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Expanded archive listing

Twentieth Century Discovery

This Isaac Asimov nonfiction title https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?25684 appears when I type in the specific title, but it does not appear on Asimov's bibliography page. It should be in nonfiction in the year 1969, but it is not. At least, I cannot find it. Can anyone help me? Mike (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2023 (EST)

Well it's there when I take a look at his summary page, after The Shaping of England and before Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Volume One. Maybe you looked by accident into the department 'Nonfiction Series' or 'Essays'? His bibliography is rather longish. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 05:23, 2 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks for checking for me. I was looking at non-genre titles at the bottom of the page. Mike (talk) 10:16, 2 January 2023 (EST)

Canonical name incorrect

Forrest Ackerman's "canonical name" https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/editauth.cgi?119 is incorrect. It has a period after the J. and Ackerman was very insistent throughout his life that his middle initial did NOT have a period. It should be "Forrest J Ackerman." It does have a period in LCNAF but that's because a name entry in LC must end with one of the following punctuation marks: . ) - " Same as, when writing, we end a sentence with a period -- the period is not part of or attached to the last word, it's just there as an end-indication. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment added by Delphi Psmith (talk • contribs) 10:43, January 6, 2023‎.

Thanks for pointing out this problem and welcome to the project!

There are a couple of different issues here. First, as per the ISFDB FAQ, we enter author names "the way they appear on the publication's title page". We then set up "the most recognized name for the author within the SF genre" as his or her "canonical name" and all other names as "alternate names".

Second, originally (1995-ca.2010) we always entered a period after initials. The idea was that a missing initial was just a typographical convention, similar to how some magazines used lowercase forms of authors' names, e.g. "robert a heinlein". It wasn't until later that we were reminded that some authors do not use periods after initial on purpose or have single-letter middle names as in the case of Steven H Silver. We now have Steven H. Silver -- which has been used by some publishers -- set up as an alternate name for Steven H Silver. We also have a number of authors whose canonical names use "merged" initials, e.g. "CJ Cooke, which is how their works are published.

In the case of Forrest J Ackerman, it would appear that most of his works were published without a period after the "J", but only 30ish of our records are entered that way. I am going to ask the primary verifiers of the publications where his works appeared to double check them. Once the records have been corrected, we'll revisit the canonical name issue.

Thanks again! Ahasuerus (talk) 16:50, 7 January 2023 (EST)

Date error dialogue

I'm trying to clone a 2011 pub to enter my 12th print of same with date as 0000-00-00. Pressing the 'Clone Pub' button to finish the process brings up a dialogue "Date must be in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format, 0000-00-00 means "Unknown",.....etc". I've not seen this before and I can't get past it. What's the problem? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 08:53, 9 January 2023 (EST)

Could you please clarify whether you entered "0000-00-00" in the "Publication Metadata" section or in the "Content Section"? Also, which publication was it? Ahasuerus (talk) 09:50, 9 January 2023 (EST)

Cloning this pub to 0000-00-00 in the "Publication Metadata" section.--BanjoKev (talk) 09:56, 9 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks for clarifying. After pulling it up and using the "Clone" option, I entered "0000-00-00" in the "Date" field and clicked "Clone Pub". The submission went through -- here is the result. I wonder what was different on your side. Did you, perchance, only change the first 4 characters in the date field, resulting in a "0000-05-00" value? Ahasuerus (talk) 10:02, 9 January 2023 (EST)

Mmmm. I entered the full 0000-00-00. I'll close my browser and then try again. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:05, 9 January 2023 (EST)

That's strange. Didn't close browser, went back to China's summary page and clicked through to the 2011 title and entered everything the same again. It went through ok. Thanks for your time. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:16, 9 January 2023 (EST)

No worries, glad it worked out. It's entirely possible that there is an obscure bug lurking in the ISFDB code and that it is only triggered under rare circumstances. Unfortunately, they can be hard to replicate... Ahasuerus (talk) 10:22, 9 January 2023 (EST)

Ryman - Air (or, Have Not Have)

Looking at this title page, it seems to me that all the just plain "Air" titles should be varianted to the full, earlier 2004-09-00 St. Martin's Griffin title "Air (or, Have Not Have)". Would that be correct? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:56, 12 January 2023 (EST)

The two Air (or, Have Not Have) pubs should be unmerged and the old & new records varianted to each other. However, I would use Air as the parent as it is the most common and we base canonical titles on the most used title, not the first title. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks for your help. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 03:17, 13 January 2023 (EST)

Lost Dorsai audiobook & MP3 CD

In preparing to add the audiobook & MP3 CD for "Lost Dorsai", I found that the descriptions on Amazon and Audible only mention the novella title here. Since the existing pubs are all collections that contain "Lost Dorsai" and additional stories, it seems to me that the best way to add the audiobook & MP3 CD would be to first create an chapbook and then merge the novella title created from that into the existing novella title here. I could then add pubs to it for the audiobook and MP3 CD. Is there a better way to do this? Phil (talk) 09:52, 13 January 2023 (EST)

Yep - either create an empty chapbook and then import the novella (with a note for the handling moderator on why you do not have a short fiction record) or create the chapbook with the novella and then merge. Both are 2 steps so either way works. Then clone from the chapbook for the rest of the formats. Annie (talk) 12:18, 13 January 2023 (EST)

I, Robot -- merge question

How do I merge I, Robot (new) into I, Robot (good)? --Glenn (talk) 17:23, 16 January 2023 (EST)

Go to Eando Binder and select 'Check for Duplicate Titles' from the 'Editing Tools:' menu. You will see the title pair you want to merge. John Scifibones 18:37, 16 January 2023 (EST)

Ahhh. I assumed that it would only merge titles showing on that page. --Glenn (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2023 (EST)

When you cannot find an author/publication where to merge from (usually due to typos), you can also use Advanced search to find the two titles and bring them on a merge-able screen. :) Annie (talk) 12:23, 17 January 2023 (EST)

"The Wooden Ham" (Fantastic Adventures, December 1943)

In the SFE entry on House Names, it says, "It is believed that Leroy Yerxa wrote almost the entire December 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures with stories under house names except for one, Morris J Steele, which was usually the pen name of Raymond A Palmer himself but was here used by Berkeley Livingston." In that issue, "The Wooden Ham" is the only story by "Morris J. Steele," but it's varianted to Leroy Yerxa. Should the primary author be changed to Berkeley Livingstone? —Rosab618 (talk) 02:27, 19 January 2023 (EST)

Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams: Volume One - info wanted

This is a call for help with unverified pubs for this title. Please refer to Stonecreek's page for what I'm trying to do.

If anyone has a copy of an unverified pub, any info would be welcome. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:08, 19 January 2023 (EST)

The Fifth Time Out - Author tweak

When PVing Terra SF: ... I found that the author is given on both the inline page and the TOC is given with a ring A (Mårtensson). The Canadian edition also is entered with Martensson, but the only PV is inactive. I strong suspect that both the U.S. and Canadian editions are the same in this respect. Thoughts? --Glenn (talk) 22:29, 19 January 2023 (EST)

That seems like a reasonable assumption. In the absence of an available verifier, I would change it and add a note to the Canadian edition that the lettering in the credit was originally recorded as "a" but was changed to "å" as seen in the U.S. edition and has not been (re)verified as of this date. --MartyD (talk) 10:23, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Trying to figure out the best approach. Should I just edit the title record and add notes to the publication? Or add new titles to the publication, remove the old ones, and merge (?) afterwords? Or some other non-obvious way, at least to me? --Glenn (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2023 (EST)

As the title is only used in this book and the title is not a parent, just change the title record author and update the notes on the publication and you are all set. If there were other books where the current record had to remain as is, you would have needed to either unmerge and change the title (and variant the new title back under the parent) OR add title/remove title/variant again. Annie (talk) 18:10, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Collections with Abridged or Expanded Contents

What is the correct way to record collections with abridged or expanded contents? I have come across examples that seem to me to be recorded inconsistently.
1) Sturgeon: A Way Home - hc and A Way Home - pb. The pb is abridged (two stories cut). These two pubs have two different title records which are not varianted and have "Do Not Merge" notes.
2) Sturgeon: A Touch of Strange - hc and A Touch of Strange - pb. The pb is abridged (two stories cut). These two pubs have the same title record.
3) Butler: Bloodchild and Other Stories - hc and Bloodchild and Other Stories, Second Edition - tp. The tp is expanded (two additional stories). These two pubs have two different title records which are varianted.
Teallach (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2023 (EST)

It seems that there are different approaches to that problem: I'm in favor of having same-titled collections that are expanded (or abridged) for new editions to be subsumed under one entry title, and add an explaining note to the title record. Only when the contents are exchanged for a great part, I would add a new record. In my opinion that does help to have the author summary pages aren't overloaded.

This way also the translations of collections (which also often have additional or omitted pieces) are handled more easily. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:53, 22 January 2023 (EST)

Advance Reader Copy

I have an ARC that Amazon gives the mass-market release date as 2021-06-17. On the spine is "June 2021". Back cover has ISBN (same as Amazon's) '3rd June 2021' '£9.99' 'Advance Reader Copy - Not For Resale'. I gather that ARCs are generally released 3-6 months in advance. I can't find anything in the Help, so how should I enter the date? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:51, 24 January 2023 (EST)

Since found two conversations from 2012 ARCs and e-ARCs redux. What is the current policy? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:28, 25 January 2023 (EST)

As far as can recall, nothing ever changed, and they are still "out". I found even more:

• ARC first printing, in or out?
• Baen's "e-arcs": IN or OUT
• Advance Review/Readers Copies
• Early releases from Baen and Patreon
• Uncorrected Book Proofs and Advance Reader copies

They all boil down to a desire to record ARCs running up against general policy (which I cannot find) that ARCs are not something the ISFDB records. --MartyD (talk) 11:39, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks for your search Marty...interesting reading. I'll just say that I don't have an opinion on whether ARCs are in the db or not.

The point remains that there is no ARC guidance in the Help.

As far back as 2008, MHHutchins refers to ISFDB Policy and no-one calls him on it, so there must have been one - but where is it? Also, do we know whether consensus opinion has moved on in the intervening years? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2023 (EST)

I don't know that it has. If you have the desire and energy, you could open a new topic on Rules and standards discussions and see if anything definitive comes of it. Maybe we'd at least get an agreement on something specific to put into the acquisition policy. --MartyD (talk) 08:59, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Done :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 09:23, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Unused cover image to be deleted

I mistakenly entered this as the cover image for a 2012 Project Gutenberg of Australia edition and then realized it's actually the cover for the 2018 "most recent update." (It's taken from the cover for the new 2018 Roy Glashan's Library edition.) I deleted the image from the 2012 entry and created a new image file for the 2018 PGA publication I'd just added. So this image should be deleted lest someone seeing "There are no usages of this file" adds it back to the 2012 publication, which probably had no cover at all. MOHearn (talk) 10:11, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:58, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks! MOHearn (talk) 23:09, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Incorrect information

Hello,

I'm James Bennett, a British Fantasy and Horror writer. I have a page on the SF database, but there is wrongly listed information. Please can you advise me how to change and update this.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?141156&fbclid=IwAR3cLjmEWLqxAV1qsfpTrUwS5E07mGZX6oV4W6g7XDdq4VD19rH3HkSgDTU

Thanks in advance, James Bennett —The preceding unsigned comment added by James Bennett (talk • contribs) 06:30, February 2, 2023‎

Hello, and welcome to our little database!

With your problem we have to know what is wrong with your summary page: is there a title spelled wrongly, is there something missing, or are tiles listed that don't belong there? Upon this the possible solution depends. Stonecreek (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2023 (EST)

Upon looking at it more closely I do suspect that the artwork may not be kosher, is that right? (The software doesn't know how to tell apart two different persons with the same name, we have to differentiate them by hand). Stonecreek (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2023 (EST)

That's right. The following works have not been created by me:

• Novels - The Tithe of Esra'Nell (2017)

Author attribution corrected to James S. Bennett.

• Cover Art: Quest for Faith (2003), Viking Pride (2003), Land of the Dead (2003), Hammer of the Gods (2003), The House That George Built (2011)

Disambiguated as James Bennett (artist)

• Interior Art: Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes (2004), The House That George Built (2009), Star Wars Visions: The Cantina (2010)

Disambiguated as James Bennett (artist)

And I would like to ADD the following if I may:

• Short stories:

  End Times in Paris - The Fox Spirit Book of Love (2021)

  Morta - The Book of Queer Saints (2022)

  Husk - There's More of Us Than You Know anthology (2022)

  The Cicatrix - Tales From Between (2023)

  Facts Concerning the First Annual Arkham Parade - Occult Detective Magazine (2023)

  A Devilment - Raunch anthology (2023)

• Essays: A Rainbow at Night: Reappraising the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope - The Ginger Nuts of Horror (2022)
• Novellas: The Dust of the Red Rose Knight - BOTH Press (2023)

Thanks so much for your help! —The preceding unsigned comment added by James Bennett (talk • contribs) 10:46, February 3, 2023

I've corrected the author attribution for the titles which should not have been attributed to you. (see inline above). The database is publication driven. To add titles to your author summary page, you enter the publications in which they appear. Give it a try, the reviewing moderator will help you with any problems. Please sign all your posts using four tildes (~~~~). John Scifibones 12:31, 3 February 2023 (EST)

I added cover artist (Kyle de Silva) to Tithe... using Amazon, they have no other credits on ISFDB, seems odd to me for such a professional cover, probably more out there. --Username (talk) 12:34, 3 February 2023 (EST)

Dante's Inferno

Hi. I have purchased an ebook version of Mark Musa's translation of Dante's Inferno (ISBN 9780253012401) which I wanted to add. The translation sections, the main body of the book, are clearly very similar to 444379, but are ordered in a different way. The paperback has Canto I prose, verse, notes, Canto II prose, verse, notes, etc. The ebook has Canto I..XXXIV prose, Canto I verse, notes, Canto II verse, notes, ….

At first glance, the various bits appear to be the same, just in a different order. Should I include title 1717942 in the ebook or should I create a new variant of 1640580?

If the pieces are just ordered differently you just can clone the existing publication and order the pieces by piping the pages ('|1', '|2', '|3', and so on). Stonecreek (talk) 14:17, 2 February 2023 (EST)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. The title 1717942 includes 34x3 pieces. There are not 34x3 existing titles. While creating 34x3 titles, one for each of the 34 Cantos prose, verse and notes pieces would be a solution, I'm not sure it's optimal. Actually, we could get away with 34x2 pieces (one for each of the 34 Cantos prose and one for each of the 34 Cantos verse+notes), but it's not much better.--AliHarlow (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2023 (EST)

If both use Musa's translation then use the same title record. Do not create fictitious titles. If you wish to elaborate on the layout, do so in the publication notes. Use clone or add pub depending on how many titles from the tp appear in the ebook. John Scifibones 16:19, 2 February 2023 (EST)

Glukhovsky - The World of Metro 2034

This translated shortfiction title only exists in the pub under the title page Metro 2034.

Looking at the translation help page / step 2 / option 2, my problem is that the title doesn't exist on the db in Russian (it would have been in the 2009 original edition. Can someone give me the Russian title? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2023 (EST)

I have found the first pages of the Russian original and of the Gollancz translation on the net. "The World of Metro 2034" is a translation of "Пролог" ("Prologue") in the Russian edition. Note that the Russian edition also contains a one-page "Annotation", which is basically an abridged and slightly modified version of the prologue. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2023 (EST)

Thanks for looking that up. Just to be clear... should I make the canonical title just "Пролог"? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:05, 4 February 2023 (EST)

I would suggest disambiguating it by appending "(Метро 2034)" to the end of the title. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2023 (EST)

Perfect! Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2023 (EST)

Asimov - The Gods Themselves

Quandry. I have the Panther/Granada 1978 print. All the details there are correct - except the cover image (mine has no flash over the ship) and the OCLC/WorldCat: 614700011 (it should be 715472480). IanPercival cloned Don Erikson's 1976 print, including the link to his cover image. What would be the best way to treat this? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2023 (EST)

In general, you should fix the bits of the record that are wrong. (1) There is no OCLC/WorldCat verifier, so delete the incorrect OCLC reference, add the correct one, and make yourself OCLC/WorldCat verifier. (2) If you can scan your cover, do that and replace the image. You could also try to find an appropriate image on the web somewhere and link it or download/upload it, in place of doing your own scan. If you can't do either of those, then since the difference is relatively minor and the existing image is still helpful in identifying the book, I recommend keeping the cover and adding a note about the discrepancies between the image on the record and the image on your book. Whichever path you take here, make yourself a primary verifier. --MartyD (talk) 12:59, 9 February 2023 (EST)

Thanks for that fulsome answer Marty. Perfect. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:26, 9 February 2023 (EST)

variant cover image

Hello, I have tried to variant this cover. Is it correct or the other way around? Many thanks Henna (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2023 (EST)

I think it should be the other way around. Since Der Drache came first, and we have decided "Enric" is the artist's canonical name, this (3146453) should be the parent, and the other three should be made variants of that. --MartyD (talk) 11:11, 21 February 2023 (EST)

Hello Marty, please take a look. Is it OK? Thanks again Henna (talk) 06:52, 22 February 2023 (EST)

Yes, that looks right to me. --MartyD (talk) 09:18, 22 February 2023 (EST)

Uploaded cover image - what next?

I uploaded a cover image for a book edition that exists, but doesn't have a cover image. I can't find any information anywhere about what do do next to have it moved to the database. I've been trawling through the wiki a couple of times looking for beginners instructions but can't find anything. I have uploaded the file and it's sitting in the uploaded files area. It's been there 2 weeks. Is it a time thing? Do new images only get updated monthly or something? A general Faq about the end to end process of getting an image into the database would be useful. —The preceding unsigned comment added by JRBleckly (talk • contribs) 06:32, February 21, 2023‎

You needed to edit the publication record entering the image link in the 'Image URL:' field. Here is the applicable help section. The link is also in the welcome message I just posted on your talk page. John Scifibones 08:31, 21 February 2023 (EST)

Unrelated post moved to User talk:JRBleckly Author attribution. John Scifibones 09:23, 21 February 2023 (EST)

genre?

Would a story where alive is not dead bur is living under assumed identity be considered SF? Thanks. gzuckier (talk) 11:19, 21 February 2023 (EST)

Nope. Nothing speculative or supernatural in this. It won't be ours even if the main character "dies" in front of other characters by being injected by something that allows a doctor to pronounce them dead and then "revives". If you share a specific book, there may be something that makes it ours but just being considered dead while living elsewhere/as someone else is a thriller trope, not one of ours. Annie (talk) 11:41, 21 February 2023 (EST)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. thanks gzuckier (talk) 22:46, 21 February 2023 (EST)

Asimov - Foundation & Empire variant

Since submitting this 26th printing I've been changing the publication (approved) and prologue (pending) titles of two other pubs with Gambino's artwork; 1994-03-00 and 1996-00-00. Now all that's needed is a merge for the three, but I've hit the buffers.

Gambino's titles are here and at the moment the date is 1994-03-00.

If I merge the other two with my copy, the variant option is there but which date to chose? I can find no reference to a 1994-03-00 date. Locus1 gives "Foundation and Empire (HarperCollins UK 0-586-01355-5, May ’94 [Jun ’94], £4.99, 240pp, pb" and Locus has no title entry for Gambino under cover artists.

My copy states it's a 1996 edition and so does the 1996-00-00 entry. The 1994-03-00 pub shows quite a chequered edit history. Suggestions please. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 06:49, 1 March 2023 (EST)

As long as the 1994-03-00 publication is in there, the coverart title will carry its date. So the question really is - is that 1994 book really carrying this cover and is there a 1994 book?

The cover angle may be the easier to tackle: The credit is based on this book which happens to have a lot of PVs, 2 of them very active. So hit them with the task to go and check in the book what exactly the credit in there is - is it for the art only or is that edition called specifically. Then we will be down to either our DB error (which we can talk about), an error in this book (which happens and we can document) or a confirmation of a 1994 cover). It is possible that because it is UK, the US dates are a bit muddled but... my guess is that we are in either door 1 or 2. But let's start with what that book actually credited.

Meanwhile, start looking at OCLC, Goodreads, auctions and other online venues for that UK edition and see if the date is confirmable somewhere and if the cover for it can be verified to be this one. Annie (talk) 11:42, 1 March 2023 (EST)

Thanks Annie for your time looking at this. I did spend a long while searching online but couldn't find a 1994-03-00 reference anywhere, but I'll try again. Meanwhile, yes, I'll find out what's in that book. One step at a time :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2023 (EST)

As Mavmaramis [1] noted, Fred Gambino did a single painting for the six Foundation books (on two panels). The full painting can be seen here. The reproduction in Ground Zero has the following note: 'Foundation series over (left panel)/(right panel) over Isaac Asimov over HarperCollins UK over Acrylic'. I.m.o. that means the illustrations were first used on the HarperCollins UK editions. We have five of these dated in 1994 (see here). I think this is the sixth, and should be dated 1994-03-00. Unfortunately the edits were done by user BarDenis, who hasn't been active since september 2013. Just my 2c. --Willem (talk) 15:52, 1 March 2023 (EST)

The Locus entry goes on to state ...[Foundation] Reissue (Gnome 1953) SF novel; 28th printing. The Third Volume in the "Foundation" saga., which happens to match the printing cited in that undated record. So maybe that one should be dated 1994-05-00. --MartyD (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2023 (EST)

Nice find Marty. I agree, and it's redated. There's still no sign of a source for the F & E 1994-03-00 date so I'll revert to the artist for clarification.

Thanks to Willem and Mavmaramis for trying! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2023 (EST)

Introrse: The King's Whisper

I ran across a copy of this book and have two problems. The first is that the book seems to be quite obscure. ISFDB has no record of it or the author R. H. Martin. Anything I can find about him leads to a cult-ish, clique-ish pages and a member sign-in. Goodreads covers a paperback edition and a Kindle edition with ISBNs and Abebooks UK and Amazon seem to have copies for sale. It is the second in a series and the first exists in the OCLC, but not the second. I figure that I could use these to create entries, but that's the easy part. The copy I have is hard-bound. It has no publication information whatsoever. Page 1 is blank, page 3 is the start of the 'story' and it ends on the last page. I've not read the book, but it is sprinkled with diary excerpts dated 3050 and talks about the world of Schwa and the planet Hytrae, so is probably eligible. No copyright, no printing info, no page numbers. The first blank page has the inscription "Thanks for everything R. H. Martin". 8 1/2" by 11" pages. The title and author in gold leaf on cover and spine. Spine also has the word Sharp. Is this even a 'published' book? ../Doug H (talk) 23:31, 3 March 2023 (EST)

You probable already found these, but he has a Facebook page and a website. Both list the same email address. You could try to ask him about it. --MartyD (talk) 11:07, 4 March 2023 (EST)

I will try, but my question(s) remain - makes it a 'published' book under the revised criteria? What questions do I need to ask? ../Doug H (talk) 11:19, 4 March 2023 (EST)

Well, you would explain what you have and ask what he can tell you about it. Given a hard cover, it seems unlikely to be an ARC. Given the existence of Kindle and paperback editions, it seems likely to be part of some sort of publication run. Assuming he knows what it is, he should be able to tell you when it was issued, its nature, who produced it, how many copies, etc. That should help you figure out if it's "published" in the sense that the ISFDB cares about. --MartyD (talk) 12:46, 6 March 2023 (EST)

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL40850422M/Introrse. --Username (talk) 13:01, 6 March 2023 (EST)

Hyde & Wintz - Précieuses reliques: Precious Artifacts 3

I've submitted this and I think there are problems with it. I've entered the titles as they they appear in the book.

• What are the titling issues here?
• How do I treat the (back and forth) translations (if at all) - they're published simultaneously?

Btw, I'm aware of the titles transliteration and author name varianting needing to be done.

Advice please. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 14:10, 7 March 2023 (EST)

Some suggestions (others may disagree, so don't rush off to implement):

1. I would be inclined to make the main title be the French, then the English:

   Précieuses reliques: Une bibliographie de Philip K. Dick / Precious Artifacts 3: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography

   and document the presentation on the title page in the notes, as you have done.
2. You should be able to keep the contents you have, and then for the ones where there's a full essay and its translation, I am pretty sure once accepted you can make the translation a variant of the original, even with both appearing in the same publication. If which is the original is unclear, going with the French one seems best to me -- it sounds like 60% (or more) French, 40% (or less) English.
3. You should add disambiguation to "Préface", "Forward", and "Index des Noms".

Nothing else leapt out at me. Very comprehensive notes! --MartyD (talk) 19:19, 7 March 2023 (EST)

Elegant solutions to all the questions I had about this. Thanks Marty! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:31, 9 March 2023 (EST)

Interior art variants

I've entered an omnibus where the author's name has dropped an initial, generating variant titles. This has reproduced the interior illustrations of the original. In the original, the illustrations were added individually to the contents using the [n] index. Given that the order of the illustrations doesn't match, I prefer to enter them as a single entry for each novel. I believe I should date both to the omnibus publication date, but would like to variant them to the original entries. However, I could date them to the original and variant the individual interior art titles mine. Aside from this date clean-up, the whole shebang starts here. N.B. If you follow links, you can see there are only about 6 or 7 illustrations, and I do have access to the original and could match illustrations up and re-use/import the titles. Let's assume there were dozens, or I didn't have access, as opposed to, say, not liking the idea of delineating illustrations in the first place without including the actual artwork. ../Doug H (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2023 (EST)

We do not variant records for individual artwork to records for combined artworks (or vice versa). You should only variant if they are records for the same artwork (individual to individual or combined to combined). If you choose to use a combined record where the original used individual, then you should add a title note explaining that and you can link to the original records in the title note, but not create variants. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:42, 12 March 2023 (EDT)

Hi! I've one remark: if there's reason to believe the illustrations were published with the original novel publications they should be dated to that appearance (and have notes added why they don't show up with them). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 06:57, 12 March 2023 (EDT)

Variants are dated at the first publication of the variant. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:42, 12 March 2023 (EDT)

UK price in Guineas

I've encountered a 1901 publication with the price listed in BLIC as "3 gns" i.e. 3 Guineas. I entered it as it appears the the catalog, which caused a yellow warning. Should we enter as "gns 30", or should it be recalculated into shillings as "63/-"? Thoughts. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 07:40, 13 March 2023 (EDT)

Considering that it is always a set rate, I'd add it as 63/- and add a note that BLIC credited in guineas. It is unclear what the book used but considering that most of our books are considerably under a Guinea, that may be just a convention of recording - either in BLIC or on the books when the value is so high (kinda like books used 50c or 50p until they came closer to the dollar but in reverse... Annie (talk) 12:20, 13 March 2023 (EDT)

The edition priced at 3 Guineas, was printed on vellum and limited to 15 copies, as opposed to the edition printed on paper for 15/- and limited to 300. The Wikiepdia article on the currency states that in the 20th century, "The guinea had an aristocratic overtone, so professional fees, and prices of land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring, furniture, white goods and other "luxury" items were often quoted in guineas until a couple of years after decimalisation in 1971". Both prices are from BLIC and given that the prices are quoted differently, I'm guessing that the vellum edition was sold as a luxury item. Regardless, I can convert the price to shillings. I already had added a note explaining the abbreviation and its source and value in shillings. I'll adjust accordingly. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:27, 13 March 2023 (EDT)

I suspect that you are right and the guineas price was a convention in high-end goods. If we expect to have a lot of books like that, we can always add the currency but... the UK prices are already complicated as it is, adding a new wrinkle for a book or 3 will be an overkill. I don't really have a strong opinion though so if everyone else disagrees, I won't oppose adding it. I just don't see it being helpful. Annie (talk) 13:58, 13 March 2023 (EDT)

PS: If we decide to go with a note and conversion, I think we should add that to the help page so people know how to convert and record if they see a price in guineas - the same way we have notes on how to record prices in p for example. Annie (talk) 14:03, 13 March 2023 (EDT)

John Howard

Hi, This is John Howard (1961, ID 25485). Could a new author please be created so that the following entries can be attributed to him - they are not by me:

In Anthologies: Strange Tales (1976);

In Short Fiction: Grasshoppers (2010) / Spook (2010) / Mountain Man (2012) / The Judiciales (2012);

In Essays: The Great Wild West Writing Challenge (2014).

Thank you. All best, John —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JohnHoward (talk • contribs) . 07:18, 16 March 2023‎ (EDT)

Welcome to ISFDB, John. I'll work on this for you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:41, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Okay, this is all done. I split them into two additional authors/editors because I don't think the 1976 John Howard is the same as the 2010s John Howard. Please let us know if there are any others things that need fixing. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:54, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Duplicate Cover Scan

Two pubs, Mission Critical and Insertion have the same artwork on the cover, but differ in the printing. When I uploaded the cover for Mission Critical early this year, I mistakenly uploaded the cover for Insertion. Trying to correct my error, I deleted the cover art for Mission Critical and tried to upload the correct art. But I can't; I get a message telling me that the new upload is the same as the old one and cannot get the new version to upload. How do I fix this? Bob (talk) 12:21, 19 March 2023 (EDT)

If you look at File:MSSNCRTCLP2023.jpg, it did successfully upload. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:01, 19 March 2023 (EDT)

No. That is the cover scan that prevents the loading of the one for Mission Critical. As I said, the artwork is identical, but the title and authors differ. Bob (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2023 (EDT)

You should be able to tell it to upload anyway despite the warnings. What is the exact error message you are seeing? The "This file is a duplicate of the following file" one or the "A file with this name exists already"? In either way, you should see the "Ignore warnings and save file anyway" button at the bottom. Annie (talk) 21:02, 20 March 2023 (EDT)

It says the file is a duplicate. I hit ignore warnings in the original upload to no effect, and when it shows a duplicate (which is NOT a duplicate), it only allows to reload, not to load anyhow. The problem is more complex that I originally thought. The pub is also in the data base uploaded from Amazon, so it's duplicated. Is the easiest solution to delete the copy I loaded, go to the Amazon copy and try uploading the cover scan? Bob (talk) 16:35, 21 March 2023 (EDT)

When I look at File:MSSNCRTCLP2023.jpg, the cover title is "Mission Critical" and the authors on the cover match this record 923797. Try clearing your browser cache and revisiting the page. It is likely that your browser is just confused and is showing you its cached version of the old cover when the new one is already there (which is why you are getting a duplicate image error). -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:34, 21 March 2023 (EDT)

Bob, you also need to add it to the URL field -- the file seems to be in there - it is just not connected. Did you happen to miss that step by any chance? (just dotting i's and crossing t's here). Annie (talk) 17:42, 21 March 2023 (EDT)

Avoiding variant of a variant

I have a couple of questions leading on from this earlier thread Hyde & Wintz. There are five essays which are translations of the French and I'm stuck now on how to proceed in making them variants of the canonical French titles.

Here's one example: This is the canonical French title and its variant French title. This is the canonical English translation and its variant English title.

So, the questions are, how do I go about this and could I have gone about it a better way? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:06, 19 March 2023 (EDT)

As both authors are listed as English authors in ISFDB, for ISFDB purposes the English title is the canonical title and the French title is the translation. 3156720 would be the parent with both 3154168 and 3154169 varianted to it. 3156721 would be deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:56, 19 March 2023 (EDT)

Just to clarify something in the general rules in case someone finds this later: how the author language is set is irrelevant for determining what is the canonical title. If the originals are created/written in French (aka the author wrote them in French originally), the French record becomes the parent no matter what language the author usually uses. If the translation is done via an intermediate language (Bulgarian translations of a Japanese novel done from the Russian translation for example), the middle language is only in the notes as we cannot have variant of variants. Same with revised translations, same translations under different title/author forms and so on. We have quite a few multi-lingual authors where that is important). Annie (talk) 11:59, 20 March 2023 (EDT)

Thank you Annie for that clarification. That's what I was waiting for. I now have the solution to my original question. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:34, 20 March 2023 (EDT)

Just make sure in such cases to check that it is "written in French" and not "written for the French editions and translated by an unknown (or known) hand including the author's" or "first published in French". The latter two will have the English as the original as that was the original text). Art is... more complicated. So let's not talk about it here. :) Annie (talk) 12:45, 20 March 2023 (EDT)

Two names for author on title page

The title page lists the title [over] "Written by: SilentBelle" [over] "AKA: Jake Degner". Neither name is in the database. The copyright page has "Cover Art is by: Sameasusual" followed by a weblink to a fuller image than what's on the cover. Sameasusual seems to be a userid on an art site. How do I list these 'authors'? ../Doug H (talk) 23:02, 24 March 2023 (EDT)

We do follow the 'Written by' statement, so it'd be SilentBelle as author (like in this example: "Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman"). For the artwork we ususally also follow the credit (with the possible exceptions of obvious misspellings or -credits). Hope that helps! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 05:59, 25 March 2023 (EDT)

AND add notes that author is 'also known as Jake Degner', and add website of artist + explanation that name is userid on that site. :) MagicUnk (talk) 06:34, 25 March 2023 (EDT)

..and the [results], with thanks. ../

Dawn Burdett vs. D. M. Burdett

I think that Dawn Burdett and D. M. Burdett are the same person as mentioned on this site. What does anyone think? MLB (talk) 16:58, 27 March 2023 (EDT)

Let's keep all the discussion in one place. There's already a discussion going over here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:02, 27 March 2023 (EDT)

Serial fiction app publications?

There are a growing number of serial fiction apps for smartphones. Some of the apps are publishing speculative fiction titles of note; recent serial app YONDER in particular is aggressively promoting itself as carrying backlist & commissioned titles from established authors (including specfic): promo news article here, press release here. So how, if at all, should these app publications be added to ISFDB?

EXAMPLE 1: novel Power & Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts was republished in serial form on app Radish Fiction. EXAMPLE 2: the series Available Darkness by Sean Platt & David Wright has a story Darkness Itself first published exclusively on the serial app YONDER. Would the app publications in these examples be added as new separate publications on ISFDB, or would they be added only as URL links on the "Power & Majesty" title and Available Darkness series pages? --Morebooks (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2023 (EDT)

Le Guin - The Dispossessed

Looking at the title The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974-05-00) and its variant The Dispossessed (also 1974-05-00), don't we date to the first instance of the variant, in this case to 1999-08-12? There's also this variant The Dispossessed(also 1974-05-00), but as Ursula K. Le Guin (to 1975-07-00?). Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2023 (EDT)

Yes - we do. A lot of the older books are dated based on older rules which had the variants being dated based on the parent date (and/or based on a faulty understanding of the date rules by some moderators). These need fixing - so submit the updates (and any other you spot). Annie (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2023 (EDT)

Thanks Annie, I'll proceed. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:53, 30 March 2023 (EDT)

Pages?

I have a novel with numbered pages 1-201. The novel finishes on page 200. Page 201 is about the author and falls to 'contents not included'. Please remind me, should it be ...

a) Pages 200, and in notes "Novel ends page 200, a note about the author is on page 201, also numbered.", or

b) Pages 201, state the same in notes

I think it's a) but I ask because there is already a different printing in the db (with the same content) with Pages 201 (no note). What do you think? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 04:12, 3 April 2023 (EDT)

As I read this help template, it should be entered as 201. The About the Author can also be included if it is of significant length (see this). Hope this helps. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 06:35, 3 April 2023 (EDT)

All numbered pages should be included in the page count, so 201. You can mention in the noes that the story ends on 200 and the About the Author is on 201 (unless it's a really long one, as mentioned by Rtrace). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:57, 3 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks to both of you for your help, 201 it is :) Kev.--BanjoKev (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2023 (EDT)

Bloody Vegas

Can somebody tell me what to do with this book? The Amazon credits are a real mess. The cover title and author credits are completely different than those inside the book. MLB (talk) 23:53, 4 April 2023 (EDT)

Created 2 log ons, still says I'm not logged on

I read I needed 2 log ons, one for the site, one for the Wiki, but the app still says I'm not logged on. There are some corrections I need to make to my author info. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nycwritercomposer (talk • contribs) .

Let me first confirm that we are on the same page re: the account creation process. ISFDB:FAQ says:

• Note that the ISFDB database and the ISFDB wiki use the same accounts, so your User ID and password will be the same.

The fact that you were able to create this Wiki post as User:Nycwritercomposer means that you have a valid Wiki account. All you have to do now is use the same account name and password on one of the ISFDB Web pages like the ISFDB front page and you should be logged in on both sides. If it doesn't work, the ISFDB FAQ has a list of common issues, which I am copy-pasting below:

• The browser has cookies disabled
• The browser is Safari, which has reportedly caused problems for some users
• The user is trying to access the ISFDB using a URL other than https://www.isfdb.org
• The user is unaware that the user name is case sensitive (although the ISFDB Wiki lets you log in even if you use the wrong case)
• The user is unaware that the user name is automatically changed to have an initial capital letter

Could you please give it a try and see if it works? And welcome to the ISFDB project! Ahasuerus (talk) 13:52, 5 April 2023 (EDT)

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

I'd be grateful if someone could explain how I should evaluate this pub in terms of 1st or 2nd printing. This thread gives me pause. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 04:07, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

The explanation on the publisher page is correct. You might find Quill & Brush a valuable resource. John Scifibones 07:15, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

Aha! That fourth line was just waiting for me, hiding in plain sight... The Q&B link is just what I was looking for too. Thanks John. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 08:44, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

Clarke - The Fountains of Paradise

I've landed in a tangle of Prefaces, Forewords, Afterwords, Additions, and their dates, and need advice on whether my thinking is any good on how to untangle all these essays.

• 1) Preface (The Fountains of Paradise) and Foreword (The Fountains of Paradise). Foreword is the parent title, correctly, as there are 6 Forewords and 3 Prefaces (note that the 8th printing has both titles). However, whilst the Preface is correctly dated 1979-01-00, the first instance we have of the Foreword is 1980-04-00 Pan Books and so I suggest the title date change 1979-00-00 to 1980-04-00.
• 2) Sources and Acknowledgments (The Fountains of Paradise) and Afterword: Sources and Acknowledgments. There are two of the former and eight of the latter titles, so I suggest reversing the variant. Sources and Acknowledgments (...) is dated 1979-00-00 but it is not given in the 1979-00-00 BCA edition. Should the title be re-dated to 1979-01-00? The Afterword: Sources... is dated 1979-00-00 but first appeared 2000-10-12. Should that also be re-dated?
• 3) Addition to the Afterword. It appears that the title date 1989-03-00 has been derived from the author's signing date at the end of the essay and has been promulgated throughout; see also 8th printing and 13th printing. The 2000-10-12 printing appears to be the 1st published instance of this title. We have only 3 candidates for a possible publishing date between 1989-03-00 and 2000-10-12; 1989-08-00 VGSF, 1991-01-00 Bantam Spectra, 1992-12-00 VGSF but none of them have active PVs to ask if the title is present. I suggest changing the title date 1989-03-00 to 2000-10-12.
• 4) And lastly, the titles Afterword: Sources and Acknowledgments and Addition to the Afterword should be disambiguated for the author page.

Thoughts and advice would be welcome. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 09:56, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

Update: The Afterword: Sources... title has just been re-dated, as I was writing the above. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:04, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

• 1) I wonder if the preface and foreword are the same. my copy has the preface on page xiii. It begins with '"From Paradise to Taprobane is forty leagues', ends with 'And utmost Indian Isle Taprobane..."' and has 19 lines. As it is, the dating is correct (I will add it to my copy). Preface is the variant title and is dated on the first appearance of the variant, Foreword is the parent title and dated on the first appearance of the text.
• 2) I would not support reversing the parent/variant. The essay is probably present in most or all of the publications of this noveel, just not (yet) in the database. "Sources and Acknowledgments" should indeed be re-dated to 1979-01-00
• 3) Yes, 'Addition to the Afterword' should be re-dated to 2000-10-12, with a note about the discrepancy of the author's signing date.
• 4) Yes, generic titles should always be disambiguated. --Willem (talk) 10:47, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for your answer Willem.

• 1) You are likely correct about the text of the Preface and the Foreword being the same; my copy begins and ends as yours does, although only taking up 15 lines. However, I don't think the text "sameness" is relevant when considering the date - it's when the title first appears, not the text. The first appearance we have of the Foreword is 1980-04-00 which is why I suggested changing it from 1979-00-00 to that. If a subsequent earlier appearance turns up, then the title date would be changed to reflect that. Would you agree?

The "sameness" is relevant IMO. If it isn't the same foreword, it should have it's own title. I ran across this frequently in translations of Jules Verne, same title, same story, different wording. I separated the TITLE and put the translator and distinguishing text in each of the Notes. That said, minor, editorial variations did not get new titles and this is just a foreword, not a novel. So "sameness" as a principle is important, just maybe not relevant here. ../Doug H (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2023 (EDT)

If Preface and Foreword were not the same, they should be separated, but it seems they are the same. I suggest we reverse the parent/variant in this case. The current variant was first published 1979-01-00, the current parent on 1980-04-00. Keep in mind that when a variant is published before the parent, the parent gets the date of the variant (except for translations). --Willem (talk) 15:57, 7 April 2023 (EDT)

• 2) About reversing the variant. My understanding, from discussions elsewhere, is that whichever is the parent title is decided by which is the best known (most frequent) of the two. The current occurrence of eight titles to two seems a good basis for making that reverse. Do we make the decision based on "the essay is probably present"? At the moment we have no way of knowing that but, again, if more titles turn up, the parent issue can be revisited. My question about Afterword: Sources... being re-dated 1979 to 2000-10-12 still stands.
• 3) Agreed.
• 4) Agreed. Kev. BanjoKev (talk)

Just chiming in about something: "My understanding, from discussions elsewhere, is that whichever is the parent title is decided by which is the best known (most frequent) of the two." - not exactly. The rule/practive is that the parent title is the earliest one unless a later one had become a lot more popular and familiar. Which amounts to the same thing very often but don't count everywhere for the sake of counting - the default is leaving the first/original title as a parent and you need a good reason for going for a later title (i.e. a serial renamed and always published under a new name when published as a novel for example or a single early publication under one title and then using another exclusively and so on). Annie (talk) 11:23, 7 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for all the help, in the light of which I'll be making the following edits...

• 1) Reverse variant; make Foreword TR# 1696146 (re-date to 1980-04-00) a variant of Preface TR# 1315145 (1979-01-00).
• 2) Sources and Acknowledgments (The Fountains of Paradise) - re-date 1979-00-00 -> 1979-01-00.
• 3) Addition to the Afterword - change title date 1989-03-00 to 2000-10-12 - with a note about the discrepancy of the author's signing date.
• 4) Addition to the Afterword' - disambiguate -> Addition to the Afterword (The Fountains of Paradise).
• 4) Afterword: Sources and Acknowledgments - disambiguate -> Afterword: Sources and Acknowledgments (The Fountains of Paradise).

I think that's everything, but if I've missed anything please let me know. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2023 (EDT)

C. J. Cherryh revised works

I just found information on three C. J. Cherryh titles that were substantially rewritten after their original publication and published as ebooks. In the case of Rusalka and Yvegnie, should they be considered just another publication under the existing title with a note indicating that this publication is a substantial rewrite of the original or should I create new title such as Rusalka (Revised Edition) and Yvegnie (Revised Edition)? The copyright page for Rusalka doesn't reference the original publication and only gives copyright information relevant to the ebook, strongly implying that it is rewritten. The copyright page for Yvegnie does reference the original publication but also states that it is substantially rewritten and should be considered a new work. I'm leaning toward creating new titles. The third book Chernevog has to be a new title since the ebook edition is authored by both C. J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher instead of just C. J. Cherryh. Phil (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2023 (EDT)

Given the presence of a new co-author, I would handle this case the same way we handled Jeremy Bai's Nine Heavens and Ten Earths Universe: one series for the original version and another series for the revised version plus a super-series to encompass both series. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:09, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! I'll work on creating that structure. Phil (talk) 11:22, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

Where To Add Community Texts

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?260996; Somebody on Archive.org uploaded a lot of books, most of them "non-fiction" nonsense about Bigfoot and UFO's and such, but hidden among them is this novel which I'm guessing is hard to find since a search for some random sentences from the book found nothing online and many of these old "adult" novels are scarce. I'm never quite sure where I should add a link; it's not the real book except for the covers, being an e-text, so I don't think I should add it to the book's web page field, but if not should I add it to the Hudson title record or the Smith? --Username (talk) 09:22, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

I am looking at the uploaded file and it appears to be a scan processed by OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. The metadata associated with the file says "ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR)", which confirms that it's an OCR'd file. If so, then I would link it on the publication page since it's a scan of the 1967 edition as opposed to a new ebook edition. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:59, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

Done. I just noticed the scan's price/ID in upper left corner is blacked out. I wonder who did that, someone long ago or the scanner. --Username (talk) 10:31, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

What exactly is a valid B&N ID?

Template:PublicationFields:ExternalIDs states for BN:

	Look for the EAN. If it is a real EAN, it will start with 294. If it matches the ISBN13, do not record it as a BN number but as an ISBN. 

Whilst it's not explicitly stated, my reading of that is that B&N IDs are expected to begin with 294. However I notice that majority of BN IDs in the database don't follow that pattern; the biggest group seem to be (pseudo?) ISBN-10s beginning 11:

   MariaDB [isfdb]> select substring(identifier_value, 1, 3) prefix, length(identifier_value) length, count(1) from identifiers where identifier_type_id = 15 group by prefix, length;
   +--------+--------+----------+
   | prefix | length | count(1) |
   +--------+--------+----------+
   | $31    |      6 |        1 |
   | 009    |      9 |        1 |
   | 012    |      9 |        1 |
   | 100    |     10 |        3 |
   | 101    |     10 |        3 |
   | 102    |     10 |        4 |
   | 110    |     10 |       22 |
   | 111    |      9 |        3 |
   | 111    |     10 |      230 |
   | 112    |      9 |        4 |
   | 112    |     10 |      661 |
   | 113    |      9 |        1 |
   | 113    |     10 |      572 |
   | 114    |     10 |      375 |
   | 122    |      9 |        1 |
   | 281    |      8 |        1 |
   | 292    |      8 |        1 |
   | 294    |     13 |      675 |
   | 294    |     15 |       46 |
   | 523    |      8 |        1 |
   | 547    |      8 |        1 |
   | 588    |      8 |        1 |
   | 621    |      8 |        1 |
   | 978    |     13 |       37 |
   | 979    |     13 |        3 |
   | B01    |     10 |        1 |
   | B07    |     10 |        1 |
   | B08    |     10 |        2 |
   | htt    |     80 |        1 |
   +--------+--------+----------+
   29 rows in set (0.024 sec)

Some of those - e.g. the ASINs and hyperlink - are obviously data entry issues that need fixing, but I tried a recent example of a 11* B&N ID and the link to B&N worked, so perhaps the info on that help page needs updating? ErsatzCulture (talk) 11:01, 21 April 2023 (EDT)

It was designed for the 294 ISBN-like numbers B&N issues to books without ISBNs. However - because of the way their site works, each book also has a specific BN number as well (usually start with 1) and these also work with the URL we are using. So I stopped trying to tell people not to add these - if they want to, they can add them... I do not think we should be adding them so I never add them but there are cases where battles are not worth it - and as the URL works anyway and these are unique numbers anyway, so be it. The ISBNs, ASINs and other exotics above need fixing (some of the weird ones are probably GoodReads numbers). Whoever is fixing these, please do NOT delete them - chase them down and find what they are instead and assign them where they belong.Annie (talk) 12:57, 21 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks; I've cleaned up the link and the ASINs (wonder who was responsible for half of those? ;-) but I'll leave the much bigger jobs like the 978/979 ISBNs for the time being. ErsatzCulture (talk) 13:53, 21 April 2023 (EDT)

I'll clear the obvious ones up in a bit - I do that once in a while with the External ID search (starting with 9 gets you the ISBN, starting with 5,6 or 7 tend to get you some GRs and so on). :) Annie (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2023 (EDT)

Genre or non-genre

I have a collection containing many non-genre essays and one genre short story. When I enter it as a new collection do I tag the pub as non-genre or genre? I'll only be listing the short story in the contents and disregarding the rest, detailing this in the notes. Advice please. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2023 (EDT)

If a publication contains many non-genre essays and one genre story, I would enter it as "non-genre NONFICTION" since the primary title type is "ESSAY" as opposed to "SHORTFICTION". Ahasuerus (talk) 09:28, 24 April 2023 (EDT)

Yes, that makes perfect sense, thanks for that. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:20, 24 April 2023 (EDT)

Now I'm in a loop I can't get out of with this...

Here is the publication's title page

For a start, Grindrod is not the author, he's the Editor - how do I make that?

Apart from one exception, the book is an anthology (many different authors) of non-fiction, non-genre essays. How/where does all that fit in?

I've been looking at some of Asimov's non-fiction titles as editor but can't find any clues.

More advice needed please. Btw, here's the story, again --BanjoKev (talk) 16:44, 29 April 2023 (EDT)Thanks, Kev

All publication types have "author" credits. For ANTHOLOGY and MAGAZINE the software chooses to label these credits "Editor", while for all other publication types, the software labels these credits "Author". So if you are following Ahasuerus' suggestion, then you would make a NONFICTION publication (flagged as non-genre) with the editor/compiler as "author" and give it a single SHORTFICTION content record with the genre story and its author credit. Everything else about it would be relegated to the notes (unless some of the essays should be "in", in which case you would add content records for those, too.). You can also put a note on the title record that it's a compilation of essays and Grinrod is the editor. --MartyD (talk) 08:56, 30 April 2023 (EDT)

One other clarification re: the NONFICTION type. It's used both for monographs, i.e. non-fiction book-length texts like How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, and for compendiums of non-fiction essays written by different people like Howard Phillips Lovecraft Memorial Symposium. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:22, 30 April 2023 (EDT)

Adding awards to parent title record vs variants

Sanity check: when adding an award to a title, the award should be added to the record of the the title which is listed (or at least, implied) in any official award announcement, rather than the parent title record? Help:Screen:AddAward doesn't say anything explicitly about this?

I've just started trundling through the recently announced Locus top 10 finalists, and noticed that Nettle & Bone by Ursula Vernon has 4 award noms, but the T. Kingfisher variant only has 3, the omission being the Nebula. The SFWA page lists Kingfisher, so I'd have thought that should be the title record that gets the award attached to?

However, to be really pedantic about things, this particular case is a bit more complicated. The aforelinked SFWA page lists "Nettle and Bone", which is a variant of the title only used for the UK Titan editions, with the Tor US ones using an ampersand. I'm guessing there's probably scope for an editor to use their judgement to determine the "best" title record to add the award to, rather than strictly adhering to announcements, which in this case would split the awards across the two T. Kingfisher variants? ErsatzCulture (talk) 11:58, 30 April 2023 (EDT)

When this question came up last year, I wrote:

• Re: attaching awards to VTs, yes, it's fully supported by the software. In some cases it's a meaningful distinction, e.g. when the award is given to a translation, so it's the preferred way of doing things.

A bit later Annie added:

• I attach the award to the version it was given to (provided that it is not a typo and that version exists as a published book/part of a book) or to the canonical if the award site/announcement made up a weird title for the book. That way they are visible in both places and they are attached where one would expect them to be.

I thought this practice was documented in Help, but apparently not. I have updated Help:Screen:AddAward. Thanks for the heads-up. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:08, 30 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks - I had a vague recollection I'd come across this issue before, but I had no memory of adding a wiki item. Sorry for timewasting :-(

I've updated the Nebula entry to use the T. Kingfisher variant title. ErsatzCulture (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2023 (EDT)

No worries! Help needed to be updated anyway, so it's all good. Ahasuerus (talk)

Jana Bianchi / Jana P. Bianchi

This author is the same as this author (both the stories linked on the first profile and the single story that appears on the second profile are listed on the author's website). Can both of those profiles be linked? As far as I can tell, Bianchi used to go with the middle initial in the beginning of her career, but seems to have dropped it. Alittlebook (talk) 14:28, 2 May 2023 (EDT)

Done. Thanks for finding this! Stonecreek (talk) 08:43, 2 May 2023 (EDT)

Thanks so much! I found another another author with alternate names: this is an old alternate name to this same author, as it can be seen in her website, so they should probably be merged too :) Alittlebook (talk) 14:28, 2 May 2023 (EDT)

Fixed! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:12, 2 May 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Just one thing: I noticed Jana's chapbook Lobo de Rua (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3183741) is not appearing under her canonical name (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?307343), just in her alternate name. I was the one who added Lobo de Rua, so I'm unsure if I did anything wrong, or if there's a way of making it appear in her main name page. Alittlebook (talk) 22:20, 17 May 2023 (EDT)

I'll explain how to fix this so you can do the editing and learn.

1. Go to the title page for Lobo de Rua.
2. In the left vertical menu section, in the Editing Tools section, click on Make This Title a Variant.
3. There are two options for how to make it a variant of another title. The first option is for if the parent title already exists (which it doesn't), so skip down to the second option. In the Author 1 field, delete the contents and enter her canonical name: Jana Bianchi.
4. Click the Create New Parent Title button.

Once you're done, let us know here and we can approve the submission. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:07, 17 May 2023 (EDT)

Done! Thank you for your patience :) Alittlebook (talk) 22:20, 17 May 2023 (EDT)

Approved! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:50, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

Transliteration mouse-over?

On Gene Wolfe's Summary page, mouse-over works for the titles there: Parkroads—A Review and Afterword (Parkroads—A Review) but not for Gene Wolfe—The Legend, the Man - although it does work on the title page. Any ideas why? Thanks. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:27, 8 May 2023 (EDT)

Hm, it may be a bug. I'll take a look when I finish the patch that I am currently working on. Thanks for reporting the issue. Ahasuerus (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2023 (EDT)

I should have added that I've seen this on other pages too. Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 05:51, 9 May 2023 (EDT)

From what I've found, the lack of mouse-over only manifests in the "Interviews with This Author" section on authors' pages and is not character-dependent. Where the interviwer's name has been transliterated, mouse-over works. Here are some other examples (author page, affected title): (259 3023887 1351367 2454965) (8 1685583) (17 1021020 1337838) (48 1677638) (171 1203064). Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2023 (EDT)

I believe it's been fixed. Please let me know if you come across any issues. 18:31, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

Indeed it has. Thanks for your time on that. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

Early SFWA Bulletins

I've recently acquired copies of most of the 1965-1982 issues of the SWFA Bulletin. I have a problem putting these into the pub grid. Previous copies have generally be put into sub-groups by year (SWFA Bulletin - 1967 for instance). I can't figure out how to do this apparently. Help. Bob (talk) 19:17, 9 May 2023 (EDT)

Bob, the problem is trying to use a separate series for each year. We only need one series The SFWA Bulletin. Use this series regardless of the year and no series number. The software will place the each issue in the issue grid using the date field. We also merge all the issues for a given year, for example The SFWA Bulletin - 1983.

• 1966 - Edit the title record SFWA Bulletin, January 1966 Remove the Series Number:, make the Title: "SFWA Bulletin - 1966" and Date: "1966-00-00". This will be the title record you use to merge any additional 1966 issues with the same editor. Different editors get their own "rollup" title.
• 1965

1. Edit the series record The SFWA Bulletin - 1965 Change Name: to "The SFWA Bulletin" & Parent: blank.
2. Edit the title record SFWA Bulletin, July 1965 Change Name: to "SFWA Bulletin - 1965", Date: "1965-00-00", Series Number: blank.
3. Merge the other two 1965 title records and any additional with the title from step #2.

Let me know if anything isn't clear, John Scifibones 11:59, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

Bloodchild and Other Stories in French

Hi I am new here and have seen that Bloodchild from Octavia Butler had a translation in French "Enfants de sang" not present on ISFDB see here, though I don't know if is is the same title used for the collection of short storis called Bloodchild and other stories. How do you proceed to :1 create an entry on isfdb for Enfants de sang, 2- look up if there is a translation for the collection of stories ? Thanks for your patience ! Nattes (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

Step 1: Add the French book with as many details as you know, including contents. The dates of the stories and the collection should be the ones of the French versions and NOT of the English ones.

Step 2-x: Once the book is approved, for each title inside of it (the collection itself and each story), add the translator (if known) and variant the French title to the English one. When opening the title, the Make Variant link is on the left menu (you want Make and not Add Variant).

Welcome to ISFDB! Do not hesitate to ask if you have more questions. It may be useful to open one of the other translations of this collection (The Italian one is here) and see how it looks like and what is added where. Annie (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

Id did this https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/submitnewpub.cgi but it's not correct : I cant change the type to "short fiction" and I don't know who the tranlator is :/Nattes (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

The submission. So... this is a bit different because this is part of a magazine - in this specific case the book that needs adding in step 1 above is the magazine issue. You need to add the magazine and add the story inside of it - you do not add individual stories which are parts of other books on their own. We do not have any of the 2022 issues of that Bifrost (the older ones are here: see and example issue). I can approve this one and fix it and explain what I did - or you can cancel it and add a New Magazine (similarly to how the old issues were added) and we can take it from there. Let me know. Annie (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

So then my second attempt is no better :/. I understand I have to add the no 108 of Bifrost after creating it. I think you can delete all my mistakes will try again tomorrow (thaks for the welcoming spirit !) Nattes (talk) 18:12, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

The variant was ok but the resulting French title would have been deleted overnight if someone worked through the cleanup report as it was a title without publication. So we usually recommend first to add the book/magazine and then to variant its titles.

You start by creating Bifrost 108. Click on New Magazine on the left menu - and start from there. And I (or another moderator) will assist and correct whatever needs correcting - and explain so you know for your next submission. Annie (talk) 18:18, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

PS: Magazines are the most complicated type in here - if you understand them, adding novels becomes a walk in the park. Annie (talk) 18:19, 10 May 2023 (EDT)

Which currency to use?

There was a discussion on this topic that I read but didn't track. I have an interesting anomaly. There are two versions of the first edition of David Eddings' Guardians of the West, an American at $4.95 and Canadian at C$6.95. I have in hand a copy with a cover at $6.95, but printed in the United States. No line numbers on any of the three copies and later editions went for $5.95 in the US. Only a single price on each copy, none of the usual double pricing. I think it is just a misplaced Canadian cover, but do I bother entering it, and if I do, does it get the (stated) US price of $6.95 or the implied Canadian price of C$6.95? ../Doug H (talk) 16:46, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

I'd just a note about the discrepancy in both of our records... Annie (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2023 (EDT)

I read it, I liked, I did it. ../Doug H (talk) 16:15, 15 May 2023 (EDT)

Charles Vess' Earthsea interior art in omnibus and individual novel forms

There are currently separate records for the Charles Vess Earthsea artwork for the original omnibus and the (presumed) subset of art that appears in a later standalone A Wizard of Earthsea pub. Would it be reasonable to variant the latter to the former, similar to how split novels are handled?

I see there's also a Portuguese record for the art for a Brazilian pub of The Tombs of Atuan, which could maybe be similarly varianted, if that's the right way to go. ErsatzCulture (talk) 09:11, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

It seems most likely that Vess did artwork for every single title (at least for the single novels), and that those appear in the onmibus edition. Thus, to this edition the single titles of artwork should be added (i. e. "A Wizard of Earthsea", "The Tombs of Atuan", "The Farthest Shore" & "Tehanu"). This also would solve the problem of interior art without a parent found for example here. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:38, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Where does a novel start?

In 2020 I edited a pub where the text of a novel started on page 3 (the 1st numbered page), and that's the page I entered for the regular title. Now I think I should have entered page 1. Page 1 is unnumbered (although that has no bearing here, but would be recorded in the notes) and has a title for the 1st section of the novel. Which version of me is right? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:30, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Since in most cases there's no regular content title before the beginning of the novel, I personally would also enter p. 1 as beginning (but maybe adding a note that this is actually the title page of the novel); it wouldn't be totally misleading to give p. 3, though (and adding a note that this is the actual beginning of the text, with p. 1 being the title page): thus, in this case both would be allowed, I think: by adding notes all of a potential irritation would be avoided. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:20, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

As per Help:Screen:NewPub#Regular_Titles:

• Page - The number of the page on which the content begins. This is the number which is actually printed on the page of the publication, not the count of pages from the start.

Based on the above, it should be "3". Ahasuerus (talk) 19:16, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for pointing that out! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:36, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Licensing question

I have an author image that I can upload to ISFDB under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International or compatible license. Is our Author Image Data template compatible as in this reference: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:58, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

You should instead use Template:Author Image Data-CC4. You can see the full list of author and other templates here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:51, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Uploading images - Book covers

Dear ISFDB Help Desk,

In regard to loading images of book covers to new entries, the "How to..." instructions were too obtuse for me. I am of the dark age when we were only just transitioning from slide rules to computers. If there is an ISFDB Help link with Step-By-Step guidance in adding images to a new entry (the equivalent of a grade school primer or "ISFDB for Dummies"), I would be greatly appreciative; and also appreciative of any direct help you wish to provide to correct my entry of today's date.

Respectfully, Bob

Robert B. Finegold, M.D.