And, of course, to download a Kindle version of any of her books, it costs as much as a paperback - $6.99 to $7.99 to $9.99! (Well, the most recently released paperbacks cost $9.95.)
Since I've got all her books in paperback version, I won't be downloading them. And even if I wanted them...I could go to my local used book store and probably pick them up for $2 or $3...
So once again I must just rant at the ridiculous prices being charged for electronic books.
On the other hand...they are obviously charging what the market will bear...if no one was buying them at $6.99 they'd have to drop their price, one assumes...
But it is simply outrageous that an electronic book costs as much as a paperback book! Couldn't they even give us a $1 discount to show their appreciation for us buying a Kindle? Again I can only reiterate my hope that authors are paid better royalties for electronic books - they deserve it!
Books by Phoebe Atwood Taylor are not represented on Kindle...a pity. And as I stated before, Agatha Christie books are reasonable - about $5 a piece. (There's a new book called The Secret Notebooks of Agatha Christie - which feature notes on all of her books and looks very interesting...they want $15 for a Kindle version. I'm sorry. If I'm going to pay $15 for a book it's going to be for a book with real pages!)
Ngaio Marsh is not represented at Kindle yet. Nor is John Dickson Carr. Interestingly, the Anthony Boucher Chronicles are there...
This huge book (470 pages) contains all of the reviews that Anthony Boucher wrote when he was the popular fiction reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1942 to 1947. Previously published in three volumes, this one book has it all. It has a complete index to all of the hundreds of authors reviewed by Boucher for easy and quick reference. It was exhaustively compiled and edited by author Francis M. Nevins, who adds explanatory annotations to all of the obscure -- and not so obscure -- authors' names. Anyone interested in the Golden Age of mysteries must have this book.
But none of his books. (Under the pseudonym Francis Iles, he wrote Before the Fact, which Alfred Hitchcock turned into Suspicion starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.)
Finally, a bargain on Kindle! In its print incarnation, the cheapest book available is $20, whereas it can be had on the Kindle for only $9.99. I think that I shall get it, for I have long been a fan of Boucher, and it will be interesting to see these book reviews.
As far as science fiction...
A few Isaac Asimovs, only two books by Norman Spinrad. There are six books by Stephen Donaldson, but none of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books are represented. There are 15 books by Arthur C. Clarke. Six or so books by Robert Heinlein are available...for $9.99 each!
Only Triplanetary is represented from EE Doc Smith's Lensman series (a couple of his Skylark of Space are there.) Of course, Triplanetary wasn't originally part of the Lensman series. It was a stand-alone serial. When the Lensman series took off, it was rewritten to make it part of the series. The version here is the original version.
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