TSoR: Next month's pick - out of print but on Audible

[Gina]

I'm excited to see that it's available as an ebook! I live in Germany so I don't have access to English used book stores or libraries, so an out-of-print book can be sometimes be challenging.

I've tried audiobooks and I'm just really bad at it. My mind wanders too much.

[Jeff]

ebooks FTW!!!! ;) Thank you!

[Alan]

If you aren't getting a physical copy,audible or the Baen copy, be careful to check the page length because the NY public library system thought it had copies on microform but some of them were just part of the story in anthologies.

[Misti]

I was going to suggest doing an alternate pick so those who can't get a copy would be able to participate in some discussion but since there is an eBook available, nevermind!

[Art]

Looking at the PDF someone posted above and loving the original illustrations and adds. Think I'm going to read it that way and have a really retro experience.

[Caitlin]

Misti makes a good point - perhaps the solution for the future when a book is not widely available is to have a sanctioned alt for the month?

[Paulo]

I usually do Audible for the monthly pick (I keep my non-fiction reading on ebooks or paper) so I'm good for the idea as well.

But the suggestion I read somewhere above on this thread is valid: if it is a hard to find printed version of the book, the community should have more time to find the book before we officially start reading it.

[Leesa]

I'm being optimistic that Tom sticks with the plan! I ordered the ebook through Baen as I wasn't sure if I could stick with the audiobook (hard to tell even with the lengthy sample Audible gives us).

$4 at Baen!

[terpkristin]

Not sure why people seem to be complaining that there's not enough time to find it in print. This is a very early announcement, ~2 weeks left in the month. Plenty of time for cheap shipping to make the BEGINNING of the month, much less the middle or end. The book is shorty, has an e-version compatible with most if not all readers available...to say nothing of the fact that if you buy from Baen, you ALSO get access to their free library more easily...I would have thought people who've been whining that there's not enough classic sci-if in this club, not enough books by women...would be pleased. Guess there's no winning.

I hope Tom sticks to his guns and picks it. And in the future doesn't do a poll like this. Pick good books, just like he said in the show. Plenty of other things to read if people can't/won't do this one.

[Andrew]

Go with the pick of Sword of Rhiannon. It sounds very historically important, and Amazon has them for pretty cheap for those of us like me who don't use audible.

[Ty]

I've already ordered a copy of The Sword of Rhiannon so it would be nice if it was the choice, but I'll read it either way. It sounded pretty good to me.

[Darren]

I usually enjoy the picks Tom and Veronica make on their own best.

[terpkristin]

Darren wrote: "I usually enjoy the picks Tom and Veronica make on their own best."

Ditto. Mega ditto.

[Larry]

Currently Amazon has twenty copies.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Plenty of ways to get a book. Amazon alone will have dozens of sellers. I have no concern."

[Casey]

I am fine with the choice, there are lots of sellers on Alibris. I think it's great the choice is supporting an author that is mostly out of print, maybe we can help improve visibility of her work.

[Joseph]

If anyone out there wants a whole pile of Brackett's sword-and-planet, there's also Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, which includes both Sea Kings/Sword of Rhiannon proper and a bunch of other related short stories.

[Korey]

When you consider the ebook version available from BAEN for $4.00, and the scanned PDF that was linked earlier, I certainly don't have a problem with this. Seems like it's not difficult at all to lay eyes or ears on this book.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Don't forget to try worldcat.org where you can put in your zip code and see where the closest library to you that has it.

[[deleted user]]

terpkristin wrote: "Not sure why people seem to be complaining that there's not enough time to find it in print. This is a very early announcement, ~2 weeks left in the month. Plenty of time for cheap shipping to make..."

I don't know how different from classic sci fi this author will be. She is a woman but it's apparently another "man rescues damsel in distress" book.
Hopefully, the reviews I've read just missed some subtle commentary or it was about something else and I got it mixed up.

But yeah, I agree. There are so many sci fi and fantasy reading lists. What makes this one special is that it's Tom and Veronica curated. : )

[Kathryn]

I am okay with picks like this. As Tom says in the podcast, as long as they're not so rare that the book would cost a lot or take a week or two to hunt down off of the internet I'm okay with such picks now and again.

[Linnea]

Since I already own Sea-Kings of Mars and otherwordly stories (I collect the SF/F-masterworks series'), my opinion on this specific book might be moot, but overall I think as long as the book isn't ridiculously obscure or hard to get then you (Tom and Veronica) should be able to pick it. Personally I don't do audiobooks (I agree with Kevin in message #8), and I live in a country where finding english sf/f second hand might be difficult, so I'll most likely be the kind of person who will have to skip any future out-of-print reads in this group. But I think even more important (than me being able to participate every month) is that the S&L picks are diverse in terms of nationality and gender of the author, publication date etc. and if one pick happen to be OOP and I can't find it, well then I just have to live with that and read one of the other books in my endless tbr-pile. No big deal.

[Duncan]

I would love to listen to this book. I read about the author recently and am quite interested. I mostly do Audible for this group and have missed a few choices that weren't available, so in my admittedly biased opinion this choice works just fine for me.

[Visible]

Sounds good to me. I'm in :)

[Kathryn]

It's only $6.98 on Amazon.com used including shipping. Not too bad...

[William]

It seems as if this book isn't as hard to get as Tom assumed. Personally I think an obscure book would be nice occasionally, so long as we all had a bit of warning to find copies.

Perhaps once or twice a year there could be a special "quest" pick where we're all given a month or two to hunt down a grail of a book.

[Pam]

Not something I would ever pick up on my own, so yes, please! And trying to cut down on the books that I buy until I know that I love them enough to want to add to the shelves of books I already have, so I typically buy e-books for S&L anyway!

[Tom, Supreme Laser]

It is done! Sorry, I meant to make the call Friday and well, I forgot. But I just made it official. Thanks all for the excellent feedback and for helping each other out finding copies!! You all rock.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Cool. :-) The Baen eBooks that Sean linked to are available to non-US buyers. Not always the case. and it's only 4 bucks (US$).

http://www.baenebooks.com/showproduct...

[Ulmer Ian]

Yea Baen is a small tightly held publisher and have very sensible ebook selling policies to match.

[Spencer]

This title may also be part of the collection "Space opera: An anthology of way-back-when futures" by Doubleday, ISBN: 9780385078733. It lists "Brackett, L. - The sword of Rhiannon" among it's stories. Took a bit of searching the larger library network of which my library takes part. Hope this helps others.

[Joseph]

Spencer wrote: "This title may also be part of the collection "Space opera: An anthology of way-back-when futures" by Doubleday, ISBN: 9780385078733. It lists "Brackett, L. - The sword of Rhiannon" among it's stor..."

Um. On the one hand, that's a great collection and I do recommend it. But I checked my copy and it looks like it only contains an excerpt, not the entire short novel.

[Pixie]

I do appreciate Tom picking a book that's so readily available used. Sword of Rhiannon is obscure enough that none of my libraries had a copy (and it wasn't available on paperbackswap.com, either). Fortunately, my local used bookstore has a copy for $1.75. My budget is pretty tight, but I think I can pony up two bucks. :)

For the record, my ideal pick is 1.) Not so obscure that my library doesn't have it, and 2.) Not so new that I'm on a month-long waiting list at the library to get it.

[Joanne]

I've never listened to an audiobook before so I'm going to have a go with this book. Yay for free 30-day Audible trial!

[Rob, Roberator]

This might not be the best choice for your first audio book.

[Marion]

Thankfully there's the PDF version available, but I don't live in the US, and I think that is the case for a fair amount of the members of this group, and personally, trying to find a print copy of this for a fair price is quite hard (I'm not willing to pay €30+ for a mass market paperback that may be in bad condition).
(I listened to the excerpt on Audible and just couldn't deal with the narrator's voice)

[Richard]

If the book was only available as an audiobook or out-of-print paper book then I would probably have to give it a miss. But I have bought the ebook from Baen, and that's all good. Looking forward to it.

[Andrés]

I see several copies available in Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Rhiannon-...
unless I'm looking at the wrong book

[Meg]

I won't participate in an audiobook or physical copy only. But I don't mind that I would be left out, because it's my choice. I can't stand audio books and I have medical issues that make it annoying to read physical books these days. I'd really only mind if it became a really frequent thing.

[John (Taloni)]

People do know that the book is available for $4 on Baen Books, right? I don't know a whole lot about currency conversion for credit cards, but I used mine overseas, so I think you can just buy it if you want. No need for the expensive options.

[Spencer]

Joseph wrote: "Spencer wrote: "This title may also be part of the collection "Space opera: An anthology of way-back-when futures" by Doubleday, ISBN: 9780385078733. It lists "Brackett, L. - The sword of Rhiannon"..."

Yup. Double checked and now I'm sad.

[Joseph]

Spencer wrote: "Yup. Double checked and now I'm sad."

Don't be too sad ... As I said, it's a great collection, even if it does contain a fair number of excerpts from longer works. Along the same lines, Aldiss also edited Galactic Empires 1 and other, similar anthologies well worth checking out.