Be Excellent To Each Other

I hate them. I am a book collector, and insist on owning an entire series of books. Why do publishers insist on changing a book's jacket style halfway through a series - it drives me mad!

Also, one series I'm currently buying goes like this:

Paperback, PB, Hardback, PB, HB, PB.

WTF? Now I can't read them until books 3 and 5 come out in paperback - a year after they come out in hardback!

This fills me with

It's even more infuriating when they set up the spines to have one design span them all, but change the design mid-series.

Do you collect trades of comics? It's even worse there, especially when a different company takes over a series. A load of people kicked off on the 2000 AD board when the Rebellion/DC deal collapsed and Rebellion redressed its trades. (To be fair to Rebellion, the production values shot up massively, but I can see how it irked some people, who suddenly had their books' spines all different-looking. I couldn't give a monkey's, myself, however.)

I have the same problem with complete series in box sets of DVDs.

I'm also a book collector..it's a nightmare when they change designs!

I had rolled my eyes, before remembering that I think I must have about 26 Dune books. But they're all of the original six official novels. I think I must have about 4 different copies of God Emperor of Dune alone.

Some tool I used to live with re-bought either Buffy or Angel when they re-launched the DVD box sets with new box designs.

I have a nice set of Retro Gamers from Issue 1 all the way up to current on my shelf and it annoys me even now the one where Darran sent the wrong spine picture to the press and the spine pictures were duplicated. I'm not sure how someone so messy (i.e. me) can be so anal about little things like that sometimes

Get yo'sel' some binders. Aw yea.

I decided to sell my South Park series 1-4 boxsets when I realised they weren't realeasing anymore with the same covers. I hate it when they change.

AMIGA POWER AMIGA POWER AMIGA PO ER

With South Park, the change is good. The new British sets are the same as the US ones, and take up about half the space. Plus, they also look like someone actually designed them.

I will have a chat with Mrs A and she will say stuff to me and things like that.

What?

She's involved in publishing.

I was surprised to see George R. R. Martin's "A Feast for Crows" had the same style as the older paperbacks in the series, given that it took him a million years to release it.

If it's any consolation, he found out about that from me on IRC and was every bit as annoyed as you about it.

I noticed that the new Iain M Banks Culture novel uses a different font and style for the spine and cover. Of course, all the older books have now been re-issued in that style. I'd be annoyed but I've only read two so far so have plenty to go before I have to pick up Matter. I might care less then.

Quick hint - avoid the Algebraist if you don't want your brain to run out of your ears. If you have already read it, I sympathise.

That's not technically a Culture novel is it? Just a random sci-fi one? Which puts it way down the list (below the 50 books I have bought and not read, into the "not yet purchased pile").

Hello, everyone, by the way. Took a while to find my way over here...

I think you'll find you're still 91 years early.

Yup, but one day when we're talking on our holo-computers, I'll have the last laugh!

Oh.

I've tried expanding my reading horizons beyond Pratchett, Clarke, Asimov and politcal biographies and picked up The Algebraist. "That Iain M Banks, he's supposed to be really good" was my reasoning.

I quite liked it... well, the first two hundred or so pages. But it didn't seem to go anywhere.

Exactly. However, I can incredibly highly recommend "Against a Dark Background". I 100% guarantee you will love it.

He does sci fi and non-sci fi, and of the latter I'd highly recommend the Wasp Factory and The Crow Road. So those three together will give you a flavour of what the man's about when he's writing well.

@ Deano - what's a "Iain M Banks Culture novel" then? I feel like I've missed something.

I quite like Iain M Banks, but why, oh why, does he have to write sex scenes. They are toecurlingly awful, and more often than not have nothing to do with the plot.

One set in the world/universe of the Culture.

Excession is probably my favourite.

Around half his Sci-Fi books make up a vague series set in the same universe. There's not really much in terms of repeating characters or anything though, it's just an interestingly fleshed-out universe. The other half are just random tales set elsewhere.