Kevin's Watch

Let's play spot the difference!





My matching set of hardbacks...

Awww, what the HELL?



I feel for you. I've been importing those UK copies here to the US myself because IMO they look better on the shelf than the American art. But...gah.

If there's supposed to be something in the second one though, I don't see it (other than the two-tone background and lack of shiny print that started with AATE).

I appreciate your point, Murrin...but being even more OCD than you, I was greatly distracted by the order of the volumes in your stack.

ROTE, FR, AATE, TLD...not AATE, FR, ROTE, TLD.

Because I just stuck the new one on top quickly for the picture.

Second pic - two of the books have centre-aligned author name, two don't. And the new one has different spacing than AATE did.

Cover art and size is one thing. Yet I prefer the typeface and paper of the US hardcover edition.

That's the other thing about this edition: They've made it smaller in thickness, too, by switching to a really tiny font to reduce page count.

Where's the "R." initial in Donaldson's name? Looks like they forgot it...

Gonna assume you don't need me to answer, but anyway: He's never been published with the "R" in the UK.

I totally agree with you, Murrin. It's a farce that Gollancz changed the book format for part IV of a tetraology.

I can live with the smaller font. I can even live with the differing justification of the spine texts.

But actually changing the physical size of the damn fourth part - presumably for cost reasons - is an effing disgrace. I'm sorely tempted to email them.

More on this if I do...

C went into town today and got my hard copy. Good job I also got the kindle version. The print in the book is so small I wouldn't have been able to read for more than a few minutes at a time, even with glasses! Much too small. The book is smaller than my copy of AATE.

So, I don't know what the proper publishing words for these things are, but they changed the typeface and the type that they use for chapter headings, first letters of each chapter, etc. too (it now matches the US editions).

It's hard to tell, since the pages are "shallower" than previous books, but the binding feels much more likely to break too.

Nothing against SRD - I'm sure he gets absolutely no say in these matters. But most folks who still buy hardcovers these days probably cares about these things and it's shameful. I'd love to hear if they respond, TheFallen, though it's most likely going to be some politely worded version of "We've got your money. Tough noogies."

They also didn't do the same changes from US to UK English that they usually do. (The one I noticed was "legos", which I remember they specifically corrected in UK editions of Runes.)