ISFDB:Research Assistance/Archive 08

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This archive includes discussions from October 2016 - June 2017.
 
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Expanded archive listing

Bloodshot

The verifier of this pub Scott Latham is no longer active. Since I found on Amazon's "Look inside" of the paperback/print book on the copyright page: "Book design by Susan Turner", not "Cover design by Jae Song" as Scott Latham wrote. That is stated in the eBook version plus "Cover photograph (woman with gun) copyrighted to argo74 / Shutterstock". But twice the same cover. What should I do now? --Zapp 12:44, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that it's safer to trust a PV than a "look inside" at amazon that shows a unprecised publication (it mat even be an ARC). In this case, Scott's data quite matches what you entered for the ebook version (except that he used Argo instead of Argo74). Hauck 13:00, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Women Destroy Horror!

Does anyone have a copy of the print edition of Nightmare October 2014 (Women Destroy Horror!) -- I wonder if there are really any contributions by Lisa Nohealani Morton in it, or only Lisa Morton (a different person). Also two interviews with Joyce Carol Oates are currently listed there, not impossible but worth checking. --Vasha77 14:34, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

As noone around seems to have the print edition, I can check in the kindle one if that would help? Anniemod 20:06, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes please, either would do as long as it is the complete version rather than the free online version. --Vasha77 22:31, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it is the complete one.:) The two Author Spotlights in the magazine are really credited to "Lisa Nohealani Morton". The non-fiction editor is just Lisa Morton. And at the end of the spotlights there is a bio for Lisa Nohealani Morton and it is talking about growing up in Honolulu and now living in DC (unlike the bio for the non-fiction editor Lisa Morton earlier in the magazine that says she is Californian.) So yes - both are presented.

There are indeed two interviews with Joyce Carol Oates - one on page 158 in the Non-fiction part (the proper interview with Lisa Morton the editor) and a second one on page 216 in the "Author Spotlight" section with Lisa Nohealani Morton which talks about her story in the fiction part. The reason for the other interview not doubling is that the other person (Jessica Sharzer) has no stories so no Author Spotlight for her. Let me know if you need me to look up something else. Anniemod 07:23, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks... now that you've explained that, the table of contents makes sense. Would you clone that publication as an ebook pub and verify it, then? --Vasha77 19:56, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Magazines with multiple formats are tricky - because of the grid. But I am thinking on how to get most of them and verify them Anniemod 00:37, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Tappei Nagatsuki / 長月達平

Could someone familiar with Japanese please check Tappei Nagatsuki's/長月達平's pages? I have entered the first two volumes in his mega-popular light novel series and some author-specific data, but Google Translate only takes you so far. Ahasuerus 19:19, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Do we want the series title to be so long? I would suggest reducing it to "Re：ゼロ (Re: ZERO)". Other than that, things look okay at a first glance. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:08, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Updated, thanks. Ahasuerus 00:20, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1981

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1981: to go through the article "100 Years of Fantasy Illustration" and add some more information about its images. Currently they are only indexed by the artist's name -- no title, no date, no description. --Vasha77 14:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Just IMHO but in the first place indexing images illustrating an essay or an article in a magazine is a bit of an overkill (just imagine what the contents of an issue of Locus would like with such level of detail). It's quite funny that the PV of this specific publication is Michael which was quite worried by our shifting to The Internet Artist Database.Hauck 15:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

True-- it is not at all important. --Vasha77 22:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Sylviane Corgiat

Fixer has added Sylviane Corgiat's graphic novel Elias The Cursed to the database. According to Wikipedia and our records, Corgiat wrote a fair number of SF novels in the 1980s and switched to graphic novels ca. 2004.

The Elias series of graphic novels was originally published in 3 volumes. I am not sure if the English version translates just the first volume or all three. I could do more digging, but it's probably safer to have someone with more in-depth knowledge of French SF review what we have first. We also seem to be missing a few novels compared to what Wikipedia lists. Ahasuerus 16:59, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm against inclusion of such titles, Corgiat's work is now mainly in the Bande Dessinée (graphic novel) genre (15 titles listed here), so she's now below threshold and starting to add francophone Bandes Dessinées (even if they're clearly SF) is outside our scope. IMHO the whole record should be deleted. Hauck 17:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good, I'll delete the record. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Artist verification needed

Looking at the style, McLane of the only cover art, it looks as if that is actually Paula McLane. Can someone verify one way or another? Thanks! Anniemod 20:05, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Douglas Derek Roome and Douglas Roome

Can someone verify if these two are the same person: Douglas Derek Roome and Douglas Roome. The time and publications are close enough but my google-fu is not working very well today. Thanks! Anniemod 21:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, grasshopper... I found Douglas Derek Roome pseudonym for Douglas Roome Empringham on a 1974 copyright. That seems to match up with our Douglas R. Empringham, which probably should be related to Douglas Empringham (given what we think his legal name is) but is not. And I found the tie you're looking for here. --MartyD 10:43, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Ha - somehow did not find that last one on my own (or did not see it anyway) and did not want to jump the gun and connect them based on my gut feeling and the similarities. :) Now I wonder if we should just get all of them connected under the legal name or just to connect the two Roomes for now and then keep digging about the Empringhams and eventually connect the dots later after some more verification is found. Thoughts? Anniemod 23:25, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

All of Homeville and William Contento's work is considered a reliable secondary source. So the evidence there alone would be sufficient to link them all together. That the catalog of copyrights confirms Roome-as-pseudonym-for-Empringham is a nice bonus. I found this -- I don't know the provenance of the database, but if you scroll through you'll see some other credits matched up to Douglas Roome Empringham (including "Douglass Empringham"). I think you're fine on the assumption that all four are the same person. --MartyD 11:22, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

I will connect the lot later today then. Thanks! Anniemod 14:43, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

And done. Thanks for the help with confirming these again :) Anniemod 15:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Aura (Fischer)

Would like to know what the original-language publication info is (and also date of first appearance in German) for the essay in Aura: Novelle und Essay in einem Band from Fischer Taschenbuch. It is about the writing of the story Aura. Worldcat says translated from English. Apparently the translated essay was previously published in Von mir und anderen. --Vasha77 22:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Addendum: it is probably called "On Reading and Writing Myself: How I Wrote Aura", first published in 1983. However, I would appreciate someone taking a look at the German publications anyhow. --Vasha77 02:29, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Edge #5/6, Autumn/Winter 1973

This issue contains a story "Growth and Development" by Enrique Anderson Imbert, translated by Isabel Reade. Stated to be one of the stories in The Cheshire Cat/El gato de Cheshire. I can't find any title in the Spanish-language contents of El gato de Cheshire that sounds like "Growth and Development". So is anyone able to check the magazine and see if it says what the original title was? If not, please quote the first paragraph of the translation and I will find the equivalent story. Also, is the title as printed in the magazine "Growth and Development (from The Cheshire Cat)" or just "Growth and Development"? (The same question for the other Anderson Imbert stories in the issue.) --Vasha77 20:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Royce Buckingham's Mapper books in German and English

Royce Buckingham is apparently popular in Germany, so his "Mapper" series was originally published in German. The German version consists of three volumes which appeared in 2013-2016. We have all three on file.

The English version of the series was released as six e-books in September 2016 and is available from Amazon. They do not have ISBNs assigned, so Fixer couldn't handle them. I have added the first two manually, but the rest are still outstanding.

The German paperbacks are in the 540-600pp range while the English e-books are in the 200+pp range. I suspect that each German volume corresponds to 2 English volumes, but I am not positive. If anyone happens to have access to the two versions, either as paper books, e-books or via Look Inside, it would be great if they could compare the first page of each book. Once we know what's going on, we can set up variant relationships. TIA! Ahasuerus 18:09, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Apex #12

Can anyone check Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, #12 (March 2008) for the author info on Jim Stewart? I suspect the author of the story "I Can't Look at the City" is not the same person as the Jim Stewart who wrote the poem "Count Orlok". The latter was born in 1948 in Glasgow, now lives in New Brunswick, and is a noted musician. --Vasha 09:37, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

The introduction says that he is a published poet, this is his first published genre story, lives in Brooklyn, teaches in Bronx and blogs over here. So looks like a different one. (Sorry for the delay on that one - I knew I have the printed magazine in one of the boxes but had no clue which one - and got lucky yesterday when unpacking box number N). Annie 01:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Grandi "Opera" Nord

Hi, searching for an Editrice Nord publication I found out there are 2 Series: Grandi Opere and Grandi Opera that differ only by the ending char. I think this is simply a typo. Since primary verification for the "Grandi Opera" only publication is set and I don't have a physical copy at hand I wonder if it's better to change it or leave it as it is. --Orcolat 07:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for finding that. I left a note for the primary verifier of the one using "Opera". --MartyD 12:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Hope it works. I already did that, but got no reply. --Orcolat 14:20, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Kaiju

Would anyone happen to be familiar with the "Kaiju" subgenre? The Kaiju series appears to be a blend of Jeremy Robinson's "Project Nemesis" books, Eric S. Brown's (mostly co-authored with others) Kaiju tales and a couple of standalones. I am hesitant to make any changes since I am not familiar with the authors. Ahasuerus 21:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I am somewhat familiar with the kaiju film genre. That said, I am not really a fan (though they can be somewhat comical in the same way horror can be) nor familiar with authors on the subject. Uzume 11:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I separated the Nemesis Saga from this series. I am still not sure about Mayday and the rest. Uzume 21:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:28, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

FTL #7, Winter 1990

Here's a long shot... can anyone check who the Steve Dillon interviewed in this issue is: the comics guy who co-created Preacher, or someone else? Also, does it sound like it might be the same person as this? --Vasha 04:12, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Question

How do you get your published work listed? I've noticed that a couple of things are missing. Thanks, Edith Wild.

You have to enter the publications where they have been published (if they are eligible) or you can update your bibliographic page on top of this one. The best thing to do is to study the diverse help pages, you'll find the links posted on your own talk page here. Hauck 17:39, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Lightspeed July 2016 (ebook)

In the ebook edition, not online, there is stated to be an excerpt from Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others (a collection of stories). Can someone find out what the excerpt consists of and add that info to the publication? --Vasha 23:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

It is 1865 words excerpted from the novella "Seventy-Two Letters" (isn't it handy that the number of words in at that start of every article and story in the magazine...). The section is called: Book Excerpt: Stories of Your Life and Others and then a subtitle: from "Seventy-Two Letters". Annie 22:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, added. --Vasha 03:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

"Bluebirds" by Catulle Mendès

Would anyone happen to know whether Bluebirds by Catulle Mendès is an original English language collection or a translation? Also, the publisher's description doesn't make it clear whether the author's Romantic and post-Romantic stories are recognizably speculative in nature. Ahasuerus 20:05, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Crossed Genres, Issue 3, February 2009

Can someone please look up the bio information about the Tom Smith who wrote "Common Misconceptions About Singers/Songwriters" in this issue, and see which of our Tom Smiths it is?

Actually, I really doubt that all the items on the "Tom Smith" page are by the same person. Good luck to anyone who tries to sort them out. I thought I'd start with this one because it seemed easiest. Other issues to check for bio information: Fantasy Book, June 1985; Jupiter, Summer 2003 and April 2004; Star*Line, April–June 2011. --Vasha 03:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Iraq + 100

Looking for anyone who has a copy of Iraq + 100 (edited by Hassan Blasim) and is willing to count the words in the stories and add the lengths to the publication record. --Vasha 05:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do about that tonight - this one was in the box I unpacked last night - at least for the ones that are not too close to the splits (don't really feel like exact counting just now) Annie 17:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't blame you. Last night I about lost my mind counting every line and half-line of a story that turned out to be 7,100 words long. I did write to the editor/publisher of Iraq + 100 but got no response. I figure we need the exact data for this particular anthology because it got a fair bit of interest last year. --Vasha 17:24, 13 February 2017 (UTC)8

As I said - I will get the ones that are clearly into a category dealt with but for the corner cases, it will need to wait (or we can wait to see if someone somewhere does a count). I am not a fan of spending time counting when I can read the thing instead :) Noone will die if we are missing a few lengths. Annie 17:31, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

No novellas - the longest one is a novelette. I got the short stories that were obvious assigned (when it gets accepted) - need to figure out where the split is exactly between the two - 24 pages is already a novelette but I have a few ~20 pages ones that may go either way until some actual counting :) Annie 04:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

All done now. Just in time for the US edition to come out. --Vasha 01:44, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Question about Skull-Face

An anonymous contributor has created the following bug report:

• Under Rober E. Character, the Skull-Face story is listed as a Steve Harrison story. It is a Steve Costigan story

I believe he is saying that "Skull-Face", a Robert E. Howard novella, should be moved from the Steve Harrison series to the Sailor Steve Costigan series.

However, Wikipedia says:

• The story stars a character called Steve Costigan but this is not Howard's recurring character, Sailor Steve Costigan.

Could someone with better knowledge of Howard's series please suggest the best series to add this novella to? Ahasuerus 02:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm..how about putting it into a different series as suggested by this: Strange Detective/Weird Menace Genre and Character Howard Works: Robert E. Howard Bibliography Uzume 04:34, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

If I am reading that page correctly, "Strange Detective/Weird Menace" is the name of a genre, not the series that "Skull-Face" belongs to. If you follow one of the links on that page, you will land on another page which states which recurring Howard characters appear in which story. For example, "The Return of Skull-face", another "Strange Detective/Weird Menace" story, features "GORDON & COSTIGAN". "Hand of the Black Goddess" features "GORMAN & KIRBY", "Hard-Fisted Sentiment" features Steve Costigan, etc. The "Skull-Face" listing doesn't mention any recurring characters, so I assume that it is a standalone.

I will adjust the entry accordingly and add the Wikipedia comment. Ahasuerus 23:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

"H. P. Lovecraft"

The Note field on the Summary Bibliography page for 'H. P. Lovecraft' says "Undisclosed pseudonym. The only known letter is signed "H. P. Lovecraft / Swan Point Cemetery / Providence, RI". Peter Cannon originally published his story "The Madness Out of Space" (1982-1983) as by 'H. P. Lovecraft', but it's not clear whether he was also the author of the 1987 letter." Would anyone happen to know if the letter was written by Cannon? Ahasuerus 17:47, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

"The Burroughs Bibliophile Presents Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar" (1964)

Fixer has added this edition of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar from Altus Press (The Argosy Library #21.) According to Amazon's Look Inside, Vernell Coriell's introduction first appeared in:

• "The Burroughs Bibliophile Presents Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar", copyright 1964, 2017.

I don't see a matching essay in our verified A Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs, which appeared in 1964, and we don't have any other records with "Burroughs Bibliophile" in the title. Our coverage of The Burroughs Bulletin is still very spotty, but the online Bulletin index doesn't seem to list this essay either. Would anyone happen to have any other ideas? Ahasuerus 22:05, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

The matching edition is this one. The record for 1964 House of Greystoke edition in Zeuschner indicates that the cover reads "The Burroughs Bibliophile / PRESENTS / Tarzan / and the / Jewels of Opar", so I think we're talking about the same edition. Zeuschner also mentions the illustrations used and that Coriell produced the book adding a detailed pictorial bibliography at the end. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention the introduction of the title of the bibliography. I'll add the items. I've also found a cover scan, which shows both the publisher and the cover title. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 01:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Ahasuerus 02:48, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

J. L. Mahe

According to "Translated SF", J. L. Mahe was "Jacques-Louis Mahe - Dutch author writing in Esperanto - 1912-1992". Would anyone happen to know anything about him? What was the original Esperanto title of the story that we have on file? Ahasuerus 18:34, 24 June 2017 (EDT)

Here is some detective work.

Mahe has only one collection 'Iluzioj' published under his pseudonym Lorjak. The collection contained 10 stories in Esperanto, 2 of them translated into French as well (by himself) and 1 of those 2 translated also into English by Clarkson Crane. Now... 'Iluzioj' was published in 1982. Chances are that this may be the same story in the same translation but I cannot think of a way to confirm that without some texts. And the names are not close enough (the Esperanto story name in the collection is "Ĝemeliĝo" (meaning something like "sister city" with the special connotation of the Eastern European sister/brother-cities - although my Esperanto is quite rusty so there may be another meaning I am missing) and I cannot find what was the English title in the collection. But that gave me an idea. Data about the collection available here: a review and the content.

According to this, it was originally in an issue of 'Monda Kulturo' which does match: the stories from 'Iluzioj' - they all are from magazines.

Then there is this: "Kaj tuj apude, "Ĝemeliĝo" de Lorjak, konata ankaŭ en anglalingvio pro traduko kiu aperis en usona sciencfikcia revuo antaŭ 23 jaroj." - which roughly says that Ĝemeliĝo by Lorjak had been published in English in an American science fiction magazine 23 years earlier. The book it is talking about is from 1989 - the magazine where we have a story from is from 1967; this review can easily be from 1990 (nothing in it tells me that it is long after the book). It lines up. And this is where I will play the millennial and say if there was another 1967 American SF magazine with a story by Lorjak/Mahe that is well known so that this reviewer knows about it, someone somewhere would have indexed it by now. And I am not finding any besides this one.

It will be too much of a coincidence if there was a second story, published in English ~1967, with the same translator and still not heard of. And not included in the collection above - because we know he did include one translation; I suspect if there was a second one, it would have also been included... Up to you if we want to call it and connect the dots or update the record with the information. I personally am convinced that it is indeed "Ĝemeliĝo"

Annie 16:44, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

Nicely done! I think it would be safe to link the two stories as long as we document where our information comes from. Ahasuerus 17:05, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

Oh, go ahead and format my rambling notes above and variant it - I was typing while following links and verifying - which is why I went from "cannot be sure" in the first paragraph to "yeah, I think this is it" at the end. Then decided I do not feel like rewriting the parts I wrote earlier - plus this way if I had leaped somewhere, it was spot-able. :) Annie 17:16, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

Done. Thanks for the detective work! Ahasuerus 18:07, 27 June 2017 (EDT)

The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire: 1918-1963

It would appear that The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire: 1918-1963 is primarily a non-genre collection. "The Fatal Eggs" is SF but the other stories are apparently borderline at best, e.g. "A Tale About the Furious Calaphat" is described as a "legend" which originally appeared as a section in a novel. Looking for volunteers who could check the stories and report on their status. Ahasuerus 14:37, 2 July 2017 (EDT)

David Petersen vs. David Peterson

Is it safe to assume that David Petersen and David Peterson are the same artist? Our biographical data suggests that they are and their credits overlap ("Mouse Guard"), but you never know. Ahasuerus 13:49, 4 July 2017 (EDT)

Petersen is the artist's correct name. The Peterson credits are all from Spectrum 21 & 23 which are art re-prints. They are definitively the same person. I've pinged Biomassbob to look at this conversation so he can tell us if the Spectrum credits are a database typo or if a pseudonym is needed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:16, 4 July 2017 (EDT)

Spectrum 23 does indeed use "Peterson", both on the artwork and in the artist index. I've varianted these. Spectrum 23 uses "Petersen", which I have corrected. Thanks for catching this. Bob 14:42, 4 July 2017 (EDT)