argh

[jazzfish]

I'm about two-thirds of the way through The Hunger Games, a book that's packed full of action and poverty and serious psychological trauma. It's good stuff.

I have Catching Fire, the sequel, sitting on my couch waiting for me. I'm probably going to finish Hunger Games tonight and take Catching Fire with me tomorrow.

I ordered them both from Amazon at the same time as I pre-ordered Mockingjay, the last book in the trilogy. It came out yesterday.

According to Amazon it's slated to ship on 30 August, which means it's unlikely to be waiting for me when I get back from Key West. Or even to arrive before I head off to Seattle. And they won't let me cancel the order, either, as "This portion of your order is being prepared for shipment and cannot be canceled or changed."

Screw you, Amazon.

At this point I am on the verge of going to Borders and picking it up this afternoon anyway, since they've kindly provided me with a coupon for half off the cover price, and figuring out what to do with a spare copy later. Probably trying to return it to Amazon, because nngh this makes me so mad. Who takes a week to ship out pre-orders of something that doesn't start with "Harry Potter And The" ?

("First world problems? You bet, but that's where I live." -MJH)

Comments

[currentlee.livejournal.com]

i'm similarly annoyed at the delay. if i don't have it by this afternoon, i'm just going to go buy it.

[jazzfish]

I may end up holding off 'til I get back, on the off chance that they ship it sooner than they claim. The coupon's good through next Monday anyway.

GRR ARGH AMAZON WHY MUST YOU SUCK SO MUCH.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

This is why I canceled my Amazon order and I now have the last book. I'd say there might be some advantages to spacing the books out a little, because it's a world you can get lost in, but you might not want to, but I'm saying that as someone who is planning to reread the entire series pretty much as soon as I'm done with the last book.

These are books I characterize as summer reading- not because they are light, but because you really need to be able to go outside for a while afterwards.

[jazzfish]

Yeah, if I'd been thinking I would have cancelled it last night, but "forward planning" is rarely one of my strong points after midnight. (That's when I get really good at backwards planning, though, the kind where I constantly rehash what I /should/ have said or done. Ahem. Anyway.)

Hunger Games is definitely hitting me pretty hard. I didn't get sniffly until "I thank the people of District 11 for their gift," but only because Collins is so very very good at getting me inside Katniss's head and thus inside her defenses as well. It's bleak and raw and intense and adrenaline-fueled, and I probably /ought/ to take a break between each one but I want to keep going, to drown myself in them.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I know I've said it before, but the heart of what makes these books work for me is that Katniss really does have defenses to get inside. So many stories tell you that the character is tough or damaged or smart, but it's mostly just a few lines here and there, and all it really takes is a kind word or true love (tm) to crumble them. Katniss truly IS tough and damages and defensive, in the reflexive way you'd expect from someone who has internalized the requirements for survival in her world.

So yeah, I'm glad you're liking the books and I'll happily gush with you about them as you read.

[rbandrews]

That's pretty much exactly what happened when I ordered the seventh Harry Potter book. Returning it was fairly painless (actually, I think I returned the copy I bought from Target).

[jazzfish]

That's good to know, thanks. And you know, I don't even remember how I got HP7. I think I may have ordered it from Amazon, but I didn't care because I didn't even start reading them until it showed up.

This has pretty much put me off preordering things from them entirely. "Release date" my eye.

[rbandrews]

Yeah, I very rarely pre-order anything any more. Inevitably, somewhere else gets it first and I feel dumb waiting for my pre-order copy to show up.

I'll do it on stuff that there's only one place to get, like the iPad or something like that. And I pre-ordered Cassie's present, but it'll also show up a month before her birthday, so there's buffer.

[jazzfish]

I'm okay with preordering from the manufacturer. Something like GMT's P500, or Subterranean Press's "preorder and pay no shipping," or GET LAMP, or whatever. Even if there's a delay it's usually on the order of a couple of days, plus the small-press people can often really use the cash up front.

Occasionally this gets me in trouble, too. I've had one game preordered for nearly two years now and the company in question has been through at least one bankruptcy...

[rbandrews]

I'll preorder from the manufacturer as long as someone else got one first. I preordered a WakeMate last year and they still haven't shipped, which is a little annoying. But something like GET LAMP or an iPad, I know the design is done, they're just wanting to stamp out my particular instance of it.

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

I don't need more books to read at the moment, having just stocked up, but having gone to the web on this one, it definitely sounds like something I'd enjoy.

Thanks.

I think.

[jazzfish]

Heh. You're welcome. They're YA and they read pretty fast, at least. And I think only the first one is out in paperback, so you can use that as an excuse to space them out...

[qtrnca.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you posted this. A speaker at the Harry Potter con I went to in July recommended a new series, and I had forgotten it until now. This is going on my wish list.

[jazzfish]

Oh, you're most welcome! Fair warning: it really /is/ a harsh bleak book that will run a cheese grater over your soul, repeatedly, in ways you didn't expect. (I loved it; that's basically what I read YA for, although this was a lot more so than I usually get out of it.)

Speaking of "Harry Potter And The"

[selki.livejournal.com]

I got literally no sleep last Thursday night, b/c I read the first page of *Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality* around 10 at night ... and just kept going (until I had to go to work). I've stayed up late reading before, but I haven't stayed up ALL NIGHT in years. Awesome on a whole new level compared to the original.

"I... see," Professor McGonagall said. "And if, say, you were to discover the entrance to Salazar Slytherin's legendary Chamber of Secrets, an entrance that you and you alone could open..."

"I would close the entrance and report to you at once so that a team of experienced magical archaeologists could be assembled," Harry said promptly. "Then I would open up the entrance again and they would go in very carefully to make sure that there was nothing dangerous. I might go in later to look around, or if they needed me to open up something else, but it would be after the area had been declared clear and they had photographs of how everything looked before people started tromping around their priceless historical site."

Professor McGonagall sat there with her mouth open, staring at him like he'd just turned into a cat.

"It's obvious if you're not a Gryffindor," Harry said kindly.

Author-info-but-difficult-to-read link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

PDF: http://www.mediafire.com/MethodsOfRationality

Re: Speaking of "Harry Potter And The"

[jazzfish]

I've heard good things about that. Will check it out at some point.

Re: Speaking of "Harry Potter And The"

[selki.livejournal.com]

My note probably wasn't clear, but it *isn't* so much a slam/snark on the Potterverse (though I did nod at some of the issues it points out), as a whole different thing. In a way it's kind of a sneaky introduction to concepts ranging from philosophy of science to game theory -- via interesting familiar characters and situations seen through a different lens. Potter himself is a bit different, of course, and I have a theory about what's different in the universe that made him that way (a la alternate history).