(M.J.E. / Book Listings)
Book Listings
Go to Introduction
Special features of my book listings
What is included in my book listings, and criteria used to decide this
Conventions I have used in listings, and what they mean
|
|--Composite listings [ down to Science Fiction ]
| | (Composite listings do not cover authors who have individual pages, as listed below)
| |--Science Fiction, Horror, Thrillers
| |--Mystery, Crime
| |--Children's fiction
| +--Non-fiction
|
|--Science Fiction [ down to Horror - up to Composite listings ]
| |--Eleanor Cameron
| |--( Hal Clement )
| |--E. C. Eliott
| |--( Robert L. Forward )
| |--( Angus MacVicar )
| |--( Patrick Moore )
| +--( Hugh Walters )
|
|--Horror [ down to Thrillers - up to Science Fiction ]
| |--Mendal W. Johnson
| |--( Dean R. Koontz )
| |--( Richard Laymon )
| |--Bentley Little
| |--( Graham Masterton )
| +--( Christopher Pike )
|
|--Thrillers [ down to Children's - up to Horror ]
| |--Thomas H. Block
| +--Robin Cook
|
|--( Mystery, Crime )
|
|--( Miscellaneous )
|
|--Children's Fiction [ down to Non-fiction - up to Thrillers ]
| |--Enid Blyton
| | +--Enid Blyton F.A.Q.
| |--Mel Lyle
| |--Charles Spain Verral and George Wyatt
Also, from science fiction listings:
| |--Eleanor Cameron
| |--E. C. Eliott
| |--( Angus MacVicar )
| |--( Patrick Moore )
| |--( Hugh Walters )
Also, from horror listings:
| +--( Christopher Pike )
|
+--( Non-fiction ) [ up to Children's ]
+--( Richard Dawkins )
Introduction
Special features offered by my book listings
What is included in my book listings, and criteria used to decide this
Conventions I have used in listings, and what they mean
On this web site, I am presenting listings of books in areas that are of
interest to me, based on information which I have collected over many years. If
I have found this information useful in my own book-collecting, I figure that it
may be useful to others also, so I wish to share it.
Special features of my book listings
At this point, you may be asking whether there aren't already web sites out
there (some of which I intend to provide links to when I have gathered the
information and organized it) which provide far more comprehensive listings than
I, as a solitary person, can ever hope to do? So is it not superfluous for me
to add yet another site in this area, which must always be narrower in its
focus?
I am not attempting (fruitlessly) to compete directly against some of these
other sites, but I believe there is a niche I can fill. Of course I can only do
this in those areas and authors that interest me personally, which I have taken
the time to research. But, within those areas, I believe I can offer something
those other sites don't usually seem to. I will briefly describe what I believe
I can offer:
(a) Most book-list sites I've seen list books either alphabetically or by
year of publication, and give either no information about which books belong to
series or are otherwise related, or else give information of this sort which is
obviously (to someone who knows the author's work) incomplete. Sometimes this
series information can be found only by following a link to a separate page. I
list series books together as a group within the author listing, using a series
heading, and an indenting system which makes the relationships between the books
very clear, and use footnotes or other annotations where necessaty to clarify
things.
(b) Even those sites which do include series listings usually only list
novels which belong to a series. I attempt to include all short
stories which also belong to a series, whether those stories are in a
collection which is not labelled as being within the series, or whether the
stories are uncollected, and have appeared only in anthologies or magazines.
(When the story is not available in a collection of work all by the author in
question, I will include details (when I have them) of magazine or anthology
appearances; but otherwise, I just name the collection, and do not give details
of magazine or anthology appearances. I do not have the expertise to do this
comprehensively, and probably not even the time.)
(c) Apart from series, I give full short-story listings of collections that
are included in my listing. (I do not promise that my listing includes all
collections by an author, although I will, for each author, state the
completeness of the listing.)
For whatever reasons, most book-listing sites do not include the type of
detail just listed which I hope to offer, or they do so, but incompletely. (I
can't always claim to be complete myself, but I will attempt to be, and by its
nature, this site will always be a work in progress.) I have gathered this
information from many sources (which I will credit in cases where I remember
them), and I believe many of the listings on my web site contain details which
can not be found anywhere on the web in any single location, or, where (in some
cases) it can be found in one location, I believe I offer a format, a
layout, which will be easier to follow. This is the niche I believe I can
fill, which (rather inexplicably, to my mind) most of the other sites do not
fill satisfactorily.
I might as well say a few words about what I am not trying to do:
and that is to provide complete, detailed bibliographic information about books:
publisher, history of various editions, pagination, and the like. I do not have
the time or the expertise to investigate such details fully, and I am
concentrating on the kinds of information that I believe will be of most use to
collectors wanting to collect particular authors or series, which is also the
kind of information I do have at hand: namely, the titles of books, year of
first publication, and series relationships. Once readers have at least found
out from my web site what books or series they want to look for, if they need
more information about those books, I suggest they consult the various sites
that do give the kind of bibliographic detail I am passing over.
With short stories, I do not even attempt to give complete publishing
histories, even when I have this information at hand. I simply give the most
easily available location of short stories; if a story has never been collected,
I will give its original magazine or anthology appearance if I have this
information - but, if it has been collected, I content myself merely with
stating the collection it is in. The focus is on simply guiding you to the most
easily available source for reading the story.
The more detailed bibliographic information strikes me as being of less use
to regular collectors, although it may be important to specialized collectors
who look for particular editions, not just any edition for purposes of reading.
These specialized collectors may still find my title listings useful to some
degree, but will have to go elsewhere for more detailed bibiographic
information.
There is another reason I do not give extremely detailed information: the
need to conserve space on my web site. My service provider imposes a limit on
the total size of customers' web sites. They do not appear to enforce it
strictly, and I could probably more than fill the space allotted to me quite
easily - but I do not want to abuse the trust they seem to place in their
customers. I believe I can have more space for an extra fee, but I do not want
to expand needlessly into areas I know I can't cover comprehensively, and want
to conserve my available space for as long as I can - cost does enter
into my decisions at some point. For this reason, I have to be rather selective
about what information I include.
What is included, and criteria used to decide this
The book listings on this web site are largely, although not exclusively,
centred around science-fiction, horror, thrillers, mysteries, adventures, and
similar genres. (There may be a shortage of books which some might consider
more mainstream, such as the "classics", or just contemporary mainstream
fiction - but the listings are based on my own areas of interest, and do not
pretend to be anything more than selective according to my interests; and I
make no pretence at the deep culture of my reading interests.)
The information collected here has accumulated over many years from many
sources (not all remembered now), and is based largely on my own book
collection, and augmented by research I've done over many years to find out
what authors and books I want to collect.
I have collected information about books over many years largely in order
to actually obtain copies of those books. I tend to be obsessive about being
complete about authors or series once my interest in them reaches a certain
point, although, for authors, there is an in-between area where I may be
interested in certain books by a particular author, but have not (yet, anyway)
felt compelled to get all that author's works (and therefore not created a
complete list of his or her works). (With a series of related books, it tends
to be more black-and-white: either I am not interested, or else I have to have
every book or short story in the series.)
This explains the way this information was collected, and how it arises out
of my own reading interests. However, there are many inconsistencies in the
information: there may be huge omissions of stories, or even whole authors you
might expect, from the general content of the listings, to be included; and
there may be authors, genres, and books included here which you may not expected
to be included. It is a personal list, and the only criterion is whether I am
sufficiently interested in any authors or books to have made the effort to do
the research to collect the information.
And the inclusion of authors or books is not even necessarily an indication
that I am interested. In collecting books, I do not entirely divide books into
two rigid categories: those that interest me, and those that don't; there are
always items of medium interest which defy such a clear-cut division. I
try to make such a division, because ultimately my buying behaviour is
black and white: I either end up purchasing something or I don't, and prefer not
to have items lingering around (on written lists, or in my mind) for which I
cannot decide whether to embark on collecting them or not. But, in practice,
there are authors or books (occasionally even whole genres) where I am not sure
if I will develop an interest, but I have been interested enough to at least
gather some information. And I have often (but not always) included such
information in my listings, even if I have decided subsequently I am not
interested in the books in question, and do not collect them any longer (or
never began collecting them at all).
I present my information, with all its inconsistencies and omissions, here,
because it seems to me to have grown to an extent that will be of assistance to
people collecting those books. Whether I am still interested in certain books
or authors, or whether they have joined the category of ones I investigated then
lost interest in, is not relevant to other collectors, so I do not indicate what
books I actually have, what books I still want to buy, what ones I am still
undecided about, and what ones I am definitely not interested in. (Although
this listing is based largely on my own collection, it aims to be at least a bit
more than merely a "my book collection" site.) I will simply present all
information which I know or suspect to be complete, or nearly so; and I will
include information I know not to be complete, but which will still (in my
estimation) be of some assistance to collectors. I will indicate, for
any author or series, the degree of completeness of the information as I
understand it to be. If I am uncertain whether some information is complete, I
will also indicate the degree of probability of my statement. So I will include
indications such as "Complete listing", "Probably complete listing", "Possibly
complete listing", "Probably incomplete listing", "Incomplete listing",
"Complete science fiction" (meaning that non-science-fiction is either not
listed, or is listed incompletely) - and so on.
If any readers can help me fill gaps in my information, I will welcome any
e-mails from them containing such information. Please send me any
information or corrections you can supply. It is very likely I will include
such information in my listings, and I will credit you as my source of
information by name, unless you ask me not to.
I don't guarantee to use all information, although it is very likely I
will. In certain areas of marginal or no interest to me personally, where I am
aware that it would take a great deal of research to complete my information, I
will possibly decide it is not worth the effort, and I may not use information
relating to this which I receive. For instance, I am not especially interested
in Star Wars books, although they get mentioned occasionally because some
are mentioned in the listing for Alan Dean Foster, an author I am interested in,
and have many listings for. I am also aware that there are now a great many
Star Wars books by many different writers, and that it would be extremely
difficult and time-consuming to compile a listing for them; so I have decided
not to make any active effort to compile such a listing, even though some of
these books may be included because they are by authors I attempt to give a
complete listing for.
In short, the list of books presented on my web site is basically my own
book collection, plus books I do not have but am actively seeking, plus also
some books I am not interested in (or am not sure if I am interested in) which I
happen to have collected information on also in the course of researching other
books. (The process of researching books is a bit like using a vacuum cleaner:
in the course of researching, I tend to also suck up information on other books
that are related in some way, and because I am not always sure where the exact
borders of my interest lie, I tend to err on the side of inclusion rather than
exclusion.)
With all these reservations and inconsistencies, I hope this listing will
grow over time, and that it will be of use and interest to readers, and that it
will help collectors locate books of interest to them.
I hope any incompleteness or patchiness will be overlooked by readers. I
am not a book expert, and I do all the research for these listings myself,
without anyone to assist me (except for publicly available sources of
information which I have consulted), and I cannot hope to compete with some of
the comprehensive book-list sites which are out there (which I intend to
include links to on my own site at some time when I have organized the
information). But I do hope this site will fill a niche in that it does
attempt to achieve a completeness of title listings that I have rarely found
on those other sites, especially with regard to short stories that belong to
series - something usually overlooked by sites that are complete in their
novel listings (including some of the more scholarly sites); and also
with regard to my arranging books by series in my primary listing, which most
of the other sites do not do (although some do use links to secondary series
pages).
Conventions I have used in listings, and what they mean
I will, to begin with, organize information into one long listing covering
many different authors, arranged alphabetically by surname. (This composite
listing will begin with one long web page, and, as it grows awkwardly long, will
be gradually split into smaller pieces.) When a particular category of
information grows complete, or close to complete, or is very substantially, I
will shift it to a page of its own, and provide a link to that page from the
composite page. Links to all book-listing pages, both the composite ones and
specific ones for particular authors, are given in the table above this
Introduction.
Some author or series listings, although complete, may remain in the
composite page if the listing includes only a few items. I have to consider
efficiency in organizing web pages to some extent, and want to try to avoid the
annoying trend of some web sites to have many pages with only small amounts of
information on them, so that to get even a fairly modest amount of information,
you have to navigate many pages, and accept the long waiting time that goes
along with that. The only exception is certain menu pages which have only a few
pieces of information on them, and must do so by the nature of the information -
but any links to those pages will indicate the nature of the pages, and I
believe that the different levels of menu pages I provide will make this site
highly navigable, and allow you to very quickly home in on the information you
want. Also, my total eschewal of graphics on this web site (which is concerned
only with text-based information) should also greatly assist speed in navigating
it.
In short, this page will be a clearing house for information prior to going
into an author page of its own, and, by its nature, this page will always be
incomplete, with items coming and going all the time. I will, as with all my
pages, indicate at the bottom of the page the last time it was updated, but will
not attempt to keep track of exactly what authors have been updated - life's
just too short for that.
Whether a particular writer's listing eventually appears on a page of its
own or stays on this composite page is in no way an indication of the importance
I consider the author to have, nor an indication of the degree of personal
interest on my part; it is determined purely by the practicalities of organizing
my web site the best way I can, which will tend to call for separate pages
mainly to be given to longer listings, or listings with special complexities or
irregularities. (I would actually prefer to treat all authors in the same way,
but this is not an efficient way to organize my web site: it is clearly
ridiculous to devote a whole separate page to an author who wrote only a very
few books which need little in the way of annotation (I have visited many web
sites which work this way, and have cursed the designer for forcing me to wait
for the downloading of many pages containing little information, which I
sometimes have to pass through merely on the way to the actual place I want to
go); on the other hand, a composite page containing many authors will become too
unwieldy if too many of the listings are very long and complex.)
In cases where a series of books is by more than one author, the treatment
may sometimes be different. If most of the series is by one author, then all
books will be listed under that author's name, including the minority of books
by others (whose authors will of course be listed along with their titles) - and
there will be cross-references in the form of active links in both directions
between the author of the individual books, and the author under whose name the
series is listed - if the author of the "minority" books in the series are
listed in their own right at all, that is, which will not always be the
case.
If, however, a series is by two or more authors, and none of them
predominates either in number of books contributed to the series, or in
importance within the series, then the series will be listed as a separate item,
and treated like an author entry, with the series name substituting for the
author's name. Such a name will be enclosed in parentheses, which will indicate
that it is a series name, not an author name - such as "(FLATLAND)", for
example. Where contributors to such a series have written other books included
in my list, they will have an author entry of their own, with links cross-
referencing the author entry and series entry in both directions. However, when
an author contributing to such a series does not have other books listed on this
site (which does not necessarily mean they wrote nothing else - just
that I am not interested in it, or have no information on it), then the author
will not have an entry of his or her own, but simply be named in the relevant
series entry.
So, to illustrate these conventions: "Alice in Wonderland" books will be
listed under Lewis Carroll's name, because the Alice character is just so
completely and universally associated with him, in spite of the fact that other
writers have written books about the same character. But, in contrast, I have
decided to list "Flatland" books under the name "Flatland", rather than under
the author Edwin A. Abbott. It is true that he created the original Flatland,
and his book is probably the best-known novel about two-dimensional worlds: but
several other writers have made substantial contributions to the concept more
recently, and I feel that they sufficiently balance Abbott's original work to
the extent that I would prefer to list all the Flatland books under the heading
"Flatland" rather than under the heading "Abbott". Also, the Flatland books are
a looser series, based only on a concept rather than a particular universe or
the same characters, whereas the Alice books are more firmly based on the
character of Alice, and thus more intimately encroaching on Lewis Carroll's own
territory.
In short, I feel that Abbott's domination of the area of Flatland books is
slightly less complete than Lewis Carroll's domination of the area of "Alice"
books. Such decisions, of course, are quite subjective ones based purely on my
judgement - but this example illustrates the general way I weigh up the factors
that go towards such a decision.
This site is complex enough from a designing point of view (and I write the
coding manually in WordPad, without any H.T.M.L. coding tools), although I hope
this complexity is directed successfully towards making it easy to navigate and
use; but, in order to avoid adding needless complexity for small gain, I will
include these series listings amongst the author entries, in regular
alphabetical order.
I will separate listings only by very broad categories of subject matter or
genre. For instance, I will separate fiction from non-fiction, "fantastic"
fiction from mysteries or children's adventure books, and the like, but will not
attempt to divide books much more finely than that. Thus, when I just mentioned
"fantastic" fiction, I intended that to include science-fiction, horror,
fantasy, and even thrillers or suspense or adventure fiction with some element
of the improbable to them. The reason for this is that it is often quite
difficult to determine which of these sub-categories some books fall into, and
in fact there are many books which really do fall in between the cracks, and any
labels would be little more than a subjective judgement, or perhaps a
publisher's label. So I'm going to cheat here, and sidestep the whole problem
simply by grouping them all together. Mystery books seem to be a very distinct
genre, though, so I will group them separately.
Works listed in fiction sections are novels unless marked otherwise
(markings for otherwise will be explained shortly); but listed items in
collections are shorter works (short stories or novellas) unless marked as
novels (as in an omnibus edition containing several novels, or a collection
containing a single novel plus some short stories). Short stories listed as
separate items, where they might otherwise be taken to be novels, have their
title enclosed in double quote marks. "coll." indicates a collection of short
stories all by the same author; "chap" indicates a chapbook - a short story,
novella, or very short novel published in a volume by itself; and "anth."
indicates an anthology - a collection of short stories (or sometimes non-fiction
articles or essays) by two or more different authors. Works which appeared
only in a limited edition are marked "L."; but if a work appeared at
any time in a mass edition, limited editions are not indicated at all unless
there is something special about them, such as an extra item which is in the
limited edition only, such as an extra story, foreword, or something of that
sort. I do not like the concept of limited editions, do not like the idea of
creating a purely artificial scarcity by deliberately limiting editions; so I am
not going to expend much energy researching limited editions, nor much space to
cover them on this web site.
I have indicated the year of first publication of a book whenever possible.
This is not necessarily the year of my own copy, which is likely to be a
paperback published later, and paperback editions do not always indicate the
year of first publication, but only the year the paperback was published. A
copyright date is usually indicated, and it is sometimes an earlier year than
the indicated date of publication of the paperback edition. Very likely this is
also the year that the book was first published in hardcover, but I cannot be
sure of this if I have not seen the hardcover edition. Therefore, when I give
the date for a book, I do not assume that the copyright year is also the year of
publication unless I know this to be so; instead, I will indicate dates like
this (to use a hypothetical example): c1983 p1984. This indicates a copyright
date of 1983 (and possibly, but not necessarily, hardcover publication in the
same year), and paperback publication in 1984. This arises fairly often (my
book collection is perhaps 95% paperbacks, and perhaps 3/4 non-first-editions
generally), and I do not have the time to research all such instances, so I will
use these abbreviations quite often.
In cases where a story has not been published, or where I know it to
have been written in an earlier year than its first publication, I indicate the
year of writing like this: w1960.
I have given as complete a version as possible of any writer's name,
including initials or middle names which don't normally appear in their books.
Where I know a writing name to be a pseudonym, I indicate this, along with the
writer's real name when I know what that is. However names, or portions of
names, which are not normally used by a writer are enclosed in parentheses.
Thus, for example, "Mendal W(illiam) JOHNSON" indicates a writer whose full name
is "Mendal William Johnson", but who publishes under the name "Mendal W.
Johnson". Where the full name and writing name are too dissimilar to be
indicated by this means, the full name will appear in parentheses after the
writing name.
xx
Michael Edwards,
Victoria, Australia.
E-mail:
m j e (no dots or spaces) at remove-spam-block foxall dot com dot au (remove spam block first)
Introduction - Front page, which leads to Contents
Web Site of Michael Edwards - Contents
Site Map
Book Listings (this page)
This page created on Tuesday, 11 April, 2000;
introductory material written ca. Saturday, 24 November;
added to this page as part of reorganization of pages on Monday, 24 December, 2001.