If I compare my hardcovers of the earlier books with tPoD and on, they have a much smaller font and also smaller page margins.
This is especially evident for The Shadow Rising.
(I bought my hardcovers around 2001-2002 sometime.)
The Gathering Storm is the thickest WoT book, although TSR and LoC probably contain 20-30% more words.
This is somewhat surprising given the publishers/book stores complaints that fantasy books takes up too much shelf space in stores. I would expect that they would have kept the smaller font to keep down the size of the books.
I do agree that the binding quality is lacking.
This is especially evident for The Shadow Rising.
(I bought my hardcovers around 2001-2002 sometime.)
The Gathering Storm is the thickest WoT book, although TSR and LoC probably contain 20-30% more words.
This is somewhat surprising given the publishers/book stores complaints that fantasy books takes up too much shelf space in stores. I would expect that they would have kept the smaller font to keep down the size of the books.
I do agree that the binding quality is lacking.
I am not certain if anyone has noticed this, but the recent reprints of earlier WoT novels are apparently thinner than the original paperbacks from the 90's. Having decided to replace a few of the paperback versions of the earlier books with new ones that are no longer glued and taped into semblances of books, I discovered that although they contain the same number of pages, the pages themselves are thinner. I tested this first hand by comparing the new reprints with other books that happened to be on the same shelf and sure enough, the thickness of books themselves did not measure up with the actual page count compared to other publishers.
Even some of the hardcover books seem to have problems, though I am uncertain if this change is new or old. I found a hardcover variant of the Great Hunt and noticed that the margins for the book are different than for the other hardcovers I possess. Most strikingly, the margin for the chapter title seemed to be much less than latter hardcovers and the words ran near to the edge of the page. Whether this is printing error, recent change, or the original style I am uncertain, but it is different than the latter six books which I own in hardcover, which by the way are also falling apart because Tor apparently has no intention of creating books that last.
Also amusing to note is how the price of the books have reflected inflation (or not) and the relative value of the Canadian currency at the time of publishing. While my EoTW copy is $5.99, books 2 through 5 are at $6.99, while book 6 and later are all priced at $7.99. The hardcovers have gone through a similar change. The earliest hardcover I possess is priced at $27.95, then latter $29.95, with the latest books being $29.99. Apparently Tor finally figured out people are willing to shell out for the extra 4 cents.
Even some of the hardcover books seem to have problems, though I am uncertain if this change is new or old. I found a hardcover variant of the Great Hunt and noticed that the margins for the book are different than for the other hardcovers I possess. Most strikingly, the margin for the chapter title seemed to be much less than latter hardcovers and the words ran near to the edge of the page. Whether this is printing error, recent change, or the original style I am uncertain, but it is different than the latter six books which I own in hardcover, which by the way are also falling apart because Tor apparently has no intention of creating books that last.
Also amusing to note is how the price of the books have reflected inflation (or not) and the relative value of the Canadian currency at the time of publishing. While my EoTW copy is $5.99, books 2 through 5 are at $6.99, while book 6 and later are all priced at $7.99. The hardcovers have gone through a similar change. The earliest hardcover I possess is priced at $27.95, then latter $29.95, with the latest books being $29.99. Apparently Tor finally figured out people are willing to shell out for the extra 4 cents.
There's a clear change right after what I consider the peak of the series in TFoH. Both it and TSR have the small tight font I associate with TWoT (I can't speak to the earlier volumes, because when I acquired books 1-6 in the mid-nineties I could only get the 4th and 5th in hardcover, with TDR being a book club edition. ) I only recently got LoC in hardcover and haven't checked for that, but purchased ACoS at its release and it has the larger fonts of later books. Given the myriad possible motives for the change (it makes books easier to read, for example) I won't speculate on motives.
An observation: Tor is full of cheap bastards
- 08/01/2010 07:50:43 PM
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Actually (and surprisingly) I think the HC prints of the earlier books had much more text per page
- 09/01/2010 10:31:37 AM
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Correct.
- 10/01/2010 11:37:53 AM
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Lord of Chaos was longer and more densely spaced than even the Fires of Heaven.
- 11/01/2010 02:45:43 AM
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