Aug 14, 2012

YBSF - Achievement Unlocked?

Last year I unlocked one of my most sought after bibliophilic objectives - collecting all 80-odd volumes of Gollancz's SF Masterworks series. They are still coming out but I can keep up with them via airmail, no problem.

My current project is a lot more troublesome - collecting all 29 editions of Gardner Dozois's doorstopping Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series from St. Martin's Press. I've got 18 so far (5,7,9,11,12,14,16,17,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29) but the majority of them were acquired via point-and-click ordering off Amazon. Anything pre-20 was acquired through used book store browsing or as a gift. While I'm sure I could go crazy on Powell's or Alibris and complete my collection, I'm loathe to do so. It just seems like throwing money at it would eliminate the thrill of the chase (something only collector's would understand).


But now comes the news that all of Dozois' anthologies will be e-available this October through the usual vendors. Rumor has the price tag set somewhere between $7.99 and $9.99. Suddenly, unlocking the entire achievement seems possible for less than $300.

Should I give in? Or hold out hope that the e-copies will make the print books somewhat more acquirable?

Regardless, look for a few million words of quality SF hitting e-stores this fall.

3 comments:

  1. There are some who call me TimAugust 28, 2012 at 8:20 PM

    Congrats on the Masterwork collection! I myself have some odd collecting habits, and was even going for the masterworks too at one point, until I realized they were reprinting older ones in the series with new covers and I was getting confused on which came out first, etc... (I'm a sucker for trying to get everything - even in this case reprints - in first of whatever). Since then, I have been collecting the SFBC's 50th Anniversary Collection. Which actually works better for me, since I like hardcovers anyway. Though the Masterwork collection has an admittedly better selection.

    I say keep going for the paper editions of the Dozoi anthologies! They look much nicer on the shelf :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing this information. i actually like your blog post considerably . you've got really shared a informative and interesting blog post with people..

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope it will be helpful for almost all peoples that are searching for this type of topic. I Think this website is best for such topic. good work and quality of articles Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...