No wonder no one wants to buy hardcovers.

My good friend Alan in Toronto was once again kind enough to send me an Amazon.ca gift certificate as a seasonal gift, and as a result I've spent some time on their web site looking at potential purchases. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Amazon's approach to these things, the site keeps track of what you've purchased or looked at and suggests other things that you might like.

Since my last purchase on the site was a collection of DC's Sandman comics as a gift for my other friend Colin, the suggestions were loaded heavily toward British author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman's brilliant scripts made Sandman a critical success, making it the only comic to both win the World Fantasy Award and appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Gaiman may well be the premier fantasy author of our time. His writing defines the modern face of the genre - his legendary work on Sandman, his gritty urban fantasies such as Neverwhere, his lighter, more traditional works like Stardust and less easily categorized pieces such as American Gods or Coraline - everything Gaiman creates seems to be spun from moonbeams and silver.


Now, fond though I am of Mr. Gaiman, when I saw that the "preferred" version of Neverwhere - presumably the equivalent of the director's cut - was selling for a staggering $151.20, I had to wonder if success was starting to go to his head. I mean really - a hundred and fifty bucks? Well, actually two hundred and forty bucks, $151.20 is the reduced price. (How kind of Amazon to reduce the cost so that it's not out of reach to the man or woman on the street.)

I love books, but come on, let's be rational about this, Neil! Could you look me in the eye and convince me that whatever the extra material is in Neverwhere Ltd., it really makes it worth $142.21 more than my $8.99 paperback edition? Really? If so, I expect that book stores will have display copies chained shut - after all, you wouldn't want people like me sneaking in and getting in forty or fifty dollars worth of reading during lunch break.

- Sid