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Yesterday I finished reading Ashling, the third book in the Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody. The previous two books are Obernewtyn and The Farseekers. The series takes place in a land recovering from a nuclear holocaust--not surprising subject matter for a book originally published in 1987. Elspeth, the narrator and protagonist is a "Misfit" with special abilities. She can talk to animals, read minds, and influence people's actions. At Obernewtyn she meets others like her and begins a quest that carries into the later books.
I read the first book back in 1999, when it was originally published in the United States. That same year, the fourth book in the series, The Keeping Place was published in Australia. Nine years later, it's still not available in the US, and the fifth volume, The Stone Key was recently published, again, only in Australia. What's up with that? The first two books seem to have several different US editions, so I can't figure out why the publishers stopped. The story certainly wasn't over yet!
At this point I start to get a bit irked with Australia. What business does it have having all the books that I want to read? How is that fair? A handful of libraries in North America have The Keeping Place, so I'm hoping one of them will be super nice and fill my ILL request. (Thank goodness for ILL! And WorldCat.) But after that I think I'll have to buy The Stone Key. It costs 30-something Australian dollars, which I think are worth slightly less than US dollars, and I can't imagine shipping from Down Under is cheap. I hate to spend so much on a single book (I'm more of a Half-Price Books type of girl), but I doubt I'll ever finish the series otherwise.
I would recommend the books, cause it's a good fantasy/sci-fi series, but I think I've kind of just anti-recommended them for difficulty of obtainment. Oh well.
I read the first book back in 1999, when it was originally published in the United States. That same year, the fourth book in the series, The Keeping Place was published in Australia. Nine years later, it's still not available in the US, and the fifth volume, The Stone Key was recently published, again, only in Australia. What's up with that? The first two books seem to have several different US editions, so I can't figure out why the publishers stopped. The story certainly wasn't over yet!
At this point I start to get a bit irked with Australia. What business does it have having all the books that I want to read? How is that fair? A handful of libraries in North America have The Keeping Place, so I'm hoping one of them will be super nice and fill my ILL request. (Thank goodness for ILL! And WorldCat.) But after that I think I'll have to buy The Stone Key. It costs 30-something Australian dollars, which I think are worth slightly less than US dollars, and I can't imagine shipping from Down Under is cheap. I hate to spend so much on a single book (I'm more of a Half-Price Books type of girl), but I doubt I'll ever finish the series otherwise.
I would recommend the books, cause it's a good fantasy/sci-fi series, but I think I've kind of just anti-recommended them for difficulty of obtainment. Oh well.
