O' But that William Hope Hodgeson collection aged like a fine wine... It took forever and a day to complete, but the effort was overwhelmingly appreciated. Yes I want my CAS to finally get here, but just think how rare this collection really is... And honestly when and If anyone will ever put this much effort into another CAS collection like this again in our life time. This may be the first and last time. Same thing with the Hippocampus Press Poetry collection... It has honestly taken a lifetime to collect all these amazing authors on one book shelf with such beautiful quality.

The website of Night Shade Books is now giving a release date of Sept. 2010 for vol. 5:

[nightshadebooks.com]

Geoffrey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The website of Night Shade Books is now giving a
> release date of Sept. 2010 for vol. 5:
>
> [nightshadebooks.com]
> il&p=92


To be honest, I didn't expect it any sooner. March sounded ambitious.

But I'm not griping. I'm more than happy to wait for as Dunwichsouth said, this is an amazing collection, one obviously done for love not money, and each vol has been well worth the wait.

Quote:

one obviously done for love not money,

Ah, nice to see that someone does still believe in the Easter Bunny! ;-)

Lets be real, Night Shade has issues meeting publishing dates. Now that this fact is stated, what are you as a consumer going to do about it? Huh?? Consumers have a couple of options:
Purchasing OR not purchasing a publishers product.
If you don't want to purchase but have paid them already... I have NEVER ever, ever heard of Night Shade having ANY issues refunding people their money back.

I have read all these same postings about the William Hope Hodgson collection, now people are just cutting and pasting those same posings to the CAS boards... But here's something to consider. While waiting forever and a day to finish my Hodgson collection Night Shade in between put out a F()<king awesome Karl Edward Wagner collection, along with other nice works (Lovecraft anyone??). Hmmm... Maybe if we bad mouth this tiny publishing company enough, no one will want to buy anything from them. And then they can go out of business and not finish any of our collections.

So' if you had to wait for the Hodgson Collection like I did, are ya really surprised about the CAS? They are putting the effort in where no one else in the publishing world thought it was necessary. If it takes 5 years, O' well. I will be one of the few select persons in the world that can say he has this collection. Cause lets face it, Your kid's will be wondering what all the fuss is about in the future away... "Hey dad, why didn't you just download and read them?", "Ewwww, paper!" etc...

Just My Thoughts... Now Hippocampus - WHERES MY FRICKEN COPY OF "A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E . Howard" (Just kidding I can wait:)

Quote:

if we bad mouth this tiny publishing company enough, no one will want to buy anything from them.

I am not sure whom you are addressing here. My comment relates to the over-idealization of small presses, and attributing primarily idealistic motives to what are, as you indicate, simply businesses.

For the rest: Since when is telling the truth the equivalent of "bad-mouthing"? The latter implies bad faith, perhaps even misfeasance, and no one is saying such libelous things about any small press.

It is not, however, out of bounds to question the ethics of the practice of limited editions (and pricing), nor is it out of bounds to complain about egregiously missed deadlines and absurdly protracted publication schedules. How many of you would have plunked down your $150 if Night Shade had said, "Oh, and subscribers take note: The publication process will take a minimum of five-and-a half years, perhaps more"? Maybe a lot of you would have, anyway (I am glad that I did not), but the point is the same.

Okay...
I admit it, maybe I was in a bad mood. I guess I was kinda feeling sorry for NSB. After hearing the same things on so many different boards, sadly, year after year. I guess I just vented here. I have a very tender spot for Small Press's, and have seen so many come and go. I use to help out a friend that ran a small press years ago, and saw the heartache and pain involved first hand.
So yeah... Maybe I was a little harsh...

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> one obviously done for love not money,
>
> Ah, nice to see that someone does still believe in
> the Easter Bunny! ;-)

Well, I've not seen him around for a few years, but I'm sure that's just because he's busy...?

Hi fellers
I wasn't sure whether to order CAS back in 2005, but I didn't want to miss out on Tales of India & Irony. That exclusive title persuaded me to put my cash up-front. I don't mind now if everybody gets a copy, but I shall watch out for Greeks bearing gifts in the future. The Hodgson series is magnificent, and yes, well worth waiting for, but highly frustrating. I also have the Hippocampus Press Smith Poetry (hardly delayed at all) and I tremulously await delivery of the Letters of Howard & Lovecraft, hopefuly soon to be with us. Let's put in a word too for the REH Foundation, who did a great jon on Howard's Collected Letters and his Collected Poetry, all of which sit on my special shelf nearest the fire escape. I love small presses and support them in the best way, by buying their books, but if as reported CAS5 has slipped again (now September 2010) then it won't be the last and NSB will be lucky to even get it out anytime in 2011. I'm not being insulting, Jeremy, just staring reality in the face. Shalom, boys, I must get back to my reading.

Actually (wrong topic really, but it's kind of connected) amazon.com has just informed me that my order for A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E . Howard because they've exhausted their usual suppliers! Which isn't particularly heartening. Now I suppose that this situation might change as the stock trickles in, but it's worrying all the same: have pre-orders sold it out already? By the way, in case anyone is wondering why I didn't order it direct from Hippo, it's because the postage costs to the UK push the price well beyond my meagre means. Otherwise I'd go direct. Same with Night Shade, I'm afraid - although I might make an exception for the last vol, if I can get Tales of India & Irony as well...

Forgive me, but it would be kind of nice to hear something else than this daily chattering about publishing dates. Something of a little more intellectual interest. Like sharing your reading experiences of the already released volumes, and how the corrected texts differ from older publications. That's what I wanna hear!

Hi English Assassin
According to my last email from Hippocampus "A Means to Freedom" is still at the printers, so Amazon shouldn't even have it yet to be sold out of. I too was doubtful about shipping costs from the States, but I found that the ten per cent discount offered by Hippocampus for advanced orders pretty well cancelled that out. More power to their elbows.
As for Night Shade Books, they do a great job, eventually. I don't quite get Knygatin's point about "daily chattering" about these serial and snowballing delays, though. Don't customers who've stumped up $150 in advance have a right to chatter a little? Hells bells, so far this project has taken longer than Pearl Harbour to VJ Day, and there's at least another year to wait.
Which reminds me, I was in a flight lounge some time ago waiting to go on holiday. The plane was several years late, and another delay had just been announced. Boy, did we get mad. Then the flight crew strolled through and berated us for our chattering, and suggested we discussed our previous flying experiences with them by way of stimulating their intellectual interest. As customers who'd paid up front for the privilege of being conveyed from A to B moy rapido, we didn't think that was within our remit. What we did consider to be relevant, however, was the straightforward query, "Where the f*** is the pilot?"

I've gotta say, I have so many things to read, more than I can ever find the time for, stacks and shelves of books and finding new literary interests and pursuits so regularly that I don't mind much when a book is delayed, not even if it's grand CAS. It allows me to attack the mountainous to-read pile.

Of course, this isn't terribly relevant, especially not to those that paid up front for things promised by a certain date that has long since passed.

asshurbanipal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't quite get Knygatin's point
> about "daily chattering" about these serial and
> snowballing delays, though. Don't customers who've
> stumped up $150 in advance have a right to chatter
> a little? Hells bells, so far this project has
> taken longer than Pearl Harbour to VJ Day, and
> there's at least another year to wait.
> Which reminds me, I was in a flight lounge some
> time ago waiting to go on holiday. The plane was
> several years late, and another delay had just
> been announced. Boy, did we get mad. Then the
> flight crew strolled through and berated us for
> our chattering, and suggested we discussed our
> previous flying experiences with them by way of
> stimulating their intellectual interest. As
> customers who'd paid up front for the privilege of
> being conveyed from A to B moy rapido, we didn't
> think that was within our remit. What we did
> consider to be relevant, however, was the
> straightforward query, "Where the f*** is the
> pilot?"


*sigh* Amazing.

This thread has 6909 views, and 12 pages of publishing date chattering. I don't believe there is a single thread that goes into literate depth, discussing the texts in the books. I just appeal to you for some balance. Please. Please leave the materialistic surface for an instance, and take a deep plunge. I would love to hear you share your enthusiastic discoveries, thoughts, and musings on the changes and new textual details appearing in the corrected texts. Eldritch Dark is after all a website for discussing CAS and his work, for assisting and deepening its appreciation and understanding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 5 Oct 09 | 11:34AM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> *sigh* Amazing.
>

Actually it is amazing that you are criticizing the content of this thread which is clearly labeled "pub dates...". Yes this thread is devoted to discussing the publishing of these two volumes not the contents.

As for Hippocampus Press, I have received my HPL/REH Letters set. Hippocampus is a one-man operation that runs circles around these other guys. His books are on time. He responds to email. He is a class-act. If his books are late, we are talking one month. Not years and years (Nightshade/Wildside Press).