Talk:Anne McCaffrey bibliography

Info about split

The first nine sections have been imported from Talk:Anne McCaffrey, following the split of this bibliography from Anne McCaffrey. The tenth section, "prehistory" includes discussion whether and how to do so.

At Talk:Dragonriders of Pern or Talk:List of Pern books, there may be some relevant discussion of this bibliography that I have not copioed here.--P64 (talk) 20:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Rescue Run

In your initial entry for Anne McCaffrey, you included the title

• Rescue Run (1991)

I've looked in Contemporary Authors, Books in Print, Amazon.com and her own website, and this book is not in any of these sources. Where'd you invent this from? Hope you don't mind if I delete it. (I hate it when I accidently invent cool book titles. They're *so* hard to find in the library!!)

Here's the entry from the Locus SF index,

Rescue Run, Anne McCaffrey (Wildside Press, Dec ’91, $40.00, 126pp, hc); Reissue (Wildside Press 1991) sf novelette that originally appeared in Analog, illustrated by Pat Morrissey, signed by McCaffrey, and limited to 500 copies; second printing. --Imran 18:42, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This isn't listed 3/4 above so neither standard booklists nor the author considers this a book, but collectors and other rabid fans might, so it should at least be listed here. (This moved from respective user talk pages.) I'd very much like to know the history of this, i.e., was it included in a subsequent published book? --ssd 01:37, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I seem to recall (and I havent got the book in front of me) that "Rescue Run" is the first short story in Chronicles of Pern: First Fall... IIRC the plot resolved why there was no response to the distress beacon sent of in Dragondawn.Iainscott 15:13, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rescue Run is unusual among books on the shelf at my local public library.

(from the front inside jacket) First published in Analog magazine, Rescue Run was later released in book form by Wildside Press. This special, jacketed Book Club edition [Newark NJ: Wildside Press] features decorative page borders plus ten interior illustrations by noted SF artist Pat Morrissey.

(from the back inside jacket) Jacket art by Pat Morrissey. Book design by John Betancourt.

(from the title page) "Rescue Run originally appeared, in slightly different form, in Analog and is copyright 1991 by Anne McCaffrey."

The title page is the only page of front or back material. There is no ISBN and no date given, although that inside jacket blurb implies that the "decorative page borders plus ten interior illustrations" are new.

The back inside jacket blurb does say, "Her novel All the Weyrs of Pern appeared on every single best seller list for weeks." That helps date the edition.

The back outside jacket is blank except for the number 05448 in lower right corner. --P64 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Short stories

A lot of her novels originated in her old short stories. For example, this page lists how Dragonflight, The Rowan, and Damia are all derived from short stories. Additionally, there are a number of short stories in the Dragonriders of Pern series that I don't see in that list (such as The Littlest Dragonrider, or a similar title, with K'van as the protagonist, and The Girl Who Heard Dragons, which is listed as a novel but I thought was a short story/novella). I'd like to see more discussion of this trend of hers, but I don't feel I've read them recently enough to be knowledgeable.

Additionally, is Get Off the Unicorn part of the Dragonriders series? I thought it was a collection of random short stories, perhaps with one or two in the Pern universe, but some others set elsewhere.

--zandperl 01:46, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Right now, the page only lists books. Note that the book The Girl Who Heard Dragons is a short story collection, including the title story. Next time I edit the page, I'll see if I can mark short story collections as I find them. (Yes,Unicorn is a short story collection including several Pern stories.) --ssd 01:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A fairly comprehensive list can be found at the ISFDB,

http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Anne_McCaffrey

--Imran 02:50, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just checked there. Cool site, but it is both incomplete and out of date. It lists some "short fiction" but not all, and is not (always) clear what is a short story from a magazine and what is a book. In addition, books that are listed as compilations on other sites do not have their components listed there. It's still an interesting reference, just not a complete one. I'm hoping to keep at least this page a complete list of her available books...

Note also, some of her books are clearly story collections, while in others, the stories are closely related enough to make it hard to distinguish a story collection from a collected novel originally published serially. This will make it difficult to pick them out for marking sometimes. --ssd 03:57, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Split series off into separate articles

This will make it easier to refer to collaborators, and indeed refer to these series from those collaborators. If no-one objects, I'll get to it. --Phil | Talk 14:03, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by split. If you mean write longer articles about each series, sounds like a good idea. If you mean split the list of books into a list of lists of books, I don't see how that's necessary. It's not like we're adding a book an hour to this list or anything. --ssd 15:32, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Was this intended to break up the list of books? It seems like the article really ought to have more biographical information about Anne McCaffrey; the list takes up most of the article. –Joshua (talk) 07:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Three years was a long wait but recent editors agree! More biography from summer 2011, separate list of publications from fall 2011. See #Publications for more information.

There are separate articles for several series or subseries or universes in terms of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB). Several of them are stubs. :::--P64 (talk) 01:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The Coelura & Nimisha's Ship

These books are set in the same world, so it makes sense to list them together. Can anyone think of something to call them, other than "those books that have body heirs in them"? Is there something official I don't know about, maybe?

For lack of a useful header, I suppose one could always stick a note next to Nimisha, but it would be so much neater to do treat them like other connected books.

-Salli 01:44, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, I havent read them lately, but I thought they were only concected very tenuously (as you say, they both have body-heirs in 'em...) I suppose the default name for this "series" containing only two stories would be The Coelura & Nimisha's Ship Iain 08:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe what it really needs is a nice asterisk. "*Set in the same universe." -Salli 01:26, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

How about The Body Heir Books? The Steve 18:10, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

According to Anne's website, the two books are members of The Coelura Series. I propose that this be the section title.*Kat* 05:33, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

I second this proposal. On a side, not Anne McCaffrey's website address has changed since Kat's post. I am posting the new one in case anyone would like to confirm things for themselves.--ScifiterX 04:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The two books occur in the same general region, which has a name (but I can't remember it). Also, I think there are several characters that overlap, like the great grand-daughter in one is the grandmother in the other or something. --ssd 15:27, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, you're thinking of the Planet Pirates. I believe Sassinak is descended from one of the Dinosaur Planet survivors, who remained in suspended animation until they met.  The Steve  02:04, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

The "Planet Pirate" and "Dinosaur Planet" series are so hopelessly interconnected that it's practically useless to try to think of them as separate series (actually I think of the Dinosaur Planet books as an odd sort of interlude). The Coelura and Nimisha's Ship really have very little in common. A universe is a big place (for once). -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:34, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are right about Planet Pirate and Dinosaur Planet being in the same series. However, I am fairly sure that Nimsha/Coelura besides starting in the same region of space have one overlapping character. I believe the daughter in Coelura is the mother or grandmother in Nimsha. Perhaps some day I'll go look and get the details. --ssd 04:14, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

About 7 years later

Re the Dinosaurs and Pirates see Ireta series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. The (official planet?) name "Ireta" appears in the title of one omnibus edition but no single book.

The Crystal Universe series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database covers The Crystal Singer, The Coelura, and Nimisha's Ship. Previously I have written this point into The Crystal Singer, which now mentions the four original serial stories, the book, the trilogy, and the universe. I have not read any of these books, nor read any secondary treatment that would help expand section Crystal Singer#Crystal universe. --P64 (talk) 17:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

2015

After 3 more years

1. "Nimisha's Ship (Coelura Series #2)" is the internal title of one product page at Barnes & Noble regarding a Random House 2000 issue that shares ISBN 9780345434258 (1993) [1] (cf. [2]). But the former page's Barnes & Noble Review begins "In Nimisha's Ship, the first novel in an engaging new series from ...". Does anyone know of "new series" plans on the writer's part?

There are several hits for google 'Nimisha's Ship (Coelura Series #2)'. Front cover images at ISFDB show no mentions of 'Coelura' or any serial relation. LC Catalogue records for the first U.S. editions of Nimisha, both 1999 (1999-02 and 2000-01 at ISFDB): hc; mass ppb ("Includes 'A conservation with Anne McCaffrey' (p. [362-368])."). Linked publisher descriptions are provided; neither one mentions or hints any relation to previously published fiction. On the contrary, per Random House: "Now, McCaffrey soars to dizzying unscaled heights in an exciting new world bursting with adventure and romance ..." [3].

2. Body Heir series, comprising The Coelura and Nimisha's Ship, is the second listing in "series order" at "The Many Works of Anne McCaffrey", published by mccaffrey.srellim.org --which is the first of Webpages listed in the header of Anne McCaffrey at ISFDB. Neither srellim nor ISFDB catalogues any over-over-arching Federated Sentient Planets universe, or series superseries metaseries, etc. --22:29 --P64 (talk) 23:31, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Adding ISBNs

I'm slowly adding ISBNs for the books. If anyone else is currently active on this article and wants to participate, feel free -- but it would be wise to write down ISBNs in a separate file, then make one fast edit, rather than start an edit and search for ISBNs, lest our edits clash with each other. --David.alex.lamb 17:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted entry "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" from your list in the Dragon Riders of Pern section. I did this because it is a book of short stories, of which only the first (The Girl Who Heard Dragons) belongs in the Pern world. While this might qualify it, this story is also avalible in another short story collection with four Pern stories in it. A few of the stories in TGWHD are FSP stories, but most don't seem to have a connection with any of her series. It's a nice book, but it's not a Pern book. - Josh Hatcher

Someone re-added or reverted this deletion. I've taken the liberty of adding a Short Story Collections heading, moved the book (with ISBN) to that section, and also placed Get Off the Unicorn there. I marked the other "Girl Who Heard Dragons" entry as a short story. Evidently a *lot* of people who bought TGHWD book were disappointed that no other Pern stories were in it, so it seems better not to list this book under Pern. Tkech (talk) 22:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Word series capitalization and series name question

In my opinion, the following articles need to be renamed...

Planet Pirates Series → Planet Pirates or The Planet Pirates series --  Done January 2014

Petaybee Series → Petaybee or The Petaybee series --not yet done April 2015, needs administrator

Catteni Series → Catteni or The Catteni series

Has Anne McCaffrey ever named "The Ship" series? I think of it as "The Brainship series". - LA @ 19:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with The Planet Pirates series etc (I feel that the other titles would be confusing to people who don't read Anne McCaffrey's books). The Brainship series is actually The Brain & Brawn Ship series, according to the official website, but the official website list is rather confused. (It lists a mixture of the UK and US editions, and even a few audio-book editions! It also has some books in the wrong order, and lists incorrectly lists some books as "non-series") —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluap (talk • contribs) 17:42, 18 April 2008

So there should be no problem with me renaming those sections and articles, right? - LA @ 19:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Go for it! Bluap (talk) 21:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Years later

Planet Pirates is done (2014). "Petaybee" redirects to the Capital Series version so that change needs administrator assistance. I prefer to eliminate lead definite article 'The' from such article names, and from section headings and bold headings (routinely in embedded lists of works). Thus Petaybee series (another redirect to the Capital Series) and Catteni series if the single words are deemed inappropriate. I prefer also the safety of conformity with ISFDB, which uses Petaybee Universe and Catteni Sequence, but I consider those two appropriate in headings at best, not as article names. --P64 (talk) 22:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Barque Cats

Why does this page not list the Barque Cats series? Is it because Ms. McCaffrey is a co-author? Macduff (talk)

It's simply because no-one has got round to updating it yet... Bluap (talk) 02:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Publications

The List of Books or publications incorporated in this article was questioned already seven years ago, Talk:Anne McCaffrey/Archive 1#Split series off into separate articles. The list is now much longer, very long indeed. There is much duplication with two other pages.

• Dragonriders of Pern#Publications by the McCaffreys follows publication order approximately, with incomplete information on short stories later collected in books. Of course it's limited to Pern and it includes Todd McCaffrey.
• List of Pern books follows Pern historical order and includes short stories

Another approach may be commendable.

• Piers Anthony includes no list of publications
• Piers Anthony bibliography
• Xanth#Books lists the Xanth books in publication order

--P64 (talk) 20:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Whilst the page is undoubtably long it is a useful reference without need to click on to other pages. I believe that the list should usefully stay on the author's page keeping the duplication to a minimum. For example the page lists PERN books in publication order but links out to a list in PERN historical order. Given the nature of these books it is useful to view them in these different ways which might be confusing on a single page.

--80.229.155.98 26th July 2011

For our reference: Category:Bibliographies by subject, eg fantasy, science fiction. --P64 (talk) 19:03, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The publications listed here may/might(*) differ from those at main articles on Anne McCaffrey series by including only "Books", where the main articles also list short fiction (and maybe more?). For example, see Dragonriders of Pern, The Ship Who Sang, To Ride Pegasus. The two latter cover the story, the book, and the series/universe. (Although "To Ride Pegasus" is never used to name the Talents series/universe, I have now linked it here as a "main article", based on its content and the lack of any other candidate. Perhaps Crystal Singer should provide similar coverage of the Crystal Singer universe. It doesn't, yet.)

(*) I mean both that we might limit this list to Books as a matter of policy; and that this list may now when you read this cover only Books, depending on whether short fiction has recently been cut or restored.--P64 (talk) 18:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we really need to split the list of books into a separate List of works by Anne McCaffrey or whatever. This will be one of the first comments that would cause the article to fail a Good Article review. We can retain the current section here for Books with subsections for Classification and each series, with leadouts to the various main articles and lists. We can then concentrate on adding quality text to those sections, while also maintaining a high quality list (requirements for articles and lists are different: articles are mostly supposed to avoid list format for example). --Mirokado (talk) 15:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I take this to be the "may be commendable" approach that has been implemented for Piers Anthony (described at the top of this section) because a "bibliography" such as Piers Anthony bibliography is such a List of works —and in the technical sense of WP:LIST. Right? --P64 (talk) 20:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is a good example. We could follow the Anthony precedent with the name Anne McCaffrey bibliography too. --Mirokado (talk) 22:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No objections to this, so I have done it, following P64's suggestion for the new list name, Anne McCaffrey bibliography (IP80 above did not want just one list but we have still have several organised in various ways and have not merged anything else in splitting this so no reduction of list possibilities). I have retained classification and overall plot summaries in this article thus keeping the list to the list of books with introductions of publishing history. Undoubtedly we will need to see how this looks and do some fine tuning, maybe update add more links to the new list from other articles. We should concentrate on keeping flowing prose in this article and the list stuff in lists as much as possible. --Mirokado (talk) 23:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Federated Sentient Planets universe

User:Knytshall has added this to the preface of subsection Books:Doona (no direct link is possible, afaik).

(quote) The books are set in the time of "Amalgamated Worlds" but a sentence in chapter ten of Crisis at Doona hints that there is "a desire to form a Federation of Sentient Planets". This sets the books just prior to the FSP universe of much of the author's work.

Decision at Doona (1969) is clearly set after an important event in human history, "Amalgamation". There are multiple allusions to that Terran(?) solution to interracial conflict, iiuc. Perhaps this supports K's point.

I have wondered what to do about the so-called FSP universe. For one, the ISF DataBase uses "universe" for some more narrowly defined series, and we do so here now with the "Crystal Singer universe" subsection heading. Second, to me this observation by Knytshall places the Doona series in the FSP universe, which means all fiction whose setting is linked to the FSP: set before, outside, or after the FSP. Do others agree?

Anyway, FSP universe covers a lot and isn't very important. ISFDB doesn't recognize any FSP mega-group within McCaffrey's fiction. I doubt that it should be a section of the list of books. If it's more important than I think, it should probably have a "main article".--P64 (talk) 19:09, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The link to the FSP universe in "Crisis on Doona" jumped out at me when re-reading the novel over the weekend. It seems clear that A.M. thought about a united universe which she thought of as "the FSP" and used it as a "loose" background to her novels. It is not clear however who put this single short reference in chapter ten of C o D since the novel is co- authored by Jody Lynn Nye. C o D talks about Amalgamated Worlds, including the reference to a desire to form FSP, but it is only a side plot line to help develop the story. In the Dragon books FSP gets a passing mention in stories where it is relevant - how did Pern get named and how did it start. It is a back story to explain the setting for novels and perhaps to explan why there are no visitors to help with more advanced technology. The novels stand on their own with or without FSP. If there were a novel that specifically talked about FSP then there might need to be an article about it but as a general plot backgound (to several novels/series) it is interesting (especially to knowledgable fans) but of limited significance.--Knytshall 20:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, K. Regarding the "other series", which section Anne McCaffrey#Books does not currently place in the FSP universe, do we have knowledgeable readers to confirm that each does not belong, or to correct that? These are the "others" at the moment.

• 3.2 The Talents universe (I have read To Ride Pegasus, would need to review it)
• 3.3 Doona —corrected by Knytshall below; I agree
• 3.4 Petaybee universe
• 3.5 The Freedom series
• 3.6 The Barque Cat Series
• 3.7 Acorna universe

(I have read only the two early books To Ride Pegasus and Decision at Doona.)

I have not read McCaffrey's first novel Restoree. Last month I moved it to the top of section Books for the double reason that it was her first and it is the only one of her "novels" that has not become part of a series, as catalogued by ISFDB. She has explained to a fan why it is a "stand-alone", which I have added to the article ("McCaffrey became a full-time writer ...").

P.S. See how ISFDB groups the McCaffrey fiction: Anne McCaffrey at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

--P64 (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The talents universe uses telekinesis which does not appear to be mentioned in the novels identified as in the FSP universe. The only ESP evident IIRC in the FSP universe is telepathy and teleportation in the Dragon books but that is led by and to/from the dragons/firelizards not between humans. To me that would imply that the talents universe is separate from the FSP universe. If there is a link it is tenous.

(interjection) Telekinesis enters Dragonriders and thus the FSP universe in The Skies of Pern, the last novel written by AIM alone and the last in Pern historical order. This does not affect your general point. Thanks. --P64 (talk) 19:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The Freedom series uses an Earth/Terra with an initial population and a technology level commensurate with late 20th early 21st century. This is a lot less than the level in the Doona books so if in the same universe Doona is much later. However the range of intelligent species in the Freedom Series is not consistent with that in the Doona setting and in particular with the xenophbia shown by some in that setting. Add to that the space flight in the Freedom series uses ships "acquired" from other species/races and there is considerable doubt that the universe described would develop into the Doona setting and then the FSP. With ships, and planets for colonisation, available would the population level on Earth ever reach Doona levels? Technology on Doona seems to be human developed, it could have had a boost from contact with other species as in the Freedom series but this seems unlikely. On balance I would vote for the Freedom universe being separate from both the FSP and Talents universes.

I have not read the Petaybee or Barque Cat series. Acorna at a quick look does not appear to mention a government system that is wider than planetary, I have read some of the series but it is not one I would intend to re-read in the near future.--Knytshall 07:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

User ScifiterX has moved the Barque Cat Series into the Talents universe as the cats are mentioned in the talents series. I have not read the Barque cats books and do not rememeber them in the Talents books I have read but this move would seem to make sense in the same way as Doona moving into the FSP group.--Knytshall 10:30, 07 October 2011 (UTC)

prehistory

"this page" should consistently refer to Anne McCaffrey bibliography, a list

This bibliography (list) was one super-section of the biography Anne McCaffrey until 2011-11-08, a change whose core discussion is Talk:Anne McCaffrey/Archive 1#Publications. Here is the current table of contents for Talk:Anne McCaffrey where bold marks all of the discussion primarily concerned with the list of books or publications.
Deleted. Following the discussion below, those nine of 31 talk sections have been imported above. -P64 2011-11-14

... What split of the talk pages may be appropriate? I have never yet read about splitting (or archiving which is a special kind of splitting). --P64 (talk) 01:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Two other articles and their Talk may be relevant, either part of the prehistory of this page, or should be part of current discussion here.

• Dragonriders of Pern currently includes a list of Pern stories in publication order (Dragonriders of Pern#Publications by the McCaffreys). Thanks to Todd McC, its scope overlaps this page --there is no short fiction by Todd McC(?) but the novels strictly overlap.
• List of Pern books (in Pern historical order) includes short fiction, perhaps with too much publication data.

"Pern" no longer includes a list of books or stories but Talk:Pern#PERN belongs to the prehistory of this page. --P64 (talk) 02:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting thoughts. Are you familiar with the archiving of talk pages? (See my talk page for an example). It is common and accepted to archive older entries on talk pages, so my suggestion would be to create an archive for this talk page and manually archive the relevant sections you have identified above to that, with an explanatory post on the original talk page(s). We should not move talk sections to another live talk page as the original contributors may not see any further responses. --Mirokado (talk) 02:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

In effect this should do for page Talk at least what {{split from}} does for page history.

I am familiar with archiving in general but no guidelines or norms regarding this issue which is essentially a split of two articles.

(quote) "an explanatory post on the original talk page(s). We should not move talk sections to another live talk page"

Do you mean we should not move talk sections from another live talk page to this one or to its archive; we may replicate them here; if we replicate them here, we should post at their original locations suggestions to discuss here rather than there?

Taking the shortest relevant section of Talk:Anne McCaffrey for example, it would be copied here (perhaps to be archived immediately):

== Barque Cats ==

Why does this page not list the Barque Cats series? Is it because Ms. McCaffrey is a co-author? Macduff (talk)

It's simply because no-one has got round to updating it yet... Bluap (talk) 02:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

A notice would be posted at Talk:Anne McCaffrey/Archive 1#Barque Cats (done).

If the discussion would immediately be archived somewhere, I think that should be at the old Talk page rather than here. --P64 (talk) 15:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

That will be fine as as far as I am concerned. A link to the moved section is a good idea. --Mirokado (talk) 17:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Progress report:
Above I have copied the nine sections from Talk:Anne McCaffrey, where I have posted the following reply to each of them.

Copied to [link]Talk:Anne McCaffrey bibliography[/link]. Please continue discussion there. -P64

I think this note addresses Mirokado's concern, "We should not move talk sections to another live talk page as the original contributors may not see any further responses." Of course they may now be archived here, as a group, if the distinction between posting them live and archiving them is important. Is it?

"A link to the moved section is a good idea."(?) I haven't yet moved them, only copied them. Is it permissible? commendable? to delete their content at Talk:Anne McCaffrey leaving only the headings with the note Copied to? --P64 (talk) 20:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Three sections at Talk:Dragonriders of Pern are relevant here. They are about the section Dragonriders of Pern#Publications by the McCaffreys.

• 18 Short stories

• 18.1 import from the chronological list of Pern books —another user's list of Pern short fiction -P64

• 19 Publications and Other works
• 20 Chronicles by Anne M and Keith Parkinson

There I have posted notice of this bibliography with link here.

I have also posted linked notice of this bibliography and talk at Talk:List of Pern books, whose content is not relevant here. --P64 (talk) 21:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The new sections here and added notes elsewhere are OK, I think. No need to do anything more as far as I am concerned. At some stage we can archive old sections in various talk pages the normal way. --Mirokado (talk) 20:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Citing ISFDB

How should this list cite the Internet Speculative Fiction Database? This summer I added references to all Series and Universe pages at ISFDB, in the current format. --beginning with the Talents Universe, i suppose, after which I didn't repeat "Subpages for all constituent stories and books. Retrieved 2011-08-01."
— Preceding unsigned comment added by P64 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 16 November 2011‎ (UTC)

That is, I added for every series or universe page at ISFDB a reference in this article--nearly bare linknames except one:

* "The Talents Universe (series). ISFDB. Subpages for all constituent stories and books. Retrieved 2011-08-01."

Since about that time, now more than three years ago, I settled on a prose explanation that is longer and follows rather than precedes the retrieval date:

* "... Retrieved 2011-08-01. Select a title to see its linked publication history and general information. Select a particular edition (title) for more data at that level, such as a front cover image or linked contents."

Anyway, prose explanation only once in the {{reflist}} even if more than one reference cites ISFDB. But I suppose that really belongs in a general citation of ISFDB that follows the numbered references. --P64 (talk) 23:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

After the split

What now is the destiny of the blurbs that preface sections of this AIM bibliography and stand alone (under hatlinks) in the subsections of her biography Anne McCaffrey#Books? Now they are identical or nearly so. For example, here are the prefaces to section/subsection "The Talents universe", which are identical except that five small words do not appear in the bibliography where the following subsectioned list of books makes them redundant.

"The Talents Universe", as catalogued by the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, comprises two series, "Talents" and "Tower and Hive". They share one fictional premise. Eight books, all by Anne McCaffrey alone, are rooted in her second story (1959) and three stories published in 1969.

(In the example given I am looking ahead but not far ahead, editing the main article To Ride Pegasus now.)

Should they diverge or maintained near-identically? If diverge, is there some general way these blurbs should differ between these two articles? --P64 (talk) 23:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I left them more-or-less-the same at the time of the split partly because it was easier like that and also because the subsequent evolution of the text will be clear. I suggest: The bibliography needs a brief context setter but it should be basically the list of books and not much more. What is there in your example seems OK. The sections in the main AIM article can be expanded a bit so they cover themes, interactions between different series, their contribution to Anne's growth as an author and so on, but not just repeating chunks of the main article for that series. Once there is a comfortable amount of such text, the bibliographic information can be mostly dropped as there is a pointer to the bibliography. The more we can avoid duplicating blocks of text the better. --Mirokado (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Use of [small] font

The latest editor User:Unfriend12 has questioned and removed [small] tags around the note within one entry, A Diversity of Dragons. Small size is more difficult to read, as Unfriend says. Small size and em-dash both help distinguish the note from the bibliographic data, the entry per se; either one is redundant for a reader who understands the other. (I am author of the note, except the u-less cataloged which i call cattalozhd.)

Omnibus editions

Most of the information about Omnibus editions is now provided briefly (no ISBN) at the foot of a list of works by series, in small font, usually a sentence fragment beginning "Omnibus ed...", with a reference. I am responsible for all those notes on omnibus editions—and for explicit use of ISFDB as a source of bibliographic data—in many revisions 1 August 2011. (Omnibus editions had been included in lists with various distinctions such as "no bullet", em-dash note, or bold subheading: Anne McCaffrey, 31 July 2011, skim down from section 3.1.2)

The one omnibus with 2011-07-31 mention that was not a full listing -- italic title (date) ISBN 0000000000 -- survives in this bibliography without change, a full size complete sentence, no reference (Anne McCaffrey bibliography#Romances). That is one way to go, with a reference of course. --P64 (talk) 18:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Young adult fantasy?

I changed heading 10 from Young Adult Fantasy to Children's Books (neither is a proper noun, oops). (Most or all of section headings 2-7 cannot be changed here only as biography links direct here.)

Why children's books? judgment based on Black Horses for the King, which I read last week, only one of four titles in the section. That is a straight Arthurian historical novel. And a boy's pony book --in a sense that linking that article would not convey.

I don't know the three other books listed here.

The preceding section 9 heading "Romances" refers to romantic fiction a genre rather well defined by the market. Right?

Perhaps the point of section 10 is book-length fiction that isn't science fiction, and isn't for adults as romantic fiction is for adults. --P64 (talk) 20:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

connections

A barque cat (or "barquecat") appears as a minor character in The Rowan. Also, Anne McCaffrey explicitly stated that Nimisha's Ship takes place in the same universe as The Coelura -- see the Del Rey interview at the back of ISBN 0-345-43425-0. The character Syrona in Nimisha's Ship comes from Demeathorn Blue City, and coelura are briefly mentioned... AnonMoos (talk) 11:03, 21 July 2019 (UTC)