Claudia Christian: My Life With Geeks and Freaks

[OmahaStar]

Since it's a book by Claudia, and tells about her experiences with B5 and fan conventions, I'm sure there are plenty of people here who are interested in this book.

I was. I ordered a copy, and it came today. And I'm NOT happy about what I got.

The back cover is bent in half. In the front, up through page 9, the pages are bent in at about one inch from the edge of the paper. The title page appears to have been soaked in water, and is wrinkled all over the place. There are other issues with it.

It's only 76 pages in total, and of that, 20 are pictures. So yes, it is a very quick read. And the text is readable, but damn, it looks like this thing has had the crap beaten out of it, and it's just in horrible shape ... and it's brand new.

If you plan on ordering a copy, or anything else, from Yard Dog Press, you might want to wait and get it at a convention or in a store somewhere, where you can check out the book first.

[Jan]

I got it. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen Claudia at a con the week before it arrived. She'd already told pretty much every story that's in the book at the con (in between snipes at JMS). If you're a major Claudia fan it might be worth the money.

Jan

[nova]

I enjoyed the book a great deal. Don't forget that not everyone goes to conventions and hears such stories. There is a full length one set to come out later on. I think this was supposed to be something like a coffee table book. Oh well. Omaha, I'm sorry to hear about your shipping hassles. I'm not too impressed with Yard Dog either, personally. Get it at a con or through cc.net. It may be more expensive but it will be signed at least it will get into your hands in one piece. These two are actually the only negative reviews I have seen. The fact they are here probably shouldn't surprise me.

[Jan]

Actually, Nova, I ordered the book before I even knew that I was going to the con. I wanted to like it because Claudia's very entertaining in person and I figured she would be the same in print.

My main complaint is that there are only 41 pages of narrative. It'd still be pretty bad if there'd actually been 74 pages of narrative but 41? Feh. That's way too much money for way too little story.

Jan

[nova]

That much I agree with. I'm looking forward to the full length one. She's lived a very interesting life and there are a lot of things I'd be interested in seeing her go into in more detail, more of that is outside of B5 and convention life rather than in though. A nice, full length, hard cover, nicely presented (publishing wise) autobiography is what I'm crossing my fingers for.

[OmahaStar]

Nova, I'm not complaining about the content of the book. I still haven't read it yet. I know, I'll get around to it eventually. My concern is the beat up quality of the book itself. It's in dreadful condition, and when I emailed Yard Dog about it, it took them a week to reply, and the response I got was that it was in "pristine" condition when I packed it, and it must be the mailman's fault, or I must be expecting too much.

Um, wtf?

It was that reply that made me decide not to order from them ever again. I'm not bothering with a replacement copy, and I'm not bothering with them. There are way too many great book companies out there that want my money. I'll stick with them.

[nova]

Omaha, go through cc.net. It's worth it. Holly Evans sends the copies they have of any of CC's books out personally after they have been autographed to the recipient by CC and makes sure they are well packaged. Mine had not so much as a dog ear and it was packaged with a bunch of other stuff! I told her about what happened to you earlier today and she was pissed too. I agree with you. Ain't right. Even if the mailman did it, they can issue a refund and file a claim with the mailman to get their money back. If they won't do that... that's just bad business.