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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)

(unindent)On PKD title page for Do Androids..., the 1997-00-00 translation "Träumen Androiden von elektrischen Schafen?" is not showing its transliterated title (nor at the head of the pub page). It's been done everywhere I could find. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2023 (EDT)

The 1997 printing of Träumen Androiden von elektrischen Schafen? didn't have a transliterated title value set. It's been added and everything seems to look OK. Ahasuerus (talk) 00:14, 29 May 2023 (EDT)

Ah, I didn't look at pub level edit. Thanks! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:29, 29 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)

Perfect, thank you. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:47, 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. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bob Finegold (talk • contribs) .

You can only add a cover scan to a new pub once the pub has been accepted. I have accepted your submission for Fantastic Detectives and now the "Upload new cover scan" is present on its page. You used an Amazon image when creating the pub, which is fine. If you want to upload a local image you are welcome to. You would use the Semi-automated Procedure section under Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki. If you questions on that, please let us know. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:50, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

Adding a translation to an anthology

Hi, my apologies if this is an obvious question, but I wanted to be sure. This title was published simultaneously in English and in Portuguese, in two different e-books, by the same press. How exactly do I add the Portuguese version, considering they're not in the same e-book but they should be connected (like all the other translated titles usually are)? Alittlebook (talk) 11:45, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

Hello, and welcome!

I have to admit there's a little bit of confusion involved: the entry for the publication states it is bilingual, while you do describe it as published in two different ebooks (!?) Stonecreek (talk) 12:11, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

In the first case, the Portuguese titles would have to be added to the anthology (analogous to this anthology), in case #2, a new (Portuguese) publication would have to be entered. Stonecreek (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

I was the one who added it, and indeed the way I described originally was confusing, so I'll edit it later for clarity. Since it's case #2, do I simply add a new anthology and just mention it's connected to this one in the notes, so whoever approves it will do the merging? Or there's a way of creating an entry already connected to the English entry? Alittlebook (talk) 14:09, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

Sorry, but no, there is no automated way to variant the titles: it has to be done afterwards title by title. And yes, a new anthology with Portuguese as set language is the way to add them. Stonecreek (talk) 14:13, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

No problem, thank you for clarifying! I just edited the English version to remove the awkward wording, plus added the Portuguese version. Alittlebook (talk) 17:20, 23 May 2023 (EDT)

Sturgeon - Godbody

There is only one Reg3 entry, #35184, for this 1986 title but two have been secondary verified; this one, correctly, I think, and this one not so. Advice please. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2023 (EDT)

They are both legit copies, if you look on Abebooks there are lots of copies of the limited case bound.Kraang (talk) 00:02, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

And the second one hasn't been Reg3 secondary verified. Stonecreek (talk) 08:07, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

Kraang, I think you misunderstood what I wrote; I wasn't questioning the legitimacy of the pubs, rather, the verification.

Christian, do you not see that Bluesman secondary verified it on 2017-05-17?

(Outdent)To clarify... for Reg3 ID# 35184, the following: "Godbody. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1986, 159 p., cloth (i.e. hc), novel." That entry refers only to this pub, where the ID# has been entered under External IDs.

It does not refer to the limited edition. If it did, it would be annotated, as it is for the Silverberg entry (for example) #33898 "Homefaring. Huntingdon Woods, MI: Phantasia Press, 1983, 102 p., cloth, novel. [Limited to 450 copies]". See here.

The upshot of all this is that, simply, Bluesman's SV for the limited edition should be marked N/A. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

I disagree. For Reginald, I'll verify so long as Reginald accurately describes the edition. In this case, I think it would be fine to add the numbers and verifications to both these printings, i.e. Reginald could be describing either. For the Silverberg entry, there is only a limited edition so Reginald's note goes with the only edition. If Reginald, had noted a limitation for the Sturgeon, I would not have verified the trade edition. I'll also note that Reginald generally describes hard covers a cloth bound, and I would not add a Reginald verification to a leather bound edition in such an instance. If you do encounter a verification that is incorrect and was made by an inactive user, moderators do have the ability to remove verifications. I believe that I'm the only one who has used that feature. Hope that helps. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:28, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

Got it. I had to state it baldly to get a definitive answer which I can take forward. Your comment "If Reginald, had noted a limitation for the Sturgeon, I would not have verified the trade edition." is what I would have followed. I suppose it all comes down to can a single Reginald entry be applied to more than one pub. Thanks for your help :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:49, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

Starship's Mage canonical name

"Starship's Mage" by Glynn Stewart was originally released as five novella-length episodes named "Starship's Mage: Episode 1" thru "Starship's Mage: Episode 5" which I have just added. It was first published as a unified novel in December 2014 as "Starship's Mage: Omnibus" (and even though we don't normally include it, the title page and the publisher consider the Omnibus subtitle as part of the title). In 2018, the publisher retitled it as simply "Starship's Mage" with new cover art and a new copyright date. The current title record is here. I think that the existing title name is the more used one and that I should Unmerge the "Starship's Mage: Omnibus" pubs, merge them into one title, and then variant that title to the existing "Starship's Mage" title. That's straight forward but would leave the canonical title with the date of the "Starship's Mage: Omnibus" first publication. To handle that, I think I should add a note in the canonical title record about why that date was used so someone doesn't change it later. Is this the best way to handle this situation? Phil (talk) 09:25, 7 June 2023 (EDT)

The canonical title will carry the date of the earliest publication as a novel (and not as a serial) regardless if the title is used exactly. So if you make the later title the canonical, it will carry the "Starship's Mage: Omnibus" date. You do not need a note for that - it is how these are supposed to be dated and people don't usually change these (we usually have a problem with people dating variants, not canonicals). So add the missing Starship's Mage: Omnibus titles, rename/unmerge what is needed and connect them together. We can always fix things if something ends up weirdly.

Now... another option is just to ignore the "Omnibus" subtitle and just add it to the publication notes where that applies. We do not record "Collection" or "Short Stories" or "A Novel" as a subtitle and the editor can chose to treat omnibus the same way here. I'd go that way if I was editing this one but what you are proposing also makes sense and follows the rules. 17:51, 15 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. Changes implemented. Phil (talk) 08:10, 16 June 2023 (EDT)

Asian Literature Project "YOMU" website: anthology? webzine? not eligible?

Would the Asian Literature Project "YOMU" from the Japan Foundation Asia Center be eligible for ISFDB inclusion under "One time speculative fiction anthologies published on the Web"? If so, how would I submit it as a new publication? It's a multilingual anthology of both genre and non-genre short stories. Included are some genre short stories by authors already listed on ISFDB: Open Tribunal by Ziggy Zezsyazeoviennazabrizkie, On Sounds by Faisal Oddang, Second Course by Terence Toh, Degrees of Separation by Kristine Ong Muslim, etc. The short stories are available for individual PDF download but there doesn't appear to be a comprehensive file for download collecting all the stories. Morebooks (talk) 17:47, 13 June 2023 (EDT)

Since each story is available "downloadable as electronic files" (PDFs of all three languages), I'd say they are eligible. I'd make the original language version the main title, and variant the English and Japanese translations to it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:22, 13 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. What kind of publication should it be submitted as? And what should the "original" language of the overarching publication be, since it's a Japanese organization translating multiple languages into Japanese and English? Morebooks (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2023 (EDT)

Each story will need to be added as a chapbook (with a short story record inside), type ebook (PDF is a type of ebook) as this is what is eligible - the PDFs. Similar to how you add a Kindle book - except this one won't have an ASIN but a link to the file or the page with the file in its webpages field. So for Open Tribunal, you will add 3 chapbooks (one in each language), each with their story inside and then make the Indonesian one parent for the other 3 (for the story and for the chapbooks). Annie (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2023 (EDT)

If each story is a separate chapbook (plus translations) named after that story, how should we indicate that each of the stories/chapbooks is part of a larger project (Asian Literature Project "YOMU")? Is Asian Literature Project "YOMU" listed as the publisher, or a Publication Series under publisher Japan Foundation? Or should the chapbooks have a shared title, like "Asian Literature Project "YOMU": Open Tribunal"? Morebooks (talk) 21:26, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

I’d use a pub series (just in case the same publisher has a different project later). Annie (talk) 22:14, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

WSFA Small Press Award

(Moving the eligibility discussion to the Community Portal) Ahasuerus (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2023 (EDT)

Variant question

I'm looking at a split-image cover (call it 'C') comprising two works by the same artist. The art comes from two previously published, different titles (call them 'A' and 'B') with different first published dates. 'C' has yet another title, making three titles involved in all.

The 'C' cover art title needs to be varianted, because of the name change, but with two possible parents, how should I handle this? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 07:31, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

I think it should be handled the other way around: if there's the complete artwork published, it seems to be the obvious parent. Things like this do happen, albeit seldomly: but think about serializations for which the complete text is often published later. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:34, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

Only if it started as a single artwork though - if it started as 2 of them, making the combined image the parent is a bad idea IMO. Annie (talk) 14:15, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

Alternatively, you can incorporate those two (A and B) covers into the C publication (basically have two cover images). Just import them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:40, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

I'd go for the double cover as well (not import though due to the different name). Either that or go for just notes. Annie (talk) 14:15, 20 June 2023 (EDT)

Obviously that should only be done if it is one piece of art (and not two just put side by side). There are, as an example cases, where there's wrap-around cover artwork, but both parts (the front & the back) were used separately as (front) cover illustrations. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 01:50, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

It's hard to know for sure, though, unless we can get more specific than "cover A", "Cover B", and "Cover C". Can you point us to to the specific book we're talking about, Kev? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:04, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

These are the Sheri S. Tepper books; the artist is James C. Christensen:

• Northshore. I think there's a problem here with the subtitle being missing, but the art credit is clear.

• Southshore. Again, there may be a problem with the titling, but the art is signed.

• The Awakeners (split image) showing Northshore and Southshore images. The art is currently credited to Thomas Canty. I think that's in error, but I have a question in to Taweiss asking for clarification.

• The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore. With the Northshore image, this pub appears to be correctly titled and varianted.

So, you can see I was pre-empting Taweiss's answer by posting this varianting question. Assuming that his reply resolves the credit to Christensen then I think "The Awakeners" (with the split image) will have to stand without a parent (not varianted) and with a note in its title page stating details of the two cover images it contains and perhaps a cautionary note about not varianting it and also not to merge it with the "The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore" title. I appreciate your help here, thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 17:39, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Yep - it seems like The Awakeners (split image) is just a combination of the other two and not a single picture that had been split for the rest. So notes (in all titles) will need to do. Think of it as an omnibus of 2 novels - the title record of these don't get really connected to the novels themselves - the contents page does that. Same thing here except that covers do not have contents - so notes are the best thing you can do (and I'd add them into both the mixed record and the single ones - so people can use them as breadcrumbs.

Now... we do have some omnibuses which end up with more than one cover when the original books' covers are combined for their cover - people import them to show the connection as there is no other way... I am not sure how much that conforms to the rules at this point (I don't think it does technically) but it also helps figure out what is available where so practically, it makes sense. We probably really want to talk about it over in R&S and clarify that case - because we will see more and more of it with ebooks these days... and usability of the DB should always be the guiding principle IMO... Annie (talk) 17:26, 22 June 2023 (EDT)

Wild Cards anthology credits - cover vs title page contradictions

I've just added the UK hc of Pairing Up", which comes out next month. I note that the cover says "Edited by George R. R. Martin / Assisted by Melinda M. Snodgrass"; however Kobo has a preview of the ebook, where the title page has the roles reversed i.e. "Edited by Melinda M. Snodgrass / Assisted by George R. R. Martin". Whilst this might be down to pre-release inaccuracies, I note that 2021's Joker Moon is the same, although in that case Snodgrass isn't mentioned on the cover at all.

(FWIW the US covers of these have "GRRM presents" on Pairing Up, and "Edited by GRRM" on Joker Moon.)

Am I right in thinking that per ISFDB rules, the title page credit should win over the cover, and Snodgrass should be the name in the author/editor field, in addition to GRRM? (I'm interpreting the 'Writers "with" other writers' bit near the bottom of Template:TitleFields:Author as indicating that he should be credited. ErsatzCulture (talk)

The order does not really matter - both got credited on the UK edition cover and title page of Pairing Up. The US one is not that generous on the cover but I suspect it will repeat the title credit. At this point you have a few options:

• Update the credit for the UK edition, split the titles and make the one with the more authors the parent.
• Update both but put a watchPrePub on the US one so we can look at the title page when it is out
• Add watchPrePub on the UK one and wait for both to come out so we can sort out the editors.

There is a reason why we date our notes :) As for the older book - it is possible that noone looked at the title pages because they were not available at the time of adding and then noone fixed the records later. Annie (talk) 11:43, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. I get the impression that most or all of the recent (2010+?) Wild Cards anthologies may well be in a similar position - although a couple are already credited to both - so I'm not rushing to take responsibility for sorting out all of that ;-) For this upcoming one, I'll leave as-is, other than adding WatchPrePub, until pub date ErsatzCulture (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Would not surprise me - these are a pain to figure out pre-publication and without the books (half of the time even figuring out which are anthologies and which are novels is not trivial with these without access to the book. Sooner or later a PV will actually look at the books - or so one hopes. :) Annie (talk) 17:10, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Deleting Cover scan

I added a cover to the wrong issue (trying to replace an Amazon cover). The book was Iron Kissed HC by Ace (Publication Record # 364825) The scan is: How can this cover scan be deleted? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stealth DBA (talk • contribs) .

When that happens, post on the moderator board with a link with the web page of the image. In this case this is the page for your image. Then a moderator can delete it for you. I've removed it.

From practical standpoint, as long as you do not have a URL field pointing to the picture, the image is not displayed anywhere. It is good to delete it but it does not get linked into the pub automatically. Annie (talk) 11:36, 21 June 2023 (EDT)

Trying to to add author details

I'm trying to add details to Štěpán Zavřel 365925. When I try to submit, I get this message "Error: Only moderators can edit canonical names." The field is grayed out for me and I'm not trying to edit it.--Auric (talk) 09:05, 1 July 2023 (EDT)

There was something wrong with the canonical name. I have changed it and things should be back to normal. Could you please give it another try and see if it works? Ahasuerus (talk) 13:57, 1 July 2023 (EDT)

It's gone through. Thanks.--Auric (talk) 14:37, 1 July 2023 (EDT)

Publication date for 19th century poem "Демон"?

I'm planning to variant this 1918 poem "The Demon" as an English translation of the 19th century Russian poem "Демон" by Mikhail Lermontov / Михаила Лермонтова. English Wikipedia page, Russian WP page

What should I put as the publication date of the Russian version of "Демон"? Going off the google-translated Russian Wikipedia page, there is debate about what is considered the "official" publication date of the poem, and there are at least 8 different author's versions of the poem. And the 1918 English translation that I'm varianting makes no mention of which version of the Russian poem was translated. Morebooks (talk) 18:44, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Technically 1856 is the first complete edition so this is what I would use, with a note that excerpts of it were published in 1842. Fantlab and most bibliographies use 1842 though so either works - as long as the note explains the dating and has the other date as well.

PS: Михаил Лермонтов and not Михаила Лермонтова -- Михаила Лермонтова means "by/of Михаил Лермонтов". Annie (talk) 13:09, 12 July 2023 (EDT)

Off-topic: Thanks for bringing back a very old memory. I still have my "Declensions of nouns and adjectives" cheat sheet somewhere in my Russian books.... :) --MartyD (talk) 07:09, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Some of those things make no sense whatsoever -- especially around prepositions. :) This one is straight-forward (and most of the ones you need to untangle while cataloging usually are). Some make me scratch my head for a bit when I see them in a book :)

PS: I probably should have said "in this sentence" - the name Михаила Лермонтова can exist on its own of course but not in the sentence it is used in the Wiki:) Annie (talk) 13:29, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Merging question

Hi ! I just added a book here : https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5716151

This book contains only one text, which already has its page here : https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1812614

I didn't find how to merge, I need a little help, then...

Also, the submission page says the cover can't be fetched from the website... Well it can be fetched here too : https://nouveautes-editeurs.bnf.fr/accueil?id_declaration=10000000896092&annonceCarrousel=true&titre_livre=Un_robot_po%C3%A8te_ne_nous_fait_pas_peur

Jean-no (talk) 10:21, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

This actually is going to be a bit complicated. Non-fiction and essays are not mergeable or combinable so you have two options here:

• Use notes to make the connection
• Once the book is approved, import the essay -- treating the NON-FICTION book as a container for the essay. While a bit unortodox, that actually solves the issue nicely enough.

About the covers - we can only allow direct links to sites that had allowed us to link to them. Any other cover - you can upload directly after the book is created or you can find it in a place where we can link to. :)

Let me know if I can assist further. Annie (talk) 13:33, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Thank you ! Jean-no (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Anytime. And welcome to the project :) Annie (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Combine Author Records?

Good Day!

Please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong place, or if my request is out of line. My name is Kelly A. Harmon. There is a record here which is about me: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?344512. It is missing my middle initial, so it is not connected to my (actual) full listing (located here: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?125876). You can see my initial in the TOC of the book in question on Amazon here: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?125876.

I'm not certain of your protocol, but my preference would be for the non-initial listing to disappear and the information be listed on my accurate entry, if possible.

Thank you for your time and your assistance. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

Kindest regards,

Kelly A. Harmon —The preceding unsigned comment added by Kellyaharmon (talk • contribs) 07:22, July 14, 2023‎

The error has been corrected. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. John Scifibones 07:38, 14 July 2023 (EDT)

Thank you for your help! Kellyaharmon (talk) 18:58, 14 July 2023 (EDT)

Template problem

Does anyone know how to make this[2] publication template work? I've followed the template example, but it keeps coming back as unrecognized. Used this wiki page[3]. Thank.Kraang (talk) 23:34, 20 July 2023 (EDT)

The linked list includes templates which work on Wiki pages. It's different from the list of database templates, which can be found on Help:Using Templates and HTML in Note Fields. Ahasuerus (talk) 00:04, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

I see it does not include publications or titles, to bad. Thanks!Kraang (talk) 07:10, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

Try;

In <a href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?384688">The Scream Factory #15</a> (autumn 1994) the story was listed as "forthcoming in" <a href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?42741">The Last Dangerous Visions</a>.

Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 08:39, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

I should add that we have FR 1461, "Create templates for Title and Publication records", but it hasn't been implemented yet. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:06, 21 July 2023 (EDT)

Displaying dust jackets for a series

I was looking for a way to display all the book covers of the Doubleday Science Fiction Bookclub series. I found a list view of titles and data on the series, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?17013 and saw at the top of the page this notice, "You are not logged in. If you create a free account and sign in, you will be able to customize what is displayed." Great, I thought, I'll just create an account.

Now that I am logged in, I still can not see a way to display all the covers of that list.

I was prompted to find a way to do this because when I looked up the publisher page and selected a single year of releases, it displays a link at the top to "View Covers for this Year." https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?17013+1960 Can that be done somehow for this list? https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?17013 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Creed (talk • contribs) . 07:26, 28 July 2023‎ (EDT)

The challenge here is that we do not have these as a publication series - instead we use a separate publisher. Due to the usual volume in these lists, the "not in a series" books cannot be seen as covers only - had these been coded as publisher series instead, we would have had the ability to look at all the covers. It sounds like a good request for new functionality to me - as long as it does not cause performance issues of course.

PS: Welcome to ISFDB! Annie (talk) 13:10, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

It would be fairly easy to display all covers for "Publications not in a Publication Series". The only concern is, as Annie mentioned earlier, performance. That said, this Web page is currently not accessible for publishers with more than 500 pubs without a publication series, e.g. see Doubleday:

• 1460 publications not in a publication series (too many to display on one page)

I think 500 pubs should be doable. Let me take a closer look at the code... Ahasuerus (talk) 18:16, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

As it turns out, we already have FR 952, "Add 'Show covers' and 'Show Last Year First' to 'Pubs not in a Pub Series'", on file. Might as well implement it tomorrow since it's a straightforward change. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:57, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

And done -- 'Show covers' and 'Show Last Year First' are now available on all 'Pubs not in a Pub Series' pages. Please let me know if you run into any issues with pages like https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?17013 . Ahasuerus (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Variants for renamed titles authored by pseudonyms

Children of the Ocean is the retitled name of the novel The Ocean Tide written by Charles Platt using his pseudonym Charlotte Prentiss. I created the titles and publications for the Charlotte Prentiss authored novels thus and thus and then created the canonical title records for each of them here and here. Since I know that variants of variants are not allowed, I added a note containing a link pointing to the appropriate renamed or original title records. I'm not particularly happy because this leaves the biography page for Charles Platt with two different titles instead of having a canonical title with a variant listed under it. Did I do this the correct way or is there a way to create a variant for a title which is written using a pseudonym and which is already a variant for the canonical author's name? Phil (talk) 11:55, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Variant them. All versions need to go under the same parent title at the end as they are the same text. The date of the parent will be the date of the earliest record under any name; the author name will be the canonical name of the author and the title will usually be the initial title regardless of the used pseudonym -- but can also be a later title if that first one was used only once. When you think of variant of variants, you just stick the one you wanted to put one step lower onto the actual parent. So if A is a variant of B and you want C to be a variant of A, you make C a variant of B. Very annoying in cases of translations where we cannot connect the same translation with a different title/author directly but it is what it is. Same thing here. :) Annie (talk) 12:09, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Done. Phil (talk) 12:20, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Alien: Prototípus

Recently added Alien: Prototípus to the data bank, but I'm not sure I got all the information correct. If somebody could check it out and let me know I'd be grateful. MLB (talk) 19:39, 30 July 2023 (EDT)

The "TR" template expands to "Translated by" -- note the capitalization -- so I changed "This novel is {{TR|Zsolt Szántai}}" to simply "{{TR|Zsolt Szántai}}", but otherwise the record looks good. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:00, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. MLB (talk) 22:52, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

H. P. Lovecraft Wordsearch

Does H. P. Lovecraft Wordsearch: Eldritch Wordsearch Puzzles in the World of the Cthulhu mythos belong on this site? If so, how would it be listed? Just a listing of the book without the content? MLB (talk) 02:04, 3 August 2023 (EDT)

I would enter it as NONFICTION and add a Note to the effect that, in addition to the puzzles, it contains a brief Lovecraft biography and an (also brief) secondary bibliography. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2023 (EDT)

I hope this is correct. MLB (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

You noted two pieces of bibliographical nonfiction, but there is only one (an introduction) listed in that publication. I don't see any pending submissions for it, either. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:34, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Fixed. MLB (talk) 05:33, 5 August 2023 (EDT)

Creating a separate page (linked) out of a publication's notes?

I'm trying to find out how to add a link in an individual publication's Notes which leads to a Wiki page where I can record a lot (5 book pages-worth) of biblio data about the pub. I'm not finding anything obvious in the template Help pages (here & here). If the answer's in the latter, I'm not seeing how to use it... Is it even possible? Advice please, Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 17:23, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Create the wiki page, then link it as you would link any other page outside of the server - in the Web Pages field. One warning though - we have a multi-year project going on migrating data out of the wiki and into the DB (so a lot of these templates are now obsolete and the code connecting and serving them had been removed from the server) - the archiving and backups of both of them are done differently so if there is a catastrophic failure, we may not be able to restore both. Plus the public site archives do NOT contain the wiki - just covers and the DB. If you still want to create the page though, go ahead -- no template needed - it is just a regular page you then can add to the Web Pages field :) Annie (talk) 18:18, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Technically, the automatic link between old publication-specific Wiki comments and related publication records still exists, e.g. see the following line in Reel Future:

• Bibliographic Comments: View Publication comment (RLFTRPTPHR1994)

However, it is based on the pub's "publication tag" (RLFTRPTPHR1994), which is not to be confused with title-based tags like "horror". "Publication tags" are neither visible nor editable anymore. Going forward you will want to do what Annie suggested, i.e. enter any publication-specific Wiki pages that you may decide to create within the ISFDB Wiki in the pub's "Web pages" multi-field. Ahasuerus (talk) 22:22, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Oh, right, the publication one is still active - I know a few got killed when most of the existing data was moved. The ID is visible if you start uploading a cover - that’s what is used for the cover file title - so while not editable, they can at least be found if one needs them. However, if a page is added that way, it will just pop up in the cleanup report and someone will need to move the link to the Web Pages anyway so we may as well skip the middle step. Annie (talk) 22:32, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Great, Web page it is then. I'll see what I can do, many thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 03:57, 5 August 2023 (EDT)

Convert an anthology to omnibus

This pub and two others I will add are collected into this pub. Since all three works were published separately first, should this pub be converted to an Omnibus. If so, I assume I remove all of the contents and then import the associated three pubs. Tom (talk) 11:55, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

https://archive.org/search?query=interlyth&sort=-addeddate; You're probably already aware but there's an archived copy available. --Username (talk) 12:46, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

I added the link. I was surprised that only the omnibus was uploaded. Tom (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Merge container

I added Dr. Jekyll as a chapbook and then realized it was a novel. I tried to convert the chapbook to a novel, but now I have a new container novel. I've been trying to merge this container with the actual variant. So far I've failed to merge this. I was about to delete it all and start over, but I'm hoping someone can help me sort it out. Tom (talk) 19:39, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

I think if you remove this title from the publication and then either delete or merge it, you should be fine. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:01, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

That worked. Thanks! Not sure why I didn't try that. Tom (talk) 19:39, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Pages

I have a book with an introduction on numbered pages Roman vii to xi. The novel starts on the first numbered page Arabic 1.

Between the two sections are 3 unnumbered pages, the 2nd of which contains a map which I want to include in the regular titles (the pages either side of it are blank). Advice please. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

Pages: xi+[3]+Arabic - Page number of the map is [2]. John Scifibones 16:06, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

As I read this help template, the map would be on page xiii. For the overall pages field per this template, I would add as xi+Arabic count. It specifically states that unnumbered pages between Roman and Arabic pages can be ignored, whereas the first template states that page numbers can be extrapolated for unnumbered pages within a range of numbered pages. The only possible question is whether the page the map is on would still be considered to be within the range of the numbered pages. I would consider it so. Despite the fact that the numbering (Roman vs Arabic) changes, it's still an unnumbered pages within a range of numbered pages. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 16:22, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

Ron, thanks for the correction. Although a content title with a Roman numeral higher than that stated in the pages field seems odd. John Scifibones 17:12, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

Agreed that it's a little odd. But it's understandable within the context of the help pages. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:55, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

This problem doesn't occur for regular content page counts because blank page(s) beyond the last page are included in the page count. The first template also states that page numbers for unnumbered pages can be derived for Roman-numeraled pages. These points suggest that Pages: could be xii+Arabic and the map page number would be xii. ../Doug H (talk) 22:24, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

In my opinion, John has supplied the correct and best answer to this case.

Ron refers to bullet point 2 of Template:PublicationFields:Pages which states "Pages without numbers that fall between the two types of page numbering can be ignored.". However, bullet point 3 states "Sometimes a publication will have unnumbered pages before page 1. If there is any material in these pages which needs to be entered as part of the contents of the book, you may record this by entering the count in squared brackets.". Nowhere in this bullet point does it state that it does not apply if there are also Roman numeral pages in the pub. You could argue that the two bullet points are contradictory but, to be fair, this unusual case probably wasn't considered when these Help notes were written.

For me, the clincher is: What do you consider constitutes a range of pages? Ron considers that the map falls within one range of numbered pages. I think it falls between two separate ranges of numbered pages. It's not so much that the style of numbering changes (Roman to Arabic). It's more that the values of the page numbers in the first range (vii-xi translates to 7-9) is repeated in the second range (1-999 (or whatever)). To me, that's two ranges. Once you interpret it this way, John's answer makes sense, is not inconsistent with the Help notes and follows the same principles that are used for additional content on unnumbered pages at the end of a book. It also avoids the scenario of having a content title with a Roman numeral higher than that stated in the Pages field which I find very undesirable and confusing for a user.

Doug H's reply does not apply to the case that has been raised. Unnumbered pages beyond the last numbered page are only included in the page count if there is content that starts in the numbered pages and continues onwards into the unnumbered pages. If content that needs to be indexed starts after the last numbered page then its page numbers are denoted in square brackets. See bullet point 3 of Template:PublicationFields:Pages and also the 4th of the 5 examples in this How To. Teallach (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the comments. John's answer was the one I arrived at before I posted the question. One can look at that value and derive straight away what the layout is. Teallach, I agree with every point you make - I couldn't have set it out better. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2023 (EDT)

Aeon 14: Title and series issues

I need advice on how to handle a rather complex situation. M. D. Cooper and James S. Aaron have written 10 novels plus 2 omnibuses in the currently named "Sentience Wars" series (as documented on the Aeon14 website). The novels 1-5 were originally published as part of the Sentience Wars: Origins series but are now shown on the author's website as numbers 1-5 of the "Sentience Wars" series. The later four novels are simply shown as numbers 6-9 of the "Sentience Wars" series and have yet to be added to the DB. Two of the novels were originally part of the Legends of the Sentience Wars series: The Proteus Bridge and "Vesta Burning" (which has yet to be added to the DB). However, the author's website now shows "The Proteus Bridge" as book 0 of the "Sentience Wars" series. "Vesta Burning" has been renamed "Lyssa's Light" and is shown as number 6 of the "Sentience Wars" series. To add to the complexity, "Vesta Burning" was published as an ebook and an audiobook plus was included in the omnibus "Lyssa's Fire - Sentience Wars Books 4-5 Omnibus: Includes Vesta Burning". The omnibus was later republished as "Lyssa's Fire: The Sentience Wars - Books 4-6 Omnibus Edition" with "Vesta Burning" replaced by "Lyssa's Light" as the third component title.

Issue 1: "Vesta Burning" / "Lyssa's Light". Should "Lyssa's Light" be considered a variant of "Vesta Burning" or is it a different publication that needs a note referring back to the original name? The Amazon Look-inside view of "Lyssa's Light" has an editor's note at the beginning of the Foreword stating the rename and series change. The title page shows "Lyssa's Light: The Sentience Wars - Book 6". I'm leaning toward making these two separate titles with appropriate notes. Unfortunately, I can't find any information as to exactly when the rename occurred but suspect it was around the same time as "Lyssa's Fire: The Sentience Wars - Books 4-6 Omnibus Edition" was published in February 2019. Advice?

Issue 2: Series name/numbering. I would like to reorganize the series entries for these books as follows:
> Age of the Sentience Wars
>> 1 The Sentience Wars
>>> 1 Legends of the Sentience Wars
>>>> 1 The Proteus Bridge
>>>> 2 Vesta Burning
>>> 2 Sentience Wars (with a series note "Titles 1-5 were originally part of a discontinued series called 'Sentience Wars: Origins'" and a similar note on each of the title records.)
>>>> titles #1-9
Would this be acceptable?

Issue 3: Completely reorganize the Aeon 14 series to match the author's series and subseries demarcations as shown on the Aeon 14 website. I think the existing series structure is not particularly useful for a reader and this would be a better organization for this large volume of titles. The top level would remain Aeon 14 and the first level subseries would be:
1 Age of the Sentience Wars
2 Second Age of Colonization
3 Age of Terra
4 Age of the FTL Wars
5 Age of Reconstruction
6 Age of the Orion War
7 Age of the Ascension War
The existing subseries would be moved under the appropriate "Age" subseries and renumbered appropriately. Would this be acceptable?

Thanks Phil (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2023 (EDT)

The first question that comes to mind is "Were the texts changed when the series was reorganized by the author(s)?" If they were, then we could enter them as separate titles and put them in different series the way it was done with David Wingrove's Chung Kuo Universe, which was split into Chung Kuo (original) and Chung Kuo (recasting).

If the texts were not changed, then all identical texts which use different titles should be linked using the variant title system. In the case of Issue 1, "Lyssa's Light" would become a variant of "Vesta Burning".

Re: reorganizing the series structure, I don't have a preference. I remember entering some of these books, either manually or via Fixer, but I was just following what was on Amazon and/or on the author's Web page when assigning series numbers. User:Chris J also did a fair amount of work on the series, so he may be a good person to consult.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. As series grow, their authors and/or publishers occasionally decide that it would be useful to change their structure and/or the recommended reading order. Sometimes they even list entries inconsistently, e.g. a prequel may be listed either as "Book 0" or as "Book 0.5" or not given a number at all. All we can do is pick the numbers/structure that make the most sense and explain the rest in Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:51, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

P.S. I should also mention that, as Help:Screen:EditSeries says:

• A series can have only one name, so if two or more names are equally well known (e.g. one name is used in the UK and another in Australia), the only option is to list them all in a slash delimited format, e.g. Moon Singer / Free Trader / Moon Magic

It doesn't help much when dealing with series reorganizations (as opposed to series renamings), but it's something to keep in mind. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

g. haron davis uses lower case for their name

Like e. e. cummings, the author g. haron davis uses all lower case for their name. They do so consistently on their Harlequin author page, their HarperCollins author page, and their own website.

Is there a process for getting their canonical name fixed? — Sylvar (talk) 13:33, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

I have checked Amazon Inside's data for the anthology that we have on file and, sure enough, the author is credited as "g. haron davis". I have adjusted the canonical name.

Re: the process, some high-impact actions -- like changing an author's canonical name -- are limited to moderators. If you come across similar cases, please request assistance on ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard. Thanks for reporting the issue! Ahasuerus (talk) 08:31, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Thread link missing

Whenever Mike posts to talk pages, and it shows up on my watchlist, a link to his posted thread is missing. Have others noticed this and does anyone know why? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:43, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

The link is missing because he is not using 'Add topic' to start a new thread. He is using 'Edit' (whole page) or 'Edit' the last thread and adding a new thread title at the bottom. Hopefully he will see this. John Scifibones 13:05, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks John, I hope that solves it. :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 14:54, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Sorry, I'll correct this error. Mike (talk) 18:46, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Moving existing publication to different variant title

Is there a process for moving an existing publication record to an existing variant title? For example, publication 339486 is an English translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's Мастер и Маргарита translated by Michael Glenny (according to its record notes) but it is linked to the variant title 10458 for English translations by "an unknown or uncredited hand" when there is a variant title for Michael Glenny's translation 2587871. I expect this process will come up a lot when cleaning up translation records. Thanks! -- Riselka (talk) 12:17, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

You have a choice of two methods, both require two submissions.

• Method One

Click on the title record. Select 'Unmerge Titles' from the 'Editing Tools' menu. Check the box for the 1974 title record. Submit.

After the submission is approved, merge the new title with this one. In the note to mod, indicate whether you will submit the merge or you rather the moderator go ahead and do it.

• Method Two

Click on the publication record.

Select 'Import Content' from the 'Editing Tools' menu. Under option 2 enter '2587871' and submit. (This is the Glenny translation title record).

Select 'Remove Titles From This Pub' from the 'Editing Tools' menu. Select the old container title and submit (This removes the Unknown hands translation and makes Glenny translation the container title).

The advantage of method 2 is that both edits can be submitted together. John Scifibones 13:15, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! I've gone ahead and entered the submissions using Method Two for the example I shared. -- Riselka (talk) 13:33, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Approved, John Scifibones 13:35, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

Robosoldiers / 2nd printing?

I'm second guessing my cloning to create Robosoldiers: Thank Your for Your Servos. It occurred to me that I had preordered from Amazon, and it kicked on the release date given in the 1st printing record. However, it has a number line indicating a 2nd printing. Upon thought, it seems more likely that the number line is wrong, rather than it having two printings out on the release date. There is no PV for the 1st printing PB record. Perhaps adding the number line to the 1st printing record, and noting the purchase date? Thoughts? --Glenn (talk) 15:41, 29 August 2023 (EDT)

Hmmm, not being an expert, but what I think could have happened is that the tp edition is considered 1st printing, and the pb edition considered 2nd printing. If that's the case, the printing line isn't wrong per se (this happens a lot with Dutch publications by the way). Anyway, your proposal makes sense. Keep yours, update with publication date per Amazon as of 2023-04-27, add clarifying notes per your arguments above, and delete the non-PV'd record. If it so happens that there ever is a 1st printing pb edition uncovered, it can still be added. MagicUnk (talk) 06:28, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

I had suggested editing the original (non-PV'd) record, while you're suggesting deleting it. Does it make a difference? --Glenn (talk) 15:57, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Not really - only difference is that it would preserve your verification data when keeping your record. MagicUnk (talk) 12:26, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Award Records - How to create new year

Hi.

I'd love to add the 2023 Sturgeon Awards to the appropriate stories, but I've been searching and I have no clue on how to add a new year for an Award, etc. I did see one online item for "Help:Screen:EditAward" but I was unable to figure out how to use it or get to the Award Editor.

Thanks. Dave888 (talk) 19:57, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Simply add an award record to a title and enter "2023" in the year when doing that. Once the award submission is approved, it will show the new year in the award listing. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:15, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Assuming that the first issue is "...unable to figure out how to use it or get to the Award Editor", then you'll want to start by pulling up the Title record that you want to add an award to, then clicking on "Add an Award to This Title" in the navigation bar on the left. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:41, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

Reversed imprint publisher record

According to the Belgrave House website here, Regency Reads is an imprint. The publisher record Belgrave House / Regency Reads is therefore reversed. I'd like to correct the record to read "Regency Reads / Belgrave House". It will only impact 3 publications. Phil (talk) 08:48, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

You might also check these. It's possible some them should also be 'Regency Reads / Belgrave House'. John Scifibones 08:59, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

I'll make the change and then check the Belgrave House pubs that I haven't already checked. Phil (talk) 11:10, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

Whoops. Looks like a moderator has to make the change. Phil (talk) 11:13, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

I made the switch for you. If you find that all of these are Regency Reads / Belgrave House, I can merge them. Otherwise, just change the pubs one by one. John Scifibones 11:22, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

Some are legitimately just Belgrave House. I have changed the ones that should have had the imprint name as well. Phil (talk) 11:36, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks Phil, John Scifibones 11:53, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

Links from Social Media

I frequently link to ISFDB as an authoritative repository of SF in print, but the links end up mangled with an equals sign at the end.

• Is this due to handling of URI addenda?
• Would a fixed rewrite to strip terminal equal signs from URI parameters solve the issue?

Example 1 (works despite itself):

• I pasted the link to the Belgariad into Facebook with <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?704>
• Clicking on it takes me to <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?704=>, which still works.

Example 2 (fails):

• I pasted the link to Pawn of Prophecy into Facebook with <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?25761>
• Clicking on it takes me to <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?25761=>, which fails.

If Facebook is doing something annoying, it may be best to treat it as a force of nature and adapt. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gnomon (talk • contribs) .

Unfortunately, Facebook adding "stuff" to third party URLs is a known issue. We first ran into it in 2018 when Facebook started adding "&fbclid=lots-o-characters" to the end of ISFDB URLs. We addressed it in FR 1207, "Ignore Facebook tracking IDs", which has more technical details than you are probably interested in.

A single trailing "=" sign is new and may or may not confuse our software depending on what kind of Web page is being linked. Most ISFDB pages expect an ISFDB record number and optional "+"-delimited parameters specifying what kind of display format to use. Author and series pages accept both record numbers and author/series names, which may contain a "=" sign. Publication pages accept a publication record number OR an alphabetical "tag". (Publication tags are deprecated, but still supported to be backward compatible.) Finally, Advanced Search pages use a completely different format which uses "=" signs as special characters, e.g. "USE_1=author_canonical&O_1=exact". This means that "=" characters may or may not be valid depending on the type of the linked page, e.g. we have an author record for "ルイス=キャロル".

The good news is that URL processing was centralized a year or two ago, so any tweaks should be easier to implement than was the case in 2018. I'll go ahead and take a closer look. Thanks for reporting the problem! Ahasuerus (talk) 14:36, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

I have made a software change on the development server. The software now removes trailing "=" characters, but only if the rest of the parameter (i.s. the stuff after "?") is all digits. However, before I deploy it to the main server, could you please provide an example of a Facebook page that has this issue? I'd like to make sure that Facebook is doing what we think it's doing. Thanks in advance. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:32, 7 September 2023 (EDT)

I have updated the main server to strip trailing '=' signs from URLs. Thanks for reporting the issue! Ahasuerus (talk) 08:30, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Author with Two Different Names Question

Hello, ISFDB. I have published work under William Gillard and Bill Gillard. Those pages are here:

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?245999 https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?197158

My most commonly used name is Bill Gillard, and I'd like that to be my "main" page. Are we able to combine my pages somehow? Thank you so very much for helping to maintain this valuable resource! Bill Gillard —The preceding unsigned comment added by Billgillard (talk • contribs) 23:08, September 8, 2023‎

Bill, thanks for bringing this to our attention. William Gillard is now an alternate name for Bill Gillard. John Scifibones 08:32, 9 September 2023 (EDT)

The American Weekly Magazine, cover and interior art and stories

Although not strictly a magazine, The Hearst Sunday supplement appeared in 20 newspapers for nearly 50 years and the artists and writers of the stories were also fantasy artists ( Virgil Findlay, Edmund Dulac, Willy Pogany, etc.). Could The American Weekly be added to the magazine list, and the front covers of these artists be listed as 'cover art' as well? Edmund Dulac alone produced 106 covers, Willy Pogany probably the same. Findlay did only one cover, but outstanding interior art, and the first book covering the American Weekly of was his work for the magazine.

Albert Seligman Editor "The American Weekly Covers of Edmund Dulac 1924-1951", Dulacebooks, 2021 —The preceding unsigned comment added by Albertcscs (talk • contribs) 11:15, September 10, 2023

It should be Virgil Finlay, not Findlay. Also, the one issue of this magazine on ISFDB misspells A. Merritt as A. Merrit in the notes. --Username (talk) 11:22, 10 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for identifying the typos. I have updated publication/author/series Notes, added the 1938-04-10 issue and sent a note to SFE with updated information. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:25, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

It looks like there may be two separate issues here: magazine eligibility and cover artist eligibility.

Re: magazine eligibility, Help:Entering_non-genre_periodicals states that:

• In many cases a work of speculative fiction has been published in a periodical that does not specialize in such works. In particular, many well-known (and many not so well-known) speculative fiction stories were first published in non-genre periodicals. In such cases it is desirable to record such publications in order to make the bibliography of the story complete. However, the ISFDB is not a general-fiction index and the non-speculative-fiction contents of such a periodical should not be entered.

This means that the only issues of The American Weekly Magazine that are eligible are issues with speculative fiction content. For example, "The American Weekly, April 3, 1938" included part 1 of John Hawkins's Ark of Fire, so the 1938-04-03 magazine issue is eligible. According to SFE, the serialization was completed in the April 10 issue, so we will want to create an ISFDB record for the 1938-04-10 issue as well.

Re: cover artist eligibility, in the past we didn't enter cover artists for non-genre magazine issues unless the cover illustrated a work of speculative fiction. This rule was changed in 2022 and all eligible issues of non-genre magazines can have cover artist names entered.

Hope this helps! Ahasuerus (talk) 08:56, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Two editions with different text

I'm trying to enter a supernatural romance fantasy book which has two editions from day one, one with explicit erotic content and one without. Does this situation requires anything specific I need to do? Circeus (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2023 (EDT)

Do you happen to know how significant the differences are? If they are minor, we could create two Publication records under a single Title record and document any discrepancies in the Notes fields. If they are major, we would need to create two separate Title records with a single Publication record associated with each one. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:34, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

IIRC (I read the book last fall), there's two sex scenes that are excised from the "clean" edition. I will also clarify that the two edition have actual different titles, ISBNs and slightly different cover designs (reddish pink vs. blue), BTW --Circeus (talk) 11:31, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

What's the title? --Username (talk) 11:33, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Oh, two different titles. In that case we will want to enter them via two separate "New Novel" submissions, then link the two titles using a "Make This Title a Variant" submission. Since the only textual difference is the presence of two sex scenes, we can document this fact in Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:56, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Turns out they may not be technically different titles, though other differences remain. I would personally treat the "blah blah edition" as part of the formal title for at least one of the versions, since that's how the author chose to do so on Amazon (they did not use "flirting with fangs edition" on the default erotica version). Circeus (talk) 14:55, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

Checking Joy Demorra's Web site, I see two works which have two separate editions: "True Love Bites", a novel, and "Crewel Intentions", a short story. Each one has a "Fluff and Fangs" edition and a "Flirting With Fangs" edition with the terms defined as follows:

• Flirting With Fangs edition: full romance, lots of kissing, and all the steamy scenes for those who want them.
• Fluff and Fangs edition: full romance, lots of kissing, and a fade to black for those who like a little more fluff with their fangs.

Checking Amazon's Look Inside, I note that "Flirting With Fangs" appears on the title page, which is what we use to determine publication title. I suspect that the best way to enter these books would be with their full titles, e.g. ""True Love Bites: Flirting With Fangs", and then to variant them. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:32, 11 September 2023 (EDT)

The Trumpet of the Last Judgment

I have a Spanish title "La trompeta del juicio Final" as it is on ISFDB, but on Spanish language sites it's given as "La trompeta del Juicio Final". How should it be for us, considering the recent agreement about sentence case for Portuguese titles, and maybe Spanish as well...? Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 09:45, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Possible to change a title record from ESSAY to INTERVIEW

I'm in the process of adding a fanzine in a language I don't read especially well, and accidentally added one article as an ESSAY, when it should have been an INTERVIEW.

Is there a way to change the type of that title to INTERVIEW, or should I delete that erroneous ESSAY and add a new INTERVIEW title record to replace it? ErsatzCulture (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

You will need to add a new interview record and delete the old essay record. I don't believe there is a way to change types to/from interviews and reviews. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Thanks - given that I've been reprimanded more than once for doing a delete/(re)create, rather than an edit/merge/whatever, I thought I'd better double check first :-) ErsatzCulture (talk) 19:05, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Steve Duffy, The Faces at Your Shoulder

I think I posted this in the wrong place so I will try here: Having read this book at the Toronto Library, I would ask a moderator to add this collection to the (original) Steve Duffy page: (not Steve Duffy (1)) Steve Duffy, The Faces at Your Shoulder (Sarob Press, 2023) 181 pages price: 38 pounds Foreword, Duffy page 1 The Oram County Whoosit (Shades of Darkness, 2008) in isfdb page 37 The Soul is a Bird (original) page 71 In the Days Before the Monsters (original) page 101 The Pyschomanteum (Crooked Houses, 2020, Egaeus Press) this is NOT an original story, the original publication is not in isfdb page 123 The Lion's Den (Cern Zoo, 2009) in isfdb page 155 Futureboro (original) page 179 Notes on the Stories (uncredited in the book, the Sarob Press website attributes this to Duffy)

One other unrelated correction: The review Jean Rhys Revisited (2001) by Alexis Lykiard should be moved from the original Ray Russell page to the R. B. Russell page (aka Ray Russell (1)) this is actually a chapter in R. B. Russell's Fifty Forgotten Books

Thank you, Roger

Crowley and Aziraphale's New Year's resolutions

The Good Omens short story "Crowley and Aziraphale's New Year's resolutions" by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman was published in 2006, apparently on the HarperCollins website; would it be eligible for addition to ISFDB? If so, how should the story's publication be added: as a webzine? a chapbook? I don't know if the story has been republished in any books or more traditional publications. But since the story was co-written by Pratchett and Gaiman, it's considered part of the "official" Good Omens book canon by both Gaiman and fansites like the Good Omens Lexicon. Morebooks (talk) 13:21, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

Cover Images

Well, I'm having problems, and that's all there is to it. I'm finding that I can no longer copy images from Amazon. Is this me, or is this something new? MLB (talk) 05:46, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Are you referring to the latest mouseover zoom feature for the cover images? I've found that I can still right click while hovering over the zoomed image and select "Copy image address". When I paste the link address into the Image URL field, I now always have to remove the formatting info. I already miss the "See This Image" link which Amazon seems to have removed. Phil (talk) 07:49, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Yes, this "improvement" sux!!! Plain and simple!! MLB (talk) 20:54, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Still having trouble. Get a lot of "Image hosted by a site which we do not have permission to link to." Yet the image comes from Amazon! MLB (talk) 03:54, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

Can you provide a sample URL in this message as well as which book it is for? Also which Amazon site? Thanks. Phil (talk) 07:10, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

You can see an example here from the book on Amazon here. The URL is here, which, of course, now doesn't work. MLB (talk) 20:45, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

[4]; Try Amazon UK. When I add author images I get them from UK because since amazon.com screwed up their site last year or whenever it was their pages only show a single author photo whereas UK and many other foreign Amazon pages show the whole array of photos if there are more than one included. --Username (talk) 21:59, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

<Outdent> Since I'm not a moderator and can't see the submission review, I'm assuming that you are trying to put the cover image URL in the pub record. If I hover the mouse over the cover image and right click to bring up the action menu and then choose "Copy image address", the copied URL looks like this". Since that URL contains formatting data (which starts with "._"), you need to remove that formatting data by deleting everything from the second to last period to the last period. In this case you are deleting "._SY466_" which leaves the correct URL as this. I can't reproduce how you are getting a URL with a cloudfront.net address in it. I hope this helps. Phil (talk) 23:16, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

Image upload

I've just uploaded a new cover scan for this pub. The pub is 'date unknown' and the pub ID is |Pub=THCTNDTHSC2003. I haven't linked the uploaded image to the pub yet, but when I do, the image file will be headed as 'File:THCTNDTHSC2003.jpg' and the Description will read as 'Gollancz / Orion Unknown year tp'. To me this looks peculiar. Is this an oversight or is it an expected outcome? The first available edit in the edit history shows the date change to 0000-00-00, so maybe it was 2003 before that? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2023 (EDT)

Sorry I missed the question when it was posted. Your last guess is correct. When a new publication record is created, it gets assigned a "publication tag", in this case "THCTNDTHSC2003". The tag is a combination of the first 10 consonants in the title and the publication year. Subsequent edits do not change the "publication tag". That's why this pub's tag is still "THCTNDTHSC2003" even though the publication year has been changed to "0000-00-00".

In most cases publication tags do not matter because the ISFDB software doesn't use them any more. The only exception is the image upload mechanism, which uses publication tags to create new Wiki pages/images. Hope this answers the question! Ahasuerus (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

It does indeed, and thanks for explaining that. I'm glad it's something simple.. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:36, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Serialized novels

How do I correctly record a set of serialized novels? We currently have title records for Star Trek: New Frontier novels The Returned (Part 1), The Returned (Part 2), and The Returned (Part 3). The titles match the title pages. These are three novel length portions of one novel published a month apart. Do I simply make each of the existing titles a variant of a new title named "The Return" and change the content record type for each of the three component title publications to Serial? Thanks. Phil (talk) 09:11, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

I do think it depends on the actual lengths of the portions: if they are each of shortfiction length (i. e. less than 40,000 words - the more likely case), you are right: but then the single publications would have to be transformed into CHAPBOOKs, each containing a SERIAL as content title (which you can just add).

If they are above 40,000 words (i. e. the parent novel does have more than 120,000 words [???]) you can really just do the varianting. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 10:05, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Since they are all shown with Kindle page counts of 180 or more, I'm pretty sure they are novels. I am proceeding to do the varianting, etc. Phil (talk) 12:56, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Sure! 120,000 sounds somewhat enormous, but seems quite regular these days. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:01, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

The variants are created. How do I set the content record type to Serial? I get an error when trying to do it by editing the pub records. Phil (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

The same way you convert novels to chapbooks when it is a novella- except that now it will be a serial. Add a chapbook record into the contents section, change the novel one to SERIAL and change the publication type to a chapbook. Annie (talk) 14:57, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

You also need to change the parent title date to 2015. When the work has only been published in serial form, we use just the year. John Scifibones 15:02, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Done. Thanks for the help. Phil (talk) 15:43, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

"Top Science Fiction" -- adding author intros

Hi. I have a copy of this to hand Top Science Fiction: The Authors' Choice and I note that the ISFDB entry does not list the authors' intros. It seems like it ought to, although they're just a few paragraphs before the story starts. Could-should I add them? Frink (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2023 (EDT)

Yes, that would be great! I assume they are by Josh Pachter? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:36, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

They're actually by the authors and aren't separated explicitly from the stories, which is why I was unsure about this. I'll go ahead and do it, and if it's undesirable it's easily reverted. Frink (talk) 21:26, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Yes, just enter them as essays by the authors then. If they don't have explicit titles, give them the name of the story with "(introduction)" at the end. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:46, 5 October 2023 (EDT)

Done. Thank you for the help! Frink (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

Messy situation with a translated essay and author credit

I'm in the process of adding a Chinese fanzine that is mostly translated articles, and I've encountered a case that I'm not sure I've handled optimally, but I'm not sure what the correct way to go is.

This essay is credited to "洛朗蒂乌·尼斯托雷斯库 等", where the body of it is a Sinocization of Laurențiu Nistorescu with the trailing "等" indicating "et al". As such, I've credited the essay to 洛朗蒂乌·尼斯托雷斯库, added a note for the "et al", and made that author an alternate for Laurențiu Nistorescu.

The problem comes in because the original online publication doesn't clearly indicate the author(s). A footnote states "This article was a co-operative venture. Much is owed to Laurentiu Nistorescu (SF writer and journalist), Antuza Genescu and Dorin Davideanu (editor of the H. G. Wells Society zine Paradox).", but that feels like some unnamed editor assembled an English-language essay from articles by those authors, quite possibly in Romanian. As such I've added that English essay as by "uncredited", with the footnote copypasted into the note.

The problem comes in that the essay doesn't show up on the Nistorescu author page (which is understandable), nor the alternate Chinese author page. The latter seems bad for discoverability and understanding why that author record even exists.

Any thoughts on whether I should change how these essays have been recorded? A technical fix might be to not "hide" titles on the alternate author's page, if the parent title is logged against unknown/uncredited/etc, but I dunno how much work that would be, or even if it's desirable.

Thanks ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:25, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

One option:

• Credit the Chinese title to 洛朗蒂乌·尼斯托雷斯库 and uncredited
• Credit the English title to Laurentiu Nistorescu, Antuza Genescu, Dorin Davideanu, Silviu Genescu, and uncredited

A simpler option: Delete the English essay record. As entered, it does not appear in an eligible publication. We only enter webzines, not any web essay. Everything entered in that record can be moved to the Chinese title record. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:05, 7 October 2023 (EDT)