Fuckin', fuckin', fuck shit fuck.
Ordinarily I love the Science Fiction Book Club. Several of my entries here can attest to that.
But goddammit, this business of Featured Selections that they automatically send you when you don't specifically decline them by a certain date is a fuckin' mug's game. To be fair, they do give me plenty of time to make those decisions, and they do send me emails telling me when new ones are selected, and they do make the process of declining them as painless as they can. Three clicks and I'm off the hook.
Nonetheless it chaps my hide to have to go there twice a month (or so) to tell them not to send me some god-awful crap by an author I've never heard of. Especially when, like today, I find that I've missed one of those emails and am now the proud owner of Destroyer by C.J. Cherryh (the third or fourth in a series! Aaaargh!) and The Rose of the World by Jude Fisher, which looks like the kind of cookie-cutter fantasy novel I grew tired of long ago. (And is also the third in a series! Fucking hell!) From the SFBC's editorial review:Since the dawn of time, three godlike beings controlled the balance of the world of Elda, until the greed and lust of one man disrupted it. Stealing their magic and memories, the great mage Rahe imprisoned the male god and stole the Woman and the Beast away to his arctic Sanctuary where, for hundreds of years, he enjoyed them in private.
Now his two greatest prizes are loose in the world again, catalysts of a war that may bring ruin to Elda. Caught in the conflict are three souls whose struggles converge at the fiery mountain sacred to the Goddess....
Thirty dollars down the tube for this crap. All because I couldn't make it to the SFBC website in time to reject them, as I have conscientiously rejected approximately 120 other titles in my five years with the club. I understand that they gotta make money, and that this is one way they do it, and that I knew the score when I signed up. But you'd think that since I am a good customer, I could be given the courtesy (after five years with the club!) of not being made to automatically purchase things I don't want, when there are plenty of things available that I do want and will get around to purchasing as and when I have the money.
Sigh. At least I put it on my Readers' Rewards card, which will get me some more points toward another free book that I get to pick.
And maybe I'll send them an email about this. I don't know if it will help, or if they have implemented a means of doing it, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in asking for this small bit of consideration. And admittedly, if these looked like good books, I probably wouldn't be nearly as annoyed. But it's worth a try, anyway.
--- Ajax.
But goddammit, this business of Featured Selections that they automatically send you when you don't specifically decline them by a certain date is a fuckin' mug's game. To be fair, they do give me plenty of time to make those decisions, and they do send me emails telling me when new ones are selected, and they do make the process of declining them as painless as they can. Three clicks and I'm off the hook.
Nonetheless it chaps my hide to have to go there twice a month (or so) to tell them not to send me some god-awful crap by an author I've never heard of. Especially when, like today, I find that I've missed one of those emails and am now the proud owner of Destroyer by C.J. Cherryh (the third or fourth in a series! Aaaargh!) and The Rose of the World by Jude Fisher, which looks like the kind of cookie-cutter fantasy novel I grew tired of long ago. (And is also the third in a series! Fucking hell!) From the SFBC's editorial review:Since the dawn of time, three godlike beings controlled the balance of the world of Elda, until the greed and lust of one man disrupted it. Stealing their magic and memories, the great mage Rahe imprisoned the male god and stole the Woman and the Beast away to his arctic Sanctuary where, for hundreds of years, he enjoyed them in private.
Now his two greatest prizes are loose in the world again, catalysts of a war that may bring ruin to Elda. Caught in the conflict are three souls whose struggles converge at the fiery mountain sacred to the Goddess....
Thirty dollars down the tube for this crap. All because I couldn't make it to the SFBC website in time to reject them, as I have conscientiously rejected approximately 120 other titles in my five years with the club. I understand that they gotta make money, and that this is one way they do it, and that I knew the score when I signed up. But you'd think that since I am a good customer, I could be given the courtesy (after five years with the club!) of not being made to automatically purchase things I don't want, when there are plenty of things available that I do want and will get around to purchasing as and when I have the money.
Sigh. At least I put it on my Readers' Rewards card, which will get me some more points toward another free book that I get to pick.
And maybe I'll send them an email about this. I don't know if it will help, or if they have implemented a means of doing it, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable in asking for this small bit of consideration. And admittedly, if these looked like good books, I probably wouldn't be nearly as annoyed. But it's worth a try, anyway.
--- Ajax.