New Science Fiction Collection (5 vols.): First Contact

Man, increased costs are definitely hitting EP! $155 a volume for the set!

Rendezvous with Rama • Contact • The Forge of God • The Mote in God's Eye • Blindsight
https://www.eastonpress.com/all-categories/sci-fi-and-fantasy/first-contact-3783...

You would have to want the set really bad to pay that price. There isn’t even an indication of illustrations other than the frontispieces.

Yep, a little pricey. And I thought their Dark Side of the Moon series was priced too high for me!
https://www.eastonpress.com/all-categories/sci-fi-and-fantasy/the-dark-side-of-t...

That dark blue leather looks great in the mockup. Stars on the leather look cool too.

I will have to say, though, that the design on the covers and especially the spines is intriguing. But not $775 worth of intriguing.

I think the design is beautiful, but already have (and really like) the FS Rendevous with Rama and already really expensive set.

That’s a great looking set

Intriguing but hardly worth the asking price. Tell ya what, EP: make an attempt to sell a set of books and not just a picture and I’ll buy a set. Name the authors, print the story summaries, count the illustrations, name the animal sourcing the leather, name the fonts. It’s not that hard. I dare you.

>8 treereader: It's astonishing. They could just put all the info up on the site that will go onto the mailer for this that they'll eventually send out. It is beyond stupid that EP is so stingy with info about their products on their website.

>9 whytewolf1:

Even the mailers skip the story summaries. Mostly…

It looks like it's another one with one illustration per book, and for that the price was too high for the Moon set, and is now even more so for this one. It's a shame - I'd like to support editions like this - but the price tag is just too high for what you get, at least in my opinion.

Just in case that's of interested to anyone: They're not as nicely bound and I can't compare the paper quality, but Library of American have Science Fiction sets with novels from the 50s or 60s respectively, sewn binding, acid-free paper, slipcased, at a very reasonable price. There are several novels per book, so I'm sure the font is smaller than here and the paper is probably thinner, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. I stumbled across Library of America thanks to someone on Librarything, or I wouldn't have known about and bought those sets either.

>10 treereader: That's true

Not even signed. Way too pricey even then.

>13 Eastonorfolio: Although... that's exactly where the signed prices have been landing lately for the new releases. And to be fair, inflationary pressures and increased costs due to supply chain problems have hit the publishing industry pretty hard. Most of the smaller presses have been raising prices. But I agree that this is a lot for unsigned "standard" editions.

And what else is a shame is that you cannot purchase individual volumes. These are only sold as a set. I cannot justify purchasing the set when I already own a couple of the titles from a different EP series. :P

Uggh. Two of these five were already in their prior Sci-Fi collection (and are already on my shelf) Due to the cover art, having just three of them (if possible) would just not look right on the shelf. I guess these are for new EP collectors. I agree that if this is where prices for standard edition books are going, folks would be better off just purchasing used EP Sci-Fi/Fantasy books on the secondary market.

Perhaps this is what it costs to turn a profit now. I have seen similar rises in the cost of Folio Socity books, which is just disappointing. If this is where prices need to go, I am pessimistic about the future of publishers of nice editions.

-Shawn

...still no details posted. My offer still stands, EP: describe your product and I'll buy it.