To my amazement the internet has failed me!
There I was, entertaining the thought of demolishing an author’s various books, only to be shown his first published book is not in stock. Anywhere! It’s as though it is missing on Earth, forever lost perhaps to propping up a wobbly table in some nutter’s basement, never to be seen under a soft reading light again.
To begin this short and bizarre story, and as an avid Sci-Fi reader, I find myself slowly moving out of the classic authors of the genre and testing the waters of more contemporary writers. I am very particular over what I read, primarily because I think there’s quite a lot of shitty writers out there publishing trash Sci-Fi. I also have grown weary of writers who write the soon-to-be-future stuff, and think it’s cool to include ‘hip computer speak’ in their dialogue. It’s much like hearing some of the techie crap on NCIS, and openly cringing that someone actually got paid to write that crap. Fortunately there are also some wonderful writers who aptly receive excellent reviews, and continually gain notoriety in the various circles I am active with online.
Now, one such author who has piqued my interest is a chap named Alastair Reynolds. Plus he’s Welsh (my family’s background!) and that’s plenty reason enough. He’s gotten a fair bit of press recently, and so I became very interested in his work. Given his recent advance to write 10 novels for £100,000 per book, I finally decided take this literary plunge and find his first published novel. After some quick research online, Revelation Space was what I was looking for. I pop around, and learn it was published back in `00 in a rather small printing in the UK making the hardcover, as I understand it, quite the rare & noteworthy collectible. No worries, I am merely looking for a softcover.
Title in hand (and thanks to images of the cover online, I knew visually what I was looking for), I immediately popped in the car and went to my local mega-bookstore. Aaaaaaand big fat nothing. In fact, there’s only 1 copy of a book I believe is in the middle of one particular story arc he writes about. iPhone in hand I verify this and pout miserably. I hop in the car and head to another mega-bookstore in the area. Same results: nada.
Given it is now nine (9) years, eight (8) months since the first small printing, one would assume that the paperback edition would be readily available, more so in that he has published quite a number of books since then. And given that he appears to be extremely popular as an author, one might be lead to believe a bookstore would in fact carry a good selection of his works!
NAY.
This is not uncommon for me. I typically have poor luck when it comes to finding books in a store I actually would like to purchase that day. You know, because going in to a bookstore usually results in leaving with a book you wanted, for most people at least. Never the case for me! I am constantly reminding myself never to go back to a (mega-)bookstore (except for Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto who are awesome in all shapes and sizes), simply because I am continually disappointed by a lack of product.
Books. In a bookstore. It’s not hard. You have a big bookstore, you have lots of books. But no, you have books that no one wants. Or books most people could give a shit about. Seriously, 15 copies of the same Star Wars novella is bullshit.
[ Chapters(.ca) can, very politely, go away in my world. There is a back story here from many years ago regarding a supremely massive failure of a book shipment I had ordered online that ended up being a really big mess. It was never resolved. I curse Chapters regularly. They are only good for the Economist weekly, and even then they are a week behind most often. ]
Must remain positive! Not a trip wasted, I quip to myself, but a slightly mood dampened drive on a fine summer night. Returning home, the internet is the next best place to find this book. Perhaps I had a wrong title! Perhaps I was mistaken in the details some how!
Off to Amazon’s Canadian site. Easy search, lots of results. I see used books, but I am loathe to purchase a used book I cannot see prior to exchanging money. I did that once only to receive a book with more dog-ears than my local humane society. I stumble across a mish-mosh of paperback books with differing ISBN numbers and publishers, audio books, and hardcovers. A used book! Fine! I’ll submit to someone else’s icky finger marks. Estimated time to ship? 1-2 months. Huh? Bwuah? I spent another half an hour trying to figure how & why some of the hardcovers were upwards of 170 dollars, and why no Canadian online retailer of books had Revelation Space! Nothing online to purchase, nothing shown in their store-checking queries either! Unreal! I’m officially let down by the internet. Seriously! I am utterly stumped by this. Traumatized too!
Fortunately I poke around Amazon.com (US) and eventually find myself being able to order a shiny & new copy of Revelation Space. Hurrah! But in all truth, I have never, ever seen a more illusive book to order in a new and untouched form. All things aside, I happily look forward to this book arriving in a week or so, and I cannot wait to read it. 
In the mean time, Asimov’s Foundation series is now up on deck.
