User talk:Brin1

Important! This editor is no longer actively participating and is unlikely to respond to messages left here. If this user is the sole verifier of a publication record, please: post only notices on the user's talk page concerning the addition of images and notes post inquiries regarding any other changes to the verified record at the Moderator noticeboard Otherwise, please post notices and inquiries only on the talk pages of the other primary verifiers.

Welcome!

Hello, Brin1, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Help pages
• What the ISFDB Wiki is for
• FAQ

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Marc Kupper (talk) 12:05, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the welcome. I hope I'm getting the hang of it now Brin1 06:37, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Ship of Disaster

Hi, you entered this as an anthology which looked fine, but when I looked into it a bit I realised the anthology was actually "Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4" with this story just being one of the contents. I've managed to move things around a bit. The story was published as by "B. J. Bayley" in that one. So I've made B. J. Bayley a pseudonym of Barrington J. Bayley.

Were you trying to add the stories previous publications from the copyright history in another book? If the original anthology doesn't exist you can do it this way:

• check the editors page to make sure that anthology doesn't already exist (search on title if you don't know the editor)
• add a new anthology with title and editor (plus year and publisher if that is known).
• put in the notes field the story list is incomplete
• add the short story under the contents
• submit anthology

--Unapersson 07:07, 20 Mar 2007 (CDT)

My apologies. The anthology I have is 'Best SF Stories from New Worlds 4'. I think I was just trying to point out that 'The Ship of Disaster' is as by B. J. Bayley, but I must have gone astray somewhere! Brin1 13:56, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Using the EDITOR title type

Just a quick heads up that the EDITOR title type is a special "behind the scenes" title type used to group magazine issues together. Typically, you will never want to use it directly when entering data. When entering editorials, introductions, etc, please use "ESSAY" instead. Thanks for editing! :) Ahasuerus 11:43, 23 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Author Legal Name field

Just a note to point out that the Legal Name field uses the "LastName, FirstName MiddleName" format. (Scott Latham 15:48, 23 Mar 2007 (CDT))

Frank Pollack

Hi -- I've been looking at the updates you submitted for Frank L. Pollack/Frank Lillie Pollack. There are a couple of issues here. First, if the form "Frank Lillie Pollack" was never used on a published story, then we would not include that form of his name in the ISFDB (though it could be included in the bio page). It appears to be his full legal name and so is included as the legal name on the author record, though. According to the Day magazine index, "Finis" was published in "Famous Fantastic Mysteries" under the name "Frank Lillie Pollack". Hence we want to keep both versions of the name, and make one a pseudonym of the other.

Second, there are three Pollack records: the two you submitted updates for, both of the form "Frank Lillie Pollack", and a further one of the form "Frank L. Pollack". The latter should presumably be the canonical form since that's how I've found his name indexed. The updates you've submitted would create three identical author records for Pollack, all of the form "Frank L. Pollack". This causes some problems as the ISFDB assumes for certain queries that the name is unique. (There is an outstanding feature request to enforce this.) The result of your edit would be to render the data under two of the three authors invisible; only one would be found by that name. In fact a form of the problem exists now, as it's impossible to view the information under both the latter two names, since they are identical.

What I've done is to merge the latter two names, and mark the "Frank Lillie Pollack" form as a pseudonym of "Frank L. Pollack". I also made the "Frank Lillie Pollack" version of "Finis" a variant title of the "Frank L. Pollack" form. Now if you look at the title printing history you'll see it shows it was published under both names.

I hope all this makes sense; quite a complicated situation. Let me know if you have any questions. Mike Christie (talk) 11:00, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Funny this should come up literally days after we had another Pollack submission -- see this discussion for details. I will be almost internetless for a few days, so I can't really comment at this time, but I will leave it in Mike's capable hands :) Ahasuerus 15:23, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Weinbaum

With the Weinbaum update, obviously the comma is in error. The publication in question does have some listings at booksellers as "Stanley Grauman Weinbaum"; e.g. see here. There is a verified version of the Ballantine edition here, but it doesn't give an ISBN or printing information so it's not definite that this is the same as the one using the long form of the name, which is here. Finally, as with Pollack, above, we shouldn't change the name on this record to be "Stanley G. Weinbaum" as that would create a duplicate. This should be merged if it's spurious, and made a pseudonym otherwise.

So I've rejected your update, and have replaced it with an update to just correct the comma. I also made the long form of the name a pseudonym. The two publications were both listed with a title record that used "Stanley G. Weinbaum" -- that is, there was a single title record that used "Stanley G. Weinbaum", and it contained the two different publication records, one of which gave the author name as "Stanley Grauman Weinbaum". So I separated those (using the unmerge function) and made one title a variant of the other. Here's the result.

Another complicated one; again, please ask if you'd like more explanations. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 11:22, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Piggybacking on Mike's comments to mention that I rejected a similar canonical name change, from "Brian Aldiss" to "Brian W. Aldiss", for the same reason the other night. As I wrote in the Rejection note:

"Brian Aldiss" is an alternate form of "Brian W. Aldiss"’s name, which is occasionally used for his work. We have it set up as a pseudonym and it shouldn’t be changed to the "W." form.

No worries, this is fairly complex stuff and we all wandered in the dark at first :) Ahasuerus 14:19, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

"The Piper's Son" by Lewis Padgett

Re: the proposed authorship change from "Lewis Padgett" to Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, could you please double check your copy to see if the story is attributed to "Lewis Padgett" or to Kuttner and Moore? The Locus Index suggests that it was published as by Padgett. If it was published as by Kuttner and Moore, then we will want to remove the Padgett title and add the Kuttner/Moore title. Simply replacing the author(s)' name in the Contents section would eliminate the Padgett Title from all Publications and result in a loss of pseudonym information, which we definitely wouldn't want. It's a common issue that all new ISFDB editors run into, so consider it a rite of passage :) Ahasuerus 15:01, 24 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I will be out of town for a few days, could you please post your response on the Community Portal so that other moderators could see it? Thanks! Ahasuerus 07:09, 25 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I saw your update to change the author from "Lewis Padgett" to "Henry Kuttner (as by Lewis Padgett)+C. L. Moore (as by Lewis Padgett)". The way this is handled in ISFDB is by using variant titles. From The Piper's Son you would click on "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" and in the lower part of the page where it says "If the parent title does not exist, enter the title information below to create it." you would replace Lewis Padgett with Henry Kuttner, click, [Add Author] and add C. L. Moore. Click submit-data and after approval the title will display using the "as by" stuff and be correctly linked to the Kuttner and Moore bibliographies. Marc Kupper (talk) 10:54, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, this story is as by "Lewis Padgett" in my copy, I think I just confused myself in what I was trying to do! Brin1 14:15, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Catherine Asaro story duped

Just to let you know that I approved your anthology submission but it looks as if there's a duplicated Catherine Asaro story in there -- if it's a mistake, as it appears, would you delete it? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 12:32, 25 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Changes to publication contents

When you are viewing or editing an ISFDB publication record the upper part of the page is the publication record and and the Contents section is composed of ISFDB title records. ISFDB has one big "gotcha" in that if you make changes to the anything in the Contents section other than the page numbers that you will be updating the original title record. Thus with your proposed update to The Moment of Eclipse you wanted to update many things such as adding the ISBN and page numbers which are fine but you also wanted to do the following.

• Change That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art to That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art . . .
• Change The Circulation of the Blood to The Circulation of the Blood . . .
• Change The Day We Embarked for Cythera to The Day We Embarked for Cythera . . .

In this case what I did was to approve your submission but then to re-edit it to undo the three title changes. If you view the publication and then click on the links for the three titles you will see that those titles are being referenced by other publications, some of which have been verified as using the versions of the titles without the dot-dot-dot. See Help:Screen:EditPub#General_contents for how to correct the Contents to match your publication. Marc Kupper (talk) 11:12, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT)

EDITOR type and dates

I just approved a sub of yours for "Hell's Cartographers" and made a couple of changes I wanted to let you know about.

First, the EDITOR type shouldn't ever need to be used -- it's for magazines and is created automatically, behind the scenes. When you want to indicate that someone is the editor of an anthology, you just put them in as author -- the book type, "ANTHOLOGY", makes it clear they are the editor. Actually, when you create a new anthology the prompt says "Editor", so there's no confusion; it's only when you're editing an existing title or publication that you might see "Author" as the prompt when you should really see "Editor". So I changed the EDITOR record you'd added for the introduction to be ESSAY.

Second, you'd put a date in for the introduction that is taken from the date given at the end of the introduction itself; that is, the date Aldiss indicated he completed writing it. However, what we record is the date of publication. I think the date of completion could be of interest to bibliographers and researchers, so it could certainly be recorded as a title-level note against this essay, but the date should be 1975, which is the date of the first edition. So I changed that too. Mike Christie (talk) 19:26, 28 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow

Brin1, regarding your proposed update to publication 173161 Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow

• You wanted to make changes to author names and titles in the Contents section. Please read Help:Screen:EditPub#General_contents for how to correct the Contents to match your publication.
• You wanted to change the author names for two stories from "Christine N. Govan" to "Christine Noble Govan" and from "Wessel H. Smitter" to "Wessel Hyatt Smitter". Is this the way the author names are credited in the table of contents and in the body of the publication? We generally do not go by what's listed in the copyright page though if I spot that a name is different then I'll add title and a publication notes about this so that people will understand the source of various forms of an author's name fopr a particular story that they may see on Internet sites.
• You wanted to change the title The Daemon Lover to The Demon Lover. The first title is well established for this author - do you have a copy of this book and does it use "Demon" in both the table of contents and at the head of the story? If so, we would add a new title record for this using [Add Title] from the publication edit and then record this as a variant title of The Demon Lover. I would also add a note to this publication that the story name was in fact mis-spelled or is possibly a different story than The Demon Lover. Marc Kupper (talk) 13:12, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

The names for the first two stories are "Christine Noble Govan" and "Wessel Hyatt Smitter" in both parts of my copy, and the third story is entitled The Demon Lover again, in both parts of the book. Brin1 14:30, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thank you for the reply. I approved your publication update, revised the record per Help:Screen:EditPub#General_contents, and also

1. Set up a variant title for The Demon Lover
2. I was not sure what to do about The Hand - It's the only story by this author that we have a record for and was only printed in Bantam editions of Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow with one being by Wessel H. Smitter and the other by Wessel Hyatt Smitter. I decided that as neither publication is verified to merge everything into "Wessel Hyatt Smitter" to match your book and if someone shows up with a copy that lists ""Wessel H. Smitter" then can add a new title and mark it as a variant.
3. Miss Winters and the Wind by Christine Noble (N.) Govan is also the only story this person wrote but is in two publications. As three of the publications were Christine N. Govan I decided to make this the canonical name and so made Christine Noble Govan a pseudonym.

Brin1, Could you take a look to see if everything looks ok at TMLSSSTRSF1976 and if so then you can mark this one as verified? Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:45, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Nightfall Two

Brin1, regarding your proposed update to publication 24171 Nightfall Two

Overall - the update looks good but please take a look at Help:Screen:EditPub#General_contents as your update includes three changes to story titles that should have been handled via the [Add Title] method. Marc Kupper (talk) 13:12, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Since you must have discovered the wiki side of ISFDB I'll make a list of the changes that caught my attention.

1. You want to change the title "In a Good Cause -" to In a Good Cause - (removing the quote marks)
2. You want to change the title Nobody Here But... to Nobody Here But - replacing he ellipses with a hyphen.
3. You want to change the title What If... to What If... replacing he ellipses with a hyphen.

What I did in this case is

1. Approved your original submissions as it had many other changes that were ok such as adding page numbers.
2. Edited the three titles listed above back to their original versions
3. From publication-edit did add-title three times and added titles that matched the ones you wanted to enter
4. From publication-view did remove-title and removed the versions you were trying to update.
5. Did a dup-candidates on Isaac_Asimov and merged the new title records added in step 3 with the existing titles of the same name. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:06, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Nebula Award Stories 10

A couple of comments on your submission to add Nebula Award Stories 10

• You had added this as a "New Anthology". It would have been easier, and more reliable, to location the title, 34102, and from there find a publication that matches best, NBLWRDS1019XX for example, and to clone that. It's easier as you don't need to re-enter all of the stories plus the story records will then already be merged.
• You entered the Introduction as type EDITOR - this should be type ESSAY.
• ISFDB has a convention for things like introductions where we will enter the name as Introduction (Nebula Award Stories 10). The reason for this is so that when someone is viewing an author's bibliography that they would see dozens of essays all titled Introduction and not know which stories each was for without an extra click.

Ahasuerus - you had put this on hold - was there anything else you wanted to comment on? It's not even clear if Brin1 even aware of these messages as he/she never responds either here nor via nature of the submissions. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:57, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Well, the biggest problem with Gunn titles is that they are almost evenly split between the "James E. Gunn" and the "James Gunn" bylines. I'll check the US hardcover edition when I see my collection in late April. Ahasuerus 13:33, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Good eye - I have Nebula Award Stories Ten listed as by James E. Gunn (editor) in my own db but a check on AbeBooks finds 24 copies for sale, all by James Gunn and with Nebula Award Stories 10 it's 17 of 18 by James Gunn and one by James E. Gunn. In my own collection it seems the anthologies are all by James Gunn and the novels are by James E. Gunn but I can't say if that's a pattern he always uses. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:24, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Young writers typically add/drop middle initials for disambiguation reasons. In extreme cases, they even rearrange their names, e.g. (John) Ramsey Campbell and Lawrence Watt(-)Evans. I think Gunn has been mostly publishing as just "James Gunn" lately, which suggests that there are not many authors named "James [something] Gunn" running around these days. Now, if only Brin1 could see this discussion :-\ Ahasuerus 22:59, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I've taken all your points onboard (including responding!!) Brin1 07:10, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Magician

I approved your addition of 176421 Magician but am wondering about the note "Books 1 and 2. Introduction written by Raymond E. Feist for this edition."

• Is this an omnibus? If so, then the type should be omnibus and it would reference via the contents the titles that it contains.
• Likewise, if it contains an introduction you would add that to the contents as Introduction (Magician) by Raymond E. Feist. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:56, 2 Apr 2007 (CDT)

My copy of Magician is a Book Club Associates special edition for the 25th birthday of Fantasy & SF book club. It doesn't have a contents list, but does have the special introduction. It is also split into Books I and II, and as the already present listings in ISFDB are Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master, I assumed Books I and II in my copy to be these two copies - although they are entitled "Pug and Thomas" and "Milamber and the Valheru" in my book. It doesn't say that it's an omnibus, and I notice that ther are other "Magician" titles listed under Magician: Apprentice that are of the same length as my copy and do not say that they are an omnibus. I hope this all makes sense! Brin1 14:53, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Images

Regarding your publication updates for 3367, 16773, 176911, etc. Please be aware that we need to get permission from 3rd party sites to use their author and book images. See Template:PublicationFields:ImageURL for more information about this. The most practical source for book images at present is Amazon.com. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:35, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Entering messages

Brin1 - It's not clear if you are reading these but if you want to reply then click on "edit" at the top of the page. I also realized we forgot to put the welcome at the top of the page that explains a bit on editing. I've added that to the top of this page. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:05, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Authors' dates of birth/death

Please keep in mind that our software doesn't recognize four digit years in any date fields. Only "1947-00-00" is acceptable while "1947" will be automatically converted to "0000-00-00" (displayed as "unknown"). Thanks for editing! Ahasuerus 09:39, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Ooops, many apologies, I shall bear that in mind! Brin1 01:53, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Omni, Oct 1978

I have approved most of the changes to Omni, Oct 1978, but then I temporarily reverted Bob Guccione back to Ben Bova as the magazine's editor. As far as I know, Bova was the first editor from 1978 to 1981 while Bob Guccione's wife, Kathy Keeton Guccione, was the publisher. Could you please check the magazine to see if Guccione (either Bob Guccione or Kathy Keeton Guccione) was credited as one of the editors? Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:14, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Bob Guccione is credited as Editor and Design Director - there is no mention of Ben Bova (I am just doing issue no 2 and the same applies there). Mine are the English issues so I don't know if the US ones would be different! Brin1 01:50, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I have just come across this, taken from Vol 1, No 2, page 8 - Omnibus, Contibutors - "What's Alvin Toffler been up to lately? Omni editor and publisher Bob Guccione found the author of Future Shock alive and well and still predicting the future."

And this is how the list shows at the top of the contents page:

EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: FRANK KENDIG - ART DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO - EUROPEAN EDITOR: DR. BERNARD DIXON - DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: BEVERLEY WARDALE - EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT: IRWIN E. BILLMAN -

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: KATHY KEETON - ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (INT'L): FRANCO ROSSELLINI

Nowhere can I find any credit to Ben Bova! Brin1 04:00, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I left a few of these unapproved as we don't like dual pricing, e.g. '£0.95/$2.00' in the same field, but it sounds as if there's some doubt about whether the US/UK magazines are different? BLongley 13:32, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

That's a good point, Bill, since in this case we presumably have at least 2 separate Publications for each magazine issue, one in the US and one in the UK (plus one in Canada?) I wonder what else may have been different? After all, there have been many examples of US magazines reprinted in the UK and Canada in abridged/revised/transmogrified form.

Also, now that I am thinking about it, Bova may have been the fiction editor of Omni in 1978-1981 and the reason that we remember his as the Omni editor is that SF people tend to think of fiction as the most important part :) Should be pretty easy to check, though. Ahasuerus 14:45, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Clute/Nicholls says under "Omni" Fiction Editor was Ben Bova Oct 78-Dec 79, Bob Sheckley Jan 80-Sep 81, Ellen Datlow onwards. Although under "Ben Bova" it says he was Editor of Omni 1978-82. :-/ BLongley 05:53, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the comments. I have just come across a panel on page 10 of issue no2 and under 'EDITORIAL' it has Editor in Chief: Bob Guccione, and further down - Fiction Editor: Ben Bova (sorry for the mix-up) so perhaps I should just add Bob Guccione as an editor in further submissions? (and leave the price as is). Brin1 01:24, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I'm not too worried about the credit for Guccione, but if there's some doubt about how consistent the editions are, maybe we should keep a '$' entry and another "£' entry until we have some verified issues in both currencies? There's no 'merge' publication later if we do find they're consistent though, so it might be a bit of a waste of typing if there's a quicker answer. Alternatively if you don't like that, just add the other price in notes and say it's the UK edition, and we can clone later if needed: however, that doesn't give us the chance to get different verifications, only one person can verify a pub at present. BLongley 05:53, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

This page suggests there were UK reprints Oct-1978 - Feb-1980 only, with a single OMNI (UK) trial issue in Autumn 1984. Hopefully only the last differs in anything bar price. BLongley 06:25, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I've just checked through my back issues. The issues with the UK price on the cover go up to January 1987, then from February 1987 onwards they are the US priced copies with a COMAG UK price sticker on the front. There is no discernible difference in content or layout, just the price! Brin1 01:01, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

How to change a story title in a publication’s contents

I am reviewing a number of your submissions in the moderator queue and I would like to point out that changing Contents data can have far reaching ramification. Could you please review this post by Marc Kupper which explains how to do this without affecting other records? Thanks! Ahasuerus 20:42, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

P.S. I have approved and corrected the two submissions that changed the names of Brian (W.) Aldiss and Evelyn (E.) Smith. However, I rejected the Minds Unleashed submission. As far as I could tell, it attempted to remove Groff Conklin's Essay "The Non-Limitation of Intelligence" from the Contents section of this paperback reprint, but instead it would have overwritten it with a duplicate of "Trip One" by Edward Grendon and then it would have replaced the latter with William Tenn's "Venus Is a Man's World", causing havoc in all Publications that contain these two records. Could you please clarify the original intent? If you want to remove one or more titles from a Publication, it can be accomplished by using the "Remove Titles From This Pub" option in the navigation bar of the "Publication Listing" page. Thanks for editing! Ahasuerus 21:29, 10 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your comment, I thought I was possibly doing it wrong. The Groff Conklin essay is not in my copy, so is it OK to remove it, or will that affect other copies? Brin1 00:55, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

"Remove Titles From This Pub" works on a single publication only, so if you clone one pub to create yours, then use it on the new publication only, that's the only one affected. If you wanted to affect both (which you usually shouldn't) you'd remove the publication from the original and then clone it. As pointed out above, changing things WHILE cloning often causes headaches although when you're used to it it's a bit faster than waiting for multiple approvals. It's fairly safe to add additional content titles while cloning, and changing a page number to indicate you will remove it from the new pub later is OK (I often put page number 'NA' on for the meantime) but changing titles or authors or dates of contents is dodgy, and will probably slow down approvals as we need to check harder. BLongley 06:03, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

"If the Stars Are Gods"

The ISFDB software doesn't support author name ordering at this time, so "Gordon Eklund and Gregory Benford" is treated the same as "Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund" and the display order is not guaranteed. I have merged these two titles instead. Thanks for editing! Ahasuerus 13:18, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The World Inside

Just a heads up that I have approved the addition of more detailed information, including the September 1971 publication date, to the 1971 paperback edition of Silverberg's The World Inside. However, I then went back and reverted the date for the associated Title record from 1971-09-00 to 1971-00-00. The reason is that for a Novel its Title date is the date of its first publication in book form. Since the paperback edition was a reprint, it is highly likely that the original hardcover edition came out some time earlier in 1971. Once we find out exactly when the first edition was published, we will be able to make the Title date more precise, but for now it will have to remain 1971-00-00. Thanks! Ahasuerus 12:53, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Ninth Galaxy Reader

As with "Nebula Award Stories 10" above, you might want to consider cloning a copy with contents rather than start with an empty Anthology - unless there's a lot of variant titles in it? BLongley 13:19, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Updates on publications with contents

Thanks for the updates on the issues of Nebula SF. One thing I have to point out is that it's not wise to make any changes in the contents sections of a publication, as it might interfere with the connections that were originally created by the database with other appearances of the stories, (although adding a page number or new content doesn't affect anything.) The best, though not exactly the easiest, way to change a content's title, author, or story length is to create a new content entry. After your submission has been approved you can then clean up the publication by using the "Remove Titles from this Pub" link in the edit column. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask on the help board. Again, thanks for your contributions. Mhhutchins 17:14, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

In related news, I have just finished massaging the Sphere edition os Conan of Cimmeria, which you submitted a few days ago. There are three stories in that edition that apparently had their titles slightly changed by Sphere. Your change of the titles' spelling would have affected all other books which contain these stories, which presumably is not what we would want to happen. I approved your change, then reverted the 3 affected Titles back to what they were originally, then removed them from the Sphere edition, then re-added them to the Sphere Publication under the correct titles that you had supplied, then made the new titles into Variant Titles of the original titles. Whew!

I know, this confusing, which is why Marc Kupper has written a short guide that you may want to read to avoid similar problems in the future. Ah, the life of a genre bibliographer... Ahasuerus 22:19, 14 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks

So I've been trying to catch up on events since I dropped out last month, and I've been looking over the talk pages of newer people who have made significant contributions since then. It occurs to me that while we are quite polite to newbies, we nonetheless have a tendency to fill their talk pages with messages about how they've screwed things up.

That kind of feedback is a necesary evil due to the complexities of bibliographies, but I'd otherwise like to thank you with some positive words for all the effort you've been putting into the ISFDB. Alvonruff 06:47, 15 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thankyou kindly, I think I've pretty much got the hang of it now, thanks to the constructive criticism, I've kind of got hooked on it!! Brin1 13:21, 15 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Frederic Brown vs. Frederick Brown

I am reviewing your proposed change to Frederic Brown's name in the BCA edition of Space Opera, which was supposedly based on the Weidenfeld & Nicolson edition of the book and not on the almost-simultaneous-but-substantially-different Futura edition. I have a few questions about this edition in general and the name change in particular.

First, if the BCA edition was based on the Weidenfeld & Nicolson edition as the database currently states, then how did "Answer" get there in the first place since the story was only published in the Futura version and not in the W&N version, at least according to Contento? Or was BCA's some kind of a hybrid edition, perhaps?

Second, you seem to be suggesting that Brown's name was misspelled in the book. Do you have the book handy to confirm that there is an extraneous "k" at the end of the first name? If it was misspelled, then we need to create a Variant Title instead of changing the spelling directly. The reason for it is that a change in the Contents section would change the underlying Title and that in turn would cause the spelling of the name to be changed in all other Publications that contain this Title. Please see our Help:How to change a story in a collection page for details. Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:03, 15 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I confused myself there, it's on the contents page as 'Frederick', but in the body of the book as 'Fredric' - I've corrected it now. I'm not sure how "Answer" got there, but there it is!! Brin1 01:31, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the clarification, all fixed now! Could you please mark the publication as Verified when you are done with it? Ahasuerus 13:36, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and other puzzles

Next question! Do you happen to have the 1977 NEL edition that you have proposed changing the ISBN for from "0-450-02583-2" to 0450035832? I can't seem to be able to find either ISBN online... Ahasuerus 13:36, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Also, re: the proposed removal of "Camouflage", "Deadlock", "Home Is the Hunter", "Or Else" and "Shock" from Kuttner's Ahead of Time, are all of these stoies missing in the UK reprint? That's almost half the collection!

Finally, you have removed Poul Anderson's "Tomorrow’s Children" from the 1966 Lancer edition of First Flight. I should have asked before approving the submission, but better late than never :) Was the story really missing in your copy? Perhaps it was only missing in the table of contents? The reason I am asking is that the verified 1963 Lancer edition has the same number of pages as the 1966 reprint and is confirmed to contain "Tomorrow's Children". Stranger things have bee known to happen, though. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:41, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)

My copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has the number 450 03583 2 at the bottom of the back cover.

Thanks, looks we had a transposed ISBN on file; approved now. Ahasuerus 00:21, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)

For Ahead in Time, all the stories are credited to Henry Kuttner alone; I checked in Locus and they have the same credits, but all those stories are in there.

And for First Flight, "Tomorrow's Children" is credited only to Poul Anderson and not to F. N. Waldrop as well. Brin1 15:20, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Oh, I see, you were removing these titles so that you could then re-enter them as by Kuttner (and, separately, as by Anderson) alone! OK, that makes perfect sense :)

I have approved the submission, but it so happens that Kraang entered another (1961) Four Square printing of this book by cloning the Ballantine edition earlier today. Let me point him to this discussion so that the two of you could coordinate the data cleanup process. I'll keep an eye on it too :) Ahasuerus 00:21, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Had a second look at my copy Ahead of Time (1961) Four Square and yes, all the stories from the Ballantine issue are in there. I also confirmed the page numbers (no contents page) just to make sure I was right the first time :)Kraang 20:26, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! The only thing that worries me now is that when I look at this Title's data, the 1953 Ballantine edition and the 1961 Four Square edition list 4 of the stories as attributed to Lewis Padgett, while all stories in the 1967 Four Square reprint are attributed to Henry Kuttner. Is that right? I think I still have the 1953 Ballantine paperback in my collection, so I may be able to verify it later this month, but I am pretty sure I don't have any of the Four Square reprints, so any help would appreciated! Ahasuerus 23:51, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I see what you mean. Henry Kuttner is the only credited author in my book(Four Square), cover , title page and copyright page. Having no contents page through me off. :)Kraang 00:08, 19 Apr 2007 (CDT)

FWIW, my experience of British publications of Kuttner is that in the 1960s they were credited to Kuttner alone, in the latter 1970s C. L. Moore got a "With" credit, and Lewis Padgett was mentioned only in the copyright notes in the 1980s. We've had some lazy copies of old pubs, I'll see if I can fix and verify a few tonight. BLongley 14:55, 19 Apr 2007 (CDT)

This got interesting... looking VERY closely at the "Best of" volumes, there are Padgett references at the story level SOMETIMES. If you don't check every single one you might assume that "Henry Kuttner" alone was taking credit. However, Padgett and O'Donnell are credited as pseudonyms of Kuttner alone, not Moore, and later printings of the same volumes remove story-level credits entirely. Hmmm... going to have to be careful with the merges.... BLongley 13:13, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

(unindent)Pheww!! sorry about all the muddle! Brin1 00:41, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Hey, it's not your fault! It goes back to 1938 when Kuttner published a few semi-pornographic (or what was then considered semi-pornographic) stories in a racy pulp:

• White arms went around the man's neck; he felt the warm firmness of Lorna's breasts flattened against his chest. Abruptly Shawn's heart was hammering. The smooth skin of the girl's back was hot against his palms. He could feel her breath fluttering in his ear, and suddenly his blood was a roaring, pounding tumult in his veins.

• Shawn bent his head, found Lorna's soft red lips. They were like white fires, burning away all sanity and all caution. And the girl responded, crushing herself against him, trembling a little. She gave a soft, low cry.

• Shawn caught sight of the corpse on the floor. He forced himself to calm. "We've got to get out of here, Lorna!"

• She wriggled free, a warm flush mantling her face and bosom as she glanced down at her nudity... ("Avengers of space", Marvel Science Stories #1, August 1938, p. 109)

That didn't exactly endear him to the SF fandom, so when Campbell got Kuttner and his wife Moore to write for Astounding in the early 40s (when half the ASF regulars were unavailable due to the war), they used a bunch of pseudonyms, mostly "Lewis Padgett" and "Lawrence O'Donnell". These classic stories would be later variously reprinted as by Padgett, Kuttner and/or Kuttner/Moore, making life difficult for poor overworked bibliographers :) And then there are more obscure Kuttner pseudonyms that he used in the late 1930s and 1940s, but they are less of a problem since few of the stories have been reprinted. Ahasuerus 01:47, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

And maybe a future problem, as those are the ones I want to hunt down! I keep buying the same short stories duplicated in multiple volumes, which is why the variants are so interesting to me. BLongley 13:13, 20 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Omni Comix Oct/Nov 1995

I am looking at this submission and trying to figure out what some of the Contents items may look like. Are the five "serials" on pages 6, 36, 78, 89 and 98 fiction serials or are they comics? Are the "shortfiction" pieces actually written fiction or do they, as the magazine title suggests, perhaps have graphic contents as well? Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:59, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Pages 6, 36, 78, 89 and 98 are comic strips, but page 46-47 are a written introduction, pages 48 to 58 inclusive is the text short story There is a Tide with included artwork; pages 59 to 65 inclusive is a text preview (The Shadow Nest) to Ringworld Throne which is then continued in graphic novel style on pages 66 to 75. I submitted this because it has the full short story in text, and half of the preview in text - just thought it may be of interest. Brin1 08:54, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Very interesting! I suspect that we want to enter these comic strips as "INTERIORART" as opposed to "SERIAL", but let me post on the Rules and standards discussions board and see what other folks have to say. Ahasuerus 14:55, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I was in two minds myself, but plumped for "SERIAL" simply because they were all Episode 1s Brin1 15:57, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

(ps) They do describe it as an SF Comic but I leave it entirely to your discretion Brin1 16:03, 21 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Interzone, Mar/Apr 1989

Quick question about Interzone, Mar/Apr 1989: was the title of the Judith Moffett book that Ken Brown reviewed on page 67 "Pannterra" or "Pennterra"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 02:16, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, my mistake, should be "Pennterra" Brin1 09:29, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

No worries, all fixed now :) Also, please keep in mind that when you are changing the spelling of the titles of existing stories in Interzone and other magazines/collections/anthologies, it can get tricky. Please see Help:How to change a story in a collection. Thanks! Ahasuerus 10:22, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Cartomancy

I have approved Cartomancy, but I was wondering if Cartomancy: An Introduction was Shortfiction or an Essay? Thanks! Ahasuerus 10:30, 26 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I noticed it listed as an Essay, but it is most definitely a short story Brin1 16:15, 26 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sounds good, thanks! Ahasuerus 16:48, 26 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Waylander

I've rejected your submission to change the price for publication WLNDRLNPRS1989 from £4.50 to £4.99. Please be careful about price changes as since 1980 it's been common for publishers to keep the same ISBN as they increase the price. Thus, unless you are absolutely sure that the price is wrong I'd rather clone a record and give the clone the price that matched the publication or whatever you are using as the source for the data you enter into ISFDB. In this I see that publication BKTG04129 already exists at £4.99 and in looking at the title record, 341, you can see that Legend ISBN 0-09-947090-X has publications at £3.50, £3.99, £4.50, and £4.99 though there may be some data clean up needed if the publisher is stating the printing date. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:31, 26 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The price should be £4.99, I had simply entered it incorrectly on my first submission and was just putting it right. Brin1 01:03, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

oops - I sure wish there was an edit history available so I could see who had created/edited records. I went ahead and changed WLNDRLNPRS1989 to £4.99. FWIW, it means the record is a near duplicate of BKTG04129 with the only difference being the publication date. Sometimes I've seen dates on Amazon.com but not the book. For example Amazon.com 009947090X shows Waylander as 1 Oct 1992 but that means next to nothing as far as what's printed in the book. Note that the date uploaded to Amazon is usually the on-sale-by date and not the publication date meaning what's in Amazon can be in the month before what's stated in a book. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:44, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I

You verified this pub back on the 16th. The ss, "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" • (1943) • novelette by Lewis Padgett, is titled "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", without the second "r" in the last word, elsewhere. Contento lists the title without the "r" also. Could you please double check this pub. CoachPaul 12:30, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, my mistake, it should be "Borogoves" - no second "r". Brin1 14:11, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I've put in a fix to be approved. CoachPaul 15:03, 27 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Enemy Mine

Back on 2007-03-25 you submitted a puzzling looking make-variant. Mike Christie put it on hold but I don't see any talk about it. The title record is 471021 and you want to make 41444 the parent. The puzzle is that the records look the same with the same title, author, type, etc. Plus, the variant title is already there. Were you trying to remove the variant title so that you can then merge these? I suspect at one time 471021 was different but now the variant title is no longer needed. This title record is in the contents for a publication (THMMMTHBKF1986 The Mammoth Book of Short Science Fiction Novels) you have verified.

I suspect at this point we should double check the publication to see if it says "Enemy Mine" by Barry B. Longyear and if so then I'll approve your submission as it's a no-operation at the moment but then either us can put in a merge of these two titles, removing the variant title stuff. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:33, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

It is actually listed as by Barry Longyear, and I forget exactly what I was trying to do now! I was relatively new to this when I was doing that one. Brin1 02:49, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Thank you Bill. I approved the original submission to set up the variant title (no harm in that it was already set) and then did an edit-title on 471021 to change the author name to Barry Longyear. That corrects your publication's table of contents. Finally, I linked Barry_Longyear as a pseudonym of Barry_B._Longyear. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:42, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Ooh! Brin1 is another Bill? I never knew that... BLongley 17:03, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Errrm, neither did I! Brin is actually short for 'Brindley', my surname. My first name is Anthony, but everyone calls me Brin (which I much prefer) Brin1 01:11, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Ah, it's Marc making assumptions again then - he used to call me "Brian" for some reason. BLongley 15:06, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

When I first saw "Brin1" in the submissions queue, the first name that came to mind was "Sergey" :) Ahasuerus 15:49, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Shame on you! ;-) You should have thought "David", of course! BLongley 16:01, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Well, that would have been indeed the case just 10 years ago, but I have been underwhelmed by David Brin's output lately while Sergey Brin's "output" has been most impressive, not to mention most sciencefictional by the standards of the pre-Internet age! I remember reading ca. 1970 predictions of major libraries being able to exchange cataloging data electronically by the year 2000 and thinking that the authors were by far too optimistic :) Ahasuerus 16:28, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

I'm getting used to the pace of change. I remember being impressed when a memory chip that could hold an entire page of text was made as small as your thumbnail... then an entire book could fit... now you can fit the Entire Encyclopedia Britannica (Deluxe Edition) on an SD card... I'm only editing here because it'll be five years before the computers can do it themselves! ;-) BLongley

Sorry about the name mix-up guys - it's not so much assumptions but that I tend to do this ISFDB stuff when I'm done for the day and it's nearing 2am. I saw the "B" and thought you were the one I called Brian for some reason and now make sure to call Bill. :-) I used to be on top of the pace of change in computing but these days am more of a fascinated bystander as I wonder why my current computer has 1 million x times the capacity of my first system and yet the disks are full. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:11, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

(unindent)The big jumps so far have been from text to pictures and then from pictures to videos. A 2 hour movie takes up 4Gb using the regular DVD format and 10Gb+ in various HD formats. The largest commercially available consumer disk is about 1Tb, so you can only store 250-400 regularly encoded movies (modulo running time) on it. This means that even my modest DVD collection (<5K) would require 15+ disks and things will only get worse with the introduction of HD DVDs. Oh well, there is always next generation hardware :) Ahasuerus 10:15, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

I really don't understand you, Ahasuerus. Your 'modest' collection of DVDs, and your magazine and book collection, SHOULD be enough entertainment for a lifetime. Is there something you know about the date of the Second Coming that we don't, that makes you acquire such vast libraries to pass the time? ;-) BLongley 13:52, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Will answer on Bill's Talk page to avoid confusing poor Brin with endless "New messages" :) Ahasuerus 22:55, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Images

Regarding your publication updates for 187633 and 187637. Please be aware that we need to get permission from 3rd party sites to use their author and book images. See Template:PublicationFields:ImageURL for more information about this. The most practical source for book images at present is Amazon.com though I see that they don't have images that exactly match the ones you selected. When I run into this I either use the "best fit" and explain the differences between what's shown and the physical publication or more often will, scan the cover, upload it to amazon.com, and then link to that. Amazon approves images within 1 to 2 minutes and so it's pretty easy. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:58, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

I've been using Amazon.co.uk, and it's a bit slower. But thankfully still uncontroversial. BLongley 17:43, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

My browser doesn't show a URL for the Amazon images, so I haven't been able to figure out how to get them. Brin1 01:14, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

What browser do you use? With FireFox you right click on the image and select "Copy Image Location". With Internet Explorer 6 you right click, select Properties, and using the mouse you right-click on the URL, select All, right click again, and "Copy." I imagine IE7 is more like what FireFox does.

As far as I know Amazon.co.uk is ok for images though I believe if you look at their image URLs they are coming from Amazon.com. Amazon.co.uk does not support customer images where you can scan in your own covers. Marc Kupper (talk) 10:28, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Eh? It certainly DOES! That's where all mine go, and they don't seem to use them on the US site: e.g. this pub was definitely uploaded to the UK site. They don't seem to like putting them on the product page yet though, but they will at least admit there's a customer image available. BLongley 15:19, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

If you are using Firefox, do you have "Load images for the originating Web site only" checked under Tools/Options? Ahasuerus 11:36, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I've got the hang of it now. Brin1 13:05, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Hmm - I wonder if it's some books you can't upload images for on amazon.uk. I was there not too long ago for a publication that Amazon.com did not have but was on the UK site and was disappointed the option to upload images was not available. The images that you do upload on Amazon.co.uk get stored on Amazon.com. For example, Amazon.co.uk 0708881858 has an image uploaded by Bill Longley but if you look at the image part it's on http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images... exactly the same as a customer uploaded image via amazon.com. I've often puzzled why the various Amazon sites run slightly different versions of the software. Amazon Canada recently upgraded to be the same as USA but the UK server still lags a couple of versions behind. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:23, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Unknown dates

Please use 0000-00-00 for unknown dates rather than "unknown" - ISFDB will usually display these as (unknown). Marc Kupper (talk) 10:28, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Update on this - it turns out that ISFDB could not parse "unknown" and so filled in the date field with 0000-00-00. Marc Kupper (talk) 10:31, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker

I approved your update to title record 25799 but could you also update the note citing the source of the comment you added? The comment was "ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster." Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

I took the comment from my own data base of sf and fantasy books and stories, which I started compiling about 20 years ago, so I can no longer recall where I got the information. However, there is reference to it on Alan Dean Foster's own site (http://www.alandeanfoster.com/version2.0/frameset.htm) under 'bibliography - novels' where it says "Star Wars [ as George Lucas]" Brin1 12:56, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Thank you - I added a title note crediting Alan Dean Foster's web site for now. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

All the Sounds of Fear

Can you double check the pub you verified, as the price looks as though it belongs to the 1981 edition I just verified? £1.25 looks far too expensive for a 1973 UK paperback. BLongley 16:18, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, should have been 1981 - I've submitted a correction Brin1 01:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

OK, now it just looks like a duplicate of mine - is the cover the same? I'll put back a stub entry for the 1973 edition, which seems to have existed, if not necessarily with the same cover or contents. BLongley 13:35, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

The cover is the exact same one Brin1 05:11, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

Amazon cover scans URLs

Hello, when submitting cover scans from Amazon, please try to clean the URLs of parts like "_SS500_": this just adds white margin to a given width, which is completely useless, in fact detrimental, for displaying thumbnails at ISFDB. (Also, for recent books they are often - though not always - available at the standard address images.amazon.com/images/P/10digitISBN.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg which is preferable to the non-obvious codes like ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SH64WNN3L.jpg , even if these are sometimes displayed at Amazon pages.)

Also, per Template:PublicationFields:ISBN codes that aren't real ISBNs should be entered with leading "#" - a. o. this prevents creating bad links to online booksellers etc.

I've corrected those two cases that I approved. Thanks, --JVjr 09:22, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

Art of Star Wars: A New Hope

You submitted an edit to change the date of this publication from 1994 to 1979. I can't find any evidence that this book existed before the 1994 edition (in this form). The 1979 copyright may refer to the screenplay. Can you point me towards any further info? Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:18, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

The reference is from Interzone #91, January 1995, page 66 where it states 'originally published in the USA as The Art of Star Wars, 1979', Brin1 11:15, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Mystery solved. The original title did not include "...A New Hope" (follows along with Lucas' penchant for rewriting history.) I'll create a variant title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:53, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Fantastic Adventures

I've just approved the addition of coverart links for a few of these, but suddenly realised that you're adding the BRITISH edition coverart to the US-priced editions. Are we sure they're the same covers? If not, it might be wiser to clone the pub and add the art to the UK-priced edition: if they are, then we can just add the British price in the notes. BLongley 16:27, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Stowaway to Mars

You verified Stowaway to Mars STWWTMRSHM1972 with the comment "Written as by John Beynon." Did your copy credit John Wyndham or John Beynon on the title page? I have a Fawcett edition STWWTMRSTV1972 that credits John Wyndham and right under that in small type it says "Formerly Planet Plane by John Beynon" which is why I was a little puzzled by the comment on the publication you verified. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:54, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Both the cover and the title page say 'John Wyndham writing as John Beynon'. Brin1 11:18, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Thank you - I updated the pub-note. Marc Kupper (talk) 14:35, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Groff Conklin, Minds Unleashed (AKA Giants Unleashed)

I see you have verified this publication. I just entered another Tempo publication from my collection that shows a printing date of April, 1996, so, given the difference in cover prices and the name change, I'd be inclined to think yours is a later edition. Could you re-check yours? (Scott Latham 19:00, 19 May 2007 (CDT))

You are quite correct, the only date on the printing history page is the copright date, so it probably is later than that, but unfortunately it doesn't say when. Brin1 11:22, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

Forewords

As a FYI - we enter forewords as essays. See what I did with this publication 192465 Arthur C. Clarke's A-Z of Mysteries: From Atlantis to Zombies. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:06, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Noted, thanks Brin1 05:11, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

New Eves

I have approved the submission and added a period to the end of "James Tiptree, Jr."'s name as per our Help pages. However, I was also wondering if "section" was the best way to record the page numbers for the five essays in the Publication. Take a look at the Publication as it currently exists, would you say that the "section"s are somewhat out of place? Ahasuerus 13:29, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Linking to Galactic Central

I see that you have submitted a link to an image hosted by Phil Stephensen-Payne at Galactic Central. Would you happen to know what his policy re: linking to images at his site might be? Thanks! Ahasuerus 05:47, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

I emailed Phil Stephensen-Payne, and this is the reply - "Sure, no problem, as long as there is a note somewhere (not on every image!) and a link to my site" Brin1 12:55, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

Excellent, will do! :) Ahasuerus 13:20, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

Different Seasons / The Shawshank Redemption

I approved adding DFFRNTSSNS1995 but am wondering if the title should be Shawshank Redemption or possibly The Shawshank Redemption as there may be a very faint "The" just above "Shawshank Redemption" on the cover. So far from what is visible on the cover and all three Amazon sites is that the title is Shawshank Redemption but what we care about is the title on the title page. If that is also Shawshank Redemption (or The Shawshank Redemption) then that's the title was use in ISFDB and it's made into a variant title of Different Seasons.

• What title is on the spine?
• What title is on the title page? This is the one we care about but I usually look at the front cover, spine, and title page and if there are discrepancies I add a publication note that explain what title is at each spot.
• Besides the comment at the bottom of the cover, "A novella in Different Seasons", is there any other tie-in to Different Seasons? Often the copyright page will note if the story was previously published under a different title.

Note that there is already a variant title for The Shawshank Redemption as that's how an audiobook edition is titled. Marc Kupper (talk) 13:09, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

I took the information from the 'Books Received' section of Interzone, May 1995, this is the write up -

King, Stephen. Different Seasons "Now a major motion picture.... The Shawshank Redemption." (publication info here). Horror/suspense novella collection, first published in the USA, 1982: the 15th Futura/Warner printing - this one, of course, is the film tie-in edition, with a new cover.

Locus has a description of it at this page - http://www.locusmag.com/index/b268.html#A3790.75 Brin1 15:33, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Thank you - I updated the publication note for DFFRNTSSNS1995. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:55, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Amazing Stories: The Anthology

A question re: Amazing Stories: The Anthology. When you wrote:

"Hellado" as by James Lawson.

did you mean that the story (which had been published pseudonymously in 1993 as per the Locus Index) was reprinted as by James Lawson? Or was it one of those "Alan Dean Foster writing as James Lawson" cases? Thanks! Ahasuerus 13:53, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

It's Alan Dean Foster writing as James Lawson Brin1 14:18, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, I will expand the Notes field and approve it then :) Ahasuerus 14:33, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

The Greatest Show Off Earth

I approved your edit to this pub, but immediately undid the cover art link. That's a pub I own and verified, and it does NOT have this as a cover. It's actually this one, but we don't have permission from that site to use their images. I'll upload mine to somewhere that we do have permissions for at some point, but in the meantime can I ask you not to update image links you're not SURE of?
I don't know what the consensus is on updating pubs verified by other people - personally, I like to be asked if you want to change something I've entered that turned out to be wrong, I want to improve my edits and appreciate people pointing out my mistakes. I normally wouldn't mind people ADDING to the details I've entered - e.g. a lot of my books are second-hand and have the price obscured, so if you have the price and are SURE the publication is the same, go ahead and add what I couldn't. I'm a bit worried I've been a lazy moderator and approved too many "no-brainer" edits from you - but have you been adding cover-art URLs to other verified pubs? It's probably OK for non-verified ones, people can correct it when they do check the potential pub, but I really hope this was your only mistake. BLongley 15:40, 6 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Many apologies, I automatically assumed that the ISBN images from Amazon were correct, but apparently not, so I will not add any others, and have taken your points onboard. Brin1 00:32, 7 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I should have responded earlier to this but the site was down a lot over the weekend. The ISBN images from Amazon ARE almost always correct, but only for ONE publication for sure. With British publications, the cover may last over several printings: US editions which have the price on the front cover vary faster, although some images have those small-type bits so unreadable that it makes no difference. I WILL use a "near enough" picture for cover-art but explain the difference in notes. However, the "ISBN.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" format is only good for the first printing Amazon knows about - if you try changing the ".01." to higher numbers you can hit on the next cover eventually, but I seem to remember having to go to ".41." for one publication (probably one of the early Harry Potter books that have got into seriously silly reprint numbers with only the Award mention or the Critic quote distinguishing between them) and it wasn't worth the effort really. So yes, feel free to hunt down the right image for your publication, but I really wouldn't try and assume that a cover is correct on recent publications. On much older books that were reprinted every few YEARS, rather than every few months or weeks, I might make a strongly-educated guess, but on a verified pub I'd ask if I got it right. BLongley 19:57, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)

This is one of the reasons why I created http://marc.kupper.googlepages.com/isbn as it'll instantly show you the default image from amazon for an ISBN. It's dangerous to link to Amazon for current (in-print) titles because the image will change from time to time as the book is reprinted. It also points out that the ISFDB code needs work.

1. Cache images and at least have a background system that periodically verifies that the images have not changed or been removed. This can be coded external to ISFDB. The image cache is legal as someone (it can be anyone) would simply be keeping their own copy of each file and verifying that the original file does not change.
2. Add a preview thing for editors. It had not occurred to me that editors were not even looking at the images they submitted though I wondered why they sometimes submitted links to blank images. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:28, 7 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Bian Aldiss

You verified publication INTZAUG90 Interzone, August 1990 with

• 15 • Xenophile Tendencies • interview of Bian Aldiss • interview by Colin Greenland

I'm pretty sure that Bian Aldiss should be Brian Aldiss and so went ahead with the correction meaning this is more of a head-up just in case it really is supposed to be Bian Aldiss. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:56, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)

It should be "Bian W. Aldiss" of course. ;-) BLongley 19:31, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Space Opera

I hate to sound suspicious, but does this Pub REALLY have Aldiss as cover artist? BLongley 15:33, 16 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Interzone Vol1, No2, Summer 1982

You verified Interzone Vol1, No2, Summer 1982 with

• # 30 • Helliconia Spring • Brian Aldiss • book review by Fritz R. Leiber (?)

Could you please add an explanation to the publications notes/comments on why the reviewer is stated as "Fritz R. Leiber (?)" in the ISFDB record. Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:14, 15 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Silmarillion

Can you check if your Book Club Silmarillion has this cover please (if your copy still has the dust jacket, of course). 15:17, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)

I'm finally REALLY getting rid of my copy of this as I picked up a First edition for 40p last week. :-) So feel free to over-ride my change if you think your DJ is/would have been different. BLongley 14:32, 9 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The Cosmic Eye

I've added cover-art to your verified pub, please feel free to check it. BLongley 14:17, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)

And here. And here. And here. BLongley 11:57, 27 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Changes to verified pub Fantastic January 1965

I made the following changes to Fantastic Stories of Imagination, January 1965. Changed the title from Fantastic Stories to Fantastic Stories of Imagination - I generally go by the Locus convention on titles. Changed mag date from 1965-00-00 to 1965-01-00 and also dates of the reviews. Entered the binding as 'Digest'. Added a contents page entry for the review column. Changed the authorship of Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce. The editor of the collection was entered as the author. Nice job.--swfritter 08:49, 15 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Added multiple art designators "[x]" and missing illustration to "The Repairmen of Cyclops." Changed page no of illustration from p. 27, to p. 26. Added circulation statement to notes.--Rkihara 22:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to verified pub If Nov. 1960

I've made some changes to your verified pub, If, November 1960. Magazine date change to reflect month, same for stories, illustrations added, description of cover art, and two book reviews.--Rkihara 01:01, 20 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Swords of the Barbarians

Correct cover? BLongley 14:20, 9 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Review question

In this interzone which you verified, there is a review of Agent of Byzantium by Turttledove. Was this review of the expanded edition (which would have been freash out when the review was published? I have recently created a varient title for the expanded edition, and want the reviews to link correctly. -DES ^Talk 11:07, 3 Mar 2008 (CST)

The Warlock in Spite of Himself

I deleted the image from your verified The Warlock in Spite of Himself as it was the one for your verified The Lost Worlds of Cronus. Amazon does have an image for The Warlock in Spite of Himself handy and so you may want to add this to your queue of things to scan and upload. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Verification request

Could you please check this discussion when you get a chance? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Soddit

Added interior artist and map credits to THSDDTHZGF2003 . My copy does not have a jacket. Is the cover artist credited on it? --Bluesman 23:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Subb

This [1] . I submitted a cover image and start page for your verified edition using my copy to recheck the data/image. If you have problems with this please ring my neck. LOL. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

ISFDB editor is not active

Please be aware when you leave a note on this talk page that this editor has not been active since 6 June 2007. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Lost Worlds: Volume 1

I have corrected the spelling of the last word in "The Letter from Mohaun Los" in your verified Lost Worlds: Volume 1: it's "Los" as opposed to "Loss" in my 1975 printing of the same edition. Hope it matches yours! Ahasuerus 02:29, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Changes to Your Verified Pub Asimov's Dec. 1998

Added comment and volume info to notes. Added column "Next Issue." Removed the review of "The Marvelous Land of Snergs," as this is not a review only an announcement of the reprint. Checked transient verification.--Rkihara 17:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Added cover credit

I added cover credit to your verified edition of Reade's QUEST OF THE DARK LADY from signature on cover.Don Erikson 18:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The One Tree -- primary verification

Since you have not been active since mid-2007, I am going to take over primary verification of THNTRFVKZC1982 from you. I have a matching copy and am planning to add notes and a cover image. If you return, you're welcome to have it back! --MartyD 11:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Could you check this verified pub again? I think it has some wrong information, and should be deleted. The book club edition was published in 1980, and has this entry. Thanks Willem H. 20:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas & Dreams

Added a cover image to your verified pub THLLSTRTDB1977 --Rtrace 23:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Conan the Warrior

I removed L. Sprague de Camp as an author from your verified pub CNNTHWRRRT1973, as de Camp only edited the collection. I also added a note to that effect. Thanks. --Rtrace 05:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the cover artist and some more notes. Thanks Willem H. 08:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Conan of Cimmeria

I changed the type of your verified pub, CNNFCMMRNJ1974 from COLLECTION to ANTHOLOGY and it contains stories by Howard alone as well as those by de Camp and Carter without Howard. Thanks. --Rtrace 01:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the cover artist and some notes. Thanks Willem H. 18:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

And added a coverscan. Thanks, Willem H. 19:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The Early Asimov Volume 3

I changed the title of this verified pub from "The Early Asimov Volume 3" to "The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying Volume 3" to match the title page of my copy, and the rest of the series. I also added the price information for Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Thanks Willem H. 15:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Star King

Added a cover image to your verified pub STARKING891978. Thanks. --Rtrace 13:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The Return of the Time Machine

I added thi editor's introduction, interior art and some notes to this verified pub to match my copy. Thanks Willem H. 18:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Conan

I added the cover artist and some notes to this verified pub. Thanks Willem H. 09:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Also added a cover scan. Thanks, Willem H. 19:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Showboat World - added notation

Afternoon! This. [2]. I added notation after matching my copy to your ver. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The Book of Ptath

Added a cover image and a note about the printing number to your verified pub THBKFPTTHQ1969. Thanks. --Rtrace 03:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Missing credits - Nov 1960 If

Hi, the following credits are missing from the listings here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WOFIFNOV1960. Since the three essays are more substantial than the ones usually used as filler (like quotes or spot illustrations) I personally think they pass the threshold for inclusion -- they appear to be original articles and are similar to the science briefs published in groups in later issues by Ted Sturgeon -- but I suppose their inclusion is debatable.

"Mindsnake [2]" interior art by Ritter, p. 15

"After Nature -- What?" essay by uncredited, p. 61

"What's the Good Word?" essay by uncredited, p. 99

"'I Never Carry Money!'" essay by uncredited, p. 129

Cheers Jonschaper 03:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying Volume 3

I added this cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, Willem H. 08:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Conan the Warrior

I added this cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, Willem H. 08:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The Return of the Time Machine

I added this cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, Willem H. 18:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Nebula Award Stories 10

Hi. I have added a couple of notes to this pub that you verified. Cheers, Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 11:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

various cover images

I've submitted the following cover image additions to various pubs for which you are the primary (and usually sole) verifier:

• The Warlock in Spite of Himself - this image --MartyD 13:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

• Traitor to the Living - this image --MartyD 13:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

• The Fabulous Riverboat - this image --MartyD 13:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Subb 2

I added the publication month and some notes to this verified pub to match my copy. Thanks, Willem H. 21:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction

Hi. Could you please re-check a few things in this verified pub, I have another pub with some differences which makes me think that some cleanup is needed.

• Is your pub really a paperback, or is it a trade paperback?
• Since the pub contains a foreword that is paginated with roman numerals, the pub's page count should probably be updated to "x+562" or something similar that matches your book
• Does your copy have a numberline? If so it would be nice if you could add the information which printing you have to the pub notes.
• The essay/foreword "Extreme Science Fiction" appeared twice in your pub, and also in this unverified pub. After checking with The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 2006 I am sure that this is a mistake. I have taken the liberty to delete the title record which was dated 2005-12-00. If you disagree we'll have to recreate the record...
• Does the story "Waterworld" appear as by "Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D", or as by "Stephen L. Gillett"?

Thanks for checking, Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 00:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Brin1 hasn't been active on the Wiki for over two years, so don't hold your breath waiting for a reply. He or She was quite a prolific editor and verifier though, and did enter a lot of British books before I could get to them. Now we have multiple Primary Verifications I expect I'll take on some more Verifier responsibilities for Brin1's pubs, but I'm afraid this isn't one of them. (Yet!) BLongley 00:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

If Brin1 follows about the same pattern as I, he/she should resurface real soon now :-) In the meantime, don't worry, this request has already landed on my long-term issue shelf. Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 22:33, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The Sorcerer's Skull

I added this cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, Willem H. 14:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Time and stars

Added a cover scan and note here Hauck 15:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Pirates of the Asteroids - added cover/notation

Morning! This. [3]. I added this cover image, [4], after eliminating the Pennington cover. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The light that never was

Added a cover scan and note to your verified here. Hauck 10:43, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The Fabulous Riverboat

Replaced the amazon scan on your verified here, perhaps lower copy quality but the previous one was not the right one (note ISBN on bottom left). Hauck 12:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The I Inside

Added a cover scan and note to your verified here. Hauck 16:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Green Mars

Added a cover scan and note to your verified here. Hauck 14:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Omni Comix

Hi, please see discussion here. CHeers

Phantastes

I added Phantastes to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy pub series. I believe that the Pan/Ballantine reprints were still part of the Adult Fantasy series and included the unicorn colophon on the cover and the Lin Carter introductions. Please let me know if this is a mistake. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 11:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Beyond the Golden Stair

I added Beyond the Golden Stair to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy pub series. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 23:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

cover for Star Probe

Editor Hoddy added a cover scan to your verified {P|180097|Star Probe}}. --MartyD 11:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Mindswap

Replaced the amazon scan on your verified here. Hauck 13:48, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Slaves of the Klau

Added a cover and notes to your verified here. Hauck 18:07, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Damnation Alley

Replaced the amazon scan on your verified here. Hauck 20:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Empire of the Atom

Added a cover scan and notes for your verified here. Hauck 12:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Wizard of Storms

I added a cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, --Willem H. 15:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

First Flight - added cover image/cover artist/notation

Morning! This. [5]. I matched my copy to your ver and then added a cover image, crediting from Jane Frank and notation. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The mammoth book of extreme sf

Replaced the amazon scan on your verified here. Hauck 17:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Interzone

I'm verifying my IZ collection and will likely made some changes to some of your verified pubs (essentially replacing Visco or GC scans by my own). Hauck 13:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Flurb: A Webzine of Astonishing Tales, Issue #1, Fall, 2006

I added a note that Kris Saknussemm's name was misspelled "Kris Saknussem" and created a variant title/pseudonym pair. Ahasuerus 02:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Sailing to Utopia

I added price to this verified pub and this verified pub. Thanks! P-Brane 04:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC).

The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas & Dreams

I changed the author of this verified pub to David Kyle. Thanks! P-Brane 11:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC).

Nebula Science Fiction

Just in case, I'm going to replace the extrernal scans and made some changes to the whole run of this pub. Hauck 12:09, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Beyond Fantasy & Science Fiction #3, Sep/Oct 1995

Just a note that the name of the cover artist in this pub has been changed from "Boris Vellejo" to "Boris Vallejo". The cover image credits "Vallejo", so presumably it was a data entry error rather than a typo in the pub. Ahasuerus 15:10, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

new Sword of Truth entries

Hi. Some notes about your two Sword of Truth submissions:

• They duplicated two existing entries (for ISBN 9780752889801 and ISBN 9780752889795). Those were added by Dissembler and had no verifications or notes, so I will approve yours and delete the Dissembler ones. Under other circumstances, I would have had to reject yours as duplicates. You can search by ISBN in the "Search the database" area at the left of all of the ISFDB screens -- the drop-down menu below the spot where you can type has various criteria, one of which is ISBN (it will do partial ISBNs, too).

• This one bites just about everyone.... The "Pub Series" field when adding a new publication is for a publisher series (e.g., Gollancz SF) not a title series. The easy way to tell one from another is to ask yourself if a different publisher published the book, would the series remain the same? If so, it's a title series. In this case, Sword of Truth is a title series (it already exists, and the titles are already in it). You can't provide a title series when adding a new publication; you have to wait until it's approved, then edit the title to put it in the series.

• I see you link the covers to brin1.com. I assume that's your site? If so and you haven't already done it, would you please send an email to isfdb <dot> moderators <at> gmail <dot> com giving the ISFDB permission to link to images hosted on that site (see ISFDB:Image linking permissions)? And if it's not your site, then you should probably upload those images to the ISFDB instead.

Thanks. --MartyD 11:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

I added the books (three now, sorry) because there is a slight difference in the number of pages and there was no cover image for comparison. Noted on the Pub series, and have sent an email as it is my site.

Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brin1 (talk • contribs) .

No problem. If you see "Dissembler" or "Fixer" or any reference to Amazon, feel free to adjust anything to match what you see in the book. The Amazon listings are based on announcements and are not necessarily very accurate; the entries here are sort of glorified placeholders, just waiting for editors with books in hand to come by and correct them. :-) --MartyD 13:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

But now I think you did something to yourself. Your new Phantom appears to be a duplicate of your own primary-verified Phantom. You may want to check and consolidate the two entries and delete one of them. --MartyD 13:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Welcome Back!

That's the first edit I've seen from you in over four years! BLongley 15:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Brin1 16:27, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Lord Foul's Bane

I'm holding the submission adding a new record for this title because of the publisher credit. Are you certain that Fontana is credited as the publisher on the book's title page? It seems that Voyager had already taken over the Fontana imprint by the time this printing appeared. The unverified 1996 record which gives Voyager / HarperCollins as the publisher (with the same ISBN and price) may be incorrect, but that record appears to have been created from a Locus1 listing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

It is correct and the next two in the series are the same. I have scanned in the publication page. Brin1 18:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

What is the stated publisher on the book's title page and spine? Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Title page and spine are both Fontana Brin1 19:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting - after the "reprinted 27 times" there's a number-line indicating a second printing. So I guess this is the second printing of the 1996 edition, after 27 printings of the 1978 edition. It's probably 1996 or 1997 as after that the prices rose. BLongley 18:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Belgarath the Sorcerer

Hi. I've put your proposed edit to Belgarath the Sorcerer that would change the price to £7.99 on hold. It looks like this entry is already there for the £7.99 one (with the same ISBN). There is a Locus1 listing for a £6.99 edition published July 1996. What do you think? --MartyD 01:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I missed my own entry! Perhaps the Locus entry is incorrect as the price on mine is definitely £7.99 and Locus does not list it at this price? Brin1 07:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Did you know you can search by ISBN? You can use ISBN-10 or ISBN-13, and it should find all matching instances, whether they have been entered with the same ISBN or the shorter/longer alternate. That will often get you a shorter list than the title's bibliography page, making it easier to spot what you're looking for. As for the one you want to modify, it is possible Locus is incorrect. It's also possible yours is a different edition. What is the statement of publication, and is there a number line? --MartyD 10:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I have scanned in the publication page. Brin1 13:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I would guess the "14" immediately below the "This paperback edition 1996" indicates this is an (undated) 14th printing. That would be consistent with the different price (if £6.99 for the July '96 edition is indeed correct). Also, if you look at the listings for 1996 for Voyager / HarperCollins, you'll see the typical pb prices ranged £5.99 - £6.99, further suggesting that one priced at £7.99 was published later. Are there any ads in the back that have dates or ISBNs on them, or any "other titles" announcements? If you can find a date or a reference to a book that first appeared later than 1996, that would also help confirm this one wasn't published in 1996. --MartyD 16:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

There are no other references in the book and an ISBN search only brings up the July 1996 edition. Brin1 17:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Marty's right - it's an undated 14th printing and should be 0000-00-00. One clue is the mention of voyager-books.com, which wasn't registered until 1998-08-25. BLongley 18:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The proposed edit (for the 1st printing) should i.m.o. be rejected. Instead this record should have the date zeroed. I agree it's a 14th printing. --Willem H. 18:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all. I am going to reject the proposed price change. Assuming this entry is based on that same scanned page, you should change the date from 1996-00-00 to 0000-00-00 and add a note stating this is the 14th printing according to the number line and that the 1996 seems to be referring to the first Voyager printing. --MartyD 10:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go [2]

There is already a [record] for the SFBC edition. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Foundation's Edge

Since this title already exists, with multiple editions/printings, the way to add another publication to the title would be to use "Add Publication To This Title" from the editing tools, not "Add New Novel". Using the former automatically merges the pub you want to enter under the existing title. By using the second method there would be TWO separate title records that would then need to be merged. The only time you should use the second method is if the title does not already exist in the database. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Noted, thanks. Brin1 06:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Silverthorn

If the price of your copy is higher it's likely a later printing and should not have a 1996 date. Is there a number line or [as is more common with UK editions] a "reprinted XXXX' on the copyright page? --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Under 'This paperback edition 1996' it has 13 15 14 12 . I am becoming familiar with this as per the comments for 'Belgarath the Sorcerer' above. Thanks. Brin1 04:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

This indicates a 12th printing. Number lines usually begin with a full set of numbers from 1 to n, with a number removed for each printing; the lowest remaining number indicates the current printing. The number line you have here on a first edition would have looked like

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 14 12 10 8 6 4 2

or

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

(with more numbers added in later). Sometimes the number line has a second part, with a year (usually 2-digit) in similar style. E.g.,

00 01 02 03 04 05  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

would indicate a 2nd printing in 2000. --MartyD 10:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Brin1 06:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Nebula Awards Six

Found artist for your verified here. Hauck 15:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The galactic riddle

Found artist and added cover scan for your verified here. Hauck 20:28, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Beyond Fantasy & Science Fiction #1, April/May 1995

Just to let you know that Gary M. Gibson's review of Jonathan Lethem in your verified Beyond Fantasy & Science Fiction #1, April/May 1995 has been turned into a variant title. Thanks. Ahasuerus 23:52, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

New Writings in SF 19

Several of our records for books in this series may have incorrect titles, including one that you have verified. Please see this discussion for full details. The following book is the one where I suspect the title is incorrect. I'd appreciate it if you could double check the form of the title in your copy.

• Corgi edition as "New Writings in SF 19". should it be "New Writings in SF—19"?

Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:29, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

I added a publication series and a link to the cover image to Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:01, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Panther / Grenada books

In standardizing some of our "Publisher" listings to the standard "Imprint / Publisher" format, I'm updating your verified Bearing an Hourglass and On a Pale Horse, both by Piers Anthony, from "Granada (Panther Books)" to "Panther / Granada". Chavey 15:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The Jesus Incident Frank Herbert , Bill Ransom 1980

Added cover for this pub BarDenis 21:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Kothar - Barbarian Swordsman

Added a cover to Kothar - Barbarian Swordsman as the existing link was broken. Also added UK cover price. Regards, Nimravus 14:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein 1977

Added cover for this pub BarDenis 21:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories

I'm entering a different edition of your verified The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. I am going to merge the bibliography and sources titles to ones that have the title of the collection appended, similar to what is done with the introduction. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sphere ed. of The World of Null-A

Please take a look at this record and see if it matches the record you've verified. They appear identical except for the ISBN / Catalog number field. Please get with the verifier of the other record to see if one of the records should be deleted from the db.

One more thing. I'm assuming you're are the owner of the website that is hosting the images you have linked to ISFDB records (www.brin1.com). If so, you need to grant us permission to deep-link to them, knowing that any db user going to these records will be using the bandwidth from your server to display the images. (BTW, the images are rather large and take several seconds to load, at least when I go the records). Mhhutchins 05:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, some time ago, about 200 of the images disappeared completely from the records. Without one to compare URLs it's impossible to know if something changed at your end or ours. FYI. I've held the image addition to "Towers of Sunset" until this gets sorted out. No point hosting them if they just disappear! ;-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

You can delete my Null-A record as I am not sure where I got the ISBN from!

It is my website and you have my permission. The images vanished before because I had changed web hosts and completely forgot to put the page of images back up. My appologies for that. And I will reduce the image size.

A little help if you would be so kind. I have noticed a couple of errors in an Analog listing, can I simply ammend the errors or do I need to do something else as well (eg. author name listed as 'Shelly' and should be 'Shelley')? Thanks. Brin1 04:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Space Family Stone

I took the liberty to delete your verified pub for the NEL 1st printing of this title as it was in duplicate with this one. Hauck 17:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Date formats

I accepted the submission to update the author data for J. R. Dunn in order for you to see the result. Because you only gave the year in the birthdate field, "1953" is displayed as "unknown". It should be in the format YYYY-MM-DD or "1953-00-00". Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It's been a couple of days with no response so I thought I'd bump you on this again. Mhhutchins 14:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Mindswap

Added cover to this verified pub. Chhers, P-Brane 03:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

Syzygy

Hi, I dicovered the signature of Bergen on the backside of Syzygy (Arrow, 1975).--Dirk P Broer 12:17, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

The Hallowed Hunt

Can you see if your primary verified record of this title is not the same edition that was verified by two other editors here? Your record is almost identical except it lacks a price and a month of publication. If you determine it's the same edition, please do a primary verification of the other record and delete the one you verified. (I could have done it the other way around, because yours was the first verified record, but it's easier to get one person to move than to get two other agree and then move their verifications.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference in the number of pages, mine only has 372pp whereas the other two have 470pp, so I assumed it would be a slightly different layout. Also mine was purchased in the UK so would not be priced in $$ (if it had a price). Does this suffice to leave it? Brin1 05:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Their record must have the wrong page count, because OCLC gives it as 372. (I'll ask the active editor to check his copy again.) I didn't think that HarperCollins used the Eos imprint in the UK, so can you check your copy to see where it was published? It could be the US printing exported to the UK. Also check to see if there's a number line or stated date of publication in your copy. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:37, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It states on the inside back dust-jacket 'Printed in the U.S.A'. There is no publication information (date-wise) other than copyright 2005. There is the number 1184780 bottom right rear outside dust-jacket. Brin1 07:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Is the country of the publisher stated inside the book? Is there a number line on the copyright page? Mhhutchins 17:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I've figured it out. Your copy is a book club printing. Starting in the 1990s, the SFBC edition reprints the copyright page of the original publisher's edition, retaining its ISBN. We only record those ISBNs in the note field and use the SFBC identifier (1184780) in the ISBN/Catalog # field. Please consider moving your verification to this record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Showboat World

I just added notes and cover art credit to Showboat World -- since the art appears in Jim Burns' artbook Lightship it's a sure bet he did the cover ^_^ Ofearna 10:54, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Interzone #86

Changed review of Kooperation from review to essay. Hauck 16:27, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

[The] Readers

Hi! Changed Readers-> The Readers, per isfdb convention, for this pubs: 1 and 2. Cheers, P-Brane 02:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC).

The Secret People

Hi, I just added cover artist Colin Hay to this Coronet 1977 edition. Horzel 10:51, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Nebula Awards 10

Just added cover artist Tony Roberts to this Corgi 1977 publication. Horzel 13:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Added additional international prices

I added additional prices to your verified [6].05:02, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Added additional international prices

Added additional international prices to your verified [7].Don Erikson 18:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Wizard of Storms

Just added cover artist O'Brien to this publication. Horzel 11:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Cover credit for Dragonquest

What is the source for the cover art credit you want to add to this record? Mhhutchins 16:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I've rejected the submission due to no response. If you're certain of this cover credit, make a new submission and add the source for your data in the record's note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The Cloud Walker

Hi, I replaced the cover scan for The Cloud Walker (Coronet, 1975) with a wrap-around scan.--Dirk P Broer 16:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The Best of John Wyndham

Added cover artist Patrick Woodroffe to this publication. Horzel 16:12, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The World Inside

The cover artist was credited on this website [8] as Dean Ellis Welshgriffin 20:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You should link the record to which you are referring. Since there are several publication records for this title, it helps to provide a link to the correct one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Jizzle

Have added notes to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?180921 to align it with the other other edition that year, will also add cover image.Prof beard 15:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Jizzle

I've added a cover scan to: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?180921 Prof beard 10:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Phantastes

Have added a cover scan to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?179993 Prof beard 13:31, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I added the other prices to your verified

I added the other prices to your verified [9] & [10].Don Erikson 19:11, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

A Piece of Martin Cann

Have replaced Amazon link with a scan of a verified copy http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?960 Prof beard 12:47, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Swords against Death

Added some notes to your verified, and uploaded a new cover scan (better definition). Thanks. Linguist 15:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC).

Dragondrums

Added some notes to your verified, identified artist and uploaded a new cover scan (whole wraparound). Thanks. Linguist 13:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC).

Holdstock Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Re this book. I have added the following note to the record. I have confirmed this note as I own both the Octopus and Cathay editions and compared the relevant page - text of note below.
Page 91 has sidebar text on right above the Angus McKie illustration that reads "A V2 rocket in a spinning top - Alex Schomberg's cover from Thrilling Wonder seems hopelessly dated now, unlike many pulp magazines of the time." There is space above for a small image that is apparently missing. This text not present in the Octopus edition. --Mavmaramis 17:29, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Macdonald - Phantastes

Replaced cover for this book with full wraparound version. --Mavmaramis 18:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Perry Rhodan UK (Orbit)

Replaced covers for 9 of the first 13 UK editions of this series with full wraparounds. I though rather than leave you individual messages I'd leave just the one with link to series page here if you wanted to check. Hope that's ok. --Mavmaramis 19:02, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Escape to Venus

Replaced Amazon cover of this book with one scanned from my own copy. --Mavmaramis 19:15, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Orbit 4

Replaced cover of this book with full wraparound version. --Mavmaramis 08:00, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Space Opera (BCA)

Added cover scan to this book and added Eddie Jones as artist - same illustration as Futura and W&N editions. --Mavmaramis 15:25, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Guernica Night

Replaced cover of this book with full wraparound. Artwork extend to cover half of the rear cover. --Mavmaramis 18:50, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

The Trikon Deception - pub notes

I've added pub notes on artist credit and pricing to your PV1'd The Trikon Deception Astrodan 15:54, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Triplanetary

Added an image on this pub thank you. William 21:48, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Bearing an Hourglass

I've uploaded a less fuzzy front cover of this book Bearing an Hourglass AndyjMo 21:12, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

The Martian Way

I've added a note to The Martian Way as it states on the copyright page "Panther edition published February 1965" AndyjMo 20:26, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

The Stars Like Dust

I've added the Printing History from the copyright page for The Stars Like Dust AndyjMo 09:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Gentle's Cartomancy

Added a cover scan to our verified Cartomancy. PeteYoung 10:57, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Krondor: The Betrayal

I've added some notes and a reference to the map for Krondor: The Betrayal. --AndyjMo 10:57, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I've done the same for Krondor: The Assassins. --AndyjMo 11:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

And (lastly) the same for Krondor: Tear of the Gods. --AndyjMo 11:12, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Dragonsong

I added cover art credit to Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong since it matches all the others with that cover. Susan O'Fearna 20:49, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Triplanetary

Cover artist Chris Foss put to this pub. --Zapp 20:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)--Zapp 20:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The Spellsong War

I've updated The Spellsong War with the Publication Month from Locus1, added some extra Notes and referenced the Map. --AndyjMo 11:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The Sleeping Sorceress

Added source of the Cover Artist to The Sleeping Sorceress. --AndyjMo 16:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Prince Caspian

Image URL found for this pub. --Zapp 12:26, 18 July 2017 (EDT)
Guess is't of 1974 when Amazon offer is the same. --Zapp 12:35, 18 July 2017 (EDT)

Edmund Crispin - The Stars and Under

I verified a 1975 reprint of this book intially adding it as new entry then found yours. I deleted that entry and re-verified adding notes and a new cover scan. --Mavmaramis 13:02, 2 April 2019 (EDT)

Guardians of the West

Hello, I've added the cover artist. Regards Henna 12:20, 20 August 2019 (EDT)

Pirates of the Asteroids

Replaced Amazon cover of this with one scanned from my own copy. --Mavmaramis 07:53, 16 January 2021 (EST)

The Horror in the Museum and Other Tales

Added notes to this --Mavmaramis 12:47, 6 August 2021 (EDT)