5 ms·

Out of topic... This book is really expensive as a hardcover! I had to look around to make sure it's not a glitch. It goes for $180-$374 on amazon.com and $63

Out of topic... This book is really expensive as a hardcover! I had to look around to make sure it's not a glitch. It goes for $180-$374 on amazon.com and $630-$1222. $800 on ebay.com even! Woah. I'm guessing it's out of print and extremely popular?

mrlonglong 6y ago
Get it on kindle, I have it and it's brilliant. Edit for typo
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  I usually try to get Sci-Fi books in hardcover (that's how I read all my first Sci-Fi and it stuck with me)... I'll make an exception for that one!
ebg13 6y ago
Likely not because of extreme popularity. Publishers almost always switch very quickly from hardcover to only printing paperback editions because the market isn't willing to pay the additional cost. It's worse for weird scifi novels because the market is small, so the hardcover run for this was probably tiny.
markatto 6y ago
There are many SciFi titles that are extremely expensive in hardcover these days. There is a lot of amazon volatility, so I tend to use price watch sites, but some also consistently stay in the hundreds of dollars (for example, the original printing of Hyperion). I suspect that this is because the genre used to sell badly in hardcover and many SciFi fans have come into money over the last few decades, but I'd be curious to hear from somebody who understands the market better.
NickNameNick 6y ago
Amazon prices for uncommon/rare items can get wierd. There was an issue a while ago with resellers that would look for items on amazon, and create a duplicate listing with a slightly higher price. If they got an order, they could buy the item from another amazon seller, and onsell the item for a profit. This broke in a predictably amusing way when there were only a few vendors for an item, and all of them were doing the same thing - each vendor updating their price to be higher than the others, quickly spiralling up to ludicrous values.

mrlonglong 6y ago

Get it on kindle, I have it and it's brilliant. Edit for typo

Raphmedia 6y ago
I usually try to get Sci-Fi books in hardcover (that's how I read all my first Sci-Fi and it stuck with me)... I'll make an exception for that one!

ebg13 6y ago

Likely not because of extreme popularity. Publishers almost always switch very quickly from hardcover to only printing paperback editions because the market isn't willing to pay the additional cost. It's worse for weird scifi novels because the market is small, so the hardcover run for this was probably tiny.

markatto 6y ago

There are many SciFi titles that are extremely expensive in hardcover these days. There is a lot of amazon volatility, so I tend to use price watch sites, but some also consistently stay in the hundreds of dollars (for example, the original printing of Hyperion). I suspect that this is because the genre used to sell badly in hardcover and many SciFi fans have come into money over the last few decades, but I'd be curious to hear from somebody who understands the market better.

NickNameNick 6y ago

Amazon prices for uncommon/rare items can get wierd. There was an issue a while ago with resellers that would look for items on amazon, and create a duplicate listing with a slightly higher price. If they got an order, they could buy the item from another amazon seller, and onsell the item for a profit. This broke in a predictably amusing way when there were only a few vendors for an item, and all of them were doing the same thing - each vendor updating their price to be higher than the others, quickly spiralling up to ludicrous values.