Fantasy Book was a semi-professional science fiction magazine that appeared at the end of the 1940s, published by William Crawford, a fan who went into publishing but never had much money to invest in the business. He occasionally managed to print some surprisingly good material, though. There aren't many sources, but I've included what I was able to find.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 23:23, 13 February 2017 (UTC)reply
Support Well, it's short, but the sources are what they are. Interesting if only for Cordwainer Smith, though I really prefer Norstrilia. Only comments:
Is there anything on how the subscriptions worked, given the irregular publication schedule?
There's a gloss of "sf" in the first sentence of the body; did you miss that? Should I put it somewhere else? I fixed the other two points. Thanks for the review and support.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 16:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)reply
The source says "Its cover, by 'Milo', illustrates..." which tells me that the credit in the magazine is just "Milo" and no more information is available.
Per the ISFDB there are no other covers attributed to Milo. If I had to guess I'd say it was a friend of Crawford's who wasn't a professional artist. I could make the caption "...by 'Milo', about whom no more information is given", if that's more helpful.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 22:26, 18 February 2017 (UTC)reply
I'd suggest "Milo" (with the quotes) for the caption and further explanation on the image description page.
Nikkimaria (
talk) 02:19, 19 February 2017 (UTC)reply
I know it is stated in the table, but could a date be added to "By the time the first issue was printed"? You also give a date for the last issue in-text.
What is meant by "semi-professional? The linked article does not really explain it, and that article itself has a link that only goes to an article about editing in general...
Recusing from coord duties, copyedited a bit as usual but little to complain about prose-wise; these are nitpicks:
"his budget limited the quality of the paper he could afford and the artwork he was able to buy"... I was originally going to query whether we couldn't trim this to "his budget limited the quality of the paper and the artwork he was able to buy" or some such, but I'm also wondering if it's a bit too self-evident a statement anyway... Budgets always limit what you can afford/buy but that doesn't always mean you can only buy substandard stuff. I assume in this case we do mean the quality of the paper was generally inferior and the quality or amount (or both) of artwork was poor -- can/should we be a bit more explicit?
Ashley implies that it was the budget, but his point is really that Crawford used whatever paper he could find, which was often poor quality, so I think it's better to cut the reference to cost -- as you say, it's kind of obvious anyway. The important point is that he didn't have easy access to good paper. I think it's a bit clearer now.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 01:29, 24 February 2017 (UTC)reply
"news-stand" -- is the hyphen an Americanism? I'd have expected "newsstand".
Following on from my first point: "Crawford's budget limited the artwork he could acquire" -- is the source any clearer about whether the limitation was in quality, or quantity, or both?
Ashley is definite that this was a cost issue, so I've clarified this.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 01:33, 24 February 2017 (UTC)reply
Structure and level of detail seem fine -- I wouldn't expect a lot on such a short-lived mag (neither of my main references, Holdstock and Aldiss, even mention it!). I'll take Nikki's image review as read -- source review to follow. Cheers,
Ian Rose (
talk) 12:16, 23 February 2017 (UTC)reply
Yes, it's a fairly obscure magazine. I think it would get mentioned even less than it does if it weren't for "Scanners Live in Vain".
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 01:33, 24 February 2017 (UTC)reply
Source review
All book references and the online sf-encyclopedia.com are by major authors in the field; philsp.com looks more of an enthusiast's site (correct me if I'm wrong) but it appears to be used only for self-evident info re. covers and pricing so I don't think it's an issue in any case.
It's run by
this guy; he's certainly an enthusiast but he's also a respected bibliographer, so I think the site is reliable for our purposes.
Mike Christie (
talk -
contribs -
library) 01:24, 24 February 2017 (UTC)reply
Formatting generally looks good but you could standardise the date formatting in FNs 1 and 5.
Closing note: This
candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see
WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the
bot goes through.
Sarastro1 (
talk) 23:47, 24 February 2017 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.