(no subject)

[ocelot]

I think that whatever part of the universe is playing the Mormon Conspiracy joke on me noticed my post last night...

Today I was at Barnes&Noble, and went to the Science Fiction to see if The Crystal City, the newest book in the Alvin Maker series, had been released in paperback yet. It hadn't, but I noticed a hardcover copy of Ender's Game. I decided to grab it so that I could get it signed next time we make it to a signing.

Then I opened it, and discovered that it was already signed.

As far as we could tell, it was a real signature, not just a stamp, or printed into the book.

The employees didn't have any clue where it came from, so we just bought it. At worst, we'd have a hardcover copy of Ender's Game that some random person had scribbled in.

When we got home, we compared the signature with the signature in some other signed Orson Scott Card books. It's the same.

I've emailed to see if the man himself has any clue how it got there. I've had good luck getting responses in the past, but who knows if I will this time.

In other odd Orson Scott Card news, go to amazon.com and search for "the crystal city" (minus the quotes). The OSC book shows up as the first hit. Scroll a bit further down the page.

Perhaps it's juvenile of me, but I find the juxtaposition amusing, given his conservativeness.

Comments

[oatmeal.livejournal.com]

Many times, when authors are going to do a signing, they will sign an extra case of books, or more, so that after the signing, the store can sell autographed copies. However, in the event that a store aims to high and doesn't sell all of those copies in whatever time that store allots for author promos before they take their shelf space back, the signed books may very well be shipped to the B&N Warehouse, or to the distributor's warehouse, or even back to the publisher. And months / years / decades later, when some other store orders a hardback, a warehouse worker somewhere probably just grabbed the first copy they found and sent it off without realizing it.