ISFDB:Research Assistance/Archive 05

This is an archive page for the Research Assistance page. Please do not edit the contents. To start a new discussion, please click here.
This archive includes discussions from April 2007 - November 2010.
 
Unlike earlier archives, this page will contain requests/issues which have not been resolved. Please do not respond to requests on this page or add new requests to this page. If you're able to respond to any of these requests/issues, please post it on the talk page of the editor who made the original request. If the editor is no longer active, you can post a response on the ISFDB:Community Portal.

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Expanded archive listing

Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories

Could anyone who may have this collection check to see whether the story "The Devil, You Say?" has quotation marks surrounding the title in this publication? Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:15, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Help With Two Artist Signatures

If someone could please check out the two artist signatures on the cover of The Dragon Issue #27 at, http://nightmare.org/dnd/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=10389 and tell me if you recognize who either of the two artist signatures in the lower corners belong to. One is PS and the other TC. Thanks. CoachPaul 22:23, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

A/The Wish for Smish

Requesting physical verification of the David Gerrold story A Wish for Smish. The Locus Index lists it as "The Wish for Smish" in the table of contents of Aladdin: Master of the Lamp (1992) while OCLC's WorldCat lists it with an "An". It was apparently reprinted in 2005 in Alternate Gerrolds, which we also list, but neither Locus nor OCLC has anything on it online. Ahasuerus 20:32, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Anvil title check 3

One more. Is Ghost Fleet in The Stars Around Us Ghost Fleet or The Ghost Fleet as it is in Analog Feb 1961 and The Trouble with Aliens? Dana Carson 21:30, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Analog Anthology #1: Fifty Years of the Best

Can anybody Verify that this title exists on the Title Page of a Publication and not just on the cover? I have two editions of this pub, and neither Printing has "The Analog Anthology #1: Fifty Years of the Best" on the Title Page? There is more discussion of this on my Talk page and on the Talk page of Ahasuerus. CoachPaul 22:05, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

I only have the "Fifty Years of the Best Science Fiction from Analog" edition, so I don't have anything to add to the title issue, but I noticed in my copy that the Heinlein story (-And He Built a Crooked House) does not have quotations around it, the way it was shown in the contents of that pub. I changed that pub, and made it a variant of the more usual title ("-And He Built a Crooked House"). Do your other editions have the quotation marks as part of the title?Jefe 13:10, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, June-July 1931

I have entered both issues of "Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories" into the database, but I only have the first issue. I was able to recreate the contents of the second issue using Day's Index and online sources, but if somebody happens to have a physical copy, could you please verify No. 2? Admittedly a long shot, what have we got to lose? :) Ahasuerus 00:55, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

Agog! Ripping Reads

Requesting physical verification of Agog! Ripping Reads. An Amazon.com review claims that there are 22 stories in the book, but WorldCat lists 23 entries, one of them seemingly uncredited/unknown. I suspect that it's either an introduction or a data entry error, but it's hard to tell sight unseen. Ahasuerus 23:28, 19 Jun 2007 (CDT)

World's Wackiest Upper Atmosphere is listed as World’s Wackiest Upper Atmosphere Re-entry Disasters Dating Game on most sites. That will get the # of titles to match.

The real hassle is

• Andrew Macrae's Truckdreamin - Some sites list this as Truck Dreamin
• David Kane's Very Like a Whale - Some sites list this as Blubberguts
• Jason Nahrung's Pain Threshold - Some sites list this as The Pain Threshold
• Anna Tambour's See Here, See There - Some sites list this as See Here See There
• Simon Brown's Along came a spider - Some sites list this as And Down Came a Spider

This is just stuff I noticed when looking over contents lists! I did not bother with firing up diff. Sorry, I don't have a copy and have no idea which titles are correct. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:14, 20 Jun 2007 (CDT)

The Once and Future King

I've had more trouble with T. H. White and Ted E. White tonight than I had over the entire X-files Universe at the weekend. :-( Still, after learning that Novel to Omnibus conversions need a manual Omnibus entry adding afterwards to get them visible, I think it's mostly OK now. But anyone with The Once and Future King, or even better, sightings of The Queen of Air and Darkness (NOT the Anderson one!) or The Ill-Made Knight or The Candle in the Wind would be very welcome to reassure me I haven't messed up a classic! BLongley 18:45, 25 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Colonial Survey / Planet Explorer / The Planet Explorer / Planet Explorers

I am verifying my Murray Leinster collection at the moment. After reviewing various records in the Locus Index and the ISFDB, I sent an e-mail to Locus and Contento, which said, in part:

...the Locus Index (http://www.locusmag.com/index/b295.html#A4080) lists the title of the 1989 Bart reprint of Leinster's "Colonial Survey" (aka "Planet Explorer") as "Planet Explorers". I don't have the Bart edition, but according to OCLC and various online catalogs, the title used by Bart was "Planet Explorer", not "Planet Explorers". Could the extra "s" be a typo?

Also, the "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections" states (http://contento.best.vwh.net/t63.htm#A1375) that the Avon paperback edition (T-202, 1957) was called "The Planet Explorer". I have checked my copy and the title is "The Planet Explorer" on the cover and on the spine, but it's "Planet Explorer" on the title page, which would be the same as the title used by Bart as per OCLC.

Would anybody happen to have a copy of the 1989 Bart edition to see whether the title is Planet Explorer or Planet Explorers? TIA! Ahasuerus 21:45, 28 Jul 2007 (CDT)

The 1990 expansion of The Puppet Masters

Would somebody happen to have the 1986 Del Rey reprint of Heinlein's The Puppet Masters? According to OCLC, it's 347 pages long and has the same ISBN as the 1990 restored/expanded version, which is only 340 pages long. As noted in this rec.arts.sf.written message, it looks suspicious since previous paperback reprints had been around 175-220 pages, but the OCLC record was created in 1987 and there are over 100 libraries that claim that they have a copy. A physical verification would be great! :) Ahasuerus 00:45, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Astounding Science Fiction, 1959 - May-July US versions, and August-September British version

My copy of the British magazine is a weird one. Rather than go with the same contents as the May 1959 US edition, it has the the "right" contents page but instead has all 3 parts of "Dorsai!" plus a couple of fragments from the June/July stories/essays on the reverse of some of those pages. I'd normally assume someone had decided to vandalise three issues to create a one-volume "Dorsai!": but

• the contents page (despite listing everything apart from Editorial and Dorsai! incorrectly) does mention that there were going to be no September or October issues due to a printer's strike
• Visco seems to confirm there were no British editions those months
• the page numbers for parts 2 and 3 don't match the ones from the US issues

Which leads me to the conclusion that unless the US edition page numbers are wrong, there were no other printings for an individual to use to create such a Frankenstein volume, and this must have been the publishers rushing to bodge together a readable if confusing issue to cover the gap. Or perhaps there were Canadian or Australian or New Zealand editions with those page numbers and mine is a unique creation by an individual? Any sightings of Dorsai! in Astounding welcome, to help me get rid of this headache! (Have I mentioned recently how much I hate doing Magazines?) BLongley 14:43, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Well, I'm gussing you never had a reply, since this is still here. I have the August, November & December 1959 issues of the british edition of 'Astounding'. They are numbered vol. XV no.8, 9 & 10. They contain parts 1, 2 & 3 respectively of 'Dorsai!'. I also have a copy of the June 1959 US edition of 'Astounding' which contains part 2 of 'Dorsai!'. The synopsis and start of the second episodes appear identical.

My copy of Aug59UK appears normal - 'Dorsai', plus stories by Gordon, Herbert, Harris, Kuykendall, Smith. Nov59UK has 'Dorsai' begin on page 62 and Dec59UK on page 54. My guess is that unless you have one of the strangest printing and binding errors in the world, a previous owner decided to make their own 'fix-up'.

US & UK editions are not identical. Generally the UK editions will sawp out one short-story for a different, shorter one and run truncated versions of the Reference Library & Brass Tacks. Being very new to the ISFDB wiki (joining today) I was surprised to find no separate listing for the UK series of Astounding/Analog, or comment about it. Perhaps after I've played in the sandbox a bit... --Daikiwi 16:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well now we have a start with our two existing UK entries having their own wiki page. Magazine data entry can be a little more complicated than other areas but it is great fun browsing through these wonderful old issues. Welcome aboard. Our UK magazine listings can definitely use a lot of work.--swfritter 19:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The Great Fetish

I'm entering De Camp when found the Pocket edition of De Camp's The Great Fetish has been verified. I have a problem with Steele Savage as the cover artist. It doesn't look much like his work and the signature is all wrong. And this book came out 10 years after he died. And I don't know who the artist is either. I try not to change a verified entry only on circumstantial evidence. Maybe some knows better than I. Don Erikson 13:30, 10 Feb 2008 (CST)

1941 magazine essay "Strange but True"

"Strange but True" by P. F. Costello was published in Fantastic Adventures, May 1941; while "Strange but True" by William P. McGivern was published in Amazing Stories, June 1941. P._F._Costello is listed as a pseudonym of William_P._McGivern. Before marking the former as a variant of the latter, I would like a check. It seems odd to me that the same essay would be published in two different magazines a month apart, but then it also seems odd that two different essays with the same title would be. Perhaps this was some sort of roving column? In any case, can anyone check if these are really the same essay, or what? -DES ^Talk 22:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

According to my catalog, I own both issues and should be able to check on May 17. Unfortunately, my Amazing Stories collection is among the worst organized ones, so there is no guarantee that I will find the 1941-06-00 issue.

And yes, "roving columns" did exist in the pulp era. FA and AS were both owned by Ziff Davis and were edited by the same editorial team, so it's reasonably likely. Ahasuerus 05:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to pulp magazine land. Try to find the stories in this issue of Amazing. My Spock-o-Meter tells me there is a 99.823% probability that these are unique entries. In that case the correct way to make them unique is to append the mag name and issue from the mag inside parenthesis. See the entry for "The Observatory" in the mag referenced above.--swfritter 21:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I have been sick lately, so I couldn't work on verifications while I had access to my collection over the weekend and now I am on the road again. I'll try again on the 31. Sorry! Ahasuerus 20:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find this Amazing issue, but I will try again in July when I finally get to spend some time with my collection. Hopefully :) Ahasuerus 02:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Fantasy Press eds of Triplanetary

We currently have two publications listed:

• "1948" ed, whose notes say "Based on statement in Pyramid 1965 pub: 'Fantasy Press edition published 1948,"
• "1950" ed, whose notes say: "Limited edition of 2000 copies. Library of Congress shows this book as 1948."

OCLC/Worldcat lists three records:

• OCLC: 1225609 (LCCN: 48-6988) which lists the date as 1948, mentions illustrations by A.J. Donnell, and says "Edition: [1st ed.]" which means that the edition is not stated in the actual pub, but inferred. (287p; 20cm)
• OCLC: 221912800 which also lists the date as 1948 and mentions A.J. Donnell, but says noting about being a 1st ed. This record lists the author as "Edward Lindall" but says "Responsibility: by Edward E. Smith" which appears to be a data entry error (this is how the book would normally be listed if "Smith" were a pesud of "Lindall"). No LCCN given. (287p; 20cm)
• OCLC: 81301754 lists the date as 1950, mentions A.J. Donnell, and does not mention the edition nor the LCCN. (287p; 20cm)

None of the OCLC records mention the work being a "limited edition". The Library of congress has a single record which seems to match OCLC: 1225609 for the first ed. Amazon lists the first ed as 1948, and has used copies of that edition available.

Can anyone verify or provide additional sources of info on this significant work? Was there actually a limited edition in 1950 (I find no source that says so)? Was the first fantasy press edition actually in 1948? What else should we be listing here? -DES ^Talk 18:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a list of Triplanetary publications, including the following data:

• 1948, USA, Fantasy Press, Pub date 1948, Hardback, 4,941 copies
• 1950, USA, Fantasy Press, Pub date 1950, Hardback, 2,505 copies, title in yellow

I believe I have the yellow (thus 1950) version in my collection and should be able to verify on June 14. Ahasuerus 18:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I look forward to your verification.

Based on the Library of Congress record and the OCLC records, I think that the part of the note in TRPLNTR1950 about LC showing that ed as 1948 is in error. However, I will not correct this pending the verification by Ahasuerus. Also, does anyone know if there are any steps we should take to report the apparent error in OCLC: 221912800 to someone who would be authorized to correct it? I am pretty much positive that "Edward Lindall" is a quite different author from E. E. Smith. -DES ^Talk 20:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

There is also this variant using double quotes around "Doc". Did it actually appear that way? -DES ^Talk 22:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite possible. Double quotes in names cause ISFDB problems though. Click on the Author name there to see Author not found: E. E.. So I suspect some have been adjusted to single quotes to work around that. Most of my E.E. 'Doc' Smith books are actually ones with a definite left quote before Doc and right quote afterwards, but those characters are just as much a pain. Long live the plain Apostrophe! BLongley 22:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I can't check my collection until 2008-06-14, but I seem to recall that Doc's UK publishers tended to use single "left/right" quotes while US publishers tended to use double quotes, if at all. Using the "naive user" standard, this is something that we may want to record in the database, but if we still have problems with escaping quotes in the database (as it happens, Al was working on it earlier today), it may not be viable. Ahasuerus 23:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I know recently the ability to search for "rsquo", for instance, in publisher names looked promising: and editing the publisher name to change such to a straight quote looked good too. The fact that the submitted edit didn't actually DO anything was a bit annoying. And discovering that you couldn't do a publisher merge of a "rsquo" version with a straight quote version as they were NOT considered identical enough REALLY annoyed me. (Not that I could have told which was which on the display anyway, I might have left the "rsquo" version as canonical.) Glad to hear Al is looking at it though: but I think I still prefer the obliteration of all non-upstanding single quotes. BLongley 00:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as reporting data entry errors to OCLC goes, you can create a personal user account (not to be confused with OCLC's corporate/library accounts) and, when you sign on, you will have the option of contacting OCLC. However, when I tried using this feature a couple of years ago, I ran into a problem. I don't recall the details, but there is no harm in trying again. Ahasuerus 23:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Apart from the risk of spending more time there than you do here... I know I've been tempted to do a LOT more fixing of Amazon data, but I restrain myself to entries I want to use for image-linking purposes. Does anyone else find that there's a lot of books we're interested in on Amazon actually credited to "Enid Blyton"? BLongley 00:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes! Dear Enid seems to be more prolific in death than ever she was in life. I've never been able to figure out why Amazon credited her as the co-writer of literally hundreds of books. I haven't run across it lately so they may have corrected the problem. MHHutchins 03:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

A number of our old Amazon imports have bogus co-authors who have been since cleaned up on the Amazon side. Not sure why they were there in the first place, but database issues is the first thing that comes to mind. Ahasuerus 03:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) It turns out that my hardcover edition of Triplanetary was published by T. V. Boardman, a UK publisher, in 1954, so I am afraid I can't verify the Fantasy Press edition(s). On the plus side, we have gained a pub record :) Ahasuerus 02:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

I don't think Unapersson has been seen here since April, but perhaps somebody else has a copy of Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror? Jay Russell's story is currently listed as "Sous Rapture", but the 1984-1998 and 1999 Locus Indexes list it as "Sous Rature". Unfortunately, neither OCLC nor the dozen UK libraries which own this book list its contents online... Ahasuerus 23:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The Castle of the Otter by Gene Wolfe

The Castle of the Otter is currently listed as containing two different essays, both entitled "The Castle of the Otter". can anyone determine the actual contents? -DES ^Talk 23:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't own the limited edition version, just the book club reprint, but my copy appears to be an exact copy of the first edition and there is only one essay with that title in the book. The other Title record was originally Non-fiction, but somebody has accidentally changed it to Essay, which broke the link between the pub and the title records. I have changed it back and added a note to the Non-fiction Title to make it clear that these two Titles are different. Ahasuerus 23:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Milton Kalets[z]ky

I wonder if somebody with ready access to Amazing could double check whether Milton Kaletsky's letter in Amazing Stories, February 1934 is attributed to Kaletsky or Kaletzky? Ahasuerus 23:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

William Matthew[s]

Similarly, is it Milton "Matthew" or "Matthews" in Fantastic Adventures, August 1950? Ahasuerus 00:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Campbell's editorial

Speaking of Campbell, would anybody be in a position to quickly check whether "Editorial: History to Come" was Short Fiction or an Essay? Ahasuerus 13:55, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Worst Sig challenge yet?

Try this one from Octagon:

"Kresek" maybe? BLongley 00:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Larry Kresek's signature from The Best of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1980)

Kresek's signature from The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction (1981)

These are from later works. On Three to Dorsai (1975) and Stardance (1979), he only capitalized the first letter (but still only "Kresek") MHHutchins 01:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

World's Spring

Looking for physical verification of World's Spring, specifically the spelling of "Vladimir Grigorev"'s name. I am 99% sure it should have been "Vladimir Grigoriev", whose stories we also list, but it's not clear whether the typo was in the book or whether it comes from Contento. Ahasuerus 01:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Jones?

From Wetware:
A "Jones" of some sort? BLongley 19:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

"Lover When You're Near Me"

I was verifying my third printing of Third from the Sun when I noticed that the story "Lover When You're Near Me" had no comma after the first word of the title even though we were showing a comma there for all Publications. Our only verified pub was verified by Scott Latham in March 2007 when our standards were lower. Also, Scott isn't around to ask, but I have checked the story's original appearance in Galaxy and it was also comma-free. I then checked The Best Science-Fiction Stories: 1953 and it did have a comma in the title.

I will create a variant title for the comma-free version and add it to my checked publications, but I don't have Second Galaxy Reader of Science Fiction, Born of Man and Woman or the first two printings of Third from the Sun. If anyone happens to own one or more of these pubs, could you please spot check? TIA! Ahasuerus 01:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I have the same 3rd printing of the Bantam pb of Third from the Sun that you verified. and have transient verified it, but that isn't much help. I'll check the local library if I have a chance and remember to. -DES ^Talk 11:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Trujillo and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard

Can anyone with this collection please add back the page number for the novel Trujillo? I was unmerging the novel's title record from another pub's title record, when that old familiar bug of dropping pagination crept in. I'd asked Scott but he hasn't been around lately. Or maybe if you've downloaded a previous copy of the database, could you please check the pagination? Thanks. MHHutchins 06:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed from backup - it was page 529. BLongley 13:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Bill. One of these days I'm gonna learn how to download the backups file. MHHutchins 16:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Luckily, ISFDB Downloads has been updated with the latest and greatest instructions :) Ahasuerus 17:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The Prydain Chronicles

User:MA Lloyd would like to change the catalog/ISBN field of the 1991 SFBC edition of Lloyd Alexander's The Prydain Chronicles from "#18531" to "0030074312". You can see the submission here if you are a moderator. I suspect that he has a later printing of the book since the publication is listed as by "GuildAmerica Books / SFBC", which is different from what the Locus Index has. Unfortunately, MA Lloyd hasn't been seen on the Wiki side since August 2007, so we can't ask him. Any suggestions? Ahasuerus 11:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Waldrop's Custer's Last Jump and Other Collaborations

If anyone has this pub, can you verify that there's an exclamation point after the title of "Custer's Last Jump"? Also, are the essays that accompany each story actually titled the same as the stories themselves? I'm afraid someone might come along and try to merge those identically titled pieces, even though they're either shortfiction or essay. Thanks. MHHutchins 02:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I recall the story, but don't own a copy. This request brought it back to mind so vividly that i just ordered a copy, and will be in a position to verify when it arrives in a week or two. -DES ^Talk 05:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't seen this request when verifying the pub. Yes, there's an exclamation point, I created a variant for this. Also retitled the essays (when verifying), as they are on their various titlepages. Thanks, --Willem H. 20:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Another unknown sig

The sig is:

It comes from the 1979 pb of The Book of Skulls. I am pretty sure that the first three letters are "ALE" but beyond that, I can't make it out. There is no author credit on the book. -DES ^Talk 06:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like "Alexander" to me. Possibly Paul Alexander. BLongley 19:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Quite possible. He doesn't seem to have a personal site or gallery on the web that would make checking easy. -DES ^Talk 21:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, a lot of our plain Alexander covers are verified, you could ask those verifiers if this the same. And Marc seems to have an interest too as he posted a bit on the Bibliographic Comments page for such. We might not need to go outside ISFDB to sort this. Unfortunately, if I have any examples then somebody verified them before me, so they're not easy to find. (I now have scripts for my verified pubs by author, publisher, and cover-artist for questions like this - no doubt I'll have to do such for page-count, format, interior artists, etc, eventually. But multiple verifier support would be a good start, I don't maintain a personal database anymore.) BLongley 23:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I also have Whipping Star which I had not verified and is signed with the same "Alexander" signature but unfortunately, there's no artist credit. Other printings of the same title credit Paul Alexander. I suspect a more reliable way to do this would be to look for a verified Paul Alexander work to see if there's one that's credited as Paul Alexander and has the same signature. For example with this the signature looks similar in the image. However, this one looks different and this is ambiguous. --Marc Kupper|talk 02:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The Paintings of J. Allen St. John: Grand Master of Fantasy

The trade paper edition has 2008 copyright and first printing dates both on the book and internet listings - except Worldcat and our entry which say 2006. Is this possibly a book which was delayed in release but added robotically based upon Amazon or other listings? How about the HC edition? swfritter 23:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Those look familiar, and I may have interfered with those entries in the past. But I don't own any. BLongley 01:01, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Separate issue - it would seem to make sense to add St. John as a co-author so the book will show up on his biblio page.--swfritter 23:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

This is probably a Rules and Standards question, but I think I'm in favour. Any SF artist worth a book dedicated to his/her art should be credited, even if they 'only' did art and added no words. BLongley 01:01, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

"The Ship Who/That Returned"

User: MA Lloyd would like to change Anne McCaffrey's "The Ship That Returned" to "The Ship Who Returned". I have checked my SFBC edition and it uses "That" throughout, but Amazon's Look Inside, which uses the 2005 paperback reprint, shows "Who" used in the table of contents. If anyone happens to have that paperback version, could you please check what it says on the title page? I'd ask MA Lloyd, but he hasn't posted here in over a year... Ahasuerus 02:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the publication but there's a little trick with the Amazon Search Insides which is their OCR includes the page numbers. This means you can nearly always look in the middle of a publication by entering a page number. I used page 379 in this case and then page 343 to look at the previous story. I usually use this to figure out the ending page for a novel.

Unfortunately, this one is going to be tricky. It looks like on the table of contents they use "Series Name: Story Name." The "title page" of each story only has the series name. The story name is carried on the page header of the odd numbered pages with the even pages having "Far Horizons". The tricky part is "The Ship Who Returned" is only two pages long with the title page being on an odd page. Had it been three pages we would have had an odd numbered page with a header.

The copyright page says the story copyright are on page 482. Search inside finds it and that has "The Ship Who Returned," copyright © 1999 by Anne McCaffrey. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Are we looking at/inside the same book? In the Eos trade paperback edition, McCaffrey's occupies 40 pages. Still, I think the table of contents plus the copyright page are good enough for now - thanks! Ahasuerus 02:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

That was my mistake. Pages 379 & 380 at Amazon.com 0060817127 is an Ann McCaffrey essay about The Ship Who Sang series. In this case page 381 has The Ship Who Returned on the title page and page headers. It ends on page 417 making for a 37 page story. It only confirms that the story title in this publication is The Ship Who Returned. FWIW, it appears every story is prefaced with a one to two page introduction essay by the author of the story. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, that Bob Keck cover on the EOS edition looks so familiar that I thought I had a copy. I'm wondering if it got used somewhere else or that it's similar to another cover... --Marc Kupper|talk 03:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that settles it! As far as the intros go, they may be short, but they are also likely to contain potentially valuable information about their respective authors' universes. I'll try to remember to check my SFBC edition tomorrow. Ahasuerus 03:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

"Vincent(y) Omniaveritas"

Lewis Shiner's fanzine, Modern Stories, apparently published an essay by Bruce Sterling called "Life During Wartime". We currently list it as by "Vincenty Omniaveritas", but Sterling's Omniaveritas pseudonym was usually spelled "Vincent Omniaveritas" without the "y". I wonder how we could verify the spelling?.. Ahasuerus 01:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

According to the FictionMags index it should be "Vincenty". Maybe he was just trying to be clever? MHHutchins 04:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will set up a vt for "Vincenty"! Ahasuerus 03:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

L. Sprague de Camp's "Hyperpilosity" or "Hyperpelosity"

If anyone has copies of this story can you please verify the title's spelling? I've unmerged the two pubs that I have which are spelled "Hyperpilosity", and asked the active verfiers of other pubs to double-check as well. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

My copy of Omnibus of Science Fiction (book club edition) has "Hyperpilosity" both in TOC & with story. -- Dave (davecat) 20:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC) Ditto for my copy of Science Fiction of the Thirties (also a book club edition), which I note has what must be a reproduction of artwork from the original magazine. (Drawing doesn't seem to be listed in the pub entries we have.) -- Dave (davecat) 21:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I was updating that edition, adding the interiorart when I noticed the different spelling of this story. It's now updated. MHHutchins 01:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic Story Magazine September 1953 - "Hyperpelosity" on the cover but "Hyperpilosity" on the TOC and title page - needs to be changed. The Wheels of If - 10/70 - "Hyperpelosity" - OK. Science Fiction of the 30's - 3/77 Avon - "Hyperpilosity" - needs to be changed. Omnibus of Science Fiction - hc/sfbc - "Hyperpilosity" - OK - but there are reprints of the anthology with the alternate spelling.--swfritter 01:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I took a dive into the Webster Collegiate, and found "Pilose - covered with soft hair—Pilosity." I'm sure this was de Camp's intended spelling, since the story is about humans becoming furry creatures. There was no entry under "Pelose."--Rkihara 18:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense - "Hyperpilosity" should presumably be the parent; I suspect some of the entries are still in error.--swfritter 01:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I checked this edition and it definitely spells Hyperpilosity, so I changed that. It probably means that this one is also misspelled. Willem H. 14:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you unmerge it from the titles it was merged with first? If not you may have also changed it in eight other pubs at the same time. A nasty isfdb gotcha. The other one is not necessarily in error since the story is known to have been published under two different titles.--swfritter 17:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If they're the submissions I approved, it was done via add content and remove content, see here and here. BLongley 19:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like every things OK. Just a little merging and variant title work to be done.--swfritter 22:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ten Science Fiction Stories edited by R. A. Banks

Has anyone ever seen a copy of this anthology? I created a placeholder based on info in Locus #199 (February 1977), but can't find the contents anywhere. It's not indexed in Contento, but there's an OCLC record (which doesn't list the contents). There's only one copy for sale on abebooks.com (from a German bookdealer). It must be pretty obscure if Contento missed it. MHHutchins 23:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Just found another copy with a picture on abebooks.com, and it's a trade paperback (which I assumed based on the OCLC record and the lower than hardcover price). MHHutchins 23:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

And this auction on a New Zealand website which lists the contents. Gotta love the internet! MHHutchins 23:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The Shanghai Library has a copy if anybody is traveling that way for the holidays.--swfritter 02:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

We may want to let Bill Contento know -- it's a rare pre-1983 anthology that escapes his clutches. Ahasuerus 19:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, Contento should be told. MHHutchins 23:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 01:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've entered the contents, but had to make assumptions about a couple of them. Anyone booked their flight to Shanghai yet? MHHutchins 23:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

It seems a fairly important Fanzine/Magazine judging by the number of references to it I've found recently, and I've entered some raw data for each issue I know about either from the website or from Locus. Locus seems suspiciously bad at times though (how often do they normally record entries on pages 42, 45, 39, 40, 43, 44 in that order?) and I think we could do with some physical verification if anybody has some. If not - we could probably do better on the "two poems" on one site and named poems from the other or such. And we could definitely regularise a bit more and sort out Publication tags and create a proper Magazine page or something. Any volunteers? Not me, I'm going to do "Electric Velocipede" next. BLongley 00:30, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't own any issues and the underlying problem appears to be that it's not always easy to tell what is and what is not speculative fiction (or "fancy", as they call it) in this mag. And speaking of magazines, Locus is having an End of the Year Special on Back Issues if anyone is interested. Ahasuerus 00:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Plamadore?

From THTRGDFTHM1978 which is a 1978 Dell

Does anyone recognize the signature? I looked at the Dell pubs from 1974 to 1983 and the only name that looks close is Estaban Maroto. TIA --Marc Kupper|talk 08:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I found a "Paul Plumadore" for a 1977 Doubleday Encounter Program, does the style look similar to you? BLongley 14:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Perfect and thank you. I suspect I should have used a fresher copy of the database when I was scanning for artist names. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I only added "Paul Plumadore" today after some major Google-Fu. I'm sure someone would prefer that I'd entered exact references for such, but explaining my methods of Googling with "site:" prefixes for alibis and abe books, discounting all copies from amazon, re-researching without all the more famous Plumadores, and such-like, would make any sort of justification look suspect and even longer than all the other publication details. It's my best guess, and will do till someone asks Paul directly. If he's the one I think he is. BLongley 00:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow; thank you for the fu! As I was uncertain on the name itself I had not thought about looking outside ISFDB. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The Transmigration of Souls

In the record for TMSL1996 the credited artist Sean Beavers has been replaced by Bob Eggleton, and a note left saying the signature looks more like Eggleton's (as well as the style). Can't speak to the style, but what can be seen of the signature (the beginning part is hidden behind the "RT' in the author William Barton's name) is not IMO even close to being Eggleton's. I can understand leaving a note about thinking the credited artist should be someone else, but to replace it??? The note-leaver obviously had the book in hand, but didn't verify it. What should I do with this? (I do have the book) ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If you have the book then go ahead with marking it as verified and updating things as needed. I'll see if I can figure out who made the changes. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Dsorgen may have a copy or at least on 2007-07-30 he changed the date to 1996-01-00. At that time the note said

"Sean Beavers" is credited for the cover, but the signature (and style) look like Bob Eggleton

and the credited artist was Bob Eggleton indicating this has been in the system for a long time. One option is to add a note explaining that the record used to credit Bob Eggleton, had the note "...", but then explain the evidence you have found. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Took awhile and about thirty books, but managed to find a clear Eggleton signature (and begin to see the style similarity) and the signature is a lot closer than I thought. He combines the 2 'g's with the 'l' in an odd way so it's almost one letter. Think I'll just leave it until more 'evidence' is presented. Appreciate all the feedback! ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

If you've found a good example, could we have a copy for our Artist Signature Library? BLongley 20:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not have a scanner, but the cleanest one I could find was from the HC of Greg Bear's Anvil of Stars. ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

McKillip's The Quest of the Riddlemaster - does it exist?

Does anyone have verifiable evidence of the existence of this pub, supposedly a one volume edition of McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy published by Ballantine? The ISBN returned no hits on OCLC or ABE. Google has only 8 hits which include 2 on the ISFDB, and the others probably feed off the ISFDB just to get site hits. And note the spelling as "Riddlemaster" instead of "Riddle-Master" (the name of the one volume edition published by Ace). Also there's no mention of it on the author's website, only of the SFBC and Ace one-volume editions. Anyone? MHHutchins 21:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

On Amazon US there's one seller, who states it's three books, and stresses no box. Maybe the ISBN belonged to a box-set this seller doesn't actually have the box for? BLongley 22:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a fan site plus mailing list where the members are likely to know about this. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

That's the site I'd already checked and it had no mention of the omnibus. But Bill's onto something here. Each of the books at that time were being published by Ballantine at $2.25 each, so doing the math would make this a boxed set of the mm paperbacks, not a trade pb of the three novels in one volume. I'll make a note about the reasonableness of this assumption. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

OpenLibrary lists it as a boxed edition. Books in Print has a listing, but doesn't give any information about whether it's a boxed set or not. It does give the binding as mass market, however, which jibes with the pricing assumption.Jefe 23:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Nytecrow (The Amazon seller) has responded and says she is unaware of any boxed edition, but had to stress the lack of a box in case people complained. I think there probably was one, of mm size paperbacks, but people are hanging onto them rather than selling them. So I'd change the binding of our suspect record from "tp" to "pb". BLongley 21:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Analog, December 1963

Anyone with this issue, please check to see if the story "Thin Edge" on page 68 is by "Johnathan Blake MacKenzie" or "Jonathan...". There's a record of reprints under "Jonathan". Thanks. MHHutchins 18:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Johnathan on both title page of story and TOC although the title page is actually Johnathan Blake Mac Kenzie. I have Analog 3. It lists Jonathan Blake Mac Kenzie on both title page and TOC. Double checked some other sources and the real author actually is Randall Garrett as the mag entry states.--swfritter 20:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Find the Changeling

There is a signature on the cover of Benford/Eklund's FNDTHCHNGL1980 that I can't quite figure out. C. W. Co?y, with both "Cs" appearing as capital "¢"s. There is a slight chance the ¢ in the last name is a "G", but only a slim one. Have tried every permutation I could think of in the DB but no hits. Any ideas? ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

From the description that sounds like Ken W. Kelly, whose K's do look like Cs with a vertical bar through them. Like this?

BLongley 17:36, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly like that! Muchos gracias, senor! One more off the desk!! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Another score for the Artist Sig Library (contributions still welcome). Now, how to promote it more? BLongley 23:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm wondering if a category should be created so that we can park the unknown signatures. I see that people have uploaded Image:Unknown Sig.jpg (which is now identified but the page did not get moved), Image:Unknown Initials.jpg, and I just uploaded Image:THSLNTNVDR1973 sig.jpg. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think our overall skill in moving wiki pages is low. In my case, nonexistent. What I do now is try to upload to my best guess at the name (e.g. the above is called "C. W. Celly") and add notes when identified. I think it's safe to duplicate identified sigs to all the other possible variants, but of course after we've identified a misnamed artist it tends to disappear from ISFDB itself and you have to look in the sig library. E.g. "Bob Parkin" went after we found Bob Larkin - although we haven't got Locus updated to match. But I'd like examples of all the "obvious" ones too, just so we can double check whether we have, for instance, a Paul Lehr rather than any other Lehr. BLongley 21:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oops - it looks like moving images is either not there yet or needs a MediaWiki update[1]. Apparently there are painful aspects to it. The problem in a nutshell is when you move an article the old page has a redirect to the new one. The links to the old name are not changed. Apparently with images a redirect does not or can't work. For now, this means that once an artist is identified we'd need to create a new page for that person's signature and to delete the old one.

I'm not sure what you mean by "But I'd like examples of all the 'obvious' ones too". Obvious unknown signatures? --Marc Kupper|talk 01:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes - any signature that is not clearly readable as the complete name. So any sig which is just a surname, or initials, or is a nickname. We shouldn't restrict the library to particularly difficult sigs only, anything incomplete can do with extra clarification for somebody. I'd suggest ALL signatures but that might lead to the lists getting too big. BLongley 18:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Time's Last Gift

This Farmer novel TLSTG1972 is under the series "Tarzan's Africa". It's set in 12000 BC. Not sure it belongs in this series. --Bluesman 20:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure who gave the series that name. I'd think "Opar" would be a better name. This novel is a prequel to the two Opar novels, but I don't know how close the connection is. MHHutchins 20:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

According to this link from the official Farmer site it is "sort of" in the "Opar" series.--swfritter 23:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have seen "Tarzan's Africa" as well as "Opar" used in Farmer bibliographies. FWIW, Clute/Nicholls uses "Ancient Africa", so I suppose there are many ways to skin this particular cat.

As Help:Screen:EditTitle notes, "a series may have only one name, so if two or more series names are equally popular (e.g. one name is preferred by the author, another one by the publisher, and a third one is commonly used in SF encyclopedias), the only option that we have is to list them all in a slash delimited format", so we may want to add "/ Opar" to the series name. Ahasuerus 01:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

5 Novels

This Pinkwater omnibus lists the author as "Daniel M. Pinkwater" for both the first and seventh printings. I just entered the tenth printing, which lists the author as "Daniel Pinkwater". Can anybody with any other editions of this verify how the author is credited?Jefe 23:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No "M." in my 9th printing. Ahasuerus 18:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

CDS Books

As per the the Locus Index and OCLC, it would appear that "CDs Books" should be "CDS Books", and Harry has just entered Notes for a publication that uses "CDS Books". Since our software changes publisher capitalization to what's already on file, the only way to change a publication is to change the underlying Publisher record, which will affect all publications sharing the same publisher. Any objections to changing "CDs Books" to "CDS Books" wholesale? Ahasuerus 18:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It must have been a bad first entry that created the publisher record. I wouldn't object to changing it to "CDS" if that's the only truly verified name. And besides, who would name their publishing company "CDs" knowing it would be confused with the plural of compact disc or certificate of deposit? :) MHHutchins 19:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, change made. Ahasuerus 01:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

All Those Enduring/Endearing Old Orders

Anybody have a copy of Aldiss 'Last Orders and Other Stories from Triad/Panther. "All Those Endearing Old Charms" is listed as "All Those Enduring Old Charms" elsewhere - see this discussion.--swfritter 21:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have that edition/printing, but I have now verified my Carroll & Graf mass market paperback edition, which seems to reprint the Triad/Panther edition page for page. I found 2 other typos in our Triad/Panther record, so it's likely safe to change it to follow the Carroll & Graf record. Ahasuerus 00:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully at least the title page is different, or it doesn't explain the variant. But there's something else odd in that set of variants - why "Last Orders and Other Stories (8888) - Brian W. Aldiss" for the 1979 edition? BLongley 18:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have merged Endearing with Enduring - 99%+ chance that is correct.--swfritter 23:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I just bought a 1979 Triad Panther edition (for research purposes, I can afford the penny plus postage). It's definitely "Enduring". However, it's not exactly the edition you're querying - the original price on mine is cheaper. But the chances of them getting it right in first printing, wrong in a later one, and then getting it right again are low. BLongley 23:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I have unlinked and merged the 8888 version since it was apparently in error. As far as my Carroll & Graf edition goes, I was wrong and it's not an exact reprint. Not only is the title page different, but it appeared as by "Brian Aldiss" rather than as by "Brian W. Aldiss". The "W" can be found on the copyright page and the "Author's Note" is signed "B.W.A.", but there is no "W" on the title page or on the cover, which means that the constituent Title records need to be changed to the W-less version. And then we'll need to revisit the other verified publications, which look suspicious too... Ahasuerus 02:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The 1990-08-00 version has been redone and re-verified. Who knew that middle initials could be so painful... Ahasuerus 00:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I knew. Why do you think I've avoided Aldiss, Friesner, Koontz etc for so long? I've only tackled Stableford (to some extent) as I've met the guy and owe him a major debt of gratitude for all the fanzines he gave me. BLongley 23:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) OK, how do we now fix all the "Three Enigmas" stuff? It seems this book has five of the triples, it might be the definitive source? BLongley 23:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge there are 8 Enigma triplets. Six were published in New Writings in SF 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 and 28. The seventh was in Epoch and the last one in Final Stage. In Last Orders five of them were reprinted, and numbered, but not in the original order of appearance. The ones in New Writings 22, 24 and 28 were left out of Last Orders. It may take a few days, but I can try to fix the whole mess. Willem H. 21:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Great! I think we have all those books covered to some extent, so one big proposal and a few verification requests should get it sorted. We may even develop a reasonable standard for "Group Titles". (Of course, as Aldiss is still alive, he may create a ninth just to throw us.) BLongley 22:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The job is growing. So far I've come across three more enigma triples. ISFDB already has one of them (Three Songs for Enigmatic Lovers). According to The Official Brian W. Aldiss Website there should be one in Vector, March 1978 (#87) (Yin, Yang and Jung, Three Galactic Enigmas) and one in Something Else 1, Spring 1980 and reprinted in New Pathways Into Science Fiction And Fantasy [No.14, May 1989] (Three Revolutionary Enigmas). If anyone owns one of these publications, please enter the data.

There should now be a series called Enigma, in which I will nest the 9 enigma triples known to ISFDB. I've also begun to match the six editions of Last Orders (I own this one, and I see no reason why the other editions should be different, except for the page count.

New Writings #23 has no introductory essay with The Eternal Theme Of Exile, so I deleted that one. To be continued Willem H. 13:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Mike Cross agrees on the Vector #87 contents, if not the date. I probably have a copy somewhere in the Stableford collection, no telling when I'll find it though. BLongley 20:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone have a copy of this one or that one? It seems to contain four stories by Brian W. Aldiss, but I'm almost certain it is one of the Enigma triples, in which case this is not a story at all, but the title of the enigma triple, and it should be a series containing the other three stories. Common Clay lists only the three stories. Willem H. 20:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

According to Locus1, you're correct. It's another triptych under the umbrella title "Her Toes Were Beautiful on the Hilltops". Go ahead and drop that title from both pubs and place the three stories into a series with that name. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Curse of the Mohndoro Nkabele

I was checking this pub, and came across the author Eric Norden. There are three entries for the story "The Curse of the Mohndoro Nkabele" and I strongly suspect they are all wrong. Probably the first edition is in Starsongs and Unicorns. This one gives the title as "The Curse of the Mohndoro Nkabele or The Revenge of Stanley G. Weinbaum" (Locus agrees on that), but strangely enough gives the year as 1980 (Starsongs and Unicorns was published in 1978). The second one was published in F&SF Sept.1980 I can hardly imagine it is a different story (can anyone check this?) The one I do own (Inside the Funhouse) is also strange. It gives 1982 as the copyright year, which is obviously wrong, on the toc the title is "The Curse of Mohndoro Nkabele", the story itself is "The Curse of the Mohndoro Nkabele" with the "the" restored. It seems like the story is really cursed. Any suggestions? Willem H. 11:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have Starsongs and Unicorns in my collection, but Reginald-3 and OCLC agree that it was published in 1978. Contento provides further details and suggests that the "cursed" stories are the same story. As far as the copyright year goes, it may have been renewed in 1982 for some reason -- uncommon, but it happens and yet another reason to be wary of copyright dates.

I have updated "The Primal Solution" to reflect Contento's information about Cavalier and added the author's legal name. Ahasuerus 19:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed the date of [2] to 1978-00-00, and made the later titles into variant titles. Thanks Willem H. 19:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Galaxy, January 1974

Could someone with a copy of Galaxy, January 1974 handy please check whether Sturgeon's review of Past, Present, and Future Perfect spells one of the editors' name "Jack C. Wolfe" or "Jack C. Wolf"? TIA! Ahasuerus 23:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's the latter, "Jack C. Wolf."-Rkihara 23:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that eliminates the "Wolfe" record! :) Ahasuerus

Amazing Stories, May 1980

Similarly, is the story "October Blood" attributed to "Gregory FitzGerald" or to "Gregory Fitz Gerald" in Amazing Stories, May 1980? The primary verifier, Bob Hall, hasn't been seen on the Wiki side since November, so it's probably more productive to ask here. Ahasuerus 23:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's "Gregory Fitz Gerald."-Rkihara 07:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Another bogus Author record bites the dust! :) Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Squares of the City cover signature

Does anyone recognize this signature?

Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, couldn't find a reference for that edition but I did find a few more. BLongley 22:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Took me some time, but it looks like the signature from Davy which is credited to Bob Foster. Willem H. 19:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Good sleuthing! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:12, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

"The Ancestral Home of Thought"

We have two version of Brian W. Aldiss' "The Ancestral Home of Thought" on file. The first one is #3 in his "Three Revolutionary Enigmas" series and the second one is #3 in "Her Toes Were Beautiful on the [Hilltops|Mountains]". As I recall, this area was cleaned up recently, so I wonder if someone may remember enough about it to properly attribute the story? Ahasuerus 16:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It's the same story, but the editor who was cleaning up Aldiss's Enigmas left this one alone. (Because one story can't be in two series.) I guess it's up to someone else to merge the title records, deciding which series it should be part of. MHHutchins 20:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion about "The Ancestral Home of Thought" was here. It was decided to leave the two entries alone until someone could compare them. Willem H. 20:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I hope I'm wrong - but haven't the series been corrupted since I last looked? :-( Search for series with "Enigma" in and there's 11, only five of which point to the overall parent I thought we had. BLongley 21:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone's been undoing my work. I tied all (I hope) of the series to the Enigma parent again. Thanks for the warning. Willem H. 17:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I've saved the current structure on the overall series wiki page, perhaps we could add more notes to the sub-series wiki pages too? I don't want to go through that again. :-/ BLongley 19:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

World Editions pub of Clarke's Prelude to Space

I'm holding a submission from a new editor (who probably hasn't found the wiki yet) that wants to change the publisher of this pub to "World Editions, Inc. / Galaxy Publishing Corp." The book was published in 1951, the year that World Editions was publisher of Galaxy Magazine, but by the end of the year they had become Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Does anyone have a copy to verify that both publishers are credited? Thanks. MHHutchins 22:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Only "World Editions, Inc." is mentioned in this publication. It does have "Galaxy Science Fiction Novel" written all over it of course, but "Galaxy Publishing Corp." is not mentioned, and wasn't in the first seven galaxy novels. Willem H. 13:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. That confirms the suspicions that made me hold the submission. MHHutchins 14:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

First Edition of 2010 Odyssey Two

Does anyone know for sure whether this Arthur C. Clarke novel was published first in the UK or the US? Some say the Granada edition was first some say it was published earlier in the US. I'm confused. Can anyone help? Thanks. Phileas Apr. 25, 17:49:03 UTC

According to an article in Locus #264 (January 1983), the Granada edition appeared a week before the Del Rey edition was released in America. But officially the Phantasia Press edition was the first, even though both the Phantasia and Del Rey appeared in October according to Locus #263 (December 1982). So it looks like all of them appeared within weeks of each other. MHHutchins 18:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Reginald-3 agrees that the Phantasia Press version (limited to 650 copies) was the official first edition. Ahasuerus 19:35, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks (yes, I'm late). I got me the Granada edition, because even if there was one Phantasia for sale, I'm sure my wife would have killed me ;). I reached part four and the same problem occurred. Voyager and Del Rey editions appeared both in March 97 - Locus says they were published "simultaneously". There are two first editions and no second? Locus also states Feb 97 for the Del Rey, but in square bracket - what do such dates in bracket mean? I hope Del Rey was the first (at least by some minutes) because the cover looks way better. -- Phileas 09:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the confusion is caused by the different definitions of "First Edition". It could be the first-ever publication by any publisher of a book and it could also be the first printing by this particular publisher. "Second Edition" has no meaning in this context. (That usually means a book as been revised, updated, etc. and this is the first printing of that edition.) The Voyager was a first edition. The Del Rey was a first edition. If Tor came out with a printing tomorrow, it would be the first Tor edition, and probably include the statement "First Edition: May 2009" with a complete number line.

Back to your question. Did Voyager or Del Rey first publish 3001? If Locus1 states "published simultaneously" it means that the publishers decided that they would release their editions "approximately" within a certain time frame (perhaps a couple of weeks or a month). The "official" Del Rey publication date was February 25, 1997. The "official" Voyager publication date was March 20, 1997. Now, when those books actually arrived in the stores, who can tell? Locus received their copy of the Del Rey edition in February, that's what the bracketed date means in Locus listings. So I think you have the "official" First Edition. MHHutchins 16:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. I'm aware (nevertheless still confused) about the different definitions of "1st edition". When I say "1st edition" I want a copy of the first printing run of the book that was first released (in a certain laguage). The official dates you mentioned are quite what I had in mind. -- Phileas 07:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Arthur C. Clarke - Dolphin Island - 1st ed.

I'm thinking about buying this book. It's the first listed edition in the ISFDB and every seller who offers this book calls it the "1st edition". There's another copy for $300, but I think it's not that much better and the 85 GBP copy will do. But then I found link this one. It's not in the ISFDB yet. Seller says the book states "1st edition". There are other copies of that edition which seem to verify the "1st edition" statement on the copyright page. What now... any suggestions? -- Phileas 09:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Both are first editions. They were both published in 1963, but I can find no source for the month. (Amazon.co.uk dates the Gollancz edition January 1, but that's a default date.) So I can't tell you which was first published. But again, they're both first editions. Holt was the first US edition. Gollancz was the first British edition. R. Reginald, who only lists the first edition says it's Holt. And Tuck, who lists all editions, has the Holt first, but I don't know if that's American centrism (which I doubt, because he was Tasmanian). I think the Holt would be your best choice.

BTW, there's no record of the Holt edition in the ISFDB because no one has created one yet. You'll find there's thousands of editions that are not in the database yet. That's where you come in. :-) MHHutchins 16:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Holt sounds good. Although I was afraid you would say that, because getting books (or anything else) from America to Germany is much more exasperating than getting books inside the European union. The packages will be opened by the German customs and if the content is worth more than €22 you have to pay VAT (again). That means you have to go there personally to pay and get the package - sometimes it takes 2 or 3 months until I get my hands on it and I always have a bad feeling about my package. But that's another story. ;) -- Phileas 08:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Signature help

Does anyone recognize this File:CrazyTime sig.jpg? It's from Crazy Time, Feb 1989, St. Martin's Press. Sorry, but I couldn't get it any bigger and have it remain even remotely legible. I have a guess, but don't want to prejudice anyone. Thanks. --MartyD 20:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't even see a signature. Can you create a larger scan at a greater resolution? MHHutchins 20:29, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Bleiler's Science Fiction: The Early Years

Someone has started entering info from this title (kudos to that brave soul), but there's one entry I'd like to have double-checked. This doesn't match Reginald1, from which I'm doing a similar (slow) project. He has the title as L.P.M.: The End of the Great War and published as by "J. Stewart Barney". OCLC agrees with this title and author-credit. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually it is listed in Bleiler as "L. P. M. The End of the Great War" under the full name. Bleiler quite often uses the authors real name without mentioning the name under which the work was actually published. Changed both review and novel title to the that. Guess what. It is in Google Books. It probably makes sense to add the the assumed ":". I will modify the novel and also readjust the author name in the review so we don't have an orphan author. I figure it is going to take at least another year to complete this project and it looks like our projects might complement each other. Which will give us reasons to compliment each other. Sorry, couldn't resist.--swfritter 17:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In related news, I have changed "A Scientific Balloon" by W. L. Alden from "1986-01-00" to "1896-01-00". Ahasuerus 17:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Magazine dates fixed also. This is like Twitter. People are following me.--swfritter 17:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

There was an announcement at work today. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are going to merge into one big waste-of-time service. It'll be called YouTwitFace. :-) BLongley 18:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually I have that publication bookmarked and have been working my way through it ever so slowly behind you as the interest strikes me, looking for online editions of the out of copyright stuff to link up to and to flesh out some of the entries (Google Books, Internet Archive, Gutenberg, etc), and occasionally branching off into tangents for interesting authors. Kevin 02:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Twitter - opposite of

Related to my off-topic comment above: Hugh Laurie has just mentioned on British TV that he is more of a "Shush" person than a Twitterer like his former partner Stephen Fry. (Most followed British Twitterer, I'm told.) I'm sure "Shush" and all other spelling variants have been grabbed as domain names by now, so won't even attempt to create such a service, but what was the SF story where people could just talk to somebody (via vague technology I forget) in full confidence that it would be heard but never overheard, and would not be repeated? BLongley 22:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Amazing Stories, August 1979

This issue was verified by Bob Hall, who hasn't been seen around ISFDB for some time, so I am posting it here. Could somebody please check whether "The First Buck Rogers Story Ever Published" is attributed to "Philip Frances Nowlan" or "Philip Francis Nowlan"? TIA! Ahasuerus 00:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

With my transient verification. Credited as Philip Frances Nowlan on the ToC with no interior credit. It is actually the fictional Foreword to "Buck Rogers in The 25th Century" so is legitimately a piece of fiction. The cover from The August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories is also reproduced. The title actually refers to a one page essay preceding the excerpt with the excerpt being untitled but mentioned in the essay. Tomorrow I will break it down into two titles. The essay as titled by uncredited and "Armageddon - 2419 (excerpt)" as by Philip Frances Nowlan.--swfritter 00:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, sort of! The story was entered merely as "Armageddon - 2419" for its original appearance in Amazing. Both Contento and Day have it as "Armageddon - 2419 A.D.". A little web-surfing resolved that issue. I go to merge the titles; one is a novella and one is a novelette. A little web surfing; I get a word count and I am in hopes that I did not break the law just by doing so. Honest I did not read any of the words. I already have the story in my collection. Again. Thanks, sort of.--swfritter 13:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Against The Fall Of Night (novella == novel ???)

Arthur C. Clarke's "Against The Fall Of Night" has two entries: as a novella and as a novel. Today I got a copy of this magazine, which contains the very first publication of this story. I compared it to a later paperback print - I haven't compared every single word. But I checked all chapters and several paragraphs of each chapter randomly and all the "special stuff" like paragraphs in italics and something like that. Both versions seem to be the same. Plus the magazine doesn't call it a novella or novelette, but a novel. Actually I found one minor difference: at the very first sentence of the 9th chapter in the magazine there's a "the" missing at the beginning of the sentence - but I'm sure that's a mistake, because I think it's grammatically wrong without the "the". I did some brief comparisons to later editions too: this one and this one - no difference. So I've read all the forewords by Clarke about "Against...". He always wrote that the novel had been developed over many years and many changes had been made until it was finally accepted by the Startling Stories magazine. Then he said it was later published in hardback, but he didn't mention any further changes to the novel - except, of course, the extended version "The City and the Stars".

So, I believe all published versions of "Against The Fall Of Night" are the same - so far I found nothing that suggests two different versions - except teh ISFDB. This would also explain some confusion - for example: according to the DB Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1986 "The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night" is supposed to contain the novella and another edition by the same publisher one year later (using the same ISBN) is supposed to contain the novel.

What do you think? -- Phileas 20:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right. Tuck has all publications as a novel (including the first publication in Startling Stories) and the various editions of The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night are split evenly between novel and novella. Willem H. 21:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, you're opening the big can of worms again! There are people here (I call them "Lengthists") that go by very precise word-counts. These seem to have been derived from the rules for various awards (Hugo, Nebula, etc) that define NOVEL at 40K words, NOVELLA at 17.5k, etc. I'm not a "Lengthist" and think anything that has been published on its own as a book is fine to be called "NOVEL". And some award rules allow for NOVELLAs published stand-alone to be entered for the NOVEL award category too. And there are stories that were put forward for awards in both NOVELETTE and NOVELLA categories, and some awards that didn't distinguish "Short Story" from "Novelette" either... BLongley 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I personally think the current length rules are mostly unjustified and senseless if they don't even support the award category they were in with the categories they'd fall into now. We're mostly getting by with letting the Lengthists deal with Award nominees/winners and the majority of books that don't get that far are left alone: sometimes they're children's books, or older books that never had to pad out their word-counts to get to the level of an award category invented much later, or just short books. Sometimes we just call some claimed novels "collections" (as things like the original "Foundation" books have sections pretty close to their magazine publications). BLongley 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There's probably a civil war looming where some editors and even moderators will quit in disgust at the proposed nonsense from the "other side", but fortunately there's a universal revulsion about "chapterbooks" which seems to be what some Lengthists want to demote some "short novels" to, and that some others want to preserve for books that actually deserve such a category. BLongley 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Having said all that - I've got "Against the Fall of Night" in a book (or several) somewhere but I'm pretty sure I haven't got it standalone. If it's been published standalone then I'd support "NOVEL", but I don't think I can do that from my current evidence. Welcome to the world of old ISFDB standards disagreements! BLongley 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There are certainly disagreements in this area, but if we are sure that the text is the same across all Publications, I think we should merge the two Titles first and then debate whether it's a Novel or a Novella. Ahasuerus 22:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Another borderline case like the Francis Stevens novels? Contento lists it as a novella for the magazine appearance which is probably where that length designation came from in our system. Unless the story is continued later in the magazine version and/or the print size is smaller than normal it would probably be in the area of 40,000 words which would normally equate to about 130 pages in most paperbacks which is about the length of the story in "The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night" editions. Most of the paperbacks come in at about 160 pages which usually puts the word count at closer to 50,000 depending upon font size, white space, etc. Even if the magazine appeance is novel length it might still be shorter.--swfritter 21:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Found my copy of "The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night". Based upon a word count sample "Against the Fall of Night" appears to about 50,000 words - about 150 pages in my SFBC edition which is about what I figured for the paperback editions. The magazine version might still be shorter. Phileas must have some tiny print in his edition which is only 130 pages.--swfritter 22:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Should not have got started editing when I had an appointment. Even if the magazine version is shorter, and even if it were to squeak in at slightly less than 40k, classifying it as a Complete Novel (Serial) will document the potential for variant text; that's part of the rationale for the designation. The subsequent printings seem clearly to be of Novel length.--swfritter 23:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

But we have documentation (Phileas's word compare) that there are no changes. I'm thinking Just 'Novel' in a magazine. No need to beat around the bush with (Complete Novel) Serial designations even. Kevin 01:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh no, a Novel Title in a Magazine Publication would be against the rules and an automatic red flag. Magazine appearances of novels are always entered as Serials, using either the "Part X of Y" format or the "(Complete Novel)" format (depending on the number of installments) even if the text has been verified as unchanged between magazine and book publications. Ahasuerus 01:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought we had rules so we could have exceptions to the rules (shrug) - So it appears I will change my vote to (Complete Novel) Kevin 02:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Rules are made to be modified (when the circumstances warrant changes) as opposed to broken :) In this case it's important to keep magazine appearances of novels as Serials so that they would appear under their associated Novel titles. It's not a great arrangement since it relies on the infamous "lexical match" and we hope to change it Some Time Soon (tm), but we need to keep it that way for now, in part so that we could automatically convert our data to the new format when the time comes. Ahasuerus 03:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

swfritter, I know what you mean. The page counts seem pretty suspicious, but there are huge differences regarding the typesetting. I own 4 editions with a page count range of 60 to 152, but still, during the comparisons I made so far, I found no differences (exception the one word I mentioned earlier and which is probably the editor's mistake). My Gollancz hardcover has only 108 pages for example. The magazine pages are of about the same size as Gollancz (thus larger than a mass paperback) but the font size is small, so small that they had to print two columns on each page, otherwise it would be hard to keep track of the lines while reading. Picking a sequence from the text and comparing magazine to book you can see that the text presented on one magazine page takes easily 2 to 3 paperback pages. Furthermore, the chapters doesn't start on a new page like they do in most book editions - that should compensate the magazine's illustrations at least. What's still troubling me is that I think the Author would have mentioned it somewhere in one of the forewords or remarks where he described the history of this novel - usually he's pretty precise about such things - but in his description the book pub by Gnome press followed the magazine pub and there's no "step" in the meantime worth mentioning. -- Phileas 07:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Another remark: it's not a divided into parts. It's the complete novel on page 11 to 70 - that's it. However, I don't know if it's a novella or novel (personally I don't like to count words). A admit that a magazine pub make it look like a novella, but if I had to decide this according to instinct I'd say it's a novel - certainly a short one, but a novel. But that's just my opinion. I'm not familiar with the rules, all I can say is the it currently looks like an inconsistence (When I bought the magazine I expected a different version, because of the two entries in the DB). Btw, I just found this. Quote: This magazine was the first companion to Thrilling Wonder Stories; its policy was to publish long novels -- Phileas 07:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has a problem with classifying the magazine version as novel length. As such it would be entered as a Complete Novel (Serial) in the magazine. Rather than being a special case that would justify exceptional processing it as an example of why the methodology was adopted in the first place. Magazine serials and longer stories are particular prone to editorial tampering. By using the Complete Novel (Serial) methodology we avoid the onerous task of having to spend countless hours of textual analysis to compare versions. As far as page counts; there are 40,000 word novels crammed into 70 tiny-text pages of a digest magazines and 20,000 word novels that filled up 200 pages of a book. It often requires pub in hand to make a true determination. Magazine publishers consistently over classified the lengths of stories in order to convince potential customers that they were getting the most bang for the buck. The Complete Novel (Serial) concept, even if we find a different nomenclature, is probably something for which we should have a white paper document. I know it took me a little while to buy into the logic.--swfritter 15:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Before Ahasuerus reminds me. There is an even more compelling reason for using the The Complete Novel (Serial) methodology. If we classified the story as a NOVEL it would logically have to be merged with the other occurrences which would give the novel an earlier publication date than most people would expect. In the wider world the first book publication date is considered to be more appropriate.--swfritter 15:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If everybody is satisfied that all versions of this story are novel length I will make the appropriate changes in the next couple of days. That will also require changing the entry in Phileas' verified pub from a novella to (Complete Novel) Serial and changing the titles of the artwork to be consistent with that title. I am looking forward to the days when this confusing nomenclature goes away.--swfritter 14:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Done.--swfritter 14:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Unknown signature - Key Out of Time

Key Out of Time by Ace has this signature. It appears to end in "ki". Do you recognize it? If not, and you have a copy of the ISFDB db handy, can you pull up a list of artists whose names end with "ki"? select author_canonical from authors where author_canonical like '%ki' AND author_id in (select author_id from canonical_author where title_id in (select title_id from titles where title_ttype in ('COVERART','INTERIORART'))); I know it'd be better to use an inner join but the version here is something I can do while sleeping <g>. Thank you! --Marc Kupper|talk 20:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The query narrows it down to Mike Kucharski, Matt Stawicki, Susan Zolkowski, Mark Dubowski, Richard Egielski, Bill Skurski, Edward Osowski, Paul David Novitski, Allen Koszowski, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Mark Salwowski, Michael Kucharski, Eric Turowski, Steve Cieslawski, Anton Brzezinski, Kevin Jankauski, Tommy Soloski, Elizabeth Malczynski, Rafal Olbinski, Peter Szumowski, Tony Pyrzakowski, Juda Tverski, Stanislaw Zagorski, Chet Jezierski, Andrzej Dudzinski, Wictor Sadowski, Dale D. Ziemanski, John Borkowski, Rudolph Belarski, Michael Labonski, Stefan Rudnicki, Stephan Kopinski, Jan Pienkowski, Yvonne Bogdanski, Pete Rozycki, Paul Stanczykowski, Pawel Lewandowski, Tim Zulewski, Belarski, Rafael Olbinski, Marcin Baranski, Gene Mydlowski, Thomi Wroblewski, Fred Winkowski, Steven Stawicki, Jerzy Osmolski, Matthew Stawicki, Don Dolanski, Al Nozaki, Kazuaki Iwasaki, Marek Minecki, Smolenski, Jan Glinski, Joan Pienkowski, Marek A. Majewski, Mark Romanoski, Victoria Kuskowski, Ann Mikolowski, Rafal Oblinski, Karl Kopinski, Paul Stancykowski, Stan Zagorski, Wieslaw Walkuski, Zoë Sadokierski, Klaus Scherwinski, Stefan Kopinski, Donna Pawlowski, Groginski, Andrzej Klimowski, John Zielinski, W. Strudeski, Sigismund de Ivanowski, Al Koszowski, Tomasz Maronski, Konrad Kruszewski, Hans Waldemar Wessolowski, Bartlomiej Jurkowski, Stan Skardindki, H. W. Wessolowski, Regina Brytowski, Przemyslaw Ulatowski, Mikio Ishizaki, Ann Mikoloswki, Andrzej Wolinowski, Glen Iwasaki, Dariusz Zawadzki, Victor Sadowski, Stanley Skardinski, Tilman Michalski.

Hope that helps. ;-) BLongley 20:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Bill. That helps and the pattern looks close to W. Strudeski and so I'll put that one down as the likely artist. His other cover, which is also for Ace, has a very similar style. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

After reading here and looking the cover I have decided to remove the note that said I believed this cover was by Davis Meltzer. But I can't make heads or tails out the signature, or the one on my copy of THE VEILED WORLD which is the other cover credited to W. Strudeski.Don Erikson 03:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm adding a note that the artist's name is likely misspelled. A Google search for Strudeski only finds the ISFDB records and one mention in a German book from 1883. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I pulled up some cursive charts and the name Grudeski seems to be a better match plus is used as a family name. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Unknown signature - A Wreath of Stars

Here's another from a Dell 1978 edition of A Wreath of Stars. I've seen this signature before and it's one of those where the artist stylizes stuff.

File:AWROSTR1978-Signature.jpg

I'd do a SQL string but in searching for patterns such as o%o%so%o I'm not finding it. Thanks! --Marc Kupper|talk 01:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I read that as "Do?o So??so?", for what that is worth. Notjhing in the db matches that pattern, AFAICT. -DES ^Talk 01:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Try "Sohnson" or more likely "Johnson" as the last name. And the first could be a stylized "Doug" with the "g" dangling to form the first letter of the last name. MHHutchins 16:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael is right. The artist's name is Doug Johnson. here's a nice site with more of his work. His signature is clearly visible on this one. Willem H. 20:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you everyone. I've updated the artist's biblio page. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

First publication date for The Mule

I noticed that the 6th entry in the Foundation (Original Stories) series, The Mule is dated 1941, yet its proper place in the series' chronological order is late 1945 - early 1948. Wikipedia claims it was first published in the 2-part serial (which we have recorded) in November 1945 and December 1945 Astounding Science Fiction. Does anyone have access to an authoritative source that could confirm or deny that 1941 is wrong and Nov 1945 is correct? Thanks. --MartyD 11:07, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. The proper date should be 1945-11-00. As for an authoritative source, see Cover of November 45 Astounding (shrug). I also know that Mule was not published before Foundation in 1942. I leave the correction to you. Kevin 13:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Cloud Chamber (1977) by Howard Myers or Howard L. Myers

We have 2 publication records for Cloud Chamber (Popular Library, 1977): CLDCHMBRDQ1977 and CLDCHMBRKF1977. The variant with 'Howard Myers' has no source stated and looks suspiciously like one based on a review in F&SF (FSFSEP2004). I have changed the link in the review to point to the canonical record, but perhaps the original publication was as by Howard Myers? (The book covers found on the net show 'L.' in author's name, and WorldCat has 'L.' too, but perhaps the title page has 'L.' omitted?) Thanks! --Roglo 14:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Stephen Baxter: questions, suggestions and verification needs

• So far I found nothing about the alternate world series. All other bibliographic sources (including Baxter's official website) say that there's a "NASA Trilogy" to which Voyage, Titan and Moonseed belongs. Whereas The Time Ships and Anti-Ice don't belong to any series. Which makes perfectly sense to me, because I don't see any connection between them - or at least no stronger connection than to many other science fiction stories. If you add anything that takes place in an alternate world the whole "Time's Tapestry" and the "Mammoth" series could be part of it.

• It would appear that whoever set up this series took Wikipedia's "Alternative History" genre designation as a Series name :) Also, isn't The Time Ships a sequel to H. G. Wells' The Time Machine anyway? Ahasuerus 13:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Good point. They never got tired to mention the fact that this is an official and authorized sequel to Wells' Time Machine. --Phileas 14:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

  My vote goes for a new series containing The Time Machine and The Time Ships (this would also lead Wells readers, who never heard of Baxter to the sequel), a new "NASA Trilogy" series and Anti-Ice as an unrelated novel. --Phileas 15:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Sounds reasonable, although keep in mind that we already have a Time Machine series. We could probably add Jeter's Morlock Night to the new series as well. Since the three books, especially the one by Jeter, are only tenuously related, we could call the series something like H. G. Wells' Time Machine Universe Ahasuerus 15:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Done. I assigned series numbers to Time Machine and Time Ships, but none to Jeter's novel to show that it plays in the same universe, but it's not the real sequel. --Phileas 15:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Titan links to a serialized form published in 1979. But this one had not been written by Baxter. Obviously it belongs to this title by John Varley. Is there any connection between those two works apart from the title name, or does that serialized novel show up by mistake under Baxter's novel?

• Lexical matching of serials is based strictly on the spelling of titles; author names are not taken into account. I suspect there will probably be a fix for this before too long.--swfritter 12:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• We can fix it now or we can wait until lexical matching is done away with. I have been thinking about the "ideal state" of Serials for a while and hope to start a discussion soon. Ahasuerus 15:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Flood, Ark and maybe some more to come seem to form a new series. Although that's not quite clear yet, and there's no name for this (Wikipedia calls it the "Un-named disaster series" other sources call it something like the "Flood series"). But at least "Ark" will be a sequel to "Flood" that's pretty sure. Should we create a series for that?

• Done. I called it Flood, but we can always change it later if a definitive series name emerges. Series names are somewhat subjective (and different publishers have been known to use different names anyway) -- the fact that certain books are related is the important thing to convey to our users. Just make sure that the Series name hasn't been already used or else you'll add books/stories to an unrelated series. Ahasuerus 13:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• I assume a series name has to be unique in a global sense, not just per author? --Phileas 14:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• That's right. Ahasuerus 14:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Reality Dust and Riding the Rock are listed as part 6 and 7 of the Xeelee sequence whereas other short fiction (like Starfall) didn't get an number. Is there any reason why these two get a number in the series, while the others don't?

• Series numbers are used to indicate the ordering of titles within the series and help answer the perennial question "Which book/story should I read next?" Some short fiction titles, especially novellas, are part of the overall plot development, so our users would benefit from knowing in what order they should be read. Other short fiction titles (or even novels) may be set in the same universe but could be profitably read in any order -- e.g. most Retief stories/novels -- so series numbers are less important. Ahasuerus 15:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• There's a possible dupe. Once we have Longtusk as part of the Mammoth series and there's another one with the variant title Long Tusk which is currently listed as unrelated novel. The latter entry was obviously created along with the Behemoth omnibus. If the novel titles changed to "Long Tusk" in the omnibus the currently unrelated title should become a variant title of "Longtusk" in the "Mammoth" series. But if the novel included in the omnibus is titled "Longtusk" we should merge the "Long Tusk" with the proper one. As a note: Sources that spell it "Long Tusk" are bookshops - but they even spell some of single editions that way along with covers that clearly show "Longtusk". Worldcat spells it "Longtusk". The publisher Gollancz uses both. First: Mammoth, Long Tusk, Icebones but then This is the story of SILVERHAIR, LONGTUSK and ICEBONES, Stephen Baxter's epic drama of nature's behemoth: the mammoth. Does anyone have this omnibus edition at hand?

• If you look at "Behemoth" and click the Amazon UK link, you'll see the probable source of the space in "Long Tusk" - Amazon UK list it in the title. But if you use "Look Inside", all references are to "Longtusk". It doesn't show the title page but based on cover and copyright pages, and with no verification saying otherwise, I'd change it to "Longtusk" and merge them. BLongley 18:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks. Done. Found another candidate which looks kinda weird to me. The title Phase Space correctly belongs to the Manifold series and has three publications. This one is obviously a dupe not connected to the series and has one pub. But when I try to merge them I get a warning that both titles are referred in the same pub. So I looked into this pub, but I can't find where this pub references the dupe title. When I click on the dupe title, then on the pub and then on the title reference of the pub I get back to the correct title, not the dupe. The title reference correctly links to this one and among the contents of this pub I couldn't find a reference to the dupe title either. Can someone please help me to understand this? I even looked into the SQL table structure (to avoid unnecessary questions and) to figure out how this pub can refer to the correct title and at the same time to the dupe title without having one of them among the pub content, but I'm lost. --Phileas 20:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

  That probably means that the publication contains (points to) both title records. Note that Container records are hidden even when in edit mode if they match in type, and are not listed in the remove titles dialog either. The kludge for dealing with this is to:

  1. change one (sometimes both are needed, but I suspect not in this case) of the title records to a non-container type (I favor POEM myself, as it is generally obviously absurd, and can't be mistaken for something legit).
  2. Then (once the previous step is approved) the transformed title can be removed from the pub record which includes both titles.
  3. Then it can be transformed back to the proper type
  4. Then the two titles can be merged.

  As you can see, this is a multi-step process in which each step requires approval of the previous step, and is thus a little tedious for non-mods. If you want to do this yourself, to gain experience with the process, go ahead. If you'd like me to tackle it, let me know. -DES ^Talk 20:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you. I'm always crazy about gaining experience. I'll give it a shot and let you know when I'm stuck... that certainly would be a disgrace to your detailed description. ;) --Phileas 07:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Opinions? Thanks for any input. --Phileas 09:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Wolfe

I just picked up a copy of this pub for a pretty good price, but think it may not be the first edition. It has the code "A-4.72 [c]" but has no statement of edition or printing. Also the LCCN is 77-38283. Why would a book published in 1972 have that LCCN? Is there anyone familiar with Scribner's printing identification system? Or could someone with a Currey see if he lists any identifying markings for the first edition? Thanks in advance. MHHutchins 15:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Currey has this as the first edition with the code exactly as your book. ~Bill, --Bluesman 13:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

No Currey here, but "A-4.72 [c]" reads as "A" = First Printing, "4.72" = April 1972, and [c] is a division or category code....I don't know off hand what [c] means. See also Interim System. Between Dec 1, 1968 and Feb 1972 a third LCCN Assignment system was used that had no prefix/opening letters, and that always began with a "7", and a Check Digit, instead of the date. Officially these records have to use the 'date entered' MARC field to determine year. Cheers - Kevin 16:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) It is possible that Scribner's didn't register this with the LoC until 1977, thus getting a 77- LCCN. Since the LOC record for that LCCN refers to the 1972 edition, this seems probable to me. It still suggests to me that your copy was printed in 1977 or later. OCLC doesn't list any Scribner's edition of The Fifth Head of Cerberus later than 1972, but if a copy has no visible publication date, they tend to use the copyright date, so this doesn't really help much. -DES ^Talk 16:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm going with Kevin's explanation (and proof). According to the Interim System, those first two numbers do not refer to the year. The LCCN for this edition must have been assigned near the end of this numbering system. Sorry, DES, I can't believe that a book that didn't sell that well in 1972 would be reprinted at the same price five years later. Looks like I got a good price for a first edition Wolfe. Thanks to all. MHHutchins 16:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

After looking this over I agree. This appears to be an "Interim system" LCCN, and the MARC tag for its date of entry into the LOC system holds "720620", which would be plausible for a book published in April of 1972. The decoding of "A-4.72 [c]" makes this look like a true first printing to me. -DES ^Talk 16:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, January-February 1984

Our record states that "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Portrait of a Magician" on page 24 is an interview while "`These Hidden Poems Are Everywhere'" is an essay about him. The Locus Index record has it the other way around, which seems more likely. Could someone who has this issue handy check it, please? TIA! Ahasuerus 01:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Locus is right. The first piece is the essay by Haiblum and the second is an interview of Singer by Haiblum. I'll make the correction and hold the issue out to do a verification. The TZ is one of my proposed projects, but it always gets put on the back burner. MHHutchins 13:55, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. MHHutchins 14:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 15:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Signature help [2]

Anyone recognize this signature??

Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 13:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

What's it from? I wonder if it could be Timothy Kobs, although I didn't notice anything matching that. But his "signature" seems to vary among the works. --MartyD 14:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

It's from a '56 SFBC edition of Blish's "Earthman Come Home". ~Bill, --Bluesman 14:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking for "Kohs" from 1950 to 1959 on Abebooks finds Marion R. Kohs and Lester Kohs both active as illustrators & cover artists. Based on the style for the RTHMNCMHMX1956 cover I'd say it's Lester Kohs. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:54, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Perry Rhodan #s 77, 78, and 79

It seems that there was, in Perry Rhodan #77: Conflict Center: Naator and the next two in the PR series a 3-part review of The Undersea Kingdom, a 1936 movie. See (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Currently, Part 1 is dated 1975 while parts 2 & 3 are dated 1938. An editor wants to change them all to 1975, but has no real source for this beign the first publication of these essays. Do any of our Perry Rhodan fans have anything to say on the matter? Actually reading the review would probably settle the issue. -DES ^Talk 06:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The scientifilm commentary before the start of the review. "The review you are about to read (in 3 installments) originally appeared in a hectographed fanzine edited by Walter E. Marconette. It was published complete in Vol. 1 No. 5 of Science Fantasy Movie Review, Sept. 1938, and was written by an active fan of the time who was probably then in his late teens. Two years later he had achieved professional publication with "Murder from Mars" in Astonishing Stories". " The rest is a quick bio on Richard Wilson. Actual review starts on page 155. I believe that 78 and 79 are more partial in crediting before the review. When it was input 78/79 are easily confusing with the film to the same title review. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Scientifilm World: "The Undersea Kingdom" by Richard Wilson, Jr., first published by Empress Publications, 1938. from copyright page 77. Please thank the contributor for working on the 'most difficult' of the Ackerman publication. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. That is quite clear. -DES ^Talk 15:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949

As per Butch Malahide on rec.arts.sf.written:

The title of Van Vogt's story is neither "The Problem Professor" nor "Problem Spaceship"; it is simply "Project Spaceship". (The story is divided into 4 chapters, and "The Problem Professor" is the title of Chapter II.)

In the same issue, the title of Bradbury's story is "The Naming of Names".

If anyone has a copy of Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949 handy, could you please double check? TIA! Ahasuerus 03:11, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the issue, but Donald Day's index agrees with both titles. He has no listing for either "The Problem Professor" or "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed". MHHutchins 05:47, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Contento agrees. I wonder about "The Problem Professor" reprints, though. Will check later tonight. Ahasuerus 12:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, everything has been fixed. I have my doubts about the hyphen in one of the VTs, but we'll get to it eventually. Ahasuerus 03:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

"The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass" in Galaxy Magazine, June 1962

We currently list the short story "The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass" as part of the "Editor's Page (Galaxy)" series. This causes a problem on Frederik Pohl's Summary page because the software shows all of Pohl's "Editor's Page (Galaxy)" Essays (and there are a few dozen) in the "Short Fiction Series" section. I can't check the magazine at the moment, but I assume that it was an "editorial in the form of a short story" (or vice versa.) Could someone please check the issue and see if it would be OK to remove this story from the series? TIA! Ahasuerus 15:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It's an essay on exponential growth in the form of a story, similar to "John Jones's Dollar." A quick look at the "Editor's Page (Galaxy)" shows that the software has grouped stories under editorials about the stories.--Rkihara 15:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Editing conflict while some stranger made an entry. It is actually entered as an ESSAY in the magazine. Didactic in nature. It uses a time-machine "plot" to make points about population growth and if given as a speech would probably not be considered fiction. The last paragraph is in essay mode. I think it could safely be changed to essay and a note added. Contento lists it as a short story.--swfritter 15:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it says it is feeling much better now that it is an Essay :) Ahasuerus 16:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I just re-read this when entering Day Million (I couldn't resist a "three for a pound" offer on SFBC UK books recently). Although written in essay style, it is clearly pure fiction. However, as it's "P." not "Phineas" in the title in my copy, we live with a shortfiction variant of an essay at the moment. BLongley 21:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

She Only Goes Out at Night (. . .)

If anybody owns any of these printings of these pubs could you please check whether the "She Only Goes Out at Night" is credited with ellipsis. Thanks.--swfritter 13:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The 1968 paperback library edition of The Fantastic Universe Omnibus has ellipsis on the title page of the story, not on the contents page. Willem H. 14:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

(It looks as though it was cut in TOC to make title & author fit on a single line. They barely do, even so.) -- Dave (davecat) 15:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

In Here Comes Civilization ellipsis are on both title page and contents page. Willem H. 14:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

To quote what I wrote in the second Ballantine printing of The Square Root of Man, "The title of "She Only Goes Out at Night . . ." ends with an ellipsis on the title page; the title in the table of contents is ambiguous since it has dots between the title and the page number." Ahasuerus 03:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Made the appropriate changes to the pubs Willem H. owns. Thanks.--swfritter 13:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The Power of X/Y

New Worlds SF serialized Arthur Sellings' "The Power of Y" in January-February 1965. Both parts of the serial were reprinted the following year in SF Reprise 2, apparently the only reprint appearance of the novella. I suspect that it was later expanded as The Power of X, but I don't own the book (and my New Worlds are not easy to access at the moment anyway), so I can't check. Do we happen to have anybody who might be able to check both titles and see if they are related? TIA! Ahasuerus 03:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Variant of "The Frost Giant's Daughter"

Does anyone know why, or can anyone figure out why, for "The Frost Giant's Daughter" 533885 is set up as a variant of 68500? There is also the 1953 "The Frost Giant's Daughter" vs. the 1976 re-write as "The Frost-Giant's Daughter", but that isn't this case (at least not as far as I can tell). Thanks. --MartyD 13:33, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

My copy of this pub credits Howard only but the publishing history states that it was revised by de Camp. De Camp apparently did not consider his changes significant enough to credit himself. Also, in my verified pub the story is listed as by Howard and edited by de Camp. My suspicion is that somebody added the de Camp name to a merged title.--swfritter 13:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so do you think de Camp should be removed from both (and the two merged) or that he should be removed from just the one originating from Fantasy Magazine? Or something else? --MartyD 10:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is Howard only for both and probably for all the Lancer and perhaps Ace editions. This one is an even bigger mess as is the entire Howard page. There are at least seven other entries for the story that haven't been merged or made variants. My guess is that there are a lot of others who own some of these pubs but have had the wisdom not to verify them so nobody will ask them questions.--swfritter 12:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I wrote the notes about not merging "The Frost Giant's Daughter" (Howard with de Camp) with "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" (by Howard alone, with hyphen), based on Karl Edward Wagner's introduction in Echoes of Valor II. Here's the story: "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" (hereafter as F-GD) was submitted and rejected by Weird Tales in 1932. The story itself was a rewrite of "The Frost King's Daughter" (FKD) to make it into a Conan story. The original story (FKD) was only later published in a 1934 fanzine. The revised ms. (F-GD) was lost for twenty years, and when found was "extensively rewritten" by L. Sprague de Camp, according to Wagner, and was published in Fantasy Fiction, August 1953 as "FGD" (no hyphen). The original version (F-GD) was first published in Donald Grant's limited edition Rogues in the House. All the versions published in Lancer / Ace editions of Conan of Cimmeria are the revised version by de Camp. I have no idea how they're credited in the books. But these title records should remain separate.

To answer the original question about it being a variant of itself, someone merged the title record that credited only Howard to the one that credited both Howard and de Camp. That's usually how a title becomes a variant of itself. Now the chore is to figure out how the books are credited. MHHutchins 17:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

According to the Howard Works bibliography website, the Lancer and Ace editions do not credit de Camp (even though they are the revised versions). I'll try to straighten it out. MHHutchins 17:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It only took one edit: change the author credit of the variant 533885 to just Howard. That leaves one concern, how the story is credited in The Coming of Conan. I've a suspicion that it's only noted as "edited" by de Camp. Is that how it's credited in Fantasy Fiction, or is Howard and de Camp given equal credit? MHHutchins 17:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The edition that I own credits only Howard on the toc. The other stories are as credited so there was no shyness about crediting the other authors when there contributions were considered significant or in many cases dominant. The copyright page states the following: "The Frost Giant's Daughter was first published in slightly different form under the title Gods of the North in The Fantasy Fan for March 1934; it was reprinted in this form in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction for December, 1956. Revised by Robert E. Howard and later by L. Sprague de Camp, it was reprinted under its present title in Fantasy Fiction for August, 1953; copyright 1953 by Future Publications, Inc.; and in the The Coming of Conan, by Robert E. Howard, Gnome Press, Inc., 1953." Interesting too that the Lancer edition is entered as an anthology with Howard as one of the editors. I would sooner think that Collection would be more correct since Howard has at least partial credit for all the stories.--swfritter 17:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Pub linked to above: the Fantasy Fiction appearance is credited as edited by de Camp.--swfritter 17:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad it was such a simple problem. :-) And FWIW, the other two hyphenated F-GDs, from the unverified THCMNGFCNN2003 and THCMNGFCNN2005 have an explanation in the contents on Locus: The Frost-Giant’s Daughter · ss Rogues in the House, Donald M. Grant, 1976; originally published in a somewhat different version in Fantasy Fiction, August 1953. that matches the above explanation and suggests they, too, have the 1976 more-original version. --MartyD 21:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

"When the People Fell" by Cordwainer Smith

My copy of Perilous Planets mentions a copyright date for this title of 1937 by Street and Smith Publications, renewed 1965 by Paul Linebarger. Does anyone have any idea what the 1937 date refers to? BLongley 18:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It must be a typo. There's no way this was copyrighted by Street & Smith in 1937. I don't believe Cordwainer Smith ever published a story in Astounding/Analog. Looking at the list of stories in the anthology, I couldn't place any of them in a S&S magazine in 1937. Strange. MHHutchins 16:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a pretty big typo! BLongley 18:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If I had a penny for every time I found a typo on the copyright page of a paperback, I'd have a jar full of pennies! Ahasuerus 17:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I do have a jar of pennies... I'd be richer if some of them weren't typos, e.g. an SF paperback from 1056 A.D. should command a pretty good price. BLongley 18:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. Copyright Office has this record, which while not a direct copyright record of the 1959 publication in Galaxy, at least corroborates that date. --MartyD 17:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Notes Toward(s) a Mental Breakdown by J. G. Ballard

If anyone has any of these pubs could you check how this Ballard story is entered. There are two totally different stories with variants of this title. "Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown" first appeared in "Bananas" magazine. It is listed incorrectly in this copy of War Fever which I have on loan from the library and probably in the other editions of the same title. It should actually be Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976 version). I have compared the text of the two stories and they are the same. The other similarly titled story appeared in "The Atrocity Exhibition" and, as with a couple of other stories from that book, does not appear in Ballard's "The Complete Stories" either under that title or its original title "The Death Module". The copy of the "The Atrocity Exhibition" that I own lists the story as "Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown". The 1979 date is obviously wrong. To add to the confusion Contento lists both stories as separate titles but according to him both are titled "Notes Toward a Mental Breakdown". Now I can write my own story of the same title. In any case, if you own any pubs with either of these stories please let me know how it is listed. Thanks.--swfritter 16:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused when you say "there are two totally different stories", but "I have compared the text of the two stories and they are the same". How are they different? How are they the same? The record of The Atrocity Exhibition currently has the story incorrectly titled as "Notes Toward..." and it's actually titled "Notes Towards..." in the book, so I'll correct it. But I have no idea which record to merge it with. Are they really two different stories, or simply revised? The story in my book has 22 paragraph-long "chapters", beginning with "The Impact Zone" and ends with "The Serial Angels". I'll correct the story title in my copy, and let you determine which title(s) should be merged. MHHutchins 16:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

As noted above I was comparing the text of the one which was first published in "Bananas" and reprinted in "War Fever" to the the one I entered as "Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976 version)" - those are the ones I compared and they are the same. Absolutely totally different text from the story in "The Atrocity Exhibition" which as noted above I also have a copy and which as noted above have separate listings in Contento. I suspect they are both supposed to be "Notes Towards..." and the error is probably replicated from secondary sources. Wish I had the American first edition - unfortunately pulped by the publisher when he saw the titles of the stories; I suspect there must be a few copies out there.--swfritter 17:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you tell from my description which version I have? I want to merge it with the correct record. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Will let you know as soon as, hopefully, there are some more responses and I get mine straightened out. Thanks.--swfritter 14:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Finally ended up with this title which is "The Atrocity Exhibition" version and this title which is the "War Fever" version. I was also able to compare the text of the first story to "The Death Module" for which I have the New Worlds anthology. I very strongly suspect that you originally entered the title correctly and a merged title in an unverified pub was updated from a secondary source with an erroneous listing. Not as likely to happen now. "The Complete Stories" is incredibly disappointing as a bibliographic source.--swfritter 14:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting this out and merging the correct titles. I'm surprised this would not be included in "The Complete Stories". Could it possibly be because the compiler made the same mistake, thinking this to be the same story that appeared in Bananas in 1976? MHHutchins 05:16, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Just checked out the content listing for the new edition of "The Complete Stories", and it appears that only a few of the "stories" from The Atrocity Exhibition are included in this inaccurately named collection. Unless the compiler considers these pieces as "condensed novels". Still, I suppose we should applaud the effort. 1200 pages in a hardcover edition for only $35.00 sounds like a great bargain. (This is the same price as Stephen King's new novel. Is that a record price for a trade edition for a single novel? It seems that prices for hardcovers have remained somewhat stagnant the last few years, floating in the mid to high 20s.) MHHutchins 05:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Norton's Spell of the Witch World later DAW editions

Many sources state that DAW Books' 1987 and later editions of this title had cover art by Michael Whelan. This record has a cryptic note that gives the credit to Jack Gaughan, the original cover artist. Anyone seen a copy with a Michael Whelan cover? MHHutchins 19:13, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Sig Help

Anyone recognise this? It's quite old (1955 or earlier).

BLongley 19:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Someone here thinks the artist is called Carl Walton. Can't find any information about the man. Willem H. 16:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Another hit on that name. --MartyD 00:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Several hits (no good images yet) on "Carl Wilton". --MartyD 00:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

http://www.tikit.net is a PAN Books history site, and it repeatedly claims "Carl Wilton" for various covers. In fact, see the site's Covers and Artists page. Here are some examples:

• Tales of the Supernatural (PAN #22) -- see the one on the right -- for which Carl Wilton is cited on several sites.
• Cards on the Table (PAN #176) -- you can barely see the signatures here, but I found this title listed here with a Carl Wilton citation.
• The Stone of Chastity (PAN #246)

I also found multiple sites crediting him for the cover of the paperback edition of You'll Die in Singapore. --MartyD 11:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

OK. so we're agreed on Carl and it's either Wilton or Walton. Anyone got their own examples to check? I lean towards Wilton because of the dot. BLongley 20:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

And how about this? (1960)

BLongley 19:40, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

This might be S. R. Boldero. See the image here. --MartyD 20:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Some more S. R. Boldero references. The October 3 version of this Amazon page also cited Boldero, although the current version does not. Unfortunately, the signature on the large image is difficult to make out. That same PAN site I mentioned above also notes "Boldero" among PAN's cover artists but doesn't have an explicit references on any of the cover images that I was able to find. --MartyD 14:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks quite likely to be "Boldero" now. BLongley 20:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Amra

Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction, March 1964 includes a review of Amra. Amra was a fanzine dedicated to the work of Robert E. Howard and was edited by George H. Scithers in 1959-1982. The reviewer, P. Schuyler Miller, presumably reviewed one or more of the issues, but our record doesn't indicate which ones they were. The primary verifier is currently inactive and my bedsheet Analogs are not accessible at the moment, so I wonder if someone else might have a copy handy. TIA! Ahasuerus 04:27, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Issue #26 and some of its contents are specifically mentioned although the laudatory comments are meant to apply to the magazine in general.--swfritter 15:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Dangerous Visions John T. Sladek or John Sladek?

My copy of this title, which is the Book Club edition, lists "The Happy Breed" as by John T. Sladek rather than John Sladek. Perhaps all of the Dangerous Visions entries should be that? My copy is interesting in that there is no catalog number on inner or outer cover although it does have a gutter code of 46I on page 539. It was probably purchased upon initial offering. I wonder if they sometimes sent printings designed for the regular book club when the supply ran short - or perhaps just regular book club covers.--swfritter 15:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

About your dustjacket: does it have a printed price at the top of the front flap or the statement "Book Club Edition" printed at the bottom of the flap? Also do you recall receiving the book in late 1967 or early 1968, or in 1978/1979 (both years used "I" gutter codes). Keep in mind that gutter codes were printed on most Doubleday books, both trade and book club editions, from 1958 to 1987. MHHutchins 23:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Book Club Edition at bottom of inner front flap.--swfritter 14:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Then your copy was printed before fall 1968, when the club began adding a catalog number to the dustjackets. (The first known gutter code for this title is "I38", printed in September 1967. Your copy was printed in November.)

About your concern that different printings would be sent as initial offerings: I don't believe the club would make such a distinction. The books would be warehoused and pulled according to orders no matter if it were a new member or not. Obviously there were certain popular titles that had several printings, and Dangerous Visions was one of those that were offered to new members for more than a decade after its original publication. MHHutchins 18:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Both my copies (another incarnation of the Book Club edition, gutter code V12 and the 4th printing of the Berkley paperback) have John T. Sladek. Willem H. 15:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It's definitely John T. in my Sphere reprint. I know a lot of editors (me included) used to verify slight variations in names without due care and attention in our early days (I've corrected a dozen of my Aldiss titles today for instance, as I packed them ready for my move) so it's always worth asking. BLongley 21:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

And my SFBC edition of Dangerous Visions also credits with a middle initial. I've changed it, as well as the Doubleday trade edition. MHHutchins 23:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

"Leonard"?

I have verified the Four Square Books edition of Mack Reynolds' Time Gladiator. The cover is signed "Leonard" in block (and blurry) letters, but there is no attribution on the copyright page. Does it ring any bells, perchance? Ahasuerus 20:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Not to me. Is there a Cover scan or Sig scan on the way? BLongley 21:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A fairly high resolution scan has been uploaded - see here. The signature is behind the right gladiator's knee. Ahasuerus 22:51, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I recall a feature request I made at one point before it got shouted down over a mis-understanding - please let's separate Authors from Artists where we can, to make searches for such names easier. I know several authors are both Author and Artist, but it could halve the number of checks needed at times. BLongley 21:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The Unholy City

I have uploaded a new cover scan, but there is no artist credit in the book. The style looks vaguely familiar; any ideas/suggestions? Ahasuerus 03:08, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

A couple of entries on AbeBooks claim Peter Jones. Looks like you could ask him. --MartyD 13:28, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter Jones it is. The painting is on page 37 of Solar Wind. Signature is behind the Panther logo. Willem H. 13:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1993

Earlier tonight, I cleaned up a few Essays which were incorrectly listed as EDITOR. We now have two instances of "F&SF Competition: Report on Competition 58" on pages 158 and 159 of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1993 respectively. Could somebody please check which page is actually appears on and Remove/Delete the other Title? TIA! Ahasuerus 02:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

As I strongly suspected the second is actually the next competition. Fixed.--swfritter 16:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :) Ahasuerus 17:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Catwoman" and/or "The Poet and the Inkmaker's Daughter " by Elizabeth Hand

This title, judging by Amazon look-inside, is a short story within a novel. Are there more such in the book? Should it be a collection, or is this title an excerpt? BLongley 21:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sturgeon piece in Astounding December 1945

A "story" titled August Sixth, 1945 appears in Killdozer!, the third volume of "The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon". Paul Williams, editor of the series, wrote extensive story notes for each volume, and for this particular story he states that it was "unpublished" until this 1996 collection. This contradicts the listing we have in Astounding, December 1945. This "story" is not listed in Donald Day's index, but Contento gives this issue of Astounding as its first appearance. Further search on the internet finds this listing which states the piece was actually printed in the Astounding letter column. That would explain why it's not listed by Day, and why Williams was unable to find a publication for it. I believe he actually mistitled the piece based on the date that Sturgeon placed at the top of the letter. If anyone has this issue of Astounding a lot of this could be cleared up. Thanks for looking. MHHutchins 22:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Probably painful to download, but see this blog. From the contents lists provided there, it looks like the issue is in RAR 21, which is in the second of the two posts linked to. I'll give it a try, but I may not get to it until tomorrow. --MartyD 00:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It is in the "Brass Tacks" section, but its title is "AUGUST SIXTH" (over) "1945" (this below Sturgeon's name and address in mixed-case type). It actually seems to be a title, not a date, as the piece ends "(... He knows -- he learned on August 6, 1945, that he alone is big enough to kill himself, or to live forever.)". --MartyD 01:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If it appears in "Brass Tacks" then, shouldn't it be considered a letter and not fiction? It reads like a first year composition student's attempt at experimental fiction, plotless, disjointed, stream-of-consciousness. (Sorry, Ted.) Surely nothing John W. Campbell would have paid for. Michael Moorcock in New Worlds circa 1968, yes. Campbell may not have even realized it was a submission and published it as a letter! MHHutchins 17:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I read it as a stylized commentary (along the lines of an Op-Ed piece) using a mild form of personification. I guess if you're asking for an opinion, I'd consider it an essay. I agree with you -- it's not a work of fiction. And it does look like it was submitted in letter form, as opposed to as a distinct work under cover of a letter. It is the last of the "Brass Tacks" entries, it is the only one that does not start with a salutation, and it is the only one for which the editor did not insert an italicized comment before the entry. But it follows the same separation pattern, and the running footer at one point where its content is the only text on the page still says "Brass Tacks". It has Sturgeon's name and address on three separate lines at the top, above the title. All of the others have the attribution in a single line at the end (usually including an address). So it's not quite presented as a signed letter the way all of the others are. --MartyD 17:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Further research finds that in the next volume of the series (Thunder and Roses 1998) Paul Williams acknowledges his error of including the piece as a story, and points out that it was a letter published in the Brass Tacks column. I've changed the type to ESSAY and added notes to the title record explaining why it was included in a short story collection. Mhhutchins 21:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The Worm Re-Turns: the Best from Worm Runner's Digest

I wonder if we can find out whether The Worm Re-Turns: the Best from Worm Runner's Digest was a collection or an anthology? According to this Wikipedia article, Worm Runner's Digest was a bona fide science journal which also published satirical pieces, but it's not clear whether the ones reprinted in this "Best Of" compendium were all authored by the editor, James V. McConnell. The Title record currently says "Collection", but the pub record says "Anthology". Ahasuerus 03:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The F&SF review lists multiple contributors, including Damon Knight. I changed the title type to anthology and added the Knight piece.--swfritter 16:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Scorpio

According to the late Janet Fox:

Maybe you've read a book in Ace's Scorpio series and thought they were written by someone named Alex McDonough. Not so, five of them (Scorpio Rising, Scorpio Descending, Dragons Blood, Dragons Eye, Dragons Claw) were by yours truly.

Unfortunately, she doesn't tell us who wrote the first book in the series and I couldn't find anything on-line except that it was a shared pseudonym, so I have changed the canonical author to "unknown" for now. Hopefully, someone else will have better luck! Ahasuerus 01:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The Dragon Charmer SFBC edition

Afternoon! Here. [3]. I have a reference in Tom Kidd's "Kiddography" to this as a 2000 painting. I could not find it in Locus 99-2004. I did find the cover at Fantastic Fiction which matches the art in Kiddography. Worldcat seems a bust also, of course WC is smarter than I. LOL. ABE has one with cover, but ISBN leads to "Eric Peterson" cover, though date is probably right. I am wondering if the "Eric Peterson" and cover is wrong. Mind fogged at this point, so the obvious is possibly the answer. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you may have ran into a prototype cover that was never actually released. Look at the graphics (not the artwork, but the text) for the Del Rey edition. It exactly matches that of the cover you found. I did an Amazon "look inside" for both Del Rey editions on Amazon and they're both credited to Eric Peterson. Perhaps Del Rey commissioned the cover from Kidd, did a mock-up, included it in a pre-release publicity package, but changed it before the actual book was published. That's how the image wound up on Fantastic Fiction. I know that can happen through personal experience. The publisher of this Michael Bishop anthology changed the cover after releasing a preliminary one to the internet. I had to email Amazon more than once and even scanned them a copy of the actual book before they finally changed their image for the book. If you google the book you'll find the wrong cover (I call it the "Smoking Jesus" cover) still pops up, especially on eBay. Does the Kidd book state that the image was actually used in the book, or simply created for the novel? Mhhutchins 02:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Kidd has been specific when they are not used or used elsewhere. I searched ABE using 0-345-43902-3 for the Del Rey hardcover and 21 of the 22 are using the Kidd cover. Two of the most expensive are specific to first edition, first printing, not price clipped, a trade book, signed by author. One of the $10 range has new book, publisher's remainder mark on edge. The cover only appears so far at ABE and FF, but I am betting donuts it is a case of the new edition, new cover superseding the old cover (this). I know the photo says it is a stock image, but the more expensive vendors would be pushing it very hard for it not to be correct. Still, is there a SFBC specific source? Sorry, I will wait till I trip over a copy and then correct the record. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:35, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Even the best dealers sometimes don't check whether the "Stock Photo" matches their actual edition (also from personal experience with Abebooks). You might want to contact one of the higher priced dealers and ask, as they're more likely to answer. It's possible that the SFBC edition used the artwork, but the title is different (it's an omnibus of three novels in the series). I'll go through some back catalogs and see if their edition is pictured. Mhhutchins 15:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, pre-release covers can take on a life of their own. They are particularly pernicious when the attribution was subsequently changed by, e.g., adding or dropping a co-author :-( Ahasuerus 01:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

artist "T.O.M"?

I've got a copy of The Berserker Wars, and it has a bunch of full-page, uncredited interior drawings. A couple are signed "T.O.M" (or "T-O-M" -- it's hard to tell if it's periods or dots due to cropping). Does that signature mean anything to anyone? Thanks. --MartyD 02:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Icefalcon's Quest

Looking to verify the March 1995 edition of Icefalcon's Quest in trade paperback. The Feb 1998 ICEFALC1998 claims to be a first edition and the author's website lists it as such. The publisher's website does list the trade with the 1995 date. If the publisher has it wrong the data would be wrong everywhere else that uses that such as Amazon. Anyone seen that edition? Dana Carson 12:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, Locus is unaware of the 1995-03-00 version and lists your pub as the first edition. Ahasuerus 21:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

And looking at two other pubs here and here having close ISBNs and sharing the same publication date as the pub in question, all with extraordinary high list prices for 1995, and all three entered from Amazon data in the same month (2008-11), I'd say all of them are non-existent. We gotta be more careful about accepting these robot grabs from Amazon without first checking them out. Mhhutchins 22:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

In this case it looks like Amazon has to be careful for robot grabs from the publisher. I'll mark it date unknown and add a note about the bad info. Dana Carson 08:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Starwolf artist

Uploaded a signature from Starwolf. I still can't figure out who it is. Anyone better than I at reading artist sigs want to take a shot? High res

Dana Carson 08:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

David Schleinkofer. The image is on this page. That was an easy one. Willem H. 10:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Harry seems to spell it differently. ;-) BLongley 18:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Harry has extreme problems with ie ei and consistency. LOL. Corrected. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I still have problems with Hayford Peirce - the surname just looks wrong to me. ("I before E except after C..." was drilled into me.) And he's been a fellow editor here, and I now have some of his books to read, and it STILL looks wrong. Fortunately we have each other to remind us that the world isn't always consistent with our own world-views. Otherwise I'd probably be a "Langley" by now. BLongley 21:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

For those with good visual memory maybe. I had probably David and Sab something for for the last name. Dana Carson 21:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It's probably worth an entry in Our Sig Library. I'd have struggled a little on that image alone. BLongley 21:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The Black Grail

The cover art on the first edition of The Black Grail is not credited, but there is a partial signature in the right corner of the cover with what appear to be a stylized "R" and an "o". I wonder if it could be the first two letters of Rowena Morrill's signature -- see Image:Rowena Morrill Sample Signature.jpg . Perhaps someone might have a larger version of the cover?.. Ahasuerus 04:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

According to this site it's Luis Royo. Willem H. 07:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, the *other* "Ro"! Thanks! Ahasuerus 15:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Stepping from the Shadows

Anyone recognise this signature? It's from this cover. It looks like a name, but I can't make anything out of it. Thanks, Willem H. 19:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Signature help

Does anyone recognize this??

First initial P, then I think 'brown' but the last part....¿¿?? ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect it's Peter Bramley, can't find any real proof though. The style checks with other covers attributed to Bramley, and the signature looks like the sig here. Niven's The Shape of Space has the sig clearer, but also no credit. Willem H. 10:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Good research! The Niven cover is much the same artistic style as well. ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

F&SF, March 1992

I wonder if it is safe to assume that Publisher's Note (F&SF, March 1992) is an Essay rather than Shortfiction? Ahasuerus 03:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It's an essay. I've changed the category.--Rkihara 05:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Who Seeley?

Does anyone know who the "Seeley" is that goes with the signatures in the bottom right of this and this? --MartyD 02:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be Dave Seeley. One of the covers is on his website (top row, third image). Willem H. 07:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

So it is! Thanks! --MartyD 10:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Who is Ronalds?

Anyone recognise this signature? It's from this cover. There's no Ronalds in the database, and an internet search only results in lots of Ronald MacDonald pictures. Thanks, Willem H. 21:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a Bill Ronalds whose website says he has done work for Ace Books. Unfortunately, I don't see any signatures for comparison on his sample artwork. He does have a contact form if you want to try asking him. --JLaTondre 01:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! There are some signatures visible on the website, but I'm not sure it's the same Ronalds. I mailed the artist, might get an answer. Willem H. 16:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I got a very nice e-mail from Bill Ronalds, confirming that this cover is his work, so thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. Willem H. 19:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Spacesuits with complex complimentary functions

Morning! I lost my thoughts this morning when looking at the cover art on some Elizabeth Moon books. Check this, [4], a full function suit for a 'fully developed' user. [5] which was developed for the active pilot who contemplates crash landings. Notice the skid plates at knees and upper torso. [6] a model with well articulated joints and customized venting. A lighter moment. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The one thing I noticed in the last one was how the suit looks very much like an alien face and the strategic position where the alien's mouth happens to have been placed. (Don't call me a dirty old man for stating the obvious.) Mhhutchins 04:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I have a very 'dirty' mind and it is obvious that the art and publisher appeal to my instincts. Yet, I must laugh that such obvious hardware enhancements can not be needful. Spacesuit modifications are absolutely hilarious, especially as you noted the example which has venting in line with the idea of some symbiont relationship, but are people really attracted to women in uniform or swinging a sword? I really wonder. Are we as 'rue' as the Japanese and their fixations on women in pigtails and big eyeglasses? Still, art drives sales, as much or more than anything else. I read in "Emshwiller: Infinity X Two" that frequently publishers of that age bought art and had writers check it out and submit stories. Kind of twists one's perceptions of writing. I wish someone had analyzed how well authors did when they write to topic. Though, I do know for instance the "Clone Republic" series is a publisher idea sold to the writer that blasted off. Yet, I feel the writing is too much like the 'Hardy Boys'. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a fine line between art and commerce. A publisher's not going to buy a book unless he knows he's going to make some money from it. And the writer has to eat, so he'll write what he thinks he can sell. Remember Sturgeon's law. There's good stuff out there. We just have to keep looking. The word "series" is a dead giveaway and I won't even get close to anything that's part of a series. Of course, that means I'm missing the 5% of series that are good. It's a chance I choose to take. Mhhutchins 23:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

From Prussia With Love

The data in the book From Prussia With Love is confusing, want to see if people agree with my decisions. Two ISBNs, both of which work, one on the cover in several places, one on the copyright page. Both work. Went with the copyright page.

No printing date, copyright date is 1996, LCN is 1994, number line is 95 96 97 98 EE 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Went with 1995. Dana Carson 23:01, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you notice the LOC record lists both ISBNs? Don't know how to interpret "(pbk.)" and "(t.p. verso)", but it almost sounds as if the copyright page ISBN is from a trade paperback edition and the cover one is for the mass market paperback (and the copyright page didn't get fixed?). --MartyD 02:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Marty. "t.p. verso" is library-speak for the copyright page, i.e. "title page verso" (back side of the title page, which is usually where the copyright is stated.) I'm thinking the librarian may have noticed the two different ISBNs and recorded the one on the back of the book as (pbk.) and the one inside as (t.p. verso).

Rats. I guess it would have been too much to hope for. --MartyD 16:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Dana, when a publisher uses a number line as you describe it is perfectly legitimate to give the year of publication as the first number. Also, the year stated in the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data should only be used when there is no other date printed in the publication. I'd say in my checking of those dates, the stated year in the CiP Data is about 95% accurate. Mhhutchins 02:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen both copyright and LCCN be the year before actual publication or more. There was a period apparently where they had to switch to longer LCCNs so there were a few years in the early 60s? where they had to use numbers from the next year to cover all the books submitted. I think I saw one with a LCCN 2 years after the publication date listed. My usual dating is stated publication, number line if it includes years, copyright, LCCN and the last two only if it looks like this is the first edition of the book. Dana Carson 20:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I have almost identical priority for dating except that I don't use the LCCN for dating at all. I have used the year stated in the CiP data. Not all books print the CiP (Cataloging in Publication) data, and not all of those give the year of publication. But if they do, and there's no other date in the book I use it. I never use the LCCN as they can be assigned the year before publication. Though I've never seen an LCCN that was years after publication. There was that strange "interim" standard used between 1969 and 1972 when the first two numbers didn't refer to the year. (In 1972, they realized they'd screwed up royally and went back to the old system. That's why this 1972 book has an LCCN starting with 77! After 2000, the first four numbers refer to the year.) Perhaps those are the oddly dated LCCNs you're speaking of. Mhhutchins 21:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Science Fiction Terror Tales, second printing

Morning Everyone! This. [7]. I have a badly printed, but solid binding copy that is messed up. Anyone else? Unfortunately with my submission on hold it is hard to see the problems, but moderators should be able to. If you have a good or bad copy, please check to solve the conundrum. Thanks, wryly, Harry. --Dragoondelight 10:55, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The notes from Harry's held submission:

• 2nd printing September 1969. [This publication Record].
• NOTE the verifier edition has printer faults. Pagination is x, 1-78, then 55-78, then 103-262. Thus Lost Memory is incomplete, Memorial is totally missing, and Prott is missing the first four pages.
• 1st printing January 1955.
• Standard book number: 671-75413-0.
• LCC# 55-6842.
• Copyright © 1955 by Geoff Conklin.
• Introduction ends with Geoff Conklin.
• Individual stories' copyright and publication information on bottom of each story title page.
• Cover artist not credited in book.
• Spine #671-75416-0 075.

Sounds like "messed up" grossly understates the situation! --MartyD 11:23, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't confirm for the 2nd printing (I only have the 1st), but to me it sounds like a regular misprint, where one quire (Google translation, katern in Dutch) --Willem 15:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

It looks like both words were derived from "quaternum", but I think the technical term in this case is "signature". Ahasuerus 22:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

is bound twice, and another is left out of the book. I have several of these, it's quite depressing to read a book that goes from page 122 to 171, and from 218 back to 171 again. Harry's note is clear to me, and should be there until someone with a complete copy can verify the pub. --Willem 15:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The note looks good, but the submission also removes three titles and adds two new ones, "Lost Memory (missing end of story)" and "Prott (missing start of story)". I think we would only want to do that if we were reasonably sure that all copies of the second printing had this defect. Ahasuerus 22:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if that would be a good idea, even if all copies of the second printing were defective. Variants are based on a change in title and author, not text. Maybe someday a different way of designating variants in text, but that's been discussed before without any results... 23:10, 28 March 2010 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mhhutchins (talk • contribs) .

Assuming all copies of the second printing are not messed up, the existing pub record is more accurate than a pub with the submitted changes. If this data really seems to be necessary it should be an add rather than an update. A damaged circulated print run would make more sense as a separate edition. My own inclination would be to reject and, at the most, document the notes of the existing pub stating the errors that might appear in some copies of the print run.--swfritter 00:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

My copy has no problems, all pages here & in correct order.Don Erikson 00:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I would think that is the one that should be used as the verification source. Unless a pub is hard to find or unusually expensive I generally file such items in the round file (Americanism for the trashcan) and get a replacement; in this case abebooks has copies for as little as $4.00 although it may be a little harder to find a copy outside the US.--swfritter 20:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed then. I'll cancel the submission, but expect me to do it again (if I run into a similar type of problem) LOL, until someone has a good copy. Appreciate all the input. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Who's signature is this?

Anyone recognise this signature? It's from Cordwainer Smith's Stardreamer (lower right corner, but not visible on the scan). Thanks, --Willem H. 13:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it could be Sanjulian, but the date would be four years before the first record in our db. Still well within his age (he would have been 30 in 1971.) Mhhutchins 17:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

His website states he started working for American clients in 1970, so it could be him. I'm checking for sig matches on other works. Mhhutchins 17:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Sigs don't match, unless he changed it later. This one appears to be cursive while all of the ones I've seen are printed. I'll try to find any sigs on works before 1975. Mhhutchins 17:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Unidentified artist signature

Anybody see this signature before? The artwork looks like Michael Whelan, but I don't recall ever seeing his signature.

Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:14, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The artist is Jim Burns. I'll look for proof when I get home. --Willem H. 12:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, it does look more like Burns. His humans were less "plastic" than Whelan's. I'll look for the sig on some of Burns' covers. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:42, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

It's Burns. Look about two-thirds of the way down on this page. Mhhutchins 14:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I knew it. The painting is also on page 35 of Transluminal. The book has more illustrations with the same signature. --Willem H. 15:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Elizabeth Bear's "Seven Dragons Mountain[s]"

I wonder if there is a way to check whether Seven Dragons Mountain and Seven Dragons Mountains by Elizabeth Bear are the same title/VT? Ahasuerus 16:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Mountains According to the publisher of the first pub. Look inside also give Mountains for the second.--swfritter 21:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 02:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Twa Corbies by de Lint -- Poem?

628657 lists "Twa Corbies" as SHORTFICTION with publication in two editions of Moonlight and Vines : A Newford Collection. However 974266 lists "Twa Corbies" as as a POEM with publications in two editions of The Book of Ballads (Charles Vess, ed.). None of these pubs are verifed. Does anyone have any of them? In particular can anyone verify whether the work in Moonlight and Vines is a poem or not? -DES ^Talk 19:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the publications but Twa Corbies is a song/ballad that rhymes when sung in old English. See wikipedia:The Three Ravens and also this page that translates into modern English. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the classic ballad (a Childe balland IIRC), but that would not (or at least should not) be attributed to a modern author such as Charles de Lint. I presumed this was a new work based on or in some way referring to the classic ballad. After all "Tam Linn" is both a classic ballad and a recent fantasy novel. There are other examples. The question remains, are the works in the two publications identical (or close enough to merge)? are they poetic in form, or texts based on the ballad? -DES ^Talk 22:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - I missed the Charles de Lint connection before. My local library has Moonlight and vines but it's checked out. I put a hold request on it. The library has three copies of The Book of Ballads but at other branches and so I've requested that. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:58, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that will be most helpful. -DES ^Talk 04:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It turns out there's an Amazon Look Inside for Moonlight and vines. Search for "435" and it'll take you to the second page of the story. From there you can back up to the first page. It's a shortfiction work. That Look Inside also has the title page that and so I moved the Tor publications into "Moonlight and Vines" while leaving the "Moonlight & Vines" as a variant.

The Book of Ballads also has a Look Inside but the text for Twa Corbies is not included. The back cover says "popular novelist Charles de Lint's contemporary reworking of Twa Corbies." One oddity is the copyright acknowledgments which are

• "Twa Corbies" first appeared in Twenty 3: A Miscellany, edited by Anna Hepworth, Simon Oxwell and Grant Watson; Infinite Monkeys/Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation, l998. Copyright © 1998 by Charles de Lint.
• “Twa Corbies” by Charles de Lint and Charles Vess. Copyright © 1996 by Charles de Lint and Charles Vess. First published in The Book of Ballads and Sagas #4 (Green Man Press, 1997).

I added both statements to Twa Corbies. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

If you search in the Look Inside for "de Lint", you get p. 87, which appears to be a comic of sorts. "Story and Art © + TM Charles de Lint and Charles Vess '96". It starts "Old market is a funny place....". --MartyD 10:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Vess is an artist and the books seems to be a collection of graphic stories illustrated by him with stories based upon traditional ballads. Perhaps de Lint and Vess adapted de Lint's story.--swfritter 12:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Perfect - I separated a new title, Twa Corbies (graphic story). Unfortunately, we don't have support for a non-genre shortfiction work or "graphic fiction." I tried non-genre with a title length of ss but that still showed as a non-genre novel and so I went with shortfiction.

This was done two years before de Lint wrote the shortfiction version of Twa Corbies and so if it was an adaptation it was from an unpublished work. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Marc for tracking this down and getting the entry straight. -DES ^Talk 22:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Paperback Fantasies - artist resource in hot links to art checklists

Morning! This. [8]. Stumbled on this. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I see they credit us for some of the sources - at last I know our Cover artist work is appreciated! BLongley 19:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The Best from Galaxy - troubling mismatching - changes submitted But?

Afternoon! This. [9]. All the changes are consistent for story title page, ToC and copyright data. "The" 'Field of Vision', Lou "Fischer" not Fisher, and 'Mayflower' "One" not 1,. This one "A Suppliant in Space" not 'A Supplicant in Space' by Robert Sheckley does feel very right. Could anyone with this story please check which they have? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

That is one screwed up pub. Where were the copy editors at Award? :) I've accepted the submission changing the titles, and creating variants (or merging) of those changes. Mhhutchins 21:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Just checked my copy of the story in this anthology. It's "Suppliant..." here, so I'll change it and merge it with your title. I'm sure the other DAW printings are the same but I'll let the verifiers check them. Mhhutchins 21:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Atlas (UK) printing of Astounding SF, November 1955

Can the person who entered this issue verify that the first six unpaginated items are actually in this pub? Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

"Someone To Watch Over Me" authorship

US Galaxy October 1959 (and BRE 76) has the novella "Someone To Watch Over Me" by Christopher Grimm i.e. Evelyn E. Smith. However, I've just come across an e-book "The Inside Man and other stories: Science Fiction On The Gold Standard" (2003) where this is ascribed to H.L. Gold and Floyd Gold. Can anybody shed light on this?

ta

ash —The preceding unsigned comment added by Ash howe (talk • contribs) 05:03, 29 September 2010

Are you sure the same story is involved? Titles can be freely reused, they are not subject to copyright. -DES ^Talk 14:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Contento credits Smith. The edition mentioned above seems to be this pub. The overall editor of Renaissance E Books is Jean Marie Stine (formerly Hank Stine) who actually edited Galaxy for a short time so she may be privy to more accurate data.--swfritter 14:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The first line of the story in Galaxy is "Len Mattern paused before the door of the Golden Apple Bar".--swfritter 14:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It appears to be the same story. Read a review of Gold's book here. Mhhutchins 15:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

And on A.K.A. Floyd Gold is credited as a pseudonym for Floyd C. Gale, the book reviewer whose actual name is Floyd Clifford Gold and, according to this website, is H. L.'s brother. A.K.A. does not credit Grimm as a pseudonym of H. L. Gold. It also does not credit Grimm as a pseudonym for Smith. Stranger yet Robinson credits Grimm as a pseudonym of Gold and cites Tuck as the source. But a look at the two pseudonym tables and Gold's bio in Tuck is fruitless. If the attribution is there I am sure where else it would be. The three Grimm stories would be very untypical for Smith. For one thing, they are much longer than her other magazine work. When I read them I figured that the main reason for using a pseudonym was that they were much different from her other work. At least one entry in this discussion also mentions that the Grimm stories are untypical.--swfritter 17:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Purchased the book which is copyrighted by the H. L. Gold's son, E. J. Gold who would seemingly be very good authority.--swfritter 13:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sent the following message, "Hi. I am a bibliographic editor at the ISFDB (Internet Speculative Fiction Database). If E. J. has a moment I would appreciate it if he could clear up some pseudonym questions pertaining to works under the name Christopher Grimm. In the ebook collection "Inside Man and Other Fictions", copyrighted by E. J. Gold, the story "Someone to Watch Over Me" is credited to H. L. Gold and Floyd C. Gold. Others credit this and the other two Christopher Grimm stories, "Bodyguard" and "Never Come Midnight", to Evelyn E. Smith. I would greatly appreciate it if the authorship of these stories could be cleared up. Thanks! And thanks for keeping Galaxy alive." to the Galaxy website. Hopefully we will get a response.

Jewel McInroy at galaxyezine.com replied: "He (E. J. Gold) wants you to know when he was growing up, his dad told him that he (H.L) had written the stories . . . It is possible the stories were collaborations". Along with this information and the total dissimilarity of the Grimm stories to Evelyn E. Smith's other works and at least one other reference citing H. L. Gold as the author it would seem that we are justified in changing the attribution with the only problem being whether Floyd C. Gold (Gale) should be credited. Since "Someone to Watch Over Me" has a specific published credit for both authors I will credit it that way. The other two I will credit to H. L. only. The latest Locus has a multi-person interview with Robert Silverberg as one of the participants. According to him some of the stories written totally by him were credited to Randall Garrett and vice-versa. Aargh!--swfritter 22:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't we have enough headaches already? Double aargh! Mhhutchins 23:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Since none of the people involved can remember who wrote what (and would probably lie anyway just to annoy those who are obsessed with bibliographic details) it would require some textual analysis to determine authorship. Perhaps we should credit the canonical author of all Silverberg or Garrett (and perhaps Harlan Ellison) stories from the 50's as "50's Hack Author Who Later Wrote Significant Works".--swfritter 13:12, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Berkley pb ed. of Leinster's The Other Side of Nowhere

Can any one of the verifiers confirm whether their copies of this paperback credits the publisher as "Berkley Medallion" on the title page? All other Berkley books published in 1964 are entered as "Berkley Medallion" books. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The title page states: A Berkley Medallion Book published by Berkley Publishing Corporation. I'll change the publisher. Thanks, --Willem H. 20:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Necromancer Nine, by Sheri Tepper

There are, apparently, two 1983 editions of this book: ISBN 0-441-56853-X and 0-441-56852-1. The second of these has been verified (by a verifier no longer active, so I can't ask them), but contains as a cover photo a cover of the first book. (The photo is clear enough that you can read the ISBN.) Can someone verify that this photo is correct other than that ISBN number? If so, we should add a note to that effect. Chavey 14:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I must have overlooked the ISBN when verifying. I moved my verification and coverscan to the right pub, and will add some notes. Pity we can't ask Dsorgen about his edition. The illustration for both are the same, except for the ISBN. Locus #273 (October 1083) has a picture with 0-441-56852-1 (page 45). --Willem H. 17:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Murray Leinster's "The Grandfather's War"

There are two pubs, one of which is verified, which contain records for The Grandfathers' War. There are six pubs, five (1, 2, 3, 4, & 5) of which are verified, which contain records for The Grandfather's War. In this discussion with Hauck, he raised the concern that he believes at least some of the verifications for The Grandfather's War are incorrect and should be The Grandfathers' War. As this involves quite a few verifiers (a number of the books have multiple verifiers), I am creating this central discussion here and will notify each of the primary verifiers. --JLaTondre 00:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

My copy has the apostrophe behind the S'. I have amended my verification. --Chris J 01:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Both of the Pyramid editions also have the apostrophe after the "S". Seems like the only one unavailable for confirmation would be the Italian version. Unfortunately, Ernesto can't help us.... --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:26, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Surely that can be changed, as it was presumably in Italian, not actually in English? Or was he recording exactly what the magazine said was the original title? BLongley 14:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Per the notes on the Italian publication, the title was in Italian. I have gone ahead a submitted a change for it as well per the ISFDB rules on entering foreign language translations under the English language title. --JLaTondre 22:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Original appearance in Astounding is actually as The Grandfathers' War. I will fix that.--swfritter 14:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I also changed this unverified pub since I there is a very great probability that the entry was in error.--swfritter 14:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)