. However, the cover seems hard to find, even though it was by a major publisher. Phillips wrote a bunch of other books which all seem to have covers easily available online, but this one can't be found anywhere by me. Does anyone know where to find a usable cover or own a copy of this book? --Username 10:59, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

Portuguese

Europress had a line of books in the 80's under the BolsoNoite label, and there are 15 of them on ISFDB. Only 1 had a cover, and I found another 1 by John Blackburn and added it. Then I realized most of them had covers on Amazon and added them, too. There are a few problems. The 1st book, A Casa do Terror, only has a cover on Goodreads, and the last, Um Tumulo Para Nicodemo, doesn't even have that, so those are still missing. Also, unlike most of the Amazon covers I added, Poltergeist has a big price sticker on it, and it's really dark and looks like it was photographed at the bottom of a well. So a better cover would be nice. Also, format is unknown, and the numbering seems off for a few of the books (the Blackburn I added had wrong # on ISFDB even though cover shows correct #). So to any amigos out there who may own copies of these books, do what you can to make these better. --Username 10:30, 19 March 2021 (EDT)

Redsine

Previous editors entered Jeffrey & Scott Thomas' stories for Redsine's online issue #6 for both issues 5 and 6 on ISFDB, probably because the archived Redsine site is an unbelievable mess with dead pages and mismatching dates. Turns out from checking the archives that 5 had Geoffrey Maloney as the featured author but when you click http://www.redsine.com/archives/five/featured.html on archive.org you get 404 Not Found. Online info says he had 4 reprint stories in this issue, but no mention of their titles. Does anyone know what they are, or can dig through the rubble of Redsine on archive.org and find them? --Username 14:50, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

UFO Book

I was looking for something on archive.org and stumbled on a nutty UFO book published by Pinnacle in 1976 which has a first printing in 1974 under Zebra on ISFDB, [76], which allowed me to enter the missing month from the copyright page, but there's lots of info about original Italian edition and Grove Press edition in 1971, etc. so i thought I'd leave this here for anyone who has copies of any missing editions or who can find and enter info from online sources. I've discovered these UFO books are a tangled mess to work out how many editions there were and by which publishers so I'll leave it here for someone to pick up. --Username 21:20, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

Publication has been deleted. It is outside the scope of the ISFDB. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:56, 21 March 2021 (EDT)

Just curious why this is outside the scope but the many other non-fiction UFO books on ISFDB aren't. Also, the last editor to work on this book before me was named OSTRICHSACK, who hasn't had any contact with ISFDB for quite a while. COME BACK, OSTRICHSACK! --Username 11:04, 21 March 2021 (EDT)

Non-fiction UFO books are outside the scope of the ISFDB (the only exception would be if by a notable genre author). Many of these were introduced into the database in the early days due to being reviewed in genre magazines. We have since changed how we deal with those reviews (more details can be found here) and we are slowing cleaning them up. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:54, 21 March 2021 (EDT)

Audrey Rose

Someone goofed, I think, because info on ISFDB for Audrey Rose (NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY) has same info as For the Love of Audrey Rose by same publisher. I entered cover from Amazon for the sequel, but what's with the original? [77] --Username 21:32, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

I think that the two UK printings of the second one threw this one off (I added the earlier 1984 printing we were missing). Neither BL, nor OCLC knows about a NEL edition of the first one in the 80s. The only known editions are the Collins and the Pan Books from the 70s. I will do some more digging in case there was a reprint and will update it after that. Chances are that someone was adding from a pre-internet list and the book was just named with the series title on the list thus causing a confusion. Book that needs fixing: here. Annie 23:57, 21 March 2021 (EDT)

Sabre Press

Sabre Press. Looks like a number of genre reprints are only available from eBay from Sabre Press. I haven't been able to find anything about the company or their books. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Taweiss (talk • contribs) .

Possibly these guys? No Archive.org copy of their dead site though so who knows.

Two of the books (a 2019 and a 2021 one) are coming my way (they look interesting so may as well do it that way) so let's see what they look like and if there is something inside - address, email, anything and we will take it from there.

PS: Moving the link inside of the message because it is messing up with the history links on the page :) Annie 00:09, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

No info besides the publisher name and a logo on the title page (excuse my photographic skills). Here is one of them now in our DB. The seller immediately listed the same one again so either this is the publisher selling his stock or he just has a lot of them or something like that (but is listing them one by one). Annie 22:40, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

Possible minor bug, or maybe just invalid use: page numbers of contents in square parentheses

Just came across this pub of PKD's Beyond Lies the Wub collection. It has the page numbers for the 2 introductions given in square parentheses, which has the minor but annoying effect of having them intermixed with the "real" page numbers, rather than appearing first.

Is this a genuine way to record page numbers in the database (in which case it'd be nice to fix the contents ordering code accordingly, although this feels like the sort of thing that feels like it should be super-trivial, but has the potential not to be), or should such numbers be replaced by Roman numerals or some other more standards-compliant representation? ErsatzCulture 09:18, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Why would that be a bug? We use square brackets to indicate unnumbered pages, not to start a new set of contents so they are supposed to sort as if the brackets were not there. Using them here this way is ok technically but pipes should be used to sort the two ranges separately. Annie 09:33, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Ah, if square parens indicates a page which doesn't explicitly have a number, but which implicitly is numbered as the value in parens, that makes sense. ErsatzCulture 10:38, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

That's right. It's a widely used bibliographic convention, e.g. if you search for "square" on this MARC21 page, you will find statements like:

• Square brackets are used to indicate information that does not appear on the item being cataloged.
• ...any additions made should always be recorded in square brackets. This indicates that the information did not appear on the chief source of information.

etc. Ahasuerus 11:31, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

However, I'm >99% certain that wasn't the intent of the original submitter - the ebook I just cloned from that tp (and fixed the post-pipe numbering) definitely has the two introductions before the first story, and I can't believe that isn't how they appear in the tp. The tp pub has been PVed by an inactive editor, so I'm unwilling to make the presumption that the intro pages have Roman numeral numbering, but I'll add some post-pipe numbers so that at least both the intros appear first. ErsatzCulture 10:38, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Gah, I see someone beat me to it... ErsatzCulture 10:38, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Oh yes - it was not the intention :) When you have two ranges, you always need to do some piping.

Well, you point out to something broken, I fix it :) Annie 11:02, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Japan SF Newcomer Award (日本SF新人賞)

This award was given between 1999 and 2009, so eleven times. It was given out to new authors in the SF field in Japan by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan. Can we add it to the awards? I'll be happy to fill it in with the list of winners (and runners up, if I can find them). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:20, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

It looks like there is a winner (受賞作) each year, honorable mention(s) (佳作) some years (so we'd need to have a "not awarded" option for some years), and finalists (最終候補作). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:24, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

If they are given by the SFWJ for published works of SF, then I don't think there should be a problem. If there are no objections, I will create a new Award Type record tomorrow. Ahasuerus 12:52, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

Just marking up support :) Annie 13:03, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

That is indeed what they are given for. It's similar to the Campbell/Astounding Award. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:14, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

OK, the new Award Type has been created. It's currently bare bones -- please feel free to flesh it out and add any categories that may be needed. Thanks for working on it! Ahasuerus 13:48, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! I'll get to work on it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:17, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Okay, they are completely entered now. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:54, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! :-) Ahasuerus 22:24, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

National Geographic

There was 1 issue entered on ISFDB, July 1976, and it had no cover so I added it (a beautiful bald eagle to celebrate AMERICA'S bicentennial). However, the format is unknown. Does anyone know what it is and can change it? --Username 13:29, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Nope - non-genre magazines do not get covers unless they illustrate the genre contents or are from well known genre artist. See How to enter non Genre Magazines. So I had to reject your submission. Annie 13:32, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

LNDB.info is back

LNDB.info is back after being down for 9 months. It should help speed up the process of handling light novel records. Ahasuerus 13:50, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Starlog

What is the community opinion on the Starlog magazine being non-genre or not? It had a film focus instead of a written speculative fiction focus (though sometimes those intermixed). It is currently not marked a non-genre, but I believe many of these were entered we had the non-genre flag (though to be honest, I have not gone and double checked that). The reason I am asking is I am holding edits to add covers, but I believe these were left off intentionally due to the non-genre rules for magazines. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:37, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

It is definitely non-genre and we should treat it as such - fix the editors, remove non-connected covers, remove issues that have no contents that relates to us and so on... If it is genre, we catalog the full contents; if we only catalog ours, it is by definition non-genre. This issue is a perfect example on why it is non-genre.

PS: David McDonnell is one of our authors because of other work so his years will be "David McDonnell and Editors of Starlog" as editors. Annie 18:46, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

That is my thought. I will give it a day or two for discussion and unless there is a different conclusion, I will go through and clean these up. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:53, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Some of the older magazines are entered in semi-genre mode - Dragon Magazine was/is an even bigger mess. The main verifier there is slowly working on it (he requested to try on his own so I am just assisting and monitoring). :) Annie 19:00, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Starlog has been converted to non-genre. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:50, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

"Number Ninety"

[78] by B. M. Croker was published in a British mag with a London setting and then reprinted in the U.S. with an American setting. The confusion about which publications used which version can be narrowed down because this copy of Ghosts For Christmas, https://archive.org/details/ghostsforchristm00rich, reveals the London setting was used for this anthology. That leaves Sarob's "Number Ninety" Croker collection which, logically, would also use the London setting, being a British publisher, but there's no PV for that book to verify. Seems the only one to use the American version was the American audio mag. However, it turns out Swan River Press reprinted Sarob's collection in August 2019 (not currently on ISFDB) and on this page, http://www.swanriverpress.ie/titles.html, it says "From the colonial nightmares such as “The Dak Bungalow at Dakor” and “The North Verandah” to the more familiar streets of haunted London in “Number Ninety”, so I think versions can be split now, with the original British being for all books and the American for the audio mag. --Username 02:30, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

Retitled MR James

[79] just retitled 5 of James' stories. 1 had a 1966 date because a paperback anthology used that title, and someone figured out "The Maze"'s true title, but the other 3 should be varianted by someone familiar with his stories who knows what the original titles are (there are other James stories on ISFDB with late dates but those are unpublished stories or excerpts, etc. that have a valid reason to have a late date). --Username 19:02, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

Same person?

Are these the same person and should 1 be made a variant: [80]? --Username 12:22, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

It's exceedingly likely that it's the same artist. All currently listed interior art titles illustrate the same 1889 Jules Verne novel, Famille-sans-nom aka Family Without a Name aka Die Familie ohne Namen. It's an obscure adventure novel with no SF elements. Ahasuerus 14:32, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

Sorting serials on author page and on novel page

Is there a way to get the serials to list in the correct order here (in the list of serializations before the list of publications) and here? The dates are all correct, though it looks like the parts were published in an odd order. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:32, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

They go by date so if the order of publication was like that, they show up like that. Why were they published out of order? :) Annie 18:38, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

No idea. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:11, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

From a Google Translate of the Amazon description of the novel: "The series of SF short stories ... has been revised and revised, and new episodes (a little) have been added to make it a single work. ,,, Initially, each story began to be written as an independent short story ... When making an e-book, I decided to rearrange the episodes in chronological order.". This seems to more of a fixup then a serialization. It might be best to treat it as a fixup. But if left as a serialization, I recommend adding title notes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:34, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

Black Death

Gwyneth Cravens and John S. Marr wrote [81] in 1977; the Ballantine PB was fully entered on ISFDB, but the original Dutton HC had no ISBN or cover or price or format or anything except pages which were copied from Worldcat, plus it had the wrong year. I added/corrected most of the info but the cover on Awful Amazon seems to be for one of the British editions, there being a HC and PB over there. However, finding verified info for those seems tough, not to mention a Google Image search brought up many foreign editions which all seem to have different covers; I've seen La morte nera (which seems to have 2 covers, 1 of which has a rat on the cover that looks like a BLUE TEDDY BEAR), La muerte negra, La peste a New York, A peste negra, etc. Anyone have any editions they can enter on ISFDB? --Username 16:03, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

A new cleanup report: Select Unverified Publications with 'First Printing' in Notes

As per FR 1405 and this discussion earlier this month, a new cleanup report, "Select Unverified Publications with 'First Printing' in Notes", has been created. It's currently limited to unverified publications which Stonecreek has added the words "first printing" to. Submissions with the words "assumed first printing" and "apparent first printing" in Notes are ignored. Moderators can "ignore" publication records.

The data, roughly 1,500 publication records, will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 23:11, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, I began working on it. Stonecreek 00:40, 29 March 2021 (EDT)

Duffy Stein

[82]; I added month and price to his Dell PB Ghost Child, then saw he had The Owlsfane Horror from Dell the year before, Out of the Shadows from Dell in 1984 and Through the Flames from Dell in 1986, none on ISFDB. Flames looks like it may be a disaster novel judging by the cover on Goodreads, but the other 2 look like genre books to me. Owlsfane is on archive.org so most info can be entered from that, but the other 2 are mysteries. I vaguely remember seeing/reading Owlsfane but I didn't get into horror until mid-late 80's so this 1981 novel may have had reprints. Anyone know why most of his books aren't on ISFDB and can anyone enter info from their copies? Also, a MYSTERY; copyright page for Owlsfane says Mel Burger, page for Ghost Child says Mel Berger, and page for Shadows says Mel Berger Enterprises, Inc. Searching for info online was fruitless. Who is he and how is his name actually spelled? --Username 12:30, 27 March 2021 (EDT)

WOW! There's a 1988 Dell novel which reveals his identity: [83]. I suppose Duffy Stein and Mike Stone should be linked, and those other novels if anyone enters them. I wonder if Berger published any novels under his own name? --Username 21:28, 27 March 2021 (EDT)

Elvisland

John Farris' 2004 collection from Babbage Press, [84], is rare, with only 2 copies on Worldcat. I ordered it from interlibrary loan a few years ago so it definitely exists, but I noticed it had no page #'s entered on ISFDB, and couldn't find anywhere online that shows the contents page so I could enter them. However, in searching I stumbled across the fact that it was reprinted under a different title in 2020, https://www.amazon.com/No-Sin-Unpunished-John-Farris-ebook/dp/B08G892JNN. So anyone with an Amazon account who can access the entire e-book may want to enter all the info on ISFDB; there's a few stories in there that are hard to find anywhere else. Also, if anyone owns the Babbage edition (HA!) it would be good to enter the page #'s, too. --Username 14:04, 27 March 2021 (EDT)

Hi

thanks to those involved with the upkeep of this service it is full-on. some would honestly just like to say hi, if it is at all possible i am impressed with the writing, the creativity, process and skill involved. please feel free to reach out —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hydracmyk (talk • contribs) .

You're welcome. Please see the message left on your talk page on how you can get involved if you wish. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:09, 28 March 2021 (EDT)

Creepy Crawly

Came across this, https://archive.org/details/creepycrawlybook0000unse, an anthology which has a Target edition on ISFDB, but this is a Wingate book and copyright page says it was published simultaneously by Universal-Tandem. Cover is different to Target's but has a nasty half-torn sticker on front cover and a weird sticker on back cover. Also, I figured the reason contents weren't entered is because they were not fiction, but it turns out many of them are with some already being on ISFDB. So if anyone has a better cover and wants to enter this, go ahead. --Username 12:32, 29 March 2021 (EDT)

URL-related yellow warnings

Please note that the software logic behind URL-related yellow warnings on post-submission pages has been enhanced. It now accounts for the fact that, in certain cases, we are only allow to link to some URLs within a domain. For example, when linking to "wp.com", we can only use URLs with the string "nitchevo.net" in the URL. From now on, wp.com URLs without this string will generate yellow warnings.

The internal settings for "wp.com" have been updated accordingly. Tomorrow morning the cleanup report which looks for disallowed URLs will find the 17-ish "wp.com" URLs which do not include "nitchevo.net". Ahasuerus 14:08, 30 March 2021 (EDT)

Reused Cover

[85] has same cover as 1 of the editions of Satyr Trek, but both are 1971 so don't know which is original. I leave it here for someone who might know so they can variant. --Username 11:34, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

Proposal: exclude more "generic" authors from the "Selected Forthcoming Books" section of the homepage

I've noticed a couple of times recently that the list of forthcoming books on the homepage includes books by "uncredited" - examples are Disney tie-ins such as this one.

I had a look at the relevant code - the algorithm that determines which forthcoming books/authors to highlight is to go through the upcoming titles/pubs, and to select those credited to the top 2% of authors, as ranked by number of author page views.

Pertinently, the code that determines the top 2% explicitly excludes the author "unknown", but it seems to me that this exclusion could and should be extended to other "generic" authors, a provisional list, based on author IDs excluded from some of the nightly reports, being:

• 'uncredited'
• 'various'
• 'The Readers'
• 'Anonymous'
• 'Traditional'
• 'The Editors'

although it looks like there are probably others that might be usefully added to that list.

I have submitted a ticket and patch to implement the additional filtering out of these generic authors], but Ahasuerus pointed out that this should go through discussion on this page first.

NB: there are other potential improvements to how the selection for this list is done e.g. having the list dominated by a particular author if a number of their books are reissued on the same day. I'd be supportive to any such improvements, but I'd be concerned that such tweaks would be more complicated, whereas excluding these "generic" authors feels a much simpler and more obvious fix, IMHO at least. ErsatzCulture 12:07, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

I do not mind in principle but that will kick out a lot of anthologies which hide under uncredited. If we are ok with that, I am fine with kicking out anything that does not have a proper author name. :) Annie 12:12, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

Perhaps 'exclude all uncredited, except if it's anthologies'? Otherwise I think it a good idea MagicUnk 15:57, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

One thing to keep in mind is that the nature of the "Top Forthcoming" list has changed over the years. The number of published books has skyrocketed while the number of slots on the front page has remained the same. We now have over 216,000 author records, which means that more than 4,000 authors are theoretically eligible for a front page spot. I would say that at this point it's not so much a list of the "most popular books to be released soon" as it is a "sample of the kinds of books that we list".

That said, it's certainly possible for some or even most of the books published by "uncredited", "various", etc not to be in the top 2% of of our most popular books for the specified time window, so I can go along with the proposed changed. I am not in favor of discriminating based on the publication type since it would add complexity without adding much value. Ahasuerus 18:05, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

Then let's kick out uncredited and the rest of the above listed ones. With 22 places on the list, I would rather see a proper big author than uncredited anthology (IF we decide to do new page with Forthcoming per type for example, THAT would be different). Annie 18:41, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

Outcome

We have something approximating consensus, so I have implemented the submitted change (give or take some technical tweaks documented on SourceForge.) No more "uncredited" pubs on the front page from now on! Ahasuerus 16:46, 6 April 2021 (EDT)

Missing British Koontz

[86]; was on bookscans.com and came across this, https://www.bookscans.com/Oddities/face_of_fear.htm. The 1st cover is not on ISFDB and can't be found by me anywhere else. While searching I found this, [87], which has another cover not on ISFDB and also can't be found by me anywhere else. Anyone own either Sphere edition of The Face of Fear? --Username 12:32, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

Wheatley series

[88]; 5 entries on this list had no covers, so I found 4 of them. The Greater TRUMPs is the only 1 that eluded me. I ask anyone who can upload a scan of that cover to do so so this series can finally be complete. Also, should 2 of those on the list be by Sphere Books? All the others are by Sphere. --Username 22:24, 2 April 2021 (EDT)

Kurt Singer first edition

https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/4685/kurt-singer-sleep-night?page=2 has a photo the same as on ISFDB, but Amazon has a page, https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Tales-Supernatural-Kurt-Singer/dp/B0000CN624, with a completely different cover from the same year. Which is the real first edition of [89]? --Username 12:32, 3 April 2021 (EDT)

Misspelled and ?wrong?

[90] misspells first name, and cover art is different from all others under his real name, Frederick Cantor. PV doesn't seem to be around much so I'll leave this here. Name needs fixing and probably doesn't belong on this edition, anyway, in which case it doesn't need fixing and can just be deleted. --Username 14:16, 3 April 2021 (EDT)

Possible Greenleaf genre book

I did a search for "Greenleaf Classics" on archive.org and exactly ONE book came up from that "adult" publisher, https://archive.org/details/lovering00best. Their copy has some GROSS stains on the inside cover; I don't want to know what they are. Judging by the illustration of the ring and the vaguely fantasy look of the cover I suspect it may have some genre content. There's almost no info online, just an Amazon page with no cover and a Catalog of Copyright Entries listing. Harold Bestwood, if that is his real name, has a few other "adult" books to his credit, including 1, Penny, which has a cover on Amazon with someone who looks like blaxploitation star Marilyn Joi. Anyone with an archive.org account who has the courage to read this and find out if it belongs on ISFDB? --Username 19:56, 3 April 2021 (EDT)

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Are there any objections if I remove the series name, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: " from the titles and publications in this series? There are a few without the series name, which is the standard, but most of them still have it. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 08:36, 4 April 2021 (EDT)

Hearing none, I'm going to proceed. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:36, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Monarch novelizations

[91]; I added missing date to 1 book and corrected date for another, but I'm wondering why the second book published has the highest ID #? Is this a known issue with Monarch? --Username 10:20, 4 April 2021 (EDT)

Way to support plays and screenplays in the software

I'm not the first, and I won't be the last, but I have entered a number of plays and screenplays on this site. So, might I suggest a separate category other than "short fiction"? This way they won't be confused with short stories, novellas, or even novels of the same names. MLB 18:18, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

Back when Roadmap 2017 was discussed, there was limited support for the addition of a new "script" type:

...for plays, even if there aren't that many of them, the difference between them and SHORTFICTION is so obvious that they need their own title type. --Vasha 00:52, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I would also like to see a separate title type for plays, but we will need to decide how to handle related cases first. For example, are movie scripts, TV scripts, etc separate types or are they all the same type? If they are the same, should we come up with a more generic term than "play"? Ahasuerus 02:51, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

"script" covers plays, audioplays, tv scripts, and even librettos I think. --Vasha 03:37, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

further discussed here. I count three editors who were in favor and one who was opposed because "plays are ... not frequent enough to warrant a new type". It's been 4 years, so we could certainly re-open the discussion on the Community Portal.

Oh, and before I forget, we'll need to decide whether we want a matching Publication Type. After all, not all Title Types have matching Publication Types, e.g. SHORTFICTION. Ahasuerus 20:11, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

I will support having PLAY/Script as both a publication and title type - which will mean a book of two of them will be an omnibus I guess... Some of them show up inside of anthologies; a lot more live on their own. Alternatively, add them as title type and put them into chapbooks (the way we deal with SERIALS for example); collections/anthologies if there is more than one of them. I kinda lean towards the later but either way works for me. Annie 22:05, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

According to this page:

• In a script, there are approximately 125 words of dialogue per minute. This estimate is based upon recent American films. The words of dialogue per minute might range from 50 to 200 within a script. Of course, it is possible to have no dialogue, making time estimates more difficult.

It then states that the word count range is 5,000-10,000 for a stage play and 7,500-20,000 for a movie script. It seems reasonable for movie scripts, but low for stage plays. For example, Shakespeare's plays range from 14,700 words to 30,600.

Another thing to keep in mind about plays and other scripts is that they have two types of word counts associated with them: spoken words and total words. The "total words" count includes spoken words as well as stage directions. Stage directions can vary from almost non-existent to very detailed, which can affect the total word count.

In any event, if Shakespeare's longest play (Hamlet, which takes around 4 hours to perform) is only 30K words, I think it's fair to say that plays and other types of scripts are more like works of short fiction than like novels. It would then seem logical to record their standalone appearances as CHAPBOOKs and collections of scripts as COLLECTIONS or ANTHOLOGIES. Ahasuerus 12:17, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Having CHAPBOOKS as a container makes a lot of sense to me (its definition could even be relaxed a bit to accommodate the -hypothetical(?)- script with 40.000+ words). I'm in favour of having a new 'script' title type (or whatever we end up calling it). MagicUnk 14:31, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

OK, I think we have a reasonable approximation of consensus. FR 1413 "Add support for plays and other scripts" has been created. Ahasuerus 15:20, 16 April 2021 (EDT)

Ways to support "excerpts" in the software

If we're considering implementation - what do we do with samplings - SHORTFICTION? ../Doug H 22:39, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

"samplings"? Aka excerpts? They can go in as any other excerpt - so SHORTFICTION I guess. I would actually love to have "excerpt" as a possible modifier for SHORTFICTION (as we have novella and so on) but that is a different topic I suspect. Annie 22:46, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

The 2017 discussion linked above also covered the issue of creating a separate title type or a "length" value for excerpts, but we were unable to reach consensus. Ahasuerus 12:06, 2 April 2021 (EDT)

Yep. I am just bringing it back into the discussion because it is somewhat related. Or I can split into a separate discussion if preferred... :) Annie 12:14, 2 April 2021 (EDT)

I can't find it, but I recall we've had a more recent discussion than 2017 on title type modifiers such as 'excerpt' - anyone much better than me in searching the wiki? MagicUnk 15:39, 2 April 2021 (EDT)

I "search" our wiki by opening the archive pages one by one and searching page by page. Surprisingly effective in getting you acquainted with the policies around here (And reminds you of unfinished jobs). I will search for it later today. :) Annie 15:58, 2 April 2021 (EDT)

Here's the discussion I was referring to: Title disambiguation - a software approach. It not only discusses disambiguation, but also 'excerpt' as title sub type (as opposed to title type). Play/script has to be a title type, like novel, short fiction, omnibus,..., and should be straightforward to implement. Excerpt is another beast altogether, being an excerpt of another work of fiction. Do we treat excerpt as a title type all of its own, or as a sub type of a novel, short fiction, play/script, or any other kind of work really? Treating excerpt as a sub type of SHORTFICTION, next to short story, novelette, novella doesn't feel right (although we are treating it as if it were). The longer I'm thinking about it, the more I'm convinced that 'excerpt' should be a separate title type (and not a sub-type). MagicUnk 10:09, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

I really do not see much of a difference between "short fiction, excerpt" and "excerpt" as a separate type. We do not use it for non-fiction (we use essay there) so all excerpts currently in the DB are fiction (plays are fiction; poems are also technically fiction as well - although we do not use excerpt there). Plus excerpts in magazines and anthologies are often treated as regular fiction anyway. Either way works though. Annie 14:18, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

Might be more a principle thing, but excerpt is not a length indicator as short story, novellette, novella are. So it doesn't belong in the sub type field. Having said that, we could use the sub type field for excerpt until such time it either gets implemented as its distinct title attribute, or as it's own title type. Regards, MagicUnk 14:26, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

There is that. The attribute on short fiction will be a lot less (development) work and won't require a full blown migration project (the existing entries will be still valid as they are, we would just not be able to precise them) but if the play/script from the other discussion gets added, adding excerpt at the same time as a separate type won't be too much additional work. And then we will need to deal with the cleanup (which should not be too hard (just time consuming) for the ones that have (excerpt) on their names; a lot harder to track the ones that do not. Annie 15:04, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

The big difference between the "separate title type for excerpts" approach and other approaches is that titles with the same title type are grouped together on Author pages. Is that desirable? Ahasuerus 18:24, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Excerpts are now grouped with the short fiction anyway. Even if it is an interim solution (until a full blown type is added), it will be better than what we have now (and once we have the format, we can just convert programmatically from SF->excerpt to excerpt). Long term - yes, splitting them on their own probably makes more sense. Unless we are looking at adding the new type in the next 6 months or less, I'd say to add the type under short fiction and then plan for the bigger update... Annie 19:15, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

The primary issue that I see with adding "excerpt" to the list of supported "Length" values is that the latter are only displayed on Title pages. Unless we create custom display logic for a whole bunch of pages, "Frankenstein (excerpt)" will be displayed as "Frankenstein", which will be misleading. (I should probably add that in the past I proposed displaying the "Length" value on Author and possibly other pages, but the proposal didn't garner enough support.) Ahasuerus 12:44, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

But we are not discussing changing the naming convention for excerpts (yet). It should be obvious that if it is a subtype of short fiction, the current naming should remain (or we will lose visibility). For excerpts without the attached (excerpt) nothing will change, their identification now is hard already - they will be better off because now only the notes specify what they are. If we are talking about dropping the naming convention, then yes, there are a lot of places where this will need to be taken into account. Annie 18:37, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Oh, I see. I didn't realize that removing "(excerpt)" from title names was not a part of the current proposal. Perhaps I am missing something then. What would be the advantage of adding a new "Length" value if excerpt titles continued to have "(excerpt)" embedded in them? Ahasuerus 19:54, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) Well, for me the discussion on excerpt -did- include removal from the title. Didn't consider the implications this would have on the display front :( What about adding new title types (as opposed to length sub types)? Would that have the same/similar repercussions on display pages? MagicUnk 15:39, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, for long term - I was really thinking about a fast and quick solution to allow us to start marking them up in a way that will be easy to move later (and to identify the ones that do not have (excerpt) easier). Thus the minimal changes :)

Separate types will mean separate sections on the author display pages. On series pages, they won't have [SF] but [E] (for example?) separating them as well. So if we are dropping the name distinction (which again is not mandatory if the excerpt has its own name), the new type is the only option really (but it will mean a lot of dev work). Annie 16:02, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Cover artist for David Case book

Was checking copies on picclick.com for info from Wolf Tracks (1980), [92], and noticed a big RSB signed at bottom of back cover. None of the later editions use the same artwork and none of the Belmont Tower cover artists identified on ISFDB match those initials, but there is a Ralph Brillhart who did a couple of covers for Belmont in the 60's. He has a long gap between 1970 and the early 80's, but the covers he did in the 80's were all for Del Rey/Ballantine. There's no info I can find online about this, so does anyone know more? --Username 18:53, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

Check out R. S. Brown. 1980s. Some have an R.S. Brown signature, but some have RSB. See First, You Fight (by knee) and, in particular Road War (lower left, by knife -- looks identical to the signature on the Wolf Tracks cover). --MartyD 15:55, 6 April 2021 (EDT)

Nice one! I've entered his name into the record, and just found another previously unknown cover by him, The Silverleaf Syndrome. --Username 20:26, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

Self-approval support

I am about to install a software patch which will add support for "self-approval only" editors. The software changes are difficult to fully test on the development server for technical reasons, so the probability of things going wrong is higher than usual. If you suddenly see errors, please report them here and I will fix them ASAP. Ahasuerus 15:41, 6 April 2021 (EDT)

The software has been changed. So far so good. Ahasuerus 15:49, 6 April 2021 (EDT)

Timescape and Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape

I just read Timescape and Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape, I think they should be linked. I made them a series in my database, perhaps they should be in a "Timescape Universe" here. I am seeking other opinions. The title note here contains the quote "thematic sequel". This is from a blurb on the publishers website here. The author calls it a "conceptual sequel" in the afterward. Each book is a story based on quantum physics understanding at the time. The characters and stories are totally different, so I know it is not like a traditional series. Thanks in advance for any replies. John Scifibones 12:10, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Since you've read them, and since the blurbs and publisher seem to think it's a sequel of sorts, I see no problem putting them into a series. I wouldn't number them, however, since the second is not a traditional sequel. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:23, 7 April 2021 (EDT)

Help:How to work with series says that title "series are linked by common characters, story lines or settings". It sounds like these two novels do not share these characteristics, so they do not constitute a "title series" as the term is currently defined.

The Note field of the Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape title record reads:

• Described as a "thematic sequel" to Benford's 1980 novel "Timescape". It's not clear whether it is set in the same universe.

I would update the second sentence with an explanation of the nature of the relationship between the two novels. Ahasuerus 12:53, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Mysterious (And Awesome) Art

[93]; added cover, loved the art, saw there's a signature on bottom, last 2 names seem to be "L. Cohen" but nothing on ISFDB seems to fit. Anyone know so awesome art can be credited properly? --Username 13:12, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

I believe it is by Alan E. Cober!--Rosab618 02:51, 15 May 2021 (EDT)

Merging Apex Magazine versions

Is there any objection to merging Apex Magazine and Apex Magazine (print issues)? If no objections, I will merge them early next week. Annie 14:10, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Seems like a good idea to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:59, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

One Footprint in the Sand

I added lots of info to William Kimber books some time ago and today I added a lot more. Most books are now complete, but a few remain elusive re: page #'s, price, etc. The only one that bothers me is this, [94]. I added wonderfully creepy cover off of abebooks.com because ISFDB-friendly sites only show front which misses continued art on back. The book's ISFDB page says data from Amazon.com but I can't find any mention of these stories on any Amazon page, and if I, USERNAME, can't find them you know they're hard to find. Also, the 2 stories entered in the record have page #'s; where did those come from? The worst part is the note listing the other stories in the book; not only does it make no sense to enter them there instead of the actual record, but many of them have common words misspelled and I suspect some of the uncommon words may not be correct, either. Edit history shows note was entered in 2018 so I doubt editor has any interest in fixing this, so I ask anyone who has a copy or knows where info can be found and entered to let me know here. --Username 22:39, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

The Black Magic Omnibus

The Bradbury Epilogue to this has nothing to with The Illustrated Man, it is a rant on the ending of the movie 'Rosemary's Baby'. As such, it should be labelled an essay. Horzel 19:20, 15 March 2021 (EDT)

Don is no longer active here. The reason this has "(The Illustrated Man)" is that it originally appeared in the The Illustrated Man as can be see at the title record. If listed as a short fiction piece, then it should not have the "(The Illustrated Man)" added. If listed as an essay, then we would add the "(The Illustrated Man)" per our standards for disambiguating common essay titles (like we do with "Introduction"). This title appears in many verified pubs so the best thing would be to open a ISFDB:Community Portal discussion regarding it. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:56, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

Above copied from User talk:Don Erikson.

All right, I'll do that. I repeat, the Bradbury Epilogue to The Black Magic Omnibus is an essay, and it's the last item in the anthology. It has nothing to do with The Illustrated Man. Therefore, it is a different item, and should not be called Epilogue (The Illustrated Man), but Epilogue (The Black Magic Omnibus). Thanks. Horzel 19:07, 9 April 2021 (EDT)

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your original statement. I see you are saying it is a different work than the one that appeared in The Illustrated Man. I compared the two books (via Internet Archive scans) and confirmed. I have separated out the two items. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! Horzel 10:48, 10 April 2021 (EDT)

Related Sonntag books

https://picclick.com/Old-Book-The-Ghost-Story-Treasury-Linda-Sonntag-161616891484.html; [95] didn't have covers for either book, so I added them, saw they were the same except for the title and the publisher's name at top of British edition, checked that Picclick link and it says first American edition so I varianted. Also, it says "The Ghost Train" on cover unlike ISFDB which drops "THE". Title page needed; anyone have one? --Username 10:38, 10 April 2021 (EDT)

Dark Skies

[96]; Dark Skies at top seems to be the same as non-genre Dark Skies at bottom. 1 probably needs to be deleted. --Username 19:21, 11 April 2021 (EDT)

You could have submitted the two required changes for it (either merge (to get the review to move to the other title) and then publication delete on the coverless duplicate or the move of the review and the publication delete (and then a title delete when these two are approved). Done now. Annie 01:27, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Yinhe award

I was going to verify a copy of Cixin Liu's The Wandering Earth and noticed that several stories are noted as award-winning but we have no record of the award. It is listed as the "China Galaxy Science Fiction Award" in the book although Locus refers to it as the Galaxy Award and Wikipedia has it under the Galaxy Award (China) and provides the Chinese names as well (Chinese: 银河奖; pinyin: Yínhé Jiǎng). Their source appears to be Clute's Science Fiction Encyclopedia which calls it the Yinhe award (and hence my subject/headline). I've never touched the awards section of ISFDB and so do not plan on creating / entering these, but thought someone else might be interested. A caution: the Wikipedia article provides English translations for the titles that do not match the names in The Wandering Earth or any other ISFDB publication and the Locus page does not provide Chinese titles. ../Doug H 16:21, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for the heads up! It certainly appears to be a legitimate award. If we have a volunteer who would be willing to sort out its categories and enter the data, I would be more than happy to create a new Award Type. Ahasuerus 17:09, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Mysterious Margaret Irwin story

I saw on Fantlab the photo of the acknowledgements in Madame Fears the Dark, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1089190, said 2 stories which are on ISFDB as original were actually published in magazines first. I found 1 site that verified 1 story's original appearance, but "The Earlier Service" says it's from Lovat Dickson's but Irwin's stories on philsp, http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/s/s4323.htm, have 2 stories from that mag, neither of which have the same title. However, both those titles sound like they could be the same, so I suspect a retitling, which was common in older books when they reprinted mag stories; problem is the acknowledgements mention that 1 of the non-genre stories was retitled, so why wouldn't it mention that about this one? Anyone know more? --Username 12:03, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Side note: I saw the philsp.com page said Irwin's book was published by A. D. Peters, not Chatto & Windus like it says here and elsewhere, so I checked Google and turns out Peters was an agent who represented many authors including Irwin. So someone was confused when they entered him as the publisher. --Username 12:13, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Commonwealth

This publisher which started in 1995 was sued out of existence by many authors who were screwed out of their money, and went bankrupt early in 1998. I've been doing my usual thing of finding rare info and discovered these crooks actually had a website, [97], in the misty early days of the internet, but suddenly near the end of 1997 they went dark and soon after came the dreaded "robots.txt". The amazing thing is they published a massive number of books in their short life, and many books on their archived site look genre-related, so I suspect we're missing a lot of books that should be on this site. So anyone with a book published by them that's not here or anyone who has a book already here who can fill in missing info, leave your responses here or just enter info yourselves. --Username 22:08, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Machen confusion

Fantlab has copy of 1894 edition of Machen's The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light. ISFDB has cover image for John Lane edition, which is the same illustration by Aubrey Beardsley as the Roberts edition, but he's not credited in the Lane record, only the Roberts record, which had no cover. I added Fantlab's Roberts cover but noticed it just says Great God Pan and doesn't say Inmost Light like the Lane cover does, but it does show both on the title page. So any Machen experts know if things will be right after my edits are approved? Other difference is title page for Lane (seen on Google Books) has them first followed by Roberts, while Fantlab's title page has Roberts first. They seem to have published simultaneously in England and America, right? --Username 10:03, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Uhnak's The Ledger

There's no PV for any edition on ISFDB, and online search reveals about a half-dozen different missing covers, but this one, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20083, is wrong because it has maple leaf on cover and higher Canadian price; I can't find American cover, so just bringing this to your attention in case someone can provide and replace. --Username 21:50, 17 April 2021 (EDT)

Artist found?

Elinore Blaisdell's 1947 anthology Tales of the Undead has no cover artist on ISFDB and didn't have a cover image until I added one from Fantlab recently. There's a note here discussing why artist wasn't added, but Photo 16 on Fantlab's page, https://fantlab.ru/edition220722, shows the spine with 3 initials on it. Whoever wrote that note or someone else may be able to identify the artist from that. --Username 19:47, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Unpublished Ramsey Campbell edition

I contacted Campbell via Twitter to ask him why no cover could be found online for the 1984 Pocket Books edition of his novel The Nameless, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?44505; he replied very quickly and said he thinks it was announced but never published, though it was published by Tor in America; there's a Locus verification so that's probably where it was announced. I've added Campbell's info to the record, but might there be anyone out there who owns a galley proof or something similar? If it was released in any form it's certainly rare. --Username 23:55, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Chizmar anthology

Stumbled across this, https://fantlab.ru/edition262911, which has a 2019 date but also a note saying April 2021, so it was delayed like many other Cemetery Dance titles. The Wiki page for Stephen King's "Man With a Belly" says it was reprinted in the 2017 book Killer Crimes, while www.bevvincent.com/links/uncollected-stephen-king-short-stories/ says 2020. So there's major confusion. Now that it seems it's really being published, I thought ISFDB community would like to know because King's story only appeared in 2 "adult" magazines in the late 1970's, so like my recent discussion about his other rare story "Squad D", this may be most people's first opportunity to read it. --Username 14:48, 19 April 2021 (EDT)

Site for finding pages

I don't know if this is well-known or not, but there's a site, https://www.ecampus.com/, which has contents with page numbers that aren't easy to find for a lot of books. A while back I remember entering the numbers for the contents of Taps and Sighs, a 2000 anthology edited by Peter Crowther, and just in the last few days I've entered the numbers for Barry Hoffman's 2006 Love Hurts, Billie Sue Mosiman's 2003 Dark Matters, and Tom Piccirilli's 2003 Mean Sheep. I don't know where they get the numbers from or if there's some other sites that list them also, but if there are I haven't seen them. --Username 11:08, 20 April 2021 (EDT)

Beaumont book info

Why does this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?131564, give Robert as an alternate name? Fantlab's copy of The Hunger, https://data.fantlab.ru/images/editions/small/151452, clearly shows it as Ronald, and this copy of the Intruder, picclick.com/The-Intruder-First-Edition-By-Charles-Beaumont-252241790498.html, does too. Also, there's much discussion in the note for The Hunger about how the date was verified as 1958-04-23, but date at top still says 1957. I may be wrong but I think someone erred. --Username 01:56, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

You should ask the PVs. SFJuggler is active. --MartyD 08:01, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

Brenchley price

The Hodder edition of Chaz Brenchley's Mall Time, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?319552, has no cover and only one I could find has a big yellow sticker on it and seems to be from an audio version, anyway. Also, Hodder is a British company but the book was reviewed in Publishers Weekly with a $24.99 price. Anyone have this edition to upload the cover and/or verify whether price is correct and if it's really in dollars and not pounds (maybe it has both)? --Username 09:29, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

Server stability issues - 2021-04-21

The ISFDB server has been unstable the last couple of hours, apparently due to a rogue robot trying to access all of our URLs. I am looking into it. Ahasuerus 16:15, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

Request for Quests

So something happened today that hasn't happened for a long time; my edits were completely cleared. I now have an empty edit field. Before I start filling it up again, I've mentioned a few times on different places at ISFDB recently that the info I've been entering tons of for the last few months like hardcover prices from their flaps and months of publication from paperback copyright pages and stuff like that has grown tiring and requires notes about minutiae that don't really interest me. When I started in December 2020 I mainly added covers and dug up rare books and other info from archive.org and elsewhere found almost nowhere else on the current web, or sometimes absolutely nowhere. I've still been adding hundreds of covers and digging up rare stuff here and there, but now that I'll be doing less of the minutiae I need to replace it with more of the good stuff. So I'm using this comment as a place where anyone can request something they've been looking for but can't find on ISFDB; book covers, author photos, story titles from collections or anthologies that have partial or empty contents, links to archived versions of websites you can't find online now, etc. As an example, I recently contacted famous author Ramsey Campbell via Twitter and asked him why a cover for the 1984 Pocket edition of his novel The Nameless can't be found and he replied almost immediately to let me know it was announced but never published, and Tor ended up releasing it. Or one of my proudest moments since I started here, contacting author Simon Clark and asking him for contents of his collection The Gravedigger's Tale and him quickly sending a photo of the contents page; as far as I'm aware, the ISFDB page for that book is the only place on the web that has the full contents. Those are the kind of challenges I'm looking for. I can't promise anything, but even if I don't come through one of the other thousands of people who visit this page may see your request and know the answer. Let's see how this goes. --Username 23:17, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

O.K., I'll bite. I've recently entered a couple of SFWA Forums. These went only to SFWA members, so aren't often on the market. The other day I entered SFWA Atrium #2. Are Fora and Atria the same magazine under different names? How did the Atria come about and how many issues were produced? Bob 12:19, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

I see they crossed out FORUM on the cover and wrote ATRIUM, which is strange. Typing SFWA-Atrium verbatim into Google brought up exactly 1 page, https://cthulhuwho1.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/2256_inventory_3.pdf, which has exactly 1 mention of Atrium from September 1982, which is earlier than the issue you entered. Also, I noticed you mistakenly entered the date as 1963 instead of 1983. Hope this helps, Bob. --Username 13:24, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

The 1983 was correct, thanks for noting that. I suspect Bloch had a letter in the first issue. Bob 15:22, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

Wow, some research! Here's what I found out since my last comment:

David Brin To Greg, Astrid, me Greg & Astrid, Bob Lumpkin sent me a query about the old SFWA Atrium, which you'll recall served as an interim publication when we rescued SFWA from the calamities that struck it in the early 80s, when Somtow lost all the membership records (blaming his cat) and similar cat-astrophes hit the publications, as well. Gavin Claypool and I - we had been putting out the SFWA Computer Users' Newsletter for those members who were pioneers at turning cyber - were tasked with laboriously rebuilding the membership rolls and creating a database by hand, which Augean labor we finished just in time to arrest a wave of resignations and refund demands. You and Astrid, as well, were centrally responsible for saving SFWA amid that crisis... and others to come. Alas, no one remembers except us.

Bob, I sent out ATRIUM out of my own pocket, to help keep things rolling till FORUM and BULLETIN could resume. Gosh I almost forgot all about this. Thanks much!

See the ATTACHED SCANS Bob just sent me.

Here's hoping you are all well.

Thrive & persevere,

David Brin

I'm glad to see you entered the info I provided, but you typed the date of the first SFWA Atrium as 1952 instead of 1982, Bob. --Username 01:16, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

On my to do list when the local university library re-opens, is going through their Icelandic and Slavic book collections. I did the Jules Verne books but realized there was a lot more that could be entered. Without knowing where you are located - is there a rare book collection housed near you? ../Doug H 13:30, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

https://www.nypl.org/locations/schwarzman/rare-books-division. Hope this helps, Doug. --Username 13:41, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

Possible Drake

Anyone think this, https://fantlab.ru/edition202687, qualifies to be on ISFDB? --Username 11:51, 25 April 2021 (EDT)

It looks like it belongs, based on looking through the images shown. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:51, 26 April 2021 (EDT)

Missing Norman Partridge story

This is an odd one; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?37337, which I made an edit for to add the page numbers from the only copy I could find which shows the contents page, https://picclick.com/Norman-Partridge-BAD-INTENTIONS-1996-SIGNED-Limited-Lettered-162023617701.html, doesn't list the story "Tyrannosaurus" in the contents, but reviews online mention it so it's in the book. When I need to quickly double-check things like this I often use readfrom.net; https://readfrom.net/norman-partridge/387920-bad_intentions.html agrees that the story's in there, but it places it next-to-last, unlike ISFDB which has it higher, and being the kind of site it is they just dump all the text without any page numbers. So after my edit is approved if anyone who owns a copy could check and add the number for the missing story and see if the numbers I entered are all in their correct place, that would be good. --Username 13:23, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

Slip cover differences

This is a hypothetical question as I don't have a real example, but I don't know that anyone has ever really looked.

Would a difference in slipcovers warrant a separate publication?

Given the high variability in exchange with the Canadian and USA dollars, the same book may be 'repriced' in Canada by changing the slipcover only. A second scenario is the inclusion of a Canadian price on the slipcover for Canadian sale, and none for the American copy. ../Doug H 15:15, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

Is this what you mean? Starship: Rebel John, Scifibones 18:28, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

It's an example of my concern - this single publication appears to have been bought in Canada and has no price and assumptions are made about what the US cover would have. The price is taken from elsewhere. My similar concern is that books I buy in Canada have a US price and a Canadian price. I don't know if the US edition has both prices or just an American one. IF it were true, would the Canadian edition be different, just because they put an extra price on the slip cover? ../Doug H 23:43, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

Where we are able to distinguish the editions somehow, there is precedent for making two records, one with Price in USD and the other with Price in CAD ("C$"). Where the cover is unchanged and lists both prices, that's typically based on a printing/manufacture statement of some sort. But if you had a case where the sole difference was the presentation of the pricing, and you could tie each presentation to a different market, having two records seems ok and would be following precedent. --MartyD 11:51, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

Increasing the number of Advanced Search rows from 6 to 10?

Would there be any objections to increasing the number of Advanced Search rows from 6 to 10? Ahasuerus 21:25, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

If somebody or something benefits from it: no objection from my side! Stonecreek 04:13, 28 April 2021 (EDT)

This will help me immensely, thank you Scifibones 07:20, 28 April 2021 (EDT)

I don't see any drawback. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:57, 28 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, folks! FR 1415 has been created. Ahasuerus 12:49, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

The FR has been implemented. You may need to do a full page reload (Control-F5 in most browsers) for everything to work correctly. Ahasuerus 14:45, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

I appreciate how fast you made this happen. John Scifibones 18:25, 4 May 2021 (EDT)

Sure thing! Ahasuerus 16:29, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

Publisher Problem

This, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?509396, is odd; I don't think the British publisher Smith, Elder waited 100 years to publish an issue of an American fantasy magazine, so editor error is likely. --Username 00:01, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! Indeed, this would be very unlikely; my guess is that it was caused by auto-correction. I inserted the canonical publisher for the magazine. Stonecreek 04:34, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

Whitley Strieber (Unpublished?) Collection

This, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?38817, seems to be either very rare or unpublished, except there's 1 review on Amazon with talk of the dust-jacket and an ISBN for two different editions inside their copy, so maybe review copies were released. Amazon page's ISBN doesn't match the one on ISFDB, so I added the cover the reviewer provided. Does anyone own an actual print copy of this book? It's unusual for a major author to have almost no info about one of their books. --Username 21:02, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

Tor.com article

Of possible interest to the "entities" (ahem ;-) here: https://www.tor.com/2021/04/30/the-single-best-bibliographical-resource-there-is-if-you-like-sff/

Given that (a) a (IMHO) surprising large number of people who post in SFF forums seem unaware of ISFDB, and (b) an equally surprising (IMHO) number of people seem to get all their SFnal news only from tor.com, I'd be curious if this prompts any short or medium term increase in web traffic, user signups, etc. Also, may be worth monitoring that thread over the next few days if it prompts any interesting user comments? ErsatzCulture 09:18, 30 April 2021 (EDT)

When the author posted a link to this article on Usenet, I followed the link and read the comments. A couple of them stood out:

• A way to report errors and omissions that doesn't require creating an account.
• A way to make name searches ignore punctuation, e.g. "n k jemisin” should find "N. K. Jemisin”

Ahasuerus 15:01, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

I love how they call the Dragon Award "comparatively obscure", given that it's handed out by the (arguably) largest science fiction convention in the world: Dragon Con. I guess they're still upset that Dragon Con created the award after the Sad Puppies kerfuffle. No, I'm not looking for an argument. I just found it humorous. (^_^) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:20, 30 April 2021 (EDT)

The recent (last 20ish years) increase in the number of genre awards presents interesting challenges. The ISFDB Statistics and Top Lists page links to a number of awards-based reports like this one or this one, but the scoring system assumes that all awards are equal. Based on anecdotal evidence, many of our users have fairly strong preferences which map onto certain awards. It would be nice to let our users assign user-specific "weights" to awards, effectively saying things like "Ignore horror awards" or "I value Locus nominations more than I value Nebula nominations", but it would take a fair amount of time to implement. Ahasuerus 15:17, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

Basically applying the "vote" to the award (like you can vote on titles), but making it hidden and specific to each user? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:12, 4 May 2021 (EDT)

Chances are that the most common use case for awards is "What are some good books/stories/authors to read?" The ISFDB Statistics and Top Lists page helps answer the question. When you go there, it lets you choose one of the "Authors/Editors Ranked by Awards and Nominations" reports or one of the "Titles Ranked by Awards and Nominations" reports. For example, Highest Ranked Novel Authors of the 2010s, Highest Ranked Short Fiction of All Time or Highest Ranked Titles published in 2020.

That's great if you find that -- as far as you are concerned -- all awards are created equal or at least that things average out across multiple awards. Alternatively, if you find that a particular award is a good match for your tastes in SF, you can go to that award's page, choose a category and find all awards and/or nominations, e.g. Award Category: Best Science Fiction Novel (Dragon Award).

However, if you want to have more choices than "all awards" or "a single award", we can't really help at this time. For example, if you don't care about horror/kidlit, you may want to see the Highest Ranked Novel Authors of the 2010s list with horror/kidlit awards excluded, which is currently impossible. Conversely, you can't limit the list to Australian awards, Canadian awards, etc.

The most straightforward way to facilitate these kinds of searches would be to create a "My Favorite Awards" page under My Preferences and a "Search Favorite Awards" page. A user would first assign "weights" -- using values like 0-10 or some such -- to awards on the "My Favorite Awards" page. Once saved, user-specific "weights" would be used to pre-populate the "Search Favorite Awards" page although users would be able to adjust the displayed weights before submitting search requests. The "Search Favorite Awards" page would also let you limit searches by year/decade, by title type, by title length, etc.

This was proposed ca. 2010, but Bill Longley, who was going to look into it, got sick and died a few years later. Ahasuerus 12:46, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

Doctor Who

I randomly found Jon Pertwee's (third Doctor Who) record and there was no info except his name so I added relevant info including an awesome blindingly white photo from an old magazine cover. I saw there wasn't even a record for the original Doctor Who, William Hartnell (shame!), so I checked Tom Baker; someone added an author photo which is a cover for his autobiography, but that same autobiography is in his record with a completely different picture of him on the front, so if anyone knows how many editions there were or owns any of them, there's more that can be entered on ISFDB. --Username 17:41, 30 April 2021 (EDT)

Nesvadba and Vampires Ltd.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?39772; added page numbers from Fantlab (no photo, they wrote them down, so not 100% sure if they're accurate since Fantlab is very unreliable when not just showing shots they scanned from actual books) but noticed other editor on ISFDB didn't enter all the contents since 3 stories were missing. I imported them but 1, The Half-Wit of Xeenemuende (Fantlab misspells it as Xenemuende but if you click the story link it's spelled properly), gives a warning since the date it was published under that title was 1986 while Vampires Ltd. was 1964; I'm not familiar with Czech literature or when and where it was first published in what language, so anyone familiar with his work can look at it and edit dates. --Username 18:49, 2 May 2021 (EDT)

Raw Edges

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?788145; I added/fixed info for this very rare book, but 1 thing bothers me; the date of 01-01-08. Some previous editor probably just copied that date off Amazon; I included a link in the notes section from a July 4th, 1908 publication where I found the price, so the book was likely published in June or earlier. Any antiquarians here who know or can find the month it was published? There's 1 copy on picclick.com which just says London 1908 on the copyright page. --Username 19:30, 2 May 2021 (EDT)

If the year is all we can find, the date should be 1908-00-00. Finding anything beyond the year is challenging for such old works. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:59, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

Secondary Verifications -- Links to Online Sources

As Ron reported yesterday, the URL of the Contento Index has changed from http://www.philsp.com/homeville/ISFAC/0start.htm to http://www.philsp.com/resources/ISFAC/0start.htm . I could easily update the link in the "Secondary Verifications" box on Publication pages like this one, but there is a larger issue here.

For off-line sources, "Secondary Verification" links take you to Wiki-based "Reference" pages like Reference:Reginald3 or Reference:BleilerSupernatural. Of the three online sources that we link to, "OCLC/WorldCat" takes you to Help:Using Worldcat data. Only "Contento1 (anth/coll)" and "Locus1" take you directly to the third party Web page currently hosting the source.

Should we change the Contento and Locus links to point to Reference:Contento1 and Reference:Locus1 respectively? (The latter could be profitably expanded regardless.) Ahasuerus 08:36, 4 May 2021 (EDT)

Without objection, so ordered. All "Sources" links in "Secondary Verification" boxes now point to their respective ISFDB Wiki pages. Reference:Locus1 has been updated. Ahasuerus 13:36, 6 May 2021 (EDT)

Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda

I just stumbled across this recent-ish pub, which has several differences to the details on sites like Amazon UK, B&N and the publisher's site:

• Entered format is tp, but all sources say hc, and this seems to be corroborated by a Tweeted photo of the book by one of the contributors
• Entered price is $24.95, listed price is $25.95
• Entered pub date is March 2nd, but actual pub date for this and the ebook seems to be March 9th. (Although it looks like it was originally submitted with a Feb date, and Titan seem to be very prone to rescheduling, so perhaps this isn't a big surprise.)

NB: the ISBN is the same, so it's not a case of two different pubs. Ordinarily I'd just submit an edit to change this, but it looks like at least half-a-dozen editors and moderators have worked on this record already, which makes me wonder if the details for this pub have changed over time, which might be worth explicitly mentioning in the note? Does anyone who's worked on this pub recall anything, or does Fixer maybe have some historical data for it? (NB: it wasn't a Fixer submission originally.) Unfortunately it's not one that I've picked up on my ad-hoc trawling of UK sites. ErsatzCulture 14:24, 4 May 2021 (EDT)

I have a copy of the hardcover, and it makes no mention of a trade paperback (though I imagine one will come out at some point). I've updated the entry per my copy. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:43, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

And now my edits have been undone. What's up with that, ErsatzCulture? The date given on the copyright page is "February 2021", so that's what we should have. You removed all of this information:

• Date per copyright page, stated "First hardback edition: February 2021"
• First printing per number line: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
• Additional prices per front dust jacket flap: CAN $34.95, UK £17.99
• Cover art by Andrew Robinson per back dust jacket flap
• Copyright page also state "Electronic edition ISBN: 9781789095692"

This is not acceptable. I've changed it back as I own a copy, and what's in the actual book trumps anything anyone tweets or what's on this or that website. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:52, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Comparing the date/time stamps, I see that ErsatzCulture's submission was created 3 minutes before Nihonjoe's changes and 4 minutes before the pub was primary-verified. The collision should have been caught at the time the submission was approved (26 hours after the submission was created) and the primary verifier should have been contacted. Ahasuerus 16:25, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for looking into the timestamps and saving me having to investigate in order to defend my honour :-) FWIW, I gave it just under a week from making the original comment on this Wiki page, and in the absence of any responses in that time, it seemed reasonable to make a fix edit based on all the evidence I could find, rather than risk leaving this to get forgotten. ErsatzCulture 16:49, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

That makes sense. Sorry if I seemed annoyed, but I got a notification that it had been changed and noticed almost everything I'd entered had been changed. I think the pages numbers were the only things not undone. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:45, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Hey, at least we get automated notifications these days! :) Ahasuerus 19:42, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Damon editions

https://www.amazon.in/DAMON-C-Terry-Cline-Jr/dp/0449227022; 1976 Fawcett Crest edition on ISFDB has a black cover with some text but this one has artwork, yet info about it online is scarce, and the Amazon page has ISBN and date of 1981 edition on ISFDB but same ID and price of 1976 edition on cover. So if anyone knows more about it, reply here. --Username 09:17, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

The Pack ISBN

https://picclick.com/The-Pack-By-David-Fisher-1976-Print-353349089223.html; I couldn't make out price of Ballantine edition on ISFDB cover so I checked picclick and got price and month also, but noticed ISBN is not only different than what's on ISFDB but it's 13 digits long, so I don't know if that means anything. --Username 09:47, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

The ISBN (ISBN-10) is 0-345-25756-1. The extra "-175" is the price ($1.75). The third sub-bullet of Help:Screen:EditPub#ISBN mentions this case. The equivalent ISBN-13 would be 978-0-345-25756-7. If you're referring to this record, it seems to be for a different edition. --MartyD 11:42, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

Number Five is Alive

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/seriesgrid.cgi?26818; this is interesting. https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/APR063500, which says #3 at top of page, clearly says No. 5 on the cover and Issue five in the description, but Issue 5 was only released as a PDF in 2009. This has a date of Spring 2006 which would put it before #3 (Fall 2006) chronologically. Also, Rowena Morrill didn't do any covers for this magazine series according to ISFDB. So is anyone familiar with the history of this magazine and knows what the story is? --Username 01:16, 6 May 2021 (EDT)

King Kong Confusion

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1852183; there's some disagreement as to what the title is, so I thought I'd mention it. Also, I found this: https://picclick.com/MY-SIDE-by-KING-KONG-by-Walter-Wager-124613344540.html. --Username 14:49, 7 May 2021 (EDT)

What's the title of this book?

Kind of a fairy tale about the Holocaust. Band of roving marauders subvert a village's stability by kidnapping young Jewish women using magical fruit as a drug. The non-Jewish members of the community are infected with anti-Semitism which didn't exist before. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blinkingrobotboy (talk • contribs) .

You might also try Abe Books Book Sleuth. They are very good at finding titles for people, and there are a lot more people there than here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:58, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

I was thinking of "The Gentleman of Cracow," by Isaac Bashevis Singer, but I don't think it is that. You might also try the group "What's the Name of that Book?!" on Goodreads.--Rosab618 15:09, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

Is it The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner?--Rosab618 20:15, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

James Taylor/Moffatt

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1082631; added cover, varianted to James Moffatt since he was the real author, but I can't tell from online info if this is really a novel or an expose of cults and whether it should be changed to nonfiction. Anyone read this? --Username 22:33, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Price Advice

I came across a record that had 15s. as the price so I fixed it to 15/-. I did an advanced search under publications and entered price as s. and got a half-dozen other prices that needed fixing so I did that, but there were also several Rs. for Indian items and a couple of Bs. and 1 ptas. which are for Spanish-language items. I don't know if the way those prices are written is correct so I'm mentioning it here in case anyone else knows if they need to be fixed, too. --Username 09:42, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

Potter

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?115667; PV note for Spectre thinks it's by famous artist J.K. Potter and it does look like his style, and Jeffrey is his first name, so are these 2 art credits by him and should they be connected here? A copy of the HC of Tales By Moonlight would be needed to see the "Flames" art since the Tor PB didn't include any art. --Username 13:25, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

Barth Chimera Editions

https://www.fedpo.com/BookDetail.php/Chimera; info about true 1st edition; ISFDB record, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?280261, has ISBN of limited edition but regular cover. I added cover image, page count, and page numbers to the original Fawcett PB, but I'm not sure what's to be done with this. --Username 00:57, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

A glaring omission

Why are there only three issues of Fangoria indexed on the database? For decades, it was the most prominent horror fan magazine in the world. They focused on movies, true, but they also reviewed a ton of books. Shouldn't these be indexed? --Rosab618 20:02, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

The same reason other things aren't in the system: none of the volunteers have had time to enter them yet. Also, Fangoria deals mostly with horror movies and TV shows, and less with books and other printed things, so we may not ever have all the issues. If you have access to the the missing issues, you're welcome to add anything that fits within our project scope criteria. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:03, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

If I add some, should I include the issue number in the title? Biomass Bob said that's messy.--Rosab618 20:10, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

Drate

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?63901; I remember that awesome 1990 cover from when I read this book back in the day; problem is the artist's name is also on a 1983 book with the same title here. The 1990 book is PV'd so I trust the info there more, and I think the artist info on the 1983 book is probably a mistake (although there is a note saying the cover credit came from Paperbacks From Hell; Paperbacks From Hell is on Google Books and they say Drate did the cover for the 1983 book, but I think that's wrong). Both books are on Google Books; the 1983 book gives no hits when I searched for DRATE but the 1990 book gives 1 hit. When I searched for ISBN in the 1983 book on Google Books it shows a piece of the back cover with the ISBN that's on ISFDB and a barcode with "195", which is the price on ISFDB ($1.95), but also gives 2 prices for other territories like UK paperbacks do, so I don't know what to say about that. Also, there's Spencer Drate & Stan Drate on ISFDB, which I believe are the same person as Stanley S. Drate since they all only have credits for cover art. Lots to chew on here. --Username 15:24, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

King's Pony

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?364268; I replaced old Knopf cover with another Amazon image that shows both the cover and an illustration of the pony; online info seems to agree that both editions run 68 pages, but prior editor here notes they app. 100 pages from the OCLC record. Should both editions be changed to 68 pages? Also, there's lots of photos of the Whitney edition's cover online but they don't look right to me because those aluminum covers never photograph well digitally. Can anyone find a close-up and clear image of the Whitney cover that can be added to the ISFDB record? --Username 01:58, 15 May 2021 (EDT)

Monster Mix (Up)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?597; I noticed Monster Mix was missing the cover artist for the 2nd printing so I added that, then noticed it's the only book with an American price. Someone probably saw Mayflower on Amazon and just copied that, forgetting that it's totally unreliable. I believe it's an American Dell book (it says DELL on the top left cover), and should be changed to that publisher here. Surprisingly, this book seems to have no online photos of title page so I can verify; maybe someone has a copy they can check? --Username 12:10, 16 May 2021 (EDT)

Enforcer

http://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/search/label/Enforcer; I added rare cover for Manor Books 1979 edition of Kill Deadline, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?618489; according to the link I provided Manor reprinted the Lancer books with new covers but none are on ISFDB; does anyone have any copies? The history of this series is insane; read reviews on Glorious Trash, they're very informative. --Username 18:58, 16 May 2021 (EDT)

Digit

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?265316; been fixing holes in Digit Books, adding covers, prices, etc. This one is odd; someone added cover with 4/- sticker over price, but there's a couple of images online (pinterest.com, bearalley.blogspot.com) which show 2/6 as the original price. Should ISFDB cover be replaced or does a stickered cover count as a variant? --Username 20:57, 16 May 2021 (EDT)

I've Seen a Ghost

Hello, British citizens. This, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?982809, was apparently only published in Great Britain. The HC has a cheap ghost on the cover and mentions famous people who tell their stories of seeing a ghost, but the Dragon PB actually has drawings of 4 of them. Now Vincent Price is recognizable to everyone on bottom right, and I believe Jon Pertwee (Who!) is top left since I added some info to his record recently and that looks like him. However, I suspect the other 2 are not familiar faces here in America, so does anyone know who they are? I added covers to both editions on ISFDB, and the HC lists 8 names, so that may help. Also, Amazon seems confused by this book, since there's a page for the PB with right cover but different publisher name and claims it's a HC, and another where I took cover from which says Dragon Books at head of page but says publisher is Carnival(?). There's no publisher named Carnival on ISFDB so I think anyone who has a print copy might have some info to add here. --Username 18:48, 17 May 2021 (EDT)

Schwarzenegger?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?638980; movie came out in 1986 so this 1982 printing has the wrong cover; problem is this tie-in cover is not on any of the dozens of other Running Man covers on ISFDB. Only other $3.95 Signet edition here is at the bottom of the list with a "date unknown" and a different Arnold S. picture on the cover. So who can clear this up? --Username 19:31, 19 May 2021 (EDT)

Done & corrected. Thanks for bringing this to our attention! Stonecreek 01:58, 21 May 2021 (EDT)

GAK

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?247973; GAK was a well-known artist with many credits on ISFDB, real name Glenn A. Klinger according to other editor here; there's a separate record for a Glenn A. Klinger. Same person or coincidence? --Username 13:34, 20 May 2021 (EDT)

Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf Publications released dozens of CD-only publications from around 2000 until 2004 or so. They're very rare limited editions (and probably won't even work on modern computers), and I've added/fixed a lot of info for them today, so I thought I'd share this with the community: https://web.archive.org/web/20040730040141fw_/http://www.dm.net/~bahwolf/lwp/circus-vardeman.pdf. It was the framing story for Lone Wolf's last (?) anthology, a double CD titled Carnival/Circus. robertevardeman.com was selling some of his short stories including this one but it's been suspended, cenotaphroad.com says it was on the iTunes store in 2008, and fantasticfiction.com has a cover but there's no Amazon link, so this ancient PDF may be the only way to read this novella anymore. If anyone reads it, let us know what you think! --Username 14:28, 20 May 2021 (EDT)

There's actually 2 PDF's on that archived site, and the other, "Original Child", is from one of Lone Wolf's earliest publications, Extremes. Here it is: https://web.archive.org/web/20031023192316/http://www.dm.net/~bahwolf/lwp/thrower.pdf. --Username 14:37, 20 May 2021 (EDT)

Dale Brown

I have all the first edition hardcovers of the Dale Brown series of near future techno-thrillers. Before I submit entries to the database, is there agreement that these are "in genre"? John Scifibones 16:36, 20 May 2021 (EDT)

Future? Check. Technology, so likely science fiction? Check. I'm good with them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:27, 21 May 2021 (EDT)

As long a they are not so close to now that they are indistinguishable from a standard thriller... From what I am seeing, the "Patrick McLanahan" series for example won't be eligible unless I am missing something that will make them eligible (based on the "Techno-thriller, political thriller and satire works set in a future indistinguishable from the present" exception). Annie 19:33, 21 May 2021 (EDT)

September or November?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?410693; someone added a note saying September but cover says November; seemed odd so I'm mentioning it here. --Username 23:21, 22 May 2021 (EDT)

Well, the note is for the third printing; the cover may be the one for the initial printing (and may have been unchanged for the following printings). If you want to know exactly what happened: please ask the editor who supplied the information, Linguist. Thanks, Stonecreek 00:25, 23 May 2021 (EDT)

Front page and Forthcoming Books pages -- format display changes

The way format codes -- hc, tp, pb, etc -- are displayed on the front page and on the Forthcoming Books page has been changed. They are now shown using their raw codes in conjunction with the standard mouse-over Help text. The only difference compared to other ISFDB pages is that the mouse-over Help text is displayed to the left of the format code, which helps avoid screen layout issues.

You may need to do a full page reload -- Control-F5 in most browsers -- for the new functionality to take effect. Please let me know if you encounter any problems. Ahasuerus 11:42, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

New cleanup report -- SHORTFICTION title records with "(Part" in the title field

A new cleanup report, SHORTFICTION title records with "(Part" in the title field, has been deployed. The data, roughly 300 title records, will become available tomorrow morning.

Many -- but not all -- of the identified SHORTFICTION title records will need to be converted to SERIALs. Moderators will be able to 'ignore' records. Ahasuerus 12:45, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

That will be useful. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:41, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

Glad to hear it will be useful :) Ahasuerus 20:39, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

Yellow warning for prices

A number of price-specific post-submission warnings have been added. Whenever a publication record with incorrectly formatted price value is added or edited, a yellow warning is displayed. The conditions which trigger these warnings are the same as the ones which make publication records appear on this cleanup report. Ahasuerus 20:38, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

'Series Names That May Need Disambiguation' enhanced

The cleanup report 'Series Names That May Need Disambiguation' has been enhanced to ignore similarly named series if one of them is the other's parent. Ahasuerus 22:02, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

Vincible

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?27638; I did some stuff for this recently and it just got approved, and after double-checking as I do to make sure I didn't miss anything I realized that the link I provided mentions they collected the first year's worth of comic strips; that would make this a collection, not a novel, right? --Username 13:37, 27 May 2021 (EDT)

Sullivan?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?12306; 3 short stories on this page, and 1 of them, "Mickey Mouse Olympics", sounded familiar, because it's actually by Thomas Sullivan, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?4555; for some reason they shortened his first name for some reprints, and those ended up on Tom Sullivan's page here; however, the other 2 stories are not on Thomas Sullivan's page, so who knows if those are by him or actually by the real Tom Sullivan. --Username 14:10, 27 May 2021 (EDT)

David Lewis - how to separate names & treat legal name change

Copied over from the Note to Moderators here:

"In looking at the entry concerning David Lewis on ISDB I found several issues that I think need some addressing. The most personal issue for me is that the works of two different "David Lewis" are included under the entry for "David Lewis" all attributed to one person. If there would be a way to separate the works by the two David Lewises into two entries, I think both of us would be obliged! The most easy way to do this would be to change the author attribution for my stories. That could be done by creating two different listings for "David Lewis." However the other solution would be to attribute the stories that belong to me to under my current author name following my legal name change to reflect my change of gender several decades ago. That way my small handful of stories could be attributed to "Dana Lewis.. I do not know how isfdb lists name changes [ Dana Lewis, formerly David Lewis"??] but it would be wonderful if my entry could be updated to reflect my new legal name, while at the same time solving the problem of the current overlapping "David Lewis" credits! My own titles are correctly listed except for the old name. They are Common Denominator, Karnev's World, Fit To Print, and Epoxy Goat in Analog magazine, and "Shausta" in If magazine.

Now that I am logged in, I have also attempted to correct some errors appearing in the list of stories by the famous Japanse SF writer and editor Yamano Koichi that have been translated into English by myself. I was the translator of the first version of Mr. Yamano's "Where Do The Birds Fly Now" in Something Else magazine. It was published without a translator credit, but is my (crude and sometimes inaccurate college days) translation. "Where Do The Birds Fly Now" was later published in the anthology Speculative Japan in 2007, as is correctly noted in the entry on Mr. Yamano. However, the Speculative Japan 2007 "Birds" is not a reprint of the Something Else translation, but a very heavily revised version by myself that I did specifically for Speculative Japan 2007.I t would be wonderful if there was a way to edit the entry about the "Birds"' publication in Speculative Japan to say something along the lines of: "Where Do the Birds Fly Now?"later appared in a new translation by Dana Lewis in Speculative Japan..." I apologize for this very long note, but it would be wonderful if the entry for my dear friend Mr. Yamano could be updated as described, and if the problem of the D. Lewis dopplegangers could be resolved. I would note that the Yamano entry itself omits a number of other Yamano books in Japanese. I belief the author of the entry understandably wished to highlight his most famous titles, and his last, which he wrote while battling cancer. When time permits, however, I will research and send IDSB a full title of his other anthologies that appeared before his final story, written while he was under treatment for the cancer that took his life much too soon. Thank you for your patience with this lenghty message! For clarification I can be reached at danalewis@mac.com. IDSB is an incredible resource to the SF&F community! Regarding the entry about Mr. Yamano's publications, there are also some works that are not listed. Mr Yamano's number of his wokrs that are not listed. The most important would be his first published antholology , published in 1971 by Hayakawa Shobo. The title of the anthology is "Tori wa Ima Doko o Tobu Ka" and contains the eponymous title story. His most famous story in Japan, "X-Densha de Iko" (Take the X-Train), was first published in SF Magazine (publisher Hayakawa Shobo) July 1964. In recent years there have been a number of new retrospective anthologies, but I unfortunately do not have them in my library and cannot provide titles and publication information at this time. Please forgive my nitpicking, but Mr. Yamano was a dear friend and I would like to see his publicaiton history more fully represented in the invaluable isfdb data base!" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SFKunoichi (talk • contribs) .

Let's try to address your questions and comments one by one:

• Differentiating between authors with identical names. Disambiguation is done by appending a roman numeral, so David Lewis, David Lewis (I), and so on. So separating out titles can be done by updating the title records by replacing the author's name with the correct disambiguated one, or even using a third, David Lewis (II), for example.
• Record authors following a legal name change. There are (I believe) three aspects to this:
  • The ISFDB records what's written on or in the book. This would mean that all of your works published under David Lewis have to be recorded as such. Any (re-) publication with your legal name, Dana Lewis, would be recorded under that name. Both the old and new names and titles will be linked by varianting (= the act of linking two different title records, one being a variant of the other, whether the difference is due to a different title or another author name doesn't matter). One author name will have to be the canonical author name, the other the alternate name. All author's works will be listed under the canonical author's name though.
  • The canonical name is the most recognized name for that author within the genre. This often boils down to the name with which the author has the most titles published. For details, see Help: Authordata Note that there may be community support for recording your current legal name as the canonical author name even though you wouldn't have (m)any titles published under that name. A discussion would have to be had, and a consensus reached to adapt the rules accordingly.
  • Legal name is recorded in the Legal name field of the author's record.
• Where Do the Birds Fly Now? question. I believe that is already addressed by your edit submissions - see also my comment on your talk page here. If not, do not hesitate to submit a correction, or provide further details in the title record's note field.
• Adding Yamano's other works: you can do yourself - give it a try I'd say, and if you don't know how, do not hesitate to post a question here or over at the help desk.

Hope this helps! Regards, MagicUnk 10:30, 28 May 2021 (EDT)

Sarah Simpson?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?915264; 1979 Puffin ed. had no cover artist so I got it from Fantlab's photo; surprisingly, she has no other credits on ISFDB. However, there's 1 person with the same name who wrote a novel in 2006. Highly unlikely a British illustrator wrote a novel by a POD American publisher more than 25 years later, but you can't assume anything. If anyone finds proof they're not the same person, (artist) can be added to illustrator's name to differentiate the two. --Username 13:22, 28 May 2021 (EDT)

Shiny Shatner

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?512; something I've done more often recently is replacing covers with full (front and back) covers if artwork is continued on the back, overly bright or ripped/stickered covers with clean, clear covers, etc. I've also added a lot of author images and replaced press photo or convention photos with ones that are more interesting/genre-related. So today I noticed William Shatner's page, 1 of the most important genre figures in recent history both in books and TV/films, had a totally dull press photo from Amazon on his page, and not even a good one, being too bright. I found another Amazon image that not only is perfectly clear but is one of his most iconic scenes ever (the "KHAN!" scene from Star Trek II), and included it in an edit as being more appropriate. However, it was rejected as "not more alppropriate" (moderator's misspelling, not mine). So does anyone care what images are used on authors' pages or should I not waste my time replacing them anymore? This happened a few times before; I tried adding an image to Jeffrey Combs' page and was told it couldn't be used because it was an image from a movie (Re-Animator) so moderator replaced it with a convention photo, and I tried adding Sigourney Weaver but it was rejected with "Guess", which I think implied it couldn't be used because it was the famous scene at the end of Alien where she ejects the alien while in her underwear and apparently that's considered offensive, so moderator replaced it with a photo of her at the Oscars or something. Is there an ISFDB rule that images from movies/cheesecake images can't be used, or is it just based on what individual moderators think is OK? I ask because many other author images I've added have been accepted even though they were movie or cheesecake-related. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if editors would at least choose a press/convention/awards photo that looked good and had some genre content in it (see image I added of George Lucas as an example). --Username 15:24, 28 May 2021 (EDT)

John Russell Russell

This slightly odd looking author name is currently showing on the homepage in the "Died on this day" section. (I've a vague recollection of spotting it this time last year, but never following up.) None of the four external links make any reference to this author having two "Russell"s in their name.

It looks like the source for this name might be this Project Gutenberg file, but - not being familiar with how Project Gutenberg formats things - the "John Russell Russell" name only appears in the header and footer that they've added (monospaced text on that page), not in the actual scanned text (that appears in serif) - probably because the original publication was anonymous.

It looks like that name in turn is a mangling/merging of his actual name (John Russell) and his aristocratic title (Earl Russell), but I'm definitely not an expert on the weirdnesses of the titles of the British aristocracy. That can be seen in the main heading of this Project Gutenberg page.

Is there any policy that what appears to be a mis-scanning/data entry issue at Project Gutenburg should dictate author names recorded here? (Possibly a question better posed on the Rules & Standards page?) Would there be any objection to changing this author to either "John Russell" or "Earl Russell", and if not, any preference for which one? ErsatzCulture 18:18, 28 May 2021 (EDT)

He's listed in Reginald1 as "RUSSELL, JOHN RUSSELL, 1st Earl, 1792-1878, supposed author". If we re-order the names that could be read as John Russell, 1st Earl Russell. I think "John Russell" is probably most appropriate. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 19:01, 28 May 2021 (EDT)

Allen Drury's Advise and Consent

I recently removed the non-genre flag for Allen Drury's 1959 novel Advise and Consent. There is an edit to replace the flag which I have on hold. The editor and I disagree about whether the novel should have the flag or not. My reasoning for removing the flag is that the novel is listed in several SF reference works. Reginald1, Tuck and Clute/Nicholls all list it. It is also in SFE3, which is an expansion of Clute/Nicholls. While I haven't read the novel, and it's been decades since I've seen the film, Tuck describes it as "Set in the near (but unspecified) future". Clute/Nicholls describes it in the context of the series with its sequels as "depicting US political life from a point roughly similar to real-life 1960 and growing into a full-fledged history of the near future". SFE3 expands this statement describing the series as "a full-fledged though ultimately short-winded Future History" It further describes the series as "a mildly estranged Alternate History of 1950s and 1960s America". P. Schuyler Miller's review in Astounding mentions a manned Russian rocket traveling to the Moon with an American rocket on the launch pad. Two or three presidents have followed Eisenhower and the current president belongs to a party that is unidentifiable.

While our project scope defines speculative fiction to exclude "Techno-thriller, political thriller and satire works set in a future indistinguishable from the present (?)", are manned moon rockets and new political parties distinguishable from the world in 1959? I'm also not sure what the question mark in the policy is meant to denote. Perhaps this was always meant to be a soft rule. I don't know that Drury would be considered "above the threshold" and I would hate to have to delete this novel with later novels in the series that are clearly within the genre. Since there is a disagreement on the non-genre flag, I'd like to see what other folks think. I'd especially be interested in the opinions of anyone who has read this novel. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:24, 29 May 2021 (EDT)

I think I tried reading this novel some decades ago and dropped it very quickly, so I can't add much to the discussion of how much speculative content it has. Wikipedia's plot summaries and this New York Times review suggest that the first volume in the series was a contemporary political thriller while later volumes added increasing amounts of "near future" speculative content.

Based on the above, I certainly wouldn't delete the first book in the series. We list a number of non-genre books by authors "below the threshold" because they are a part of an otherwise speculative series, so this wouldn't be an outlier. (Of course, if a series is overwhelmingly non-genre with a few genre installments, e.g. Nancy Drew, we only list the genre works.) I would set the non-genre flag and add a note to the effect that "this novel has no known speculative content, but its sequels do." Ahasuerus 20:00, 29 May 2021 (EDT)

This discussion highlights an ISFDB problem. There are so many published works, there is almost zero chance that the moderator group has read any specific title. When an editor submits a major change, genre, in this case, we can assume they have read the work. I applaud Ron for applying an objective standard to make his decision.

Allen Drury is one of my favorite authors. I first read the series in high school. I have reread it at least one more time, the first two volumes more than that. In fact, I still have my original mass market pb's. The stories are written in the present (1960's). They can only be called "Alternate History" in the sense that they are fiction. Drury uses composite characterizations and created events rather than actual historical events and people. The statement " Two or three presidents have followed Eisenhower and the current president belongs to a party that is unidentifiable" is laughable. The characterizations were so identifiable that Drury had to publicly state that none of his characters were based on any real person or party. While the central theme is constant throughout the series, each book has a different focus. Presidential prerogative and mechanics of the Congress, the sad state of the United Nations, the bias and corruption of the press are three of the books. I never considered these to be sf, Rosab618 is correct.

Where does that leave us? From my limited time actively participating, we rarely get responses to questions like this. I have no problem with an objective standard, "appears in a recognized SF reference works. Reginald1, Tuck and Clute/Nicholls". My preference is to go with the opinion of a submitter who has read the work. However, I will support whichever way we decide. Let's just be consistent. John Scifibones 10:18, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Unfortunately, it's a common issue. As you said, there are so many works out there that it's impossible for a single person -- or even a group of people -- to have read all of them. It's particularly problematic when dealing with works published by non-genre publishers. The SF bibliographer Kenneth R. Johnson who compiled a comprehensive online index of older SF Pornography ran into this issue repeatedly:

• Many previous bibliographies have attempted to list SF porn, either separately or as part of a larger, all-inclusive SF bibliography. I have examined every book that I could find that was listed in such works and discovered among them many pornographic books that I do not consider SF at all. In order to avoid being constantly deluged with people pointing out the books I “missed,” I have included these titles in a separate section.

Ahasuerus 11:24, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

I, like Ahaseurus, picked up the book and put it down very quickly. I have seen the movie, and both are based on the Alger Hiss case, with characters based on Alben Barkley, Joe McCarthy, Perle Mesta, and many other 20th-century Washington insiders. Can we just mark it non-genre?--Rosab618 14:52, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Rosab618, I'm disappointed to hear that you haven't read the books. It weakens my argument in favor of your position. Your comment looks like something you read on the internet, Wikipedia maybe. My statement above, "When an editor submits a major change, genre, in this case, we can assume they have read the work" has just been disproved. Perhaps, Ron's approach is the better alternative. John Scifibones 15:55, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Sorry to let you down, John. I didn't learn that it was a roman à clef on Wikipedia or elsewhere online, I read it in a book called Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: The Real People Behind 400+ Fictional Movie Characters. The basic plot of the book is the same. You've read it and you know it isn't sf, so how about we mark it non-genre? How about using our common sense?--Rosab618 17:38, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Aside form the secondary sources, I still feel that the elements mentioned in the Miller review seem speculative to me. Yes, we now know of the presidents beyond Eisenhower, and though the Soviets haven't visited the moon, the US has. But in 1959 when the novel was published Eisenhower was the president and it was still two years before Gagarin's flight. How is that not speculative, or was Miller mistaken about these elements? --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:07, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

When Jules Verne wrote about travel to the moon, it was SF. If you wrote it in the 1960s, using technology that existed, it might be a technothriller. If the story was about what was found on the moon, that's speculative, so puts it back into SF. But the moon shot was just background colour, not part of the plot of this book. That alone isn't enough to make a book SF. AlanHK 23:41, 29 July 2021 (EDT)

Near Future history will always be borderline for us - where do you draw the line between speculative and just thrillers. If multiple of our major secondary sources call it genre, I am willing to go with it (and add notes into the title explaining exactly what Ron started this thread with. If we reclassify, it is not eligible to be here at all technically... Annie 18:49, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Giger

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?328366; seems to be some confusion about dates in the notes, but this, https://fantlab.ru/edition129992, has more info including a 1988 copyright for German edition; intro is 1990 but other half of photo says this is 7th printing, August 2005, so it's a mess. Also, there's an ISFDB link on the page where they copied info from but didn't bother fully updating it with info from their photos. Anyone here have a copy of the original 1990 American printing or the 1988 edition? --Username 11:10, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Swigart's Vector

https://archive.org/details/vector00robs; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?53219. This book was worked on here many years ago by someone who no longer responds to messages; the issue here is the archived copy has a different price and the date says 06/86 on back flap but July 1986 on copyright page, both of which are different from ISFDB's date. So if anyone would like to comment...--Username 17:01, 30 May 2021 (EDT)

Price Problems

https://www.amazon.fr/Fares-Please-Omnibus-Containing-Mustard/dp/B000WUG9KS; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1346459; I thought Tuck's price was wrong so I was going to fix it and add the price on cover but then I noticed a 5s price is blacked out on the cover also. I don't know if this book was reissued a bunch of times or what, so if anyone knows...--Username 13:00, 1 June 2021 (EDT)

Once again I answer my own question; Fantastic Fiction includes a cover with original price, so I added it. Go me. --Username 14:40, 11 August 2021 (EDT)

Angry Rabbit

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?20496; the 1965 American edition from Norton was never entered on ISFDB so I entered it using info from the copy on archive.org; the cover is awesome, but problem is only info on artist is the word "Lurin" at bottom right. There's a Larry Lurin on ISFDB who did 2 covers around the same time as this book, then nothing for 25 years and then a bunch of other covers in the nineties. Searching for book title and Lurin on Google only gives 1 hit, the Toronto Public Library copy, which says "Cover art: Lurin". Does anyone know if it's him? Such great art deserves proper credit, especially since this novel was used as the basis for the 1972 KILLER RABBITS movie Night of the Lepus. --Username 14:15, 1 June 2021 (EDT)

Evans and/or Clark

https://sordidspheres.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/john-urling-clark-robin-beresford-evans-the-experiment/; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?614531; I couldn't find an Amazon cover image to add to ISFDB, but I noticed on this Sphere-related site that the cover has 2 authors, yet the note on ISFDB talks about Evans being the real name of Clark. So are they the same or 2 different people? --Username 00:37, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

Synapse Electronic Novels

https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/games/misc/brimstone.pdf; https://mocagh.org/broderbund/mindwheel-manual-inside.pdf; https://mocagh.org/broderbund/breakers-manual.pdf; https://www.mocagh.org/broderbund/essex-manual-inside.pdf; Synapse Software was a computer game company that released many action games in the early 80's, but then decided to release literary text adventures which flopped, then they were bought out by Broderbund and disappeared around 1985. However, they included novellas along with the games, 4 of which were released, Mindwheel, Essex, Brimstone, and Breakers (Ronin was apparently completed but not released). That Brimstone PDF linked above (which took a LONG time to load) is full of interesting stuff like is the David Bunch mentioned really the famous SF author David R. Bunch? Also, some of the other names (Sanford, Blair, etc.) are on ISFDB. Mindwheel is also interesting because it was written by famous poet Robert Pinsky, who has 2 poems on ISFDB. These games were hot stuff in the computer mags of the mid-80's, with a parser they nicknamed BTZ, "Better than Zork", but MY GOD were they boring. Still, they are high-quality genre games made by some important literary figures, so the written material probably belongs on ISFDB. --Username 02:16, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

New Web page -- Authors for Publisher

A new Web page, "Authors for Publisher", has been implemented. All Publisher Web pages now have 2 new "Publication Breakdown by Author" links at the bottom of the page. For example, if you navigate to the Publisher page for JABberwocky Literary Agency and click the "Sort by Publication Count" link, if you will get a breakdown of this publisher's publications by author, sorted by count.

As the top of the Web page says:

• Note that the statistics below count the number of publications associated with publication-level authors and editors. They do not count the authors of individual titles (stories, poems, etc.) contained in publications. Each edition of a book increments its author's count. Different forms of an author's name, e.g. 'Mary Shelley' vs. 'Mary W. Shelley', are counted separately.

Hopefully, this will let our users get an idea of what kind of publisher they are looking at at a glance. If you run into any issues with the new Web page or have suggestions, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 16:27, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

Skeleton Crew Story

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1007894; no PV for this edition and no one ever entered page numbers so I did from Fantlab photos. All seemed OK until near the end when 1 story was titled Becka Paulson instead of the longer title. The longer title was used in this edition, too, so I don't know why whoever entered contents made the variant title. I changed title to what it should be, so if anything else needs to be done, let me know. --Username 18:40, 4 June 2021 (EDT)

Spider-Man Series

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?3534; added covers to both of these, then wondered why only 2 entries existed; turns out there's 5 others (which I vaguely recall adding some covers to a while back), but they're all listed under "Super Thriller" as a publisher series instead of series. I don't know which is correct, so if anyone else does and wants to combine all of them under one web... --Username 02:04, 5 June 2021 (EDT)

I noticed someone did some moving in response to this note. Checking further revealed that a lot was wrong with the info for these books so I fixed/added and now I think they're a lot more accurate. However, I don't think the 2 "You Are..." books are part of the Super-Thriller series. Wikipedia only mentions the first 5 books. Also, gamebooks.org mentions a 1996 Turtleback edition before the 1997 Archway edition for 1 of them so those may need to be separated and fixed, too. --Username 11:46, 5 June 2021 (EDT)

Please do act to remove the series when you think it was added erroneously. Stonecreek 23:24, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Bear

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?4999421; note from someone about this possibly being non-genre, so I found cover image, and unless that creepy voyeur grizzly checking out the naked kid is possessed by the devil or something, I think it's safe to say it's not a genre book. The authors seem to have written a LOT of nature books, and a few have interesting titles. The Devil of the Woods sounds like a genre book but both covers I've seen show a rabid raccoon or something so I think the "Devil" is figurative rather than literal. However, Windigo is described on the cover as "a wilderness story of fear and courage", so that might be ISFDB material. Will look into this further, but if anyone's read Windigo and can verify it has genre content, that would be fine. Whether The Last Monster should be marked as non-genre or just deleted I'll leave to mods to decide. --Username 09:37, 6 June 2021 (EDT)

Post Mortem

Interesting this is; Post Mortem Press released dozens of books between 2011-2017. There are only 2 on Fantlab, 1 of which is a Horror Zine anthology. The other is The Ghost IS the Machine, a 2012 anthology, but Fantlab has a different cover than ISFDB with same artwork but showing only a piece of it and with a different font for the title, and a graphic in lower right saying "Post Mortem Press Classic". Searching online for that phrase only brought up 2 pages, both from Facebook, where Post Mortem made their last post in 2017 and then in September 2020 made 1 more post saying, "Gone, But Not Forgotten. Post Mortem Press Classic Anthologies are still available". Instead of listing titles, they give a link which looks suspicious so I didn't click it. ISFDB has 56 publications, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?35508, + 1 under the series title Post Mortem Press: The Early Years, which is the 2020 e-book Road to Hell edited by Eric Beebe, but there's no earlier edition on ISFDB, and it says #5 so obviously there are others in the series. Searching online for Early Years brings up a lot of pages including this one, https://www.amazon.com/Post-Mortem-Press-Early-Years/dp/B08K937N31, and this, https://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/one-by-me-in-post-mortem-press-the-early-years-offer/, mentions a Kindle anthology which is nearly 1,500 pages long and collects 7 earlier anthologies, but doesn't say which ones they are, and mentions they're partnered with Petulant Child Press, which has 3 2020 novels on ISFDB but no anthologies. So seems like there's a lot of missing editions for this publisher on ISFDB both for the earlier print books and later e-books. --Username 09:37, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Kenneth Roberts

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?235635; I added cover to Henry Gross and His Dowsing Rod, then saw title page had it as just by "Kenneth Roberts" so I changed name in the record; top of page says he used that as an alternate name but only item under that name is a Doc Savage novel in an old pulp, and that record says they changed house name after it was discovered Kenneth Roberts was already in use. I don't think Kenneth Lewis Roberts wrote any pulp fiction, so that alternate name isn't really his, but he did use that name for Dowsing Rod, so if there is an alternate name for him on ISFDB it should be for that, unless mods think a non-fiction book about fake science like dowsing rods doesn't qualify to be here in which case it should be deleted and alternate name completely removed from his record. --Username 12:31, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Added cover for Water Unlimited, another "dowsing rod" book by Roberts and again published as by "Kenneth Roberts". --Username 12:41, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for finding the unnecessary pseudonym link (and your other work)! Stonecreek 23:22, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Both books were deleted as non-genre, so it's all moot. Only Kenneth Roberts on ISFDB now is the house name for the Doc Savage publication. --Username 13:14, 12 June 2021 (EDT)

(The) Vampire Woman

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?601569; saw Fantlab had photos; cover and spine both say Vampire Woman, but ISFDB says The Vampire Woman; can't find photo of title page online to verify which is correct, but all posters and home video covers I've seen for the movie don't have "The". It's a novelization of a terrible Paul Naschy Spanish horror film that was turned into an even worse Americanized version and played drive-ins for years. Online info says real author's name is Leo Guild, regarded as a terrible pulp novelist with many titles to his credit including the immortal STREET OF HO'S. Publisher is Guild-Hartford so that would make sense. Ramble House issued a reprint edition with (intentionally?) terrible cover art, http://www.ramblehouse.com/werewolfvsvampirewoman.htm, and they also have "The" in the title, but they chose to use Scarm instead of Scram, unlike ISFDB. So if anyone can add any info here, like letting us know what the title is on the title page, reply here. --Username 14:21, 8 June 2021 (EDT)

Nigel Hill(s)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?22120; Nigel Hills has more than a dozen cover credits on ISFDB; there's also 1 cover that's by Nigel Hill for a Severn House edition of B. Bova's Test of Fire which I think is Mr. Hills since many of his other covers were for that publisher. No PV, so does anyone have a copy? Even finding a cover for this edition online was unsuccessful. --Username 15:48, 9 June 2021 (EDT)

Mr. Three Cover

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1939913; this is odd, because there was an American edition in 1966 unentered here until I added it today, but cover artist for British edition says "Keith Cunningham", even though the American cover clearly uses the same art, just arranged differently. Ben Feder is credited in 1966 edition and has many credits for cover art here while Cunningham has only this one, so I wonder what's up with that? Maybe the editor who entered the British edition's info would like to respond and say where they got Cunningham from. --Username 18:28, 9 June 2021 (EDT)

I added page numbers to Pages From Cold Point, Paul Bowles' 1968 collection from Peter Owen, and flap says "Jacket design by Keith Cunningham". So I suspect someone entered him as cover artist for Mr. Three when in fact he just designed it, and Feder was real artist. --Username 00:36, 12 June 2021 (EDT)

W.C. Morrow

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1147307; only 1 story by Morrow had no date on ISFDB, "The Haunted Automaton", so I searched archive.org and the title was only in an 1885 San Francisco newspaper, The Wasp. Comparing first paragraph with PDF of the story online confirmed they're the same, so now Morrow's record is fully dated. Oddly, online sites either say unknown for the date like ISFDB does or 1897, which is the date of his collection, The Ape, The Idiot & Other People, but the story doesn't appear in the contents so where they got that date from is unclear; the only site I can find that knows the correct date is this, https://www.noosfere.org/livres/niourf.asp?numlivre=2146563344; why a French site seems to be the only one that knows the correct date of a story published in an American newspaper is a mystery. --Username 17:50, 10 June 2021 (EDT)

Checking archive.org, I see that the story starts on page 18 of the "Christmas 1885" issue, so I have changed the month from 1885-07 to 1885-12. Does the record look OK now? Ahasuerus 00:31, 11 June 2021 (EDT)

Yes; when I was looking at the story earlier on archive.org something was bothering me about it but I couldn't quite say what it was, but you obviously noticed it, too, and realized this wasn't a single issue but several months' worth bundled together. Magazines sometimes combine several months in one issue's date but not newspapers. Date is correct now, and shame on me for not paying closer attention. I read somewhere online that 4 of Morrow's stories that were not in his 1897 collection were in the rare 2000 collection The Monster-Maker (and several reprint editions by other publishers since), but that was published by Midnight House and I have no desire to go near their books again any time soon after my battle with them and their ISBN's a few months ago. I found this, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606131h.html, which includes all 4 stories, so maybe that can be added to the record. --Username 02:23, 11 June 2021 (EDT)

I just added the Gutenberg link to Morrow's record, but a few things are odd. The ebook says it was created on August 2006, but the abridged Benediction editions whose contents are the same as the ebook are from 2010-2011, so there may be an earlier edition by them or some other publisher where the ebook's contents were taken from. Also, the Benediction HC is dated 7 months after the TP but has an earlier ISBN, is half the price (usually the TP is cheaper), and the page count differs by 2 pages. There may be some changes needed; we'll see. --Username 12:15, 12 June 2021 (EDT)

Whistler

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=mcneill+whistler&type=Name; are these by same artist? Also, is this the artist of "Whistler's Mother" fame? --Username 14:43, 11 June 2021 (EDT)

I've cleaned them up as they are, indeed, the same person. And yes, this is the guy who painted "Whistler's Mother" (see here). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:58, 11 June 2021 (EDT)

Search for Agatha

I smell trouble ahead on this one. So I randomly came across Agatha Christie's page and was surprised to see that for such a major figure her genre publications are very patchy on ISFDB, with missing editions and covers. I added the 1965 Collins edition of Hound of Death which is apparently very rare, but the problem is that when I also decided to enter the missing page numbers from the copy of the original 1933 Odhams edition found on Richard Dalby's site 1 of the stories has a different title! "The Strange Case of Sir Andrew Carmichael" is titled "...Arthur Carmichael" on ISFDB. A 2000 Christie book seen on Google Books, The Complete Christie, mentions how shocking it is that the story was reprinted in 1971 in Christie's collection The Golden Ball with the "Andrew" title while the story itself still used the name "Arthur", but actually it is the original 1933 title. Not being familiar with her work, I can't say if this is something well-known, but maybe someone here knows. None of the Hound of Death editions have a PV, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1093288, but an anthology where the story appeared does, 1985's Realms of Darkness, so that's 1 where hopefully the PV still has the book and can verify which title it used. Also, the Fontana PB has no cover on ISFDB, but when I went looking for it I found a cover with same art but different price (4/-), a cover with no price, a cover where the white skull seen on the other covers was gold (don't know whether that's really a separate edition or just bad photography), and a completely different cover with a black hound that has 1 of its eyes hanging out. Also, the page where I found the 1965 Collins edition mentions that the 1936 edition had a couple of reprints a few years later with different covers, so there's some more editions. So I have a feeling her ISFDB record will be growing soon; 1 thing I'm glad about is that her novel And Then There Were None isn't genre, because then the 1939 first edition would have to be added under its original title...--Username 17:25, 11 June 2021 (EDT)

I am not a Christie expert, but I have seen other authors retroactively change character names when their real life namesakes complained. On the other hand, one online review mentions that this story's title is "the subject of a widespread printer's error"... 😕 Ahasuerus 17:29, 12 June 2021 (EDT)

Broken links between Facebook and ISFDB fixed?

A few years ago Facebook began adding Facebook-specific values (starting with &fbclid=) to the end of ISFDB URLs. However, when I checked this Facebook page earlier today, I noticed that all links to ISFDB pages seemed to be working correctly. Would anyone know if any Facebook links to ISFDB are still broken? If so, could you please post examples? Ahasuerus 17:43, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

This post has a link that still doesn't work. It looks like the culprit is an equal sign at the end of the URL ( http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?134396= ). It looks like the software is removing everything but that equal sign. Pretty much any link from FB to ISFDB does this now. So, almost fixed, but not completely. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:45, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

I am afraid the linked post can only be viewed by people with Facebook accounts and I don't have one. The Facebook pages that I can see -- like https://www.facebook.com/pg/internetspecficdb/posts/ that I linked above -- have valid ISFDB URLs. I wonder if the Facebook software adds an equal sign to the end of ISFDB URLs if you are signed it? Ahasuerus 14:45, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

P.S. Here is another Facebook page with a valid ISFDB URL -- https://www.facebook.com/129826343726792/photos/pb.129826343726792.-2207520000.1431700213./874774585898627/?type=3&theatre links to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?194057 -- when you don't have a Facebook account. Ahasuerus 14:56, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

For me both examples still lead to a &fbclid= URL when I click on them (just as a data point). Annie 15:07, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

The URL in the example I gave above is this: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?134396&fbclid=IwAR1rXM7ueaWD8Eh13k_qTOLQ-rA7_m8q_dWKca_feSg3xu2azceXRGiQJPg

Not sure if that will help. Is there a way to strip anything after the number following the cgi script? Basically everything from the question mark after the number? That would fix the problem. Right now, it seems like it's stripping everything except for the equals sign. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:26, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

As I said - not for me. It does not strip anything when I click on them (I am logged in both in FB and in ISFDB). Annie 15:41, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, folks. Appreciate the info!

Here is what I think is going on. When you have a Facebook account, Facebook stores certain information within your browser using "cookies". If you go to another Web site and that site is a Facebook associate (with Facebook-provided software installed), that site's software will retrieve and leverage the data in the Facebook-originated cookies.

So far so good since none of it affects what we do here -- we are not a Facebook associate and don't run any Facebook-developed software. However, at some point ca. 2017-2018 some browsers (Safari?) started limiting the use of third-party cookies in a more aggressive way, which affected Facebook's ability to send data to Facebook associates. To get around the issue, Facebook developers started adding "&fbclid=" to the end of external URLs. Everything after the equal sign was Facebook-specific data duplicating a part of what Facebook puts in your cookies.

Of course, if you don't have a Facebook account, there is nothing for Facebook to send to its associates, so their software doesn't add "&fbclid=" to the end of external URLs. Hence the difference between what I see and what you see.

I am currently working on centralizing the way ISFDB URLs are handled and I may have a way to strip "&fbclid=" from URLs in the foreseeable future. Stay tuned... Ahasuerus 15:59, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Sounds good. All us old people who know what "tuned" means, will stay tuned. (^_^) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:05, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Knowing what 'tuned' means, means that you have acquired considerable knowledge and experience over the years :) MagicUnk 11:45, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

Facebook Link Fixes

All Publisher- and Publication Series-specific Web pages have been adjusted to ignore Facebook IDs in URLs. Please let me know if you come across any issues. Ahasuerus 18:59, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

All Edit History pages have been updated. Ahasuerus 21:22, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

All Bibliographic pages have been updated to ignore Facebook IDs. While working on this issue, I also made a number of other software improvements. Some of them -- security, maintainability, etc -- should be invisible to our users, but I also fixed a few minor bugs in the code. If you notice anything unexpected, please let me know. Ahasuerus 15:01, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

Awesome! Thanks for all your hard work! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:16, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

I am here to serve! :-) 👽

I am about to start upgrading our Edit and Moderator Web pages to use the same processing logic. They are unlikely to be linked to by Facebook, but there are other benefits to standardizing URL processing on our side. As always, if you see anything odd, please let me know. Ahasuerus 21:47, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

Don Webb

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?33157; Hello, French citizens. I've been adding/fixing info for Don Webb's story collections, with many missing covers, wrong titles/dates, etc. 1 I can't fix is his story "Reaganomics", which is entered as original on ISFDB but Google Books' copy of Stealing My Rules says it's from a French pamphlet series. Problem is the limited search for this book only shows half of the words, and I'm not sure what title of pamphlet is. It starts with capital T and says it's #77, and date says 1987 but looks like there's a question mark after it so even publishers don't seem sure of their info. Anyone know more or own a copy, so that date can be changed on ISFDB? --Username 13:44, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

Never mind; I checked locusmag.com and they have contents and page numbers for this book, including info that "Reaganomics" came from "Tuyau #77, '87", so I changed the date. Mystery solved. Thanks Username. You're welcome. --Username 14:02, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

Cover Designers

Many books I've come across have the info on back flap, Cover Design by Antler & Baldwin, Inc. Only a few are on ISFDB because I (and others) don't often enter designers, just illustrators, but today I came across a book with the info, Cover Design by Bob Antler & Sally Baldwin. Never having seen their names before, I did a search on archive.org and that book, https://archive.org/details/scifi0000mars, is the only book that contains "Bob Antler" and "Sally Baldwin". Bob Antler is on ISFDB with a few art credits but Baldwin is not. I suppose they got together and did Sci-Fi's cover under their own names and then decided to incorporate. So if anyone thinks this is important or that Antler's name should be linked to the Inc. name, or can find other books with their full names credited, cool. --Username 20:02, 17 June 2021 (EDT)

People do not add designers as cover artists because they are not supposed to - the ones in the DB are there because of someone not reading a rule or because they are also artists of part of the cover. See the help page: "The cover designer (as opposed to the cover artist) is only entered in this field if he or she also did (parts of) the cover art. Otherwise the cover designer can be recorded in the note field.". So if you want to add a note into the publication, feel free to - some people like adding these in the notes (If we ever get other roles supported, we can move them to a proper place). Annie 20:12, 17 June 2021 (EDT)

I'm aware that designers aren't supposed to be entered, but I've come across countless ISFDB records where I entered missing info but some had already been entered by others, and very often it's the designer incorrectly entered as the cover artist (I can't count how many times I've seen Paul Bacon's name entered even though he almost never is credited as cover artist on book flaps, only as designer). Only reason I mentioned this is because as often as I've seen Antler & Baldwin I've never come across them credited by their full names, and as I said, this is the only book on all of the Archive with their names credited, so I thought it was info worth mentioning. Problem now is the cover on the Archive has a big sticker covering part of the art, and Amazon has no cover available, so it's pointless to enter info about the cover designers when there's no cover to see. There's still the issue of whether Bob Antler's art credits should be linked to Antler & Baldwin, and I'd still like to know whether anyone can find another book where they're both credited on the flap. I am curious, yellow. On a somewhat related note, I tried to offer some help to 1 of the other editors by letting them know a couple of reviews they entered in magazines didn't link to their ISFDB titles because there were slight differences in the wording, and I thanked them 3 times for their work entering these mags and offered my help because I own several years' worth of the same mag, but was greeted with hostility. That wouldn't bother me, having grown used to that by now, but what did disturb me was this person then added a childish tantrum on my page which I deleted, but which can still partially be seen here, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=User:Username&curid=200275&action=history. I'm not sure what the rules are for stuff like that here, but I can't imagine it's acceptable to hack someone else's page like that. Looking back over this person's discussions on the boards with other people about different topics, they seem to have a problem with people disagreeing with them, so I should have known better than to engage with them. Obviously, I won't be leaving any messages for this person about anything again, but I think leaving this note is important in case anything like this happens again. --Username 21:01, 17 June 2021 (EDT)

Posting on other editors' User pages -- jokingly or otherwise -- is not acceptable. ISFDB editors have been known to disagree about issues, sometimes passionately, but we need to keep things civil. I have left a note on the editor's Talk page. Ahasuerus 22:07, 17 June 2021 (EDT)

I deleted the page as that (basically) vandalism was the only thing on the page. That way it will only be visible to moderators or above. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:19, 18 June 2021 (EDT)

It's not fair or true to say that I have a problem with people disagreeing with me.--Rosab618 01:04, 19 June 2021 (EDT)

Simak's Empire

Since Clifford D. Simak's 1951 novel Empire has been worked on by multiple editors, I am posting a note here where everyone can see it.

It turns out that the novel published by H. L. Gold in 1951 was a 1939 Simak rewrite of a much older unsold novel by John W. Campbell, Jr. -- see the updated title record for details. According to Simak, he tried to convince Campbell to share the credit and the money when the novel was finally sold, but Campbell refused. I figure it's enough justification to add Campbell to the canonical title. (I have also notified SFE3.) Ahasuerus 21:43, 19 June 2021 (EDT)

Breathed

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?354281; Open Library has 2 copies, the 1 on ISFDB dated 04-10-2007 and another that's previewable; it says FIRST IMPRESSION and Mar. 2007 on copyright page, but cover is different, with changed background and mother and son farther away. Info was entered 10 years ago and editor is no longer active, and I am not familiar with Breathed's work past that comic strip he did with the penguin which I used to read, so does anyone know if publisher really released book with 2 covers within a month of each other? Seems odd to me. https://openlibrary.org/search?q=%22mars+needs+moms%22&mode=everything. --Username 20:49, 20 June 2021 (EDT)

Chinese novel I Refuse To Be a Supporting Character

We have a record for the 2020 English translation of the Chinese fantasy novel I Refuse To Be a Supporting Character, but we don't have the Chinese title or the spelling of the author's name in Chinese. Would anyone be able to figure any of it out based on the picture on the publisher's Web site? TIA! Ahasuerus 17:17, 21 June 2021 (EDT)

The original Chinese title is 穿成女主闺蜜怎么办 and the author pen name is 姜离远. The original(?) link to the book as a webnovel on publisher website jjwxc / Jinjiang Literature City. Morebooks 18:42, 21 June 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:42, 21 June 2021 (EDT)

Same Art, Different Artists

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?10452; first 2 editions have same art but different artist credited for each; no PV's, no notes, no copies on archive.org so I could check and fix, so maybe editors who entered info (if they're still around) can decide which artist really did that art. --Username 18:37, 21 June 2021 (EDT)

Both records have been entered by Chris J. You could post on his talk page and ask if he has an idea. Regards, MagicUnk 12:38, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

He checked online info and decided to keep 1 artist and remove the other. --Username 20:15, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Too Many Pages

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?307591; I found a link for this and added it to the record, https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/meade/sorceress/sorceress.html. When adding page numbers something seemed odd, and now that my edit's been approved, I realize the numbers are much higher than the page count for the book. Checking out the link, I see at the bottom of the page that they say there was no contents page in original ed. but that they were added for this modern digital version. So should contents' numbers be erased? I assume numbers they provided are the original Strand Magazine page numbers. Did that magazine really run more than 600 pages per issue? --Username 10:58, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

No, they did not run for 600 pages per issue but these are "volume" pages. The volumes worth of issue (6 months or a year), started with page 1 and kept running though the volume so an issue will start at page 387 for example. Some magazines still do that (Nature for example). So the page numbers would be correct if we are adding the magazines themselves but in this book, unless a note explains it, they should not be there. Fixed. Annie 11:08, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Author/Series URLs with non-English characters fixed

I am very happy to report that Author and Series pages now accept non-English characters in URLs, e.g. the following URLs should work as of 10 minutes ago:

• "www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Joël Champetier"
• "www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Stanisław Lem" [note the "ł" in the first name]
• "www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Живко Петров"
• "www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?ソードアート・オンライン"

If you notice anything odd, please report your findings here. Ahasuerus 14:48, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:53, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Time Out

I'm curious as to how automatic logout works. When someone logs in so they can leave a message on the boards, going back an hour or two (or less) later requires another login. Is there a way to increase logout to a longer time so editors don't have to sign in several times a day? I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's an issue for others, too. --Username 20:24, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

You shouldn't have to login multiple times daily. If you're having to do that, something is messing with your cookies, and it's not the site. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:19, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Yep - as long as I remember to click on "Remember my login on this computer" during login, the session holds a few days/weeks for me on any of my browsers. So if it does not for you, something is cleaning your cookies prematurely. If you do not click on it, then yes - next time you come in, you need to login again. Annie 12:43, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

(after edit conflict) When you log in on the ISFDB database side, the expiration date for the account is set to "Fri, 08-Sep-2037 15:00:00", so that shouldn't be an issue.

On the ISFDB Wiki side, logins are handled separately; session duration is controlled by the Wiki software, which we have limited control over. The first thing that I would check would be Special:Preferences. Is the "Remember my login on this computer" checkbox checked? Ahasuerus 12:47, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, I thought it was cookie-related; I don't click on "remember my login" on any sites because I don't trust any of them, so I guess I'll just have to sign in a bit more often than others here. No big deal. What amused me, however, was when I checked out "my preferences" I realized I haven't touched that page since I first became an editor last December. Most of the info doesn't interest me, but I noticed it said my number of edits was less than 700, when I know they're in the thousands by now. I'm sure there's a good reason for the discrepancy that I don't understand, but whatever. Now that I think about it, it probably refers to my edits on the message boards and not the actual fiction-related edits I made. Yeah, that's probably it. --Username 01:29, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

Edits in the Wiki - Not the DB. Two different counters. Think of ISFDB as two separate sites with a common authentication credentials :) Annie 02:33, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

A Pure Waste of Time

On 2021-06-24 02:52:30 I've submitted this "MakeVariant" submission. It was rejected on 2021-06-24 07:21:27 by Dirk P. Broer with the "Already Done" comment, likely because Dirk P. Broer made him/herself the same submission on 2021-06-24 06:47:26 (about 4 hours AFTER my own submission that was perfectly correct when I made it) and approved it.
I wish to protest with the utmost energy against such gratuitous waste of my time (and also Dirk P. Broer's but it's his/her fault). With nearly 500 submissions waiting in the queue, it may be advisable that well-meaning moderators have first a look at the contents of the queue BEFORE working on the cleanup reports. This will avoid such missteps. After 7.000+ submissions, I was hoping that any moderator was knowledgeable of the fact that I rarely leave "dangling" issues (in this case unvarianted-to-canonical items). Note that the serious bottleneck at moderation level is also likely to blame for such incidents.
It is very annoying to see my work so casually dismissed (and duplicated) because of a lack of method. AlainLeBris 13:07, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

When a moderator approves a submission, there is frequently a certain amount of housekeeping that needs to be performed post-approval, e.g. merging newly created title records with pre-existing title records. Sometimes it necessitates multi-step edits and, as a side effect, invalidates related submissions. When it happens, it's not an indication that something is wrong with the invalidated submissions or that the approving moderator is dismissive of the work done by the submitter. It's happened to all of us at one point or another, including other moderators who happened to be working on the same set of records at the same time.

The only way to eliminate this type of scenarios would be to rewrite the software to eliminate the need for multi-step submissions, but that would be a monumental task.

That being said, you are right that having fewer submissions would help with this issue, but even 50-100 outstanding submissions is probably enough to make this scenario inevitable. Ahasuerus 09:29, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Another thing to keep in mind is that everyone here is volunteering their time. This means we work on things here when we have the time to do so, which inevitably means that the queue of submissions requiring review can sometimes build up a lot. The queue grows and shrinks regularly (I've seen it completely empty many times, though that doesn't usually last for very long). We appreciate your patience. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:55, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Tsathoggua

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?839770; 1 copy was PV'd years ago, but today someone added new "2nd printing" copy and uploaded cover image. Cover art is the same but cover artist is different between the 2 on ISFDB, and the only site which includes "Fassl" and "Mark Achilles White" when you search on Google is LibraryThing. Interestingly, this seems to be the only Chaosium book with art by Mr. White, who is a popular production designer these days with many IMDB credits since 2009. I also see that the photo on the cover is credited online to John Skillin, so he might count as a credit, too. Copy on Google Books has a 2002 copyright for White's cover art and Skillin's photo, however, unlike the 2005 date for the anthology itself; misprint or borrowed art? Also, if you type Fassl into search box on Google Books' copy, it gives a bit of info including "Cover art by Harry Fassl", but the page itself is not part of the preview. So they seemed to be very confused at Chaosium. --Username 13:18, 24 June 2021 (EDT)

Zacharow/Zakarow

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=christopher+za&type=Name; this one is weird. The first 2 names on that linked page both have cover art credits. Zacharow is a well-known artist with several credits here and some for non-genre books on archive.org, and he has a website, zacharow.org, with lots of paintings and drawings. However, Zakarow didn't exist here until I saw The Ax by Donald Westlake on ISFDB and entered info from the archive.org copy. Searching for "Christopher Zakarow" on Google gives no hits, and searching for that name in archive.org only gives 1 book, Bordersnakes by James Crumley, also published by Mysterious Press like Westlake's book. Now I know that info online is copied endlessly from 1 site to another, and these are books from well-known authors and publisher, so the fact that cover artist's name shows up NOWHERE makes me nervous. I typed in "Zakarow" and "Mysterious Press" on Google and only 2 sites, biblio.com and abebooks.co.uk, mention his name, but only for Bordersnakes and only as Zakarow, even though his full name is given on the flaps of both books on archive.org. I suppose an artist with almost exactly the same name did cover art, but I doubt it. So if anyone is more familiar with his work and knows if he did those 2 Zakarow covers (which came more than 5 years after Zacharow's credits end on ISFDB) let us know. Also, I added Zacharow's name to Daniel Rhodes' first 2 books, Next After Lucifer and Adversary; Adversary's archive.org copy shows his name on back flap, but the Lucifer archive.org copy is damaged or something and searching inside is screwed up so I got his art credit for that one from somewhere else; weird thing is searching for his name and "Daniel Rhodes" doesn't give hits for either of those books on archive.org. I don't know what's up with this guy's name being so hard to find, but I think he probably has more credits for genre covers out there than we know. --Username 14:53, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Possible Pavlac alternative names

Anyone know if

• Brian A. Pavlac is the same person as Brian Pavlac ?
• Diana Pavlac is the same person as Diana Pavlac Glyer ?

"Pavlac" seems an unusual enough surname - for Anglophone countries at least - that if feels it could be unlikely they are different people, although there are quite big pub date differences in their works, so perhaps they're relations?

(Stumbled across whilst following up on this Reddit thread, which might be of possible interest to people here?) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ErsatzCulture (talk • contribs) .

The two Brians may be related but seem to be different persons (author vs. artist, 1980s vs. 2000s). The two Dianas seem to be one and the same person. THanks for spotting this! Christian Stonecreek 14:14, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

According to Brian A. Pavlac's Curriculum Vitæ, he was an undergraduate student in Austria in 1976-1977. He also writes that he enjoys reading and watching science fiction and fantasy stories. I suppose it's possible that he contributed some art to New Fantasy Journal #1 before moving to Austria as an exchange student, but the evidence is inconclusive. I guess we could email him and ask about it. Ahasuerus 17:05, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

American Gladiators Game Books?!?

Yes, it's true; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?110646. Almost no info entered here; this, https://gamebooks.org/gladlist.htm, gives some, but no prices, and online info contradicts that 1991 date for the first book, with November 1992 seemingly the real date. I started to enter info for the first book and then realized there's no cover on Amazon, and I hesitate to upload a cover for something like this, especially since I'm not sure it even qualifies to be here; maybe since the stars of the show had made-up names like Laser and Zap it's considered vaguely fantastic? If it does, 2nd book should be entered, too, although they seem to be very different in content, as explained in the gamebooks.org link. Also, if there's 2 books I guess it qualifies as a series. Maybe some Brits on ISFDB would own copies, since these are for the British version. I see there's an ebay.co.uk seller who took a photo of the 2nd book with full cover, but price on back is so blurry, like it was taken in a London fog, that I can't make it out. Also of interest is that the first book was written by famous SF personality Stan Nicholls, and there's several online interviews where he explains how he came to write it, but the author of the 2nd book, Alistair Hemming, has no info online other than a few sites which mention his Gladiators book, and they can't even agree on the spelling of his name. Pseudonym? --Username 18:44, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Missing Pseudonym

Not sure why this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?182945, was entered here since there's no note, but if it belongs then it seems it was published as by Peter Graaf, a name that doesn't appear as a pseudonym for the author on ISFDB. Coincidentally, a copy of the original (?) Michael Joseph edition with a photo date stamped just a few days ago is on abebooks.com, and Washburn and Pan editions have covers on Amazon. All say Graaf, so if it was published as by John Christopher I don't see it. --Username 20:35, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

Leftwing

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?335651; Paquette has a 1993 book on ISFDB from Vantage Press, with same cover artist as this 2006 book. Open Library has the 2006 book, but they say 1998 and don't list a publisher, just a cover, with no external links. He has 1 other book listed there, Moroccan Sunsets, which was also published by Leftwing Enterprises the year before, and that's the only book on OL by that publisher. It's possible it was published in 1998 by Vantage also and then reprinted in 2006 by Leftwing, a Canadian publisher judging by the price entered here and the Vancouver note on OL (author's name sounds French-Canadian, so maybe it was a vanity press set up to publish his books). Info on Google for "Leftwing Enterprises"+"Paquette" is almost zero, with the locusmag.com entry being where I assume previous editor got ISFDB's info from. If anyone knows more, let us know. --Username 12:56, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

Stchur

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?3879; I remember Down on the Farm from my horror-reading craze in the late 80s/early 90s. I discovered the artist for the PB on Too Much Horror Fiction, so the cheesy "bonehead with the lobster claw" cover now has a name. However, the genuinely great cover art for the HC is unknown; there's a copy on eBay with 12 photos including both flaps, but there's not a single mention of the cover, not even a token "Cover Design by...", which is very unusual. I don't see any signature, so I would like to know if anyone else knows who did the art. Also, his second novel, Paddywhack, which I don't remember ever seeing or reading back then, has no photos online other than the cover that I could find, so the SATANIC BULLDOG's artist is also unknown. Mr. Stchur seems to be back to horror writing after a 30-year break judging from this, https://www.prweb.com/releases/experience_what_it_would_be_like_to_fall_in_love_with_someone_who_is_not_fully_human/prweb16317088.htm, which sounds not only kind of goofy but also like a book that belongs on ISFDB. --Username 16:57, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

Two Titles

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?13146; cover title and ISFDB title differ; Open Library has Horror cover but preview is for Dark. Dark's cover is unusable because it has big library stickers all over it, but Google Images doesn't show any Amazon covers for Dark, and only a few on other sites. I don't know what's up with this because besides the title all other text on both covers seems the same. --Username 09:57, 29 June 2021 (EDT)

The Silence of the Lambs

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1218; I saw there was a page for this on Fantlab, with only the cover and a sweet "advance reading copy" photo, which seems to reveal that the book was first published in August 1988, contradicting Wikipedia's date in May; that's a big difference, so I wonder if anyone knows more. I changed the month and added that Fantlab photo to the book's ISFDB page, plus a link to the original hardcover on Archive.org, which gives no month anywhere I can see, just 1988. It's not strictly an ISFDB book, which is why there's a note saying not to add any publications, but it's certainly 1 of the most important horror books of the last 30 years so it would be nice to add exact publishing data. --Username 18:24, 29 June 2021 (EDT)

But it is not speculative horror and as such is out of scope for the DB. If you would like to propose a change in the eligibility rules, feel free to do that. But as per the current community standards and eligibility rules, we should either delete it or add just the title so we have a placeholder for the awards but we do not add publications (in any language or format) because they are not eligible as per the rules of acquisitions. If the date is wrong, fix that with a note on sources. Other from that. Annie 21:49, 29 June 2021 (EDT)

I'm a bit confused here. Edit History shows book was entered more than a decade ago, in 2009. Several different editors have worked on its record, and I see the last to do so was me. Apparently months ago I added the Wikipedia link to the record and Wikipedia's date (which now seems to be wrong), and it was approved. By you. If it didn't belong on ISFDB it wouldn't be here after all this time, since some of the editors who worked on it are also moderators. Like you. I changed the date to August as per the photo on Fantlab (still awaiting approval), but I find it hard to believe that an amateur like me discovered the true publication date of 1 of the most famous horror novels in recent history, so like my recent work on The Hunt for Red October, another non-genre novel here on ISFDB because of its genre awards, I'd like to pin down the exact publication date, which was done for that book with the help of a couple of others here. In the meantime, as I stated above, I added a link to the original hardcover, so people can read it as it originally appeared before it was endlessly reprinted in cheap paperback editions after the movie came out. --Username 23:13, 29 June 2021 (EDT)

Book vs title situation. The books are out. The title is in for the awards records. :) The image from fang lab will belong to a book/publication, not to the title record - so I responded to that. The link to the whole Fantlab record of the title (not the first edition) is fair game though if want to add that.

You worked on the title - which we have as a placeholder because of the awards (as I mentioned above) - without them, we would not have the record at all. We do not add books/publications to it (including covers) because it is not eligible as it is not our type of horror. Think of these non-genre skeleton titles as a way to have a complete list for the major awards even when they go to a non-genre book. Which means that we cannot have covers and so on - but we can make the title record as correct as possible. If you think that the wiki date is incorrect, you can submit a correction but the note needs to explain the discrepancy. If all you want is to clarify the date, then all is good. Wiki tends to be reliable for exact dates like that in that era - maybe a review somewhere in a magazine/newspaper will help with the date. Annie 23:28, 29 June 2021 (EDT)