Fantasy & SF Book Club

...discovered how much I liked fantasy and science fiction, so I joined the club specifically for that.

So, first bit of advice for anyone thinking of joining one of these book clubs: make sure you have a fairly big interest in the particular genre. That first club I joined didn’t stick to one area, and I had difficult finding books I wanted. With FSF (Fantasy and Science Fiction), I had difficulty not spending too much! It’s ...
...times, choosing sci-fi twice and fantasy once, and the books I received were Rainbow Mars and Burning City, both by Larry Niven, and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Trigger. I doubt I would have bought any of them myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed the one I’ve read so far. All of these books were club editions, published that year, and all were in the club magazine at that time for £9.99 each. I suppose there’s always the likelihood of getting ... more

Now, I make no secret of the fact that I’m one of life’s cynics, and all these adverts for book clubs seem far too good to be true. Well, of course they are – you might get your first five for 25p each, but you have to agree to buy how many more? From what kind of choice? And for what price?

Despite my reservations, though, many years ago I somehow persuaded myself to join one of these book clubs, QPD to be precise. I reasoned that as I’m a complete junkie when it comes to books and reading, I’d have little difficulty fulfilling the obligation to buy another however many, and overall I’d be saving myself a little money. Bit of a mistake, there – I hadn’t taken the postage charges into account, nor did I find many books I was really keen to own.

Okay, negativity over with. Fast forward a few years, and I once again found myself drooling over one of these leaflets offering books at silly prices. You’d think I’d have learned a lesson from the first time, really, but nope – I talked myself into it. And do I regret it? Not a bit!! The difference is, by this time I’d discovered how much I liked fantasy and science fiction, so I joined the club specifically for that.

So, first bit of advice for anyone thinking of joining one of these book clubs: make sure you have a fairly big interest in the particular genre. That first club I joined didn’t stick to one area, and I had difficult finding books I wanted. With FSF (Fantasy and Science Fiction), I had difficulty not spending too much! It’s worth pointing out that I didn’t own many fantasy or sci-fi books before I started, so there was a wealth of choice for me – in other words, I had no difficulty fulfilling the membership obligations. These were (and still are, as far as I’m aware): buy at least one book from each magazine while you’re a member, minimum membership 4 magazines. These arrive roughly every two months.

There are two ways to go about joining FSF: look out for one of the many leaflets or advertisements, or through the internet. Personally, I’d recommend the latter as you’re going to get the full range of books (or at least all the ones in the joining offer) to choose from.

**INTRODUCTORY OFFER**
For my introductory offer, I choose five sets of books – throughout my membership I found the sets offered the best value. Of course, if you already own ‘bits’ of a set, this won’t work so well. My initial package cost £17 for 19 books, plus £2.95 postage and packaging – that’s £1.05 per book! To illustrate what kind of things are available, and just in case you’re at all interested, the books I choose were:*Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar set – the Riftwar trilogy, plus Prince of the Blood (£3 for 4 paperback books)

• Raymond E. Feist’s Serpentwar saga (£5 for 4 hardback, ‘club edition’ books)
• David Gemmell’s Wayland set – the first 4 Drenai novels (£2.50 for 4 paperback books)
• Tad William’s Memory, Sorrow and Thorn set (£3.50 for 4 paperback books)
• Tad William’s Otherland set (£3 for 2 paperbacks, plus 1 hardback club edition – the fourth Otherland novel wasn’t published at that time)

*CLUB EDITIONS*
A note on the ‘club edition’: these are hard cover books, but at a size somewhere between normal hardbacks and paperbacks. In general I’m not all that fond of them, for several reasons. Firstly, if the book you’ve ordered is quite long, then the club edition is very think, squat and occasionally with smaller than normal print. Also, several times I ordered a series from FSF only to be presented with a mixture of formats – paperbacks with the latest publication in a club edition (as in my introductory package) wasn’t too bad, but I once ordered a set of three rather thick volumes and received books one and three in club edition, but book two in normal hardback. It’s not a big complaint, but just be warned if you like your bookshelves to look neat!

One thing I didn’t like much: with the delivery of my introductory package arrived the first catalogue, from which I was obliged to place an order. This is fairly standard, but it was a bit soon, I feel – I would have liked a chance to start reading some of my new books first. Also, because I’d joined not long before the NEXT magazine was due out, I received another one in less than a month’s time. Not a huge complaint, but something to be wary of.

**SPECIAL OFFERS**
In that first magazine was something called the ‘Cut Price Castle’. This is an offer that as far as I’m aware is available every year – this was in March, so look for it around then. Basically, if you order two books from the magazine, you are then entitled to buy something at a further reduced price from the ‘Cut Price Castle’. In my case, I got Anne McCaffrey’s Tower and Hive series (4 paperbacks and a club edition) for £7.95 - not bad! If you’re thinking of joining I would really recommend timing it so that your membership is just beginning for this offer – it’d save you buying something, and then seeing it at a lower price.

Other special offers arise in nearly every magazine. There are ‘Star Books’, similar to the Cut Price Castle, but only one other book has to be bought. I made use of a few ‘buy two, claim a free gift’ offers. The first time, there was a choice of about six books, and there was one I really wanted – Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind. I got a lovely hardback copy (even though it was supposed to be a club edition!), simply by buying two books I wanted anyway!

On other occasions, the free gift was a mystery book. You narrowed the choice by choosing from three categories: Fantasy, Sci-Fi or the Unexplained. I managed to make use of this offer three times, choosing sci-fi twice and fantasy once, and the books I received were Rainbow Mars and Burning City, both by Larry Niven, and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Trigger. I doubt I would have bought any of them myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed the one I’ve read so far. All of these books were club editions, published that year, and all were in the club magazine at that time for £9.99 each. I suppose there’s always the likelihood of getting something you already own, or don’t particularly want, but hey – it’s free!

Over and above the special offers, the point of FSF is to offer books at discounted prices. As I’ve said, the sets offer the best value in my opinion. A paperback set of three books is usually £15.97, or £5.32 per book. Hard cover club editions are normally £9.99, but further reductions are possible if you’re buying a set. A common offer is two for £15.98 or three for £19.98, from a list of not necessarily linked books. I’ve noticed with this, however, that different volumes from the same series will be featured in different months.

**EDITOR’S CHOICE**
There are two common complaints about this kind of book club. Firstly, the editor’s choice: every magazine has a recommended title, which will be sent out to you if you don’t place an order – there is no feature with FSF to reject the editor’s choice, as the membership terms state that you must buy something from each magazine. However, if you are ordering other titles, the editor’s choice isn’t automatically included, so there’s no need to remember to reject it at the same time.

The requirement to order from each magazine is another problem for some people, and I agree that it’s not my favourite way of doing things. However, it is only for four magazines, which is probably about 6 months (as you get the first magazine immediately). I remained a member for a year, and during that time placed 8 orders – I still have a huge backlog of reading material! When I wanted to end my membership, I sent an email asking for it to be cancelled, via the website. Now, this is the interesting bit: I’m still a member of FSF, and I receive the magazine as before. However, I’m under NO OBLIGATION to buy anything further! This means I could still take advantage of any offers, but without the pressure to buy every two months – I simple send an email requesting that they don’t send me the editor’s choice. My advice therefore would be to send an email after your fourth magazine, and continue your membership on your own terms. Of course, if I wanted to, I could send another email and stop my membership completely.

**ORDERING – THE MAGAZINE AND WEBSITE – BOL**
There are several ways to order books – using the form provided with the magazine and posting it, by telephone, or the internet. I was a big fan of the latter, especially as it allowed me to browse the entire stock and not just the titles in that month’s magazine.

-The Magazine-
Is very pretty! No, really, it’s well done. There are pictures and brief descriptions of each book and set, with clearly displayed prices and explanation of the offers available that month.

-The Website-
When I first joined (back at the start of 2000), the website was quite slow. Thankfully, this has improved vastly since then! It’s easy to navigate, with the option of searching by genre, author or anything else you might want to do, really. There are adequate descriptions of each book, and a new feature is the member reviews – there aren’t that many on the site at the moment, but this might pick up over time. Ordering is simply a matter of placing items in your ‘basket’, then confirming your order.

The site also allows you to keep track of your account details, and the status of any order. There are also clear links to email any department of customer services, should you have any queries or complaints.

-BOL-
If the book you want isn’t available from FSF, you are given the option to place an order with BOL.com, and a link directly to that site. There are pros and cons to this: on the negative side, orders placed on BOL do not count towards your FSF membership. Also, as the order is separate from FSF, you will have to pay BOL’s postage charges. However, as long as you order from BOL through the FSF link (!), 10% of the order value is credited to your FSF account – this can take up to a month to show, though, so don’t panic!

**POSTAGE AND DELIVERY**
Postage and packaging is charged at a flat rate of £2.99 per order, regardless of how many books you order. Obviously this makes it more cost effective to order in bulk, but I suppose that’s the point. Since the start of 2001, however, FSF have waived postage charges for orders over £30 – an excellent development, in my opinion.

As for delivery times, for me it was generally just over two weeks; I once received my parcel after six days, and another time it took a month.

**PAYMENT**
FSF offer a choice of payment methods. My preference, and that of many people wary of handing out credit or debit card details, was to wait for my statement and send a check. However, if you’re happy to do so, a new(-ish) feature is online credit card payments.

Payment is due within 10 days of receipt of a statement, which are sent out every month. One thing to note is that are sometimes issued just before your payment has gone through, so don’t be alarmed if your statement seems to be missing a payment. Your online account will be showing the correct details if this happens.

One minor point I didn’t like was the tone adopted on one of my statements: one of my orders had been quite late in arriving, and a statement had arrived in the meantime. Quite naturally, I withheld payment for the books that I’d still to receive. The next statement had obviously crossed in the system with my cheque, as it showed that amount, plus my next order, along with the warning “Dispatches will resume when your account is clear” and notification that I would not be entitled to a free book offer. Of course, it was all a bit of a misunderstanding, and not a serious one at that, but I do wonder if the slightly threatening tone was necessary at that point – after all, I’d been a member for more than six months and not missed a payment.

**MISTAKES AND CUSTOMER SERVICES**
On one occasion, a book was missing from my parcel. I simply sent an email to customer services, and the missing volume was sent out within days. On another occasion, I was sent the wrong book – again, I just emailed customer services, and they arranged for free return and the correct book sent out. Other than that mistake, I have never been sent a book I didn’t order, including the editor’s choice. My other contact was to verify that a special offer shown in the magazine would be honoured, as it hadn’t shown up on my internet statement. I received a prompt reply reassuring me that all was well. Overall, I have only the highest praise for the customer services department.

Okay, so this has just become the longest op I’ve written (if not ever!! lol), so huge congrats (not to mention thanks) to anyone who trawled through the whole thing – I hope I said something interesting at some point!! As I’m sure comes across, I was very impressed with FSF in general, and if you like these sorts of books and have considered joining, I hope I’ve reassured you that it’s not such a bad idea. I now have a fairly large collection of good fantasy and science fiction, not to mention a huge backlog of books to read – and, of course, plenty of material for writing Ciao ops!
 

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