User talk:J-Sun

Welcome!

Hello, J-Sun, 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
• Field-by-field guide to entering new publications into the database
• Help:Getting Started
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• Wiki Conventions - How things are usually done on this wiki.
• Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Stonecreek 10:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Your edits were perfect! . . .

. . . thanks for submitting them. But nobody is constantly perfect and so the respective editors who submitted the initial shortfictions didn't catch it when submitting (and didn't so later) - so it's good to have a second look on everything!

On the matter of NONGENRE material: well, strictly speaking, they wouldn't belong here, but we overcame at one point to have all works by writers who are major authors of speculative fiction (and really are prominent through their sf work). Robert Silverberg does certainly fit into this category, for other writers this is debatable (and is debated from time to time) on the Community Portal or the page for Rules and standards discussions. Check it out or ask there if you are not sure in some cases. Again, thank you! Stonecreek 10:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome and the comments. As far as Silverberg, while he is inarguably an SF giant, the problem with allowing his non-SF is that it then opens up a huge can of words, so to speak. He's written a lot of non-SF. But, as you say, I may take that up in the appropriate place later.

According to ISFDB:Policy, we include "[w]orks (both fiction and non-fiction) which are not related to speculative fiction, but were produced by authors who have otherwise published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold". Although this "threshold" can be hard to define in borderline cases, Silverberg is clearly head and shoulders above it, so ideally we should have all of his books listed. Ahasuerus 06:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The challenge with prolific writers like Silverberg is the sheer number of works involved. We currently have 2,806 title records either attributed to Silverberg or related to him in some fashion (reviews/interviews.) It makes his Summary Page hard to navigate and puts an extra load on the server whenever it has to display the page. It's even worse when you ask the server to compile a list of suspected duplicate titles -- the poor thing has to traverse 2,806 titles 2,806 times, i.e. a grand total of over 7 million (!) comparison. And the total rises to 17 million in Asimov's case since we have 4,326 of his titles on file. We have a Feature Request to make the process faster, but I haven't had a chance to work on it yet. That said, adding Silverberg's softcore porn novels from the 1960s (under 300, right?) shouldn't have that much of an impact on performance. Ahasuerus 06:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

One more thing. At the moment, the software assumes that "NONGENRE" titles are always novel, so entering non-genre collections and especially short fiction is not really supported. We plan to make it either to enter them, hopefully in 2013. Ahasuerus 06:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of, I've finally read the direct links the welcome template points me to and some follow-on links (there's an overwhelming amount of information here) but I'm still not sure I'm clear on what the appropriate place is for some things. Basically, I'm supposed to only respond on this page and ask questions on help or mod pages? Because, while it's not very important at the moment, I can't seem to edit User:J-Sun, which seems odd to me. So I should ask about such things at the help desk? It seems like most of those questions are about the real work of the ISFDB and not about "personal problems", so to speak. --J-Sun 04:38, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Editors' User pages are typically used to provide information about yourself (entirely optional, of course) and/or as a place where the editor lists the projects that s/he is currently working on. Unfortunately, we have had numerous problems with spambots over the years, so we had to tweak our Wiki settings to limit new users to posting on Talk pages. Once you have accumulated a certain number of Wiki edits, you will be able to edit all Wiki pages, including your User page. Ahasuerus 06:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The Pleasure of Our/Their Company

Hi. FYI, Locus1 lists both "Our" and "Their" variations of that title. Other places seem to corroborate that. So a variant was the right thing to do. --MartyD 12:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good to know - and I'm glad I got it right despite not being sure about the titles. :) --J-Sun 04:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

O Correio do Tempo

Good catch - O Correio do Tempo turned out to be a Portuguese translation of Up the Line. Ahasuerus 03:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks and thanks for finding that out. I forgot to mention another case like that, except that it's a story: 1518433 ("Un loup dans la ménagerie") seems to mean "A Wolf in the Zoo" but I know of no such Silverberg title. --J-Sun 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

This list of French translations of Silverberg's works lists it as "(?)", so you are not alone. It's even (remotely) possible that the author was someone else, e.g. Larry Niven's 1971 "There's a Wolf in My Time Machine" comes to mind. We have a number of stories whose authors' names were mangled by foreign publishers. Ahasuerus 06:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

But I also (think I) know that he published no original short fiction in 1977. --J-Sun 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Its first appearance as "Un loup dans la ménagerie" was in 1977, but the English original -- whatever it may have been -- was presumably published earlier. Ahasuerus 06:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

(This relates to the above point about proper places - should I drop a note to User:Hauck (primary verifier) or drop a note on a mod page or some other option? --J-Sun 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, you can start with Hauck's Talk page -- he is also a moderator and knows a lot about about French SF and translations. Ahasuerus 06:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Some Will Not Die and False Night

I had to reject the submission to variant the first title with the latter one. The variant relationship is used to designate a change in author credit, or change in title. It can not be used to indicate a change in text. If the 1961 novel is a substantial expansion of the 1954 work, it is considered a separate title for ISFDB purposes. Unfortunately, there is currently no ISFDB function that is used to relate one title to another (expanded, abridged, revised, etc.) We have to resort to explaining the relationship in the title's note field. Perhaps that may change in a future software update. For now, we keep the titles separate. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 04:08, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I understand - sorry about that. Thanks for the information. -J-Sun 03:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

'Amaryllis' and 'Astrophilia'

Hi J-Sun, after some consideration I've rejected your edits for the two above short stories by Carrie Vaughn to be linked under the series title "Ecological Distress", as they were vaguely described by Gardner Dozois. I agree with you, there are indeed thematic similarities in the stories but, in the absence of any actual written reference to a series name, it's almost certainly worth checking with the author first to establish if they're intentionally part of the same 'universe'. However, to pursue your observation further, I have contacted Carrie Vaughn via her website to establish if the stories are related, and if she has a collective name for them (or indeed it's 'universe' title, if any). I'll certainly get back to you if she replies, and please don't let recent rejections deter you from contributing! PeteYoung 04:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem - I should have thought to take that preliminary step, myself. --J-Sun 04:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

"Allegiances" and "After the War"

Hi. We don't want to make relationships between titles based on guesses, especially where there's some sort of authoritative documentation (here, the introductory notes in Engine of Recall) that indicates something else. What we would do in a situation like that is put the information in the notes on both titles. But, what I'd suggest you do is try to confirm your guess. I see KarlSchroeder.com has a contact form]. You can explain you are an ISFDB contributor and are trying to figure out if "Allegiances" and "After the War" are the same story and see if you get an answer. If you get confirmation that they are the same, then I will accept the submission, and you would then record in the titles the confirmation as the source of the linkage. If you would rather I did this, let me know: I am happy to try to ask. Thanks. --MartyD 12:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I apparently didn't express myself clearly in the mod notes - the EOR notes say that "Allegiances" was published in Touch and the ISFDB says "Allegiances" was published only in EOR so we know for a fact (or at least have the author's authority for the statement) that at least the ISFDB "Allegiances" entry is wrong (or incomplete, rather). I just noticed that "After the War" is also listed as being published in Touch. So either he published two stories in the same anthology (possible but unlikely - almost impossible given the nature of the theme anthology) or it's a variant title. (Or the title cited by the secondary source is a pre-print "ghost" title that was changed before the book was released.) I understand not wanting to guess and agree generally but we know some of the current information is wrong and the Touch item is only secondarily verified, so is a guess after its fashion already. All that aside, though, I did contact the author (his website, anyway) last night (or this morning, depending on how you look at it) but haven't gotten a reply yet. But thanks for your reply and the details about citing that as a source for linkage - I'd have probably neglected that part, if it does come to pass. But when you say "record in the titles", what do you mean - add a 'Note' in the 'Title Editor' page or something more specific? --J-Sun 22:21, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I got a reply and Karl Schroeder confirms that they are variant titles but it's a case where the intended title was "Allegiances" but it was changed for the anthology and then restored for the collection. But I guess we're talking bibliographically here, so I guess "After the War" is the "original" title and "Allegiances" is the variant. --J-Sun 12:37, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

We have the option to make the author's preferred title as the canonical (parent) title, and often do. You'll have to cancel the submission currently in the queue. Then make "After the War" a variant of "Allegiances". (Click on After the War, then choose "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work". On the next screen enter "414441" in the parent number field. Mhhutchins 17:50, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, cool - I thought it was strictly a "chronological precedence" thing. Thanks for the info and will do. --J-Sun 23:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

If you click the title on the author's summary page, you open the title record. If you click on "Edit Title Data" under the Editing Tools menu, you can edit any of the fields, including adding information (such as sources) in the "Notes" field. Be careful about editing the title or author fields, especially if the title has been published in a primary verified publication. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. --J-Sun 12:37, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Lights in the Deep

Submission to update this publication was accepted, but I have to question the titles of the introductions. Do they really have the author's names in their titles? That is, on page 1, is the introduction title "Introduction 1 - Stanley Schmidt" with an author credit of Stanley Schmidt? The Amazon "look-inside" shows it clearly as "Introduction 1" and credited to "Stanley Schmidt". If that's the case of your copy, the ISFDB record should show the title as "Introduction 1 (Lights in the Deep)", because we disambiguate generic titles. That same pattern should be used for the other two introductions.

About the dating: if the book explicitly states it was published in August 2013, the record's date field should be entered as "2013-08-00". You can provide the exact date in the Note field, giving the source for the date (probably Amazon.) Also any contents which are original to the collection, i.e. this is their first publication, then the dates of the contents should be the same as the date of the publication. Thanks. Mhhutchins 07:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

In my physical book, the ToC lists the intros exactly as I gave them (except it's an mdash instead of an ascii hyphen. On the intros themselves, it has "Introduction N" and a newline and Author. There's no "by" or anything to indicate that it's not part of the title - there's no author credit at all, except on the extended copyright page. I'll grant that that's what it's intended to mean and I'll be happy to change it if you think that's more appropriate, but I just entered it into the db literally.

I've submitted a modification of the Year with Pub Note as you advised. --J-Sun 09:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Aha. On a second look, I see that the extended copyright page does say that "Introduction N" (not "Introduction N - Author") is copyright "Author". So I guess it just depends on whether the ISFDB's ToC should reflect the book's ToC or the copyright data. --J-Sun 10:03, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for assistance about More Than Human

If you have questions about a title or publication, it is best to post a message on the ISFDB:Help desk, rather than ask them in the "Note to Moderator" field of a submission. It may get a faster response as more moderators monitor that help page than are working on the submissions queue. Also, there's really no other way to respond to a question or concern except here on the ISFDB wiki (moderators can't make direct responses to submissions, we can only accept them, reject them or hold them.) Thanks.

Now to your question: you're correct. More Than Human is not a fix-up. It only expands on a previously published novella. I'll accept your submission and make the changes in the separate records as well. Even though the last two parts were never published separately, they are "famous" enough that it's a good idea to have a record for those titles in the database. I'll link each of them back to the title record for More Than Human. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Mhhutchins 01:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you - I'll try to remember that. And thanks for the additional edits - all the changes look great. --J-Sun 02:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Special Wonder

Re this record: I moved the Library of Congress number from the ISBN/Catalog # field to the Note field, per ISFDB standards, linking it to the record on the LoC website. Please do a primary verification of the record when you get a chance. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:28, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you - will do. --J-Sun 00:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

New Frontiers

Added all the Introductions and the few Afterwords to the contents for [this]. Unfortunately each one has a specific title, so not much choice. Such are often left out of the contents of a record if they are untitled as then we'd have to invent a title ... around and around. --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:20, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I left them out because it seems like clutter (and a lot of effort ;)) to me but some entries go the full nine yards so thanks for finishing it off. --J-Sun 04:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

"Tales from Gavagan's Bar", by L. Sprague de Camp+Fletcher Pratt

You submitted a suggested change to the Notes for this publication, to change the description from "expanded' by one story" to "expanded by six stories", based on your note that "This and the Owlswick are listed as having 29 stories vs. the Twayne's 23." But this book has been verified from physical copies by 5 different editors. If you believe the original description is inaccurate, then you should discuss this with primary verifier #2, which is Willem H. (the primary 1 verifier is no longer active). Chavey 06:48, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

But this doesn't contradict the primary verification at all - it uses the primarily verified books and simple math to show that the person who wrote the note made a simple error in the note - not in the primarily verified material. But I'll contact Willem H. --J-Sun 07:59, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

There's no statement in the book about the number of stories added, so the note should indeed be changed like J-Sun suggested. Thanks for finding this, I corrected the note. --Willem 18:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of that.

Different subject, for anyone who may read this: what's the recommended way of getting rid of the "There are new messages on your Talk page. Please follow this link and respond" message when no response is especially called for? All I can think of is maybe to just create a fake minor edit and then revert it or something but that sure doesn't seem right. --J-Sun 10:35, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The message should disappear when you visit your talk page. No need to edit anything. Maybe refresh the page with the message afterwards? --Willem 10:59, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so it's dependent on visiting rather than editing. I'm not sure what happened before because I probably tried refreshing and I'd definitely entirely closed the browser repeatedly for days and still had the yellow message whenever I came back (not to mention opening and closing tabs) unless I edited the page but, yeah, when I just hit refresh this time, it did go away. Thanks. --J-Sun 23:51, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Padgett's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Fairy Chessmen

You may be interested in this discussion. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 00:54, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Nowadays to be found here.--Dirk P Broer 04:43, 27 June 2021 (EDT)

Pseudonyms

Hi. Thanks for the nice find on Oxford Williams -> Ben Bova. When you are dealing with something like that, don't forget to make the pseudonym relationship as well (go to the pseudonym's page, and pick Make/Remove a Pseudonym from the menu at the left). You can do that and the variants in parallel, and it's usually best to submit both so that the moderators know one of the two actions hasn't been forgotten. I did it for Williams, so just something to keep in mind for the future. Thanks! --MartyD 11:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know about that part. Thank you very much for the information and for the assist. --J-Sun 12:01, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Fathoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2

I accepted your edits to Fathoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2. However, you credit the essay to "Kristine Kathryn Rush". Would you please double check that is not Kristine Kathryn Rusch? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - I was just posting on another mod's page about that - it's definitely supposed to be Rusch but I didn't see it until it was flagged as "New Author" on the submission form after I'd already submitted it. Sorry. I fixed it. --J-Sun 21:12, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Horizon Books

I approved your submission of the Gardner Dozois omnibus. You are adding the contents correctly. An alternative would be to add all the stories in both pieces of the omnibus individually; that way you could add all the stories in one edit. But I would do the same thing you are doing because it's easier. Actually, you could have added the second volume contents without waiting for moderator approval on the first. By the point the second addition comes up, the first one would have been approved (or rejected, I suppose), and the new contents would simply be added to the "old". But what you're doing is just fine. Bob 14:05, 31 March 2020 (EDT)

I didn't realize I could do both edits without waiting to see if the first was approved but it makes sense - I should have thought of it. Thank you! --J-Sun 17:45, 31 March 2020 (EDT)

Jules Verne translations

I have been documenting the various translations of Jules Verne's works and trying to identify a piece of text from each translation so editors can position their publications under the correct title record. You are on record as a primary verifier for one or more publications for which I am looking for text or which are placed under a generic translation title. I would be grateful if you could assist in this by checking your copies, as listed below, and providing the initial text for missing translations or an indication of the translation for those unspecified. These are listed on the Jules Verne Translations wiki. Thank you. ../Doug H 14:16, 10 May 2020 (EDT)

• Unspecified translation: In the Year 2889 (title) in The Classic Book of Science Fiction (publication)

Sorry, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I can tell you that the translation used in the Classic Book is the first one, "Little though they seem to think of it..." -J-Sun 09:50, 11 May 2020 (EDT)

No sorry needed, telling me which text is enough. I will be moving the publication from the title that says it doesn't know which translation it is to the title that specifies the translation. No change to your publication record. Thanks for helping out, every little bit helps. ../Doug H 10:15, 17 May 2020 (EDT)

Good to hear; glad I could help. :) --J-Sun 19:59, 17 May 2020 (EDT)

Special Wonder: The Anthony Boucher Memorial Anthology of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Just in case you read this, I made some changes to this verified pub, after discussing it with the other verifier. Hope you can agree. --Willem 06:01, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Yes, my copy has the same issues you note. Good catch(es). --J-Sun 12:51, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Stormland

Hello,

We do not add COVERTART records for cover design - only for cover art. As the credit here is for "Cover and book design" only, I removed the cover record and it will only remain in the notes. Thanks! Annie 01:22, 16 February 2022 (EST)

Sorry. I read that as "Cover" and "book-design" rather than "cover-and-book design." Thanks for fixing that. -J-Sun 13:14, 16 February 2022 (EST)

No worries :) I tend to keep a close eye on these credits when approving - thus noticing at all. It can be read both ways indeed but I think it is just design here. Thanks for adding the details on the book! :) Annie 14:52, 16 February 2022 (EST)

Asimov on Science

I've tweaked this publication that you added/verified, by adding a cover scan (Amazon can change them) and a reference to the OCLC. ../Doug H 14:26, 29 March 2022 (EDT)

Thanks! -J-Sun 17:55, 31 March 2022 (EDT)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?874584; Someone recently uploaded HC to Archive, there's a dash between 30 and Year, I added it and also to introduction, but I can't find photo of PB title page, so if you can check and if it's there in your copy you can add it to PB and overall title record. --Username 20:06, 5 September 2022 (EDT)

Grammatically, I think there should be, but there's no dash on the paperback. J-Sun (talk) 16:08, 11 September 2022 (EDT)

Actually, I'd double-check that hardcover, too, as the cover doesn't have a dash. The titlepage may well be different but may match the paperback and its own cover. --J-Sun (talk) 16:12, 11 September 2022 (EDT)

Dash is on title page. --Username (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2022 (EDT)

Okay. Weird that the hardcover and paperback would differ in that way, but there you have it. :) --J-Sun (talk) 22:58, 11 September 2022 (EDT)

Checked it out, and noted that only the publication record title of the hc edition had a '-' in its title, but not the corresponding NONFICTION title record. I've corrected that, and varianted the tp title without '-' to the hc title with '-': Asimov on Science: A 30-Year Retrospective. Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 11:20, 29 November 2022 (EST)

I fixed publisher of PB to this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?37918. --Username (talk) 12:20, 26 November 2023 (EST)

Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veteran's Day

Concerning this submission: what did you try to achieve? As it is now, you'd be creating two identical records. I've rejected your submission. MagicUnk (talk) 11:51, 25 November 2022 (EST)

There are already two identical records. Making one a variant of the other addresses that. --J-Sun (talk) 16:33, 28 November 2022 (EST)

Ah, I see what's happening. What you needed to do is to pick a parent title (earliest date, so would be the one with Veteran's in the title and 2006-09-00 as date), and variant the other one (with Veterans' in the title, dated 2011-11-22) to this parent title. Choose Option 1 to link to an existing parent. There's no need to create a new title. Also, do note you'll have to change the publication date of the 'Veterans' ' title to 2011-11-22 because that's the first date this variant title was published! MagicUnk (talk) 11:08, 29 November 2022 (EST)

That's exactly what I did per this discussion before this all started and as I'll try to show in the image which shows the link I clicked to make the edit. I really don't know what you're talking about or what the problem is but I do know that this is taking more of my time than I'd like so whatever you do is up to you. --J-Sun (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2022 (EST)

I think someone more familiar with variants and parent titles and whatnot should look at this and link them because as of now there's 2 separate records in Monette's name for the same story; discussion, linked above, explains it, I think, although J-Sun is probably right, it really should have no apostrophe because the holiday's official name has none, although that doesn't really matter here because Monette and/or the publishers decided to include one wherever they felt like it. --Username (talk) 13:18, 17 December 2022 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=teddy+bear+on&type=Fiction+Titles; Since it's the appropriate holiday tomorrow I noticed that this issue was never resolved; links in each record have different spellings for the next-to-last-word but her collection says Veterans', so should they be merged under that title? --Username (talk) 13:43, 10 November 2023 (EST)

The Godel Operation

Hello,

A series was added to the novel in your verified as the second in this series is due in early January. Let me know if the title of the series does not make sense (it is easy enough to change) - that is what all sources seem to call it. :) Annie (talk) 18:16, 30 November 2022 (EST)

Ah, after a string of independent novels, Cambias falls to the siren song of the series. :) Thanks for the info and the edit.--J-Sun (talk) 13:03, 17 December 2022 (EST)

Exploring the Horizons

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?84160; I added Archive.org link in a pending edit, uploaded in January, and entered the 11247 ID from the back cover, assuming it's the same as yours and you didn't enter it for reasons. There's another PV but they're long-gone. --Username (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2022 (EST)

I'm not seeing an archive.org link but, yeah, the SFBC number on the back jacket is 11247 on mine, too. Thanks. --J-Sun (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2022 (EST)

Do you mean you don't see it in the ISFDB record (pending edit, not approved yet, so link wouldn't be there as of now) or do you mean you don't see the link (exploringhorizon0000unse) on the Archive itself? --Username (talk) 13:08, 17 December 2022 (EST)

Okay, thanks. --J-Sun (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2022 (EST)

SF 31

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5619508; I added OL non-preview link and added xliii to page count. --Username (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2023 (EDT)