Date: 18 Dec 88 21:28:23 PST (Sunday)
Subject: Author Lists: Bibliographic Sources
From: jwenn@world.std.com (John Wenn)
To: SF-LOVERS%rutgers:EDU
Edited: 19-Sep-92

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A number of people have written and asked what references I've used for
my Author Lists.  So here is a list of my most used references, from most
useful to least used:

R. Reginald - SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY LITERATURE (2 Volumes) (1979)
This is my core reference.  It covers 15,884 SF books from 1700 to 1974
(plus about 2000 retitlings).  In addition it covers 1443 biographies of
SF&F people.  The book entries have title, alternate title, series and
information on first publication (year, publisher, etc.).  This is
exceptionally accurate and complete.  The only problem is that it's
quickly becoming dated.  A update has been promised in "Forthcoming Books
In Print" for several years now (covering 1975 - 1990, 2 Volumes, 12/1992,
$199.00, 1500 pages), but I'll believe it when I see it.  (Please release
it soon!)

Noelle Watson & Paul Schellinger, Ed. - TWENTIETH-CENTURY SCIENCE-FICTION
WRITERS (3rd edition) (1991).  Larger than the second edition, it has
all of the originals strengths and faults.  This covers the works of 641
SF writers, lists all their works until 1991 (including non-SF fiction
and non-fiction in a separate categories) and has an essay on the author.
Unfortunately, this book isn't as useful as it could be (although it is
better than the first edition).  There are several entries that are
sloppy or incorrect (large publishers are generally OK, but small press
books are often wrong).  In addition it has an incomprehensible system
for putting a book in the SF list or the Other list (hard SF == SF,
Mystery/Western/Romance == Other, Fantasy == Other [but not always, often
different books in the same fantasy series are split between the
categories!!]).  This is really annoying for authors who write a mixture
of genre & non-genre works.  It does have a useful listing of all
uncollected (in an single author collection) short stories [Randall
Garrett has nearly 200 uncollected stories listed!]  I generally only
use this for the 1974-1984 gap, and can only use it if it's one of the
641 people listed. (and can ignore it when Reginald's releases his update).

Charles N. Brown & William Contento - "SCIENCE FICTION IN PRINT: 1985"
(1986), "SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, & HORROR: 1986" (1987), (plus
volumes covering 1984, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 & 1991).  This yearly
reference contains:  (1) A listing of all books published that year
(basically a concatenation of the "Books Received" section from Locus,
see below), (2) A listing of stories published in SF magazines, new
anthologies and new collections (it doesn't give the contents of
reprinted anthologies or collections), (3) Misc info (year in review,
awards, deaths, recommended reading, and the like).  The book list and
story list are given in several formats:  by author, by title, items
originally published this year, by subject (books) and by contents
(books).  The 1985 version is barely readable, 1986 & 1987 is a vast
improvement, and all the others are even better (in format,
organization and typeface).  New volumes should be released every
year.

Kurt Baty & Willie Siros - THE WHOLE SCIENCE FICTION DATA BASE
QUARTERLY, volumes 2-12 (covering letters B, C, D, N, T-Z).  This
ambitious project is attempting to list all editions of all SF books ever
published in English.  This is a work in progress, with new a new volume
coming out 4 times per year.  (Or at least it's supposed to.  I haven't
recieved any new volumes since late 1990).  It's reasonably complete, but
by no means error free.  [I send them several pages of additions and
corrections every volume].  If everyone who uses the reference also
sends in corrections, the final will hopefully be reasonably correct and
complete.

Jack Chalker & Mark Owings - THE SCIENCE-FANTASY PUBLISHERS  (3rd
edition) (1991)  This covers the world of SF specialty presses.
Subtitled "A Critical and Bibliographic History", it is both a useful
bibliographic reference (a listing of books) and a critical history (of
both individual books and publishers) for about 150 SF presses, with
information on a further 50 related publishers.  It seems complete on
the publishers it does cover (but small presses are not my strong
suit), but I know of several small press publishers that were omitted.
Several people who reviewed it in _Locus_ had strong disagreements with
the critical and historical portions of the volume.  But I'm not
currently interested in those parts.  You can't readily find this
information anywhere else.

LOCUS Magazine - "Books Received" section.  [I own a nearly complete run
from December 1979].  The lists all the books received by Locus from
various publishers.  This is both good and bad.  The good news is that
it doesn't have bogus listings (the bane of the bibliographer).  The bad
news is that genuine books that they didn't happen to get are left out.
It's like a theorem from math I've tried hard to forget: you can never get
an exact listing of all functions satisfying X.  Either you ignore some
functions that fit, or you include some functions that don't fit.  So do
you want accuracy or completeness?

L. W. Currey - "SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY AUTHORS - A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
FIRST PRINTINGS OF THEIR FICTION" (1979)  What it says:  A listing of the
the first editions of all fiction written by 217 authors.  It's useful if
you need some means of identifying a first edition, but it's use is
limited because it lists all fiction without regard to genre.  It is
extremely accurate and complete.  I use it mainly as a check on Smith.

Donald Tuck - "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY (3
Volumes)" (1974, 1978, 1982).  This lists all SF published (or reprinted)
between 1945 and 1968.  It's real problem is that it's so out of date.
It's quite accurate (but not 100%).  The real use is that it REALLY covers
all books published between 1945 and 1968.  It lists all the editions of a
book, it lists the contents (stories, etc. in the book) and lists series.
I use this when the relationship between older books isn't clear (e.g.
"Are the stories in XXX a proper subset of stories in YYY?")

William Contento - "INDEX TO SCIENCE FICTION ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS"
(1978) & "INDEX TO SCIENCE FICTION ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS: 1977 -
1983" (1984).  What is says: a listing of the contents of all SF
anthologies & single author collections, all the way up to 1983.  The
Brown & Contento volumes cover more recent books.  The first has about
2000 books & the second an additional 1000.  While it is weak in
hard-to-find, very old, obscure, british, or small-press books; it is
quite useful and complete for standard titles.  It's interesting to see
how many times "Nightfall", "The Cold Equations", "Microcosmic God" or "A
Martian Odyssey" have been collected [23, 21, 10 and 14 times
respectively].  Also useful when the relationship between books isn't
clear (e.g. "Are the stories in XXX a proper subset of stories in YYY?").

Various - "CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS".  I don't own these works, but I use
them at my local Public Library as an addition source.  There have been
135 volumes of the original series & 36 volumes of the new series
published so far (with about 2 more volumes published in each series
every year).  Each volume covers a couple hundred authors from all fields
of literature & journalism.  It gives an listing of the author's work
(generally directly from the author) plus a little bit about the author.
Major articles can contain several pages of essays or interviews.  It's
reasonably accurate (even if it does omit some obscure books) and makes a
good secondary source to compare to my my preliminary lists.

One thing to note is that I almost *NEVER* pay any attention to "BOOKS IN
PRINT".  It is far too unreliable to use as a serious reference work.
(It contains many bogus books, primarily ones planned by the publisher
but never actually published).

You need a completely different set of references for short stories
published in magazines (none of which I own, and most of which are out
of print).  Sorry to all the short story lovers out there.

