Books in multiple series

[Phssthpok]

Can anyone suggest a good way to manage books which are part of more than one series? For example, later Isaac Asimov books which are part of both the Robots and Foundation series; Larry Niven's "Fate of Worlds", which is the conclusion of both the "Fleet of Worlds" and "Ringworld" series; various books by P.G. Wodehouse which are both Blandings Castle and Jeeves books; and so on. The result is that I end up with what seem to be gaps in various series, even though the gaps are filled (but by a book from a different series).

Since I can't label books as belonging to more than one series (unless Kovid is willing to completely change his database design, which I strongly doubt!), I'm at a loss what to do.

Of course, I blame the authors for letting their characters flit around with such disregard for their confused audience...

How do other people deal with this? Is there anything I can do apart from shut up and live with it?

TIA for any advice...

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

Since I can't label books as belonging to more than one series (unless Kovid is willing to completely change his database design, which I strongly doubt!), I'm at a loss what to do.

Custom column? I think you can make one that behaves like the series one.

[eschwartz]

I use the series column for the "main" series, which tracks that universe.


Then I use a custom column that acts like a series, called #subseries.
This contains the individual series', e.g. individual trilogies.

[Turtle91]

Just wondering. If you perform a search or a filter on the series field or tag will it also pickup the sub-series custom column?

[eschwartz]

No, because when you limit a search to a specific column it doesn't also search other columns with similar-sounding names...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just wondering. If you perform a search or a filter on the series field or tag will it also pickup the sub-series custom column?

It would only do so if you included the column in the search. ie "series=x or subseries=x" (using whatever the correct search syntax is, of course!)

[Turtle91]

I wonder if it would be too difficult to identify a custom column as a "sub" of another column during the creation process? I would think that would make it easier to search/filter on columns/tags and their subs.

An alternate thought would be to enable multiple series in the same column like they do with multiple authors...


edit: stinkin' broken "t" button on my keyboard ...

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just wondering. If you perform a search or a filter on the series field or tag will it also pickup the sub-series custom column?

For Similar... (in the context menu)
Preferences: Searching (near the bottom) Define as needed, as both columns

edit

BTW you can use this definition name instead of the column in regular searches

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just wondering. If you perform a search or a filter on the series field or tag will it also pickup the sub-series custom column?

Yes, if you use calibre's "grouped search terms" feature (Preferences / Searching). You create a "search term", which is in effect a pseudo-column that contains all the values in the columns it references. For example, you can create the term all_series that references the columns series, #mysubseries, and #mysubseries2. When you search using all_series:foo, calibre will look for foo in all three of the series columns.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by chaley

Yes, if you use calibre's "grouped search terms" feature (Preferences / Searching). You create a "search term", which is in effect a pseudo-column that contains all the values in the columns it references. For example, you can create the term all_series that references the columns series, #mysubseries, and #mysubseries2. When you search using all_series:foo, calibre will look for foo in all three of the series columns.

Sweet! Thanks Chaley/Ducks/Harry/Eschwartz!

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by chaley

Yes, if you use calibre's "grouped search terms" feature (Preferences / Searching). You create a "search term", which is in effect a pseudo-column that contains all the values in the columns it references. For example, you can create the term all_series that references the columns series, #mysubseries, and #mysubseries2. When you search using all_series:foo, calibre will look for foo in all three of the series columns.

Forgot to mention that part!

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I use the series column for the "main" series, which tracks that universe.

In most cases there isn't a main series in that sense; there are usually two well-defined series which occasionally overlap, where it wouldn't make sense to make one series a subseries of the other.

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by chaley

Yes, if you use calibre's "grouped search terms" feature (Preferences / Searching). You create a "search term", which is in effect a pseudo-column that contains all the values in the columns it references. For example, you can create the term all_series that references the columns series, #mysubseries, and #mysubseries2. When you search using all_series:foo, calibre will look for foo in all three of the series columns.

That sounds like it might be exactly what I'm looking for!

Next question: can I persuade the catalogue tool to use this all_series pseudo-column instead of the regular series column, so that the same book will appear twice (once for each series it belongs to) in the various series listings that it generates? (There's a list of series under each author, and also a separate stand-alone alphabetical list of series.)

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

An alternate thought would be to enable multiple series in the same column like they do with multiple authors...

That would be ideal, but without knowing much about Calibre's database design I have no idea how easy it would be to implement...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

In most cases there isn't a main series in that sense; there are usually two well-defined series which occasionally overlap, where it wouldn't make sense to make one series a subseries of the other.

Huh?

They are usually both a subseries of something.

Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series, for example, some twenty-odd books in about 8 component trilogies, none of which IIRC are called "Riftwar".
The Legend of Drizzt, likewise a series of trilogies all of which are caled something different.

I am sure you are imaginative enough to figure something out.

Originally Posted by Phssthpok

That would be ideal, but without knowing much about Calibre's database design I have no idea how easy it would be to implement...

"Nontrivial".

The issue has come up before.