Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Someone has created a series for the book Imajica, by Clive Barker. In reality, this is a single novel that was later republished (4 years later) in two parts - Imajica 1: The Fifth Dominion and Imajica 2: The Reconciliation.

However, as these are just republication of an existing single work, it doesn't seem right to me that these should be a series.

I'm thinking that the series should really be removed from the books, but wanted to check if there were any strong feelings, or previous rulings, either way first?

If they had initially been published as two volumes, and then combined, they'd be a series. Why not just because the publication chronology was reversed?

However, I can see cause not to consider the original book part of the series. I might remove that, and put a link to it (with an explanation) in the series' description field instead.

Edit: And should you decide to leave the combined work, it certainly is not a primary work in the series. Any more than an omnibus would be.

rivka wrote: "If they had initially been published as two volumes, and then combined, they'd be a series. Why not just because the publication chronology was reversed?"

To me it seemed to be more about the author's intent. While I admit we can't really be certain either way, having the book originally published as a single novel and only split several years later suggests to me that the single novel was the original plan for the novel. Whereas smaller volumes that are combined (which Barker has also done) seem a much better fit for a series as that was how he wrote them initially...

That said, I like your suggestion to remove the original book and will remove the original book from the series with a note... Thanks.

Done, thanks for your advice...

Looks good.


James wrote: "To me it seemed to be more about the author's intent."

While I hear your point, I'm not convinced that should be our criteria. The goal is to link books that are should be read in a sequence, so readers will be able to find them all. And that seems to me to apply in this case just as much as the other.