Incarnations of Immortality

[William Steel]

I noticed last week that CB added Piers Anthony's novels On a Pale Horse, Bearing an Hourglass, etc. as separate entries instead of under the series banner Incarnations of Immortality. I see the link for the series, but I am curious why not combing them together. And should this be the standard for similar series.

[Steven L. Dasinger]

On 9/2/2023 at 8:15 PM, William Steel said:

I noticed last week that CB added Piers Anthony's novels On a Pale Horse, Bearing an Hourglass, etc. as separate entries instead of under the series banner Incarnations of Immortality. I see the link for the series, but I am curious why not combing them together. And should this be the standard for similar series.

NOTE 1: The following comments only apply to Book types (specifically prose books).
NOTE 2: When adding Publisher, I did not take the time to try an follow the byzantine changes when they went out of business and/or merged with other Publishers.

After entering a few thousand books (with some 'mistakes' at the beginning' while on a learning curve). I have found it best to list the books as individual Titles with the Overall Title Name link used for the 'overall series' name for a few reasons.

1) Different Publishers.

During the time the books are printed, they can have different publishers.  
I have also found it is a 'bad' idea to combine different publishers under one title, in general (see below for one possible exception).
In the 'Incarnations of Immortality' series, They started with Publisher 'Del Rey', then switched to 'Avon' / 'William Morrow', and finally (so far), 'Mundania'.  If all were in one title, you would need Notes to keep them straight.

2) Problems with assigning Item Numbers.

You can get 'duplication' of numbers requiring the use of arbitrary Variations to distinguish them.
Some made up examples.

a) Initially, Publisher X puts out a 1st printing of a HC.
Later, Publisher Y gets the rights and puts out another 1st Printing HC of the same book.
If combined in to one Title, they both can't be HC. you would need to use HC (which at the time would have been correct for the first one) and later HC/A (since it is a 1st printing it can't be HC-2) even though it isn't really a variation.

b) 'Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Del Rey)' Hardcover was published with 4 different covers. They are entered has HC/A, HC/B, HC/C, HC/D. If/When another publisher acquires the rights and prints the book again, it 'could' be added to the 'Del Rey' series but what would its issue number be? If shouldn't be HC/A-2 as it will be a 1st printing for the other company. It could be just HC (unless they also printed different covers). It could be HC/E with notes. None of those option are not optimal.
Or
It could be in its own title with the different publisher and there would be no problem assigning its Item Number (also, both would come up on a Title search).

NOTE: One exception to a Title only having one Publisher is when the Print numbers are uninterrupted.
For example 'Berkley' was bought/merged with 'Ace' around 1987/88. A Book is printed by 'Berkley' with 1st, 2nd, 3rd printing, then 'Ace' took over and continued with printings 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. In this case, I would place all the book into one Title with Berkley as the Publisher with Title Notes (preferred) or Issue Notes about the publisher change. Otherwise, it will look strange to see an 'Ace' Title that starts with 4th printing and people will wonder where the first 3 printings are (or mistakenly add them). (However, if 'Ace' had reset back to 1st printing, I would make a second Title.

3) Easier to Find

If a Title 'Incarnations of Immortality' was created with all the books place in it., a Title search for 'On a Pale Horse' would not find anything. You could try a search on other fields (Storylines, Notes, Item Title) and, if any of those fields had the information, it could be found (with some work).

However, if the books are entered as individual Titles with an Overall Title Name of ''Incarnations of Immortality', a search for either of them would find them (the single Title book with its link to the series, or the Title lists of all the series books).
 

4) Consistency (I hope).

Since non-numbered series (i.e. Jack Reacher) of books shouldn't be forced into a made up title and need to be entered as individual Titles with Overall Title Name, to me, it seems better to use the same the same method for books like 'Incarnations of Immortality'. I have come across s set of books that have an overall series name with a number for the first ones then just Final for the last one (no number). Since you wouldn't know that 'last' book was not numbered, you would 'technically' need to go back and break it out into individual books or you would have to make up the last number (granted, it is sort of obvious but if that was the case, you could make up obvious numbers for Jack Reacher. To me it is all the same. Use the series name as an Overall Title and individual book Titles for (most) everything and (hopefully) there will be fewer problems in the future.

 

5) Publishers 'eccentric' behavior (to be nice about it...)

As some (most?) of you will know, if a Publisher CAN do something to mess up a cataloging system, the WILL do it, eventually.
By listing books in individual Titles with 'Overall Title Names', the problems they can cause will (hopefully) be mitigated (not sure they can be totally eliminated. They are publishers, after all. It is in their nature to do stupid creative things...

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For the most part, I am trying to prevent the pitfalls that have come up with Comic Books due to starting in one direction (which was fine at the time) but eventually started getting complicated as time past (by then it was really to late to change the system).
(As an example the Marvel Masterworks titles. There was an original print run, then a second print run years later (and maybe a third. Ideally, these different print runs should all be in different titles. But, they weren't and are combined in to one Title (per character) and you need a convoluted set of Issue numbers to try to uniquely identify them. Not blaming anyone. That is just have it evolved.  I am trying to take that into consideration and not get prose books into that kind of situation.

I understand wanting to 'group' like books together. I just think using the 'Overall Title Name' instead of putting everything into one Title is the better way of doing this.

[William Steel]

I'm guessing you submitted them, and I can understand your reasoning. And if I have any other book series like this, I know what the guidelines are. Thank you.