Sunday, June 8, 2014

An Act of Great Kindness

About a year and a half ago, I noticed brand new copies of East of Laughter and Serpent's Egg for sale on the site of an English books store, Cold Tonnage Books (www.coldtonnage.com), for £5.00 GBP, so I ordered them.

I'm working in California now, and commuting home to Albuquerque on the weekends. The other day I brought Serpent's Egg with me to read on the flight. However, I left it in the airport or on the airplane! Arrrghh! I had only made it about 3 pages into the book.

I looked on Cold Tonnage's site and they still have copies for £5.00, so I ordered another. It arrived yesterday. The first thing I noticed when I opened the package was a note on top of the book:

In what I can only describe as an act of great kindness to a complete stranger (me), they had given me the signed limited edition!

The only way I know to respond to this (beyond sending them a very nice thank you note, which I am doing) is to pass on some form of Lafferty-related kindness.

I have an extra copy each of Past Master and Strange Doings. If any of you need a copy of either, I will be very happy to give it to you. Leave a comment, drop me a note on the East of Laughter Facebook group, or e-mail me. I'll get your address and send it to you. 


And check out Cold Tonnage's web site. They several more Lafferty books--some at very good prices. As they ship from England, shipping to those of you in the UK and EU ought to cost less than shipping from America.

5 comments:

  1. Dang it. Wrote a comment and it disappeared. Basically, great story. After reading this, I ordered copies of each from Cold Tonnage. :)

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    1. Excellent! You wouldn't need a free copy of Strange Doings would you?

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  2. Strange Doings gone. Past Master still up for grabs.

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  3. I thought about claiming the copy of Strange Doings. I'm glad that it went to someone else. I've got a wealth of Lafferty mag stories still to read and plan on buying all of the Centipede volumes. I'm less concerned about chasing down the short fiction right now. I'm focusing on grabbing up the novels at the cheapest prices I can find. Nothing would make me happier than the Locus Foundation announcing an upcoming reprint of all of the novels.

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  4. I gave away a copy of Past Master to my brother-in-law today. It felt pretty good. :)

    I also enjoyed reading aloud a passage to him after giving him a synopsis of the book.

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