Quote:
Originally Posted by stustaff
if Baen had them I would happily buy them!
I have them all in paperback. they are available to download illegally! which I wont. I cant 'format shift' them in the UK or type them up as thats ilegal.
It really sucks!
|
It does, but we're stuck with it. Baen doesn't have the rights to all of the books.
Spider had been published by Tor Books, and created a flurry of controversy when he publically criticized Tor. He had submitted a couple of books for publication (one Callahan, one not), and was unhappy with the offered deal. He complained that it was becoming impossible to make a living as a freelance writer, but he couldn't realistically go back to a day job.
Tor said they made an offer consistent with what his sales had been and what they could reasonably expect from the offered titles.
The response of most other SF pros I knew was that Spider hadn't been reading the tea leaves. Things were tough for
everyone, and he was no exception. Book sales were flat or down, publishing was contracting, offered advances would not be what they might once have been, and criticizing Tor (who is generally considered one of the best in dealing fairly with authors) in public wouldn't help his case and might shoot his career in
both feet. (If you lambaste your publisher in public, how enthusiastic do you think another house will be about dealing with you?)
The Callahan titles wound up at Baen in the process. Perhaps Baen has done better by Spider than Tor. I have no way of knowing.
Meanwhile, I read the earlier Callahan collections with pleasure, but I fear I haven't been as pleased with the later ones. Like Piers Anthony's Xanth books, it's a series I think should have been allowed to end. I love good puns, but I need a book to be more than an excuse for good puns, and as later books delved into the back story of who and what Callhan was, I found it increasingly harder to suspend disbelief.
Lobby Baen to acquire the rights to the other titles and issue them as Webscriptions. If they get enough demand, it might happen.
______
Dennis