ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive50

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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)

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)