Getting free academic books . . . and giving them away again

So far, the strangest thing about being a reviews editor for Fafnir is how easy it is to get free books from publishers. You simply contact the publisher's publicity person, say, "Hey, I'm so-and-so, please give me this book for free," and by gum they send you the book. In fact, with about 18 books in the stockpile, not a single publisher has yet to tell me "no," which astonishes me greatly. I suppose they benefit from extra reviews (some academic libraries won't purchase a volume unless it's been reviewed), but still, I'm pleasantly surprised by the whole process.

 Of course, the sad thing about getting all these free books is that I have to give them away again -- to the reviewers, of course. Cool fact, though: just found out that the U of A offers postage for books sent for academic purposes. That's quite a pleasant surprise as well. 

 All in all, I'm loving the new position. I really missed editing Scientia et Humanitas, but this is so much more awesome -- and it's an immense help with realizing all the new SFF books being published by various presses.

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