Happy Halloween everyone!
Nope, I don't have any nice pics... but if you're looking for some, there's Mailyn and Zeek. If you follow Zeek's link to her BF's blog where he has posted Halloween pics, you might want to avoid that last picture. *shudder* I hope to erase that image from my mind as fast as possible! :P
Still haven't finished anything... I'm currently reading No Rest for the Wicked (trying to complete my TBR challenge... I don't even remember if I've sign up or not :P) so, so, so... oh yeah, I wanted to ask: How much is too much?
What am I talking about right? So we all know that one of the most popular romance author is Nora Roberts. Come on, I know a lot of you are closet fans :) I like her work, although I have to admit that her last few books, except for Angel's Fall, have been disappointing. I mean, her Garden trilogy - I didn't even bother to finish reading it, and her new paranormal trilogy is, well... cliché and quite typical. I mean, half-way of the first novel and you know what's going to be the pairing... cos it soo obvious. I must admit that it's well-written, but I don't see anything special about it and I don't understand why so many praise it... maybe I'm being dense? But seriously, I've seen more original plot, her characters are recycled, the appearance of Morrigan reminds me of the Key trilogy and as for action, yes there is a lot, but I've seen much more (hey, blame it on kung fu story... action-wise, you can't beat that)... so yeah, I'm quite unimpressed. I think that trilogy-wise, she should take a step back and focus on relationships rather than a quest, like the Chespeake trilogy with the Quinn brothers.
Anyway, aside from writing romance novels, Nora Roberts also writes the In Death series, a futuristic romance/mystery series, under the pen name of J.D. Robb. We all know that this series is hugely popular... More than 20 novels to the series and you still have tons of fans following it, me included. That's quite wow in my opinion. Anyway, Born in Death is coming out next week, but already, dedicated fans of the In Death series are talking and only talking about Innocent in Death which is coming out February 2007. There's already tons of spoilers about this series out and ARC are being sold on ebay... The last one was won at the insane price of... 400$. Yep, 400$ for an ARC...
So seriously, I'm wondering how much is too much? Let's do some quick maths:
400$ US = 448$ CDN
1 book = abt 10$
so with 448$, I can buy at least 40 books (tax = 6%)
Hmm, I mean, I've been willing to pay 25$ for a Jennifer Crusie out-of-print book (shipping included) in the past, but 400$ for an ARC? Euh, I don't think so... I'd rather wait for it to come out in February, even if this mean I'll die of curiosity, which by the way, I'm not. I guess what's intriguing ppl is that Roarke and Eve are having a marital crisis, but still... we all know that they'll still be together at the end of it, so why worry so much?
Sooo, what are you willing to pay for a book (not an ARC)?
My answer: Me, if it's a book that I can buy in the store, of course I don't want to pay full price. For an out-of-print book, probably as I did in the past 25-30$ and that would be my limit. (okay, perhaps 50$, but that's really, really it - and that would esp. be for vietnamese books because they're hard to find, so of course, they're expensive). ARC? Never for me, I'll just wait thank you.
