#A STATION TOO FAR?

Linda Scholefield, email Ben Aaronovitch is one of my favourite authors so I was really happy to learn that a new Peter Grant book was being published. I went to my local Waterstones and picked up a copy of The Furthest Station. Then I put it down again, thinking “Are my eyes deceiving me? £12.99 for just 128 pages?!” It’s a joke – how can the publishers

justify charging so much for so few pages? If I’m going to be paying £12.99 for a book I want a proper book, not a short story. It’s nothing short of daylight robbery. I have all the previous Peter Grant books in hardback but unless this gets reduced down to half price I will definitely be waiting for the paperback version. So disappointing.

We dropped a line to Gollancz, publishers of The Furthest Station, and here’s what they said: “In creating The Furthest Station novella we have gone to great efforts to make this hardback beautiful and collectible, including exclusive endpaper maps of the furthest station itself, Chesham. As Ben and Peter Grant have such a loyal readership we wanted to create a stunning book that can act as the perfect Christmas present for Folly fans everywhere. All Gollancz hardbacks are followed with a more affordable paperback and The Furthest Station will be available in such format this March for £7.99. We did look very closely at similar titles from other publishers, and our previous similar publications, and felt we were in line with current pricing trends. That said, we look very carefully at the price of every book we publish, and feedback will be taken on board for future similar publications.”