printer's bedevilments
So...
Someone brought to my attention a defective copy of the mass market paperback of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, missing its last pages in a particularly deceptive way as it ends at the end of a paragraph. (On page 408, with "Gamelin tells me that if I pick up one more biochem course, and pull together all those field notes I've been sending him for the journal the past two years into a coherent paper, he wants to roll my bachelor's and master's into one, and shove me directly into his grad program.")
My own copy of the first, and as far as I know only, mmpb printing dated September 2017, ends as it should, on page 410 with the line: "It's a deal," he said, and they stood a while longer, looking at the horizon line where a new sun would rise tomorrow.
Now I'm wondering how many other defective copies were bought all unknowing...
This is most probably a printing plant glitch, of the sort that happens now and then. Missing pages, duplicated pages, pages bound in upside down or weirdly, and so on. I have in my possession, for a souvenir, a copy of the hardcover of Komarr where the cover and dust jacket are for my Baen book, but the book bound between the boards is a lengthy study of poetry from publisher Scribner's. My local bookseller's best guess was that this happened at a changeover between the two print runs, as he got several in his carton.
I should I suppose say that printing plants do not normally belong to publishers. Publishers job their books out to a plant that keeps itself profitably busy serving many publishers.
If anyone has any more bizarre printing glitches to share, feel free to do so down in the comments.
(This may be another good place to point out that the "Red Queen" in the title refers not only to Cordelia, but to a biological theory about evolution,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Que...
Which is quite pertinent to one of the main themes of this science fiction novel. I'm surprised at how many SF readers miss that reference.)
Ta, L.
Someone brought to my attention a defective copy of the mass market paperback of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, missing its last pages in a particularly deceptive way as it ends at the end of a paragraph. (On page 408, with "Gamelin tells me that if I pick up one more biochem course, and pull together all those field notes I've been sending him for the journal the past two years into a coherent paper, he wants to roll my bachelor's and master's into one, and shove me directly into his grad program.")
My own copy of the first, and as far as I know only, mmpb printing dated September 2017, ends as it should, on page 410 with the line: "It's a deal," he said, and they stood a while longer, looking at the horizon line where a new sun would rise tomorrow.
Now I'm wondering how many other defective copies were bought all unknowing...
This is most probably a printing plant glitch, of the sort that happens now and then. Missing pages, duplicated pages, pages bound in upside down or weirdly, and so on. I have in my possession, for a souvenir, a copy of the hardcover of Komarr where the cover and dust jacket are for my Baen book, but the book bound between the boards is a lengthy study of poetry from publisher Scribner's. My local bookseller's best guess was that this happened at a changeover between the two print runs, as he got several in his carton.
I should I suppose say that printing plants do not normally belong to publishers. Publishers job their books out to a plant that keeps itself profitably busy serving many publishers.
If anyone has any more bizarre printing glitches to share, feel free to do so down in the comments.
(This may be another good place to point out that the "Red Queen" in the title refers not only to Cordelia, but to a biological theory about evolution,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Que...
Which is quite pertinent to one of the main themes of this science fiction novel. I'm surprised at how many SF readers miss that reference.)
Ta, L.
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Not a Bujold publication, but years ago I bought a MMPB of a SF novel by a different author, and one segment of about 25 to 50 pages more or less was repeated, and the same amount of pages were missing. I had been traveling and wasn't able to return it to the store where I purchased it, but another branch of the chain store where I bought it had the book in stock and was willing to do an exchange. But what a disappointment, on the plane and with a major bit of plot missing. And I also bought one book (used) that had the cover upside down to the contents. But at least it was the right contents. Somewhere in my library that book exists.
In the e-book of Harry Harrison’s “Tunnel Through the Deeps”, there’s a weird sentence: “Washington sent him over a pint of beer, then raised his own and drained it in Pall Mall.” As I know from reading the paper book, there’s a whole chunk of text missing before “in Pall Mall”, in which Washington moves from one place to another. I’ve complained about this in the past, but it’s never been corrected.The alternative title of this book is “A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!”, but the e-book uses the inferior title.
Wow. I'd never heard of the Red Queen evolution theory. Happy to learn something new. My rereads are generally relistens so I can't think of any chunks missing. I do know of a few "verbal typos" in books I listen to a lot .
The second printing copy I got from Amazon in 2021 (and the second copy I got when I returned it as defective) had this problem. I reported it to Baen on their website at the time, but never heard anything back. I was definitely confused since it does end on a complete thought, just not what I had remembered from when I read it before - had to get the ebook from the library to confirm something was missing.
Here's my missing chunk of book: Harry Harrison's "Deathworld II." Every damn online copy I've found is taken, unaltered from the Analog Magazine serial (Ethical Engineer), not the mass market paperback. John Campbell chopped off the last third except the last 2 pages, (changing a telegraph to a radio so Jason could signal his rescuers), most probably so he could start another serial in the next issue.
“She hunched. “I’d be betting my whole life on the man. I did that once with Kymis. And then he went and died on me.” The furious helplessness of that loss still reverberated, when she made the mistake of remembering.
“Oh.” Idrene’s smile grew crooked. “I know the answer for that one. It worked quite well for Florina. And your father. And Ikos’s father, too.”
Nikys raised her face. “You do? What?”
…I spent the rest of the book wondering when that question would be answered. It made ever so much more sense once the glitch was fixed. Thank you!
Easier to fix in an e-copy, though.