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I have a little more faith in my fellow human beings, and it’s all thanks to science-fiction books.

I get through a lot of sci-fi, because I read for pleasure and I get a lot of pleasure out of the fantasies and escapism which sci-fi provides. The downside is that I now have a kind of “vendor lock-in” with just three authors (Banks, Reynolds (who recently signed a £10m, 10-book deal), Hamilton) whose work I enjoy and have read, re-read and re-read again, so I have nothing new to read by these authors.

It is my intention to read a lot of ‘early’ sci-fi, of the Asimov and Philip K. Dick eras, but I find this harder going than more modern sci-fi, so I thought my luck was in when totally by accident I stumbled across a promising new (to me) author who I had not before heard of and whose books I had not read. The author is Kevin J. Anderson and the books were the Saga of Seven Suns.

Well, five of  them.  The last five.

I saw the five books at a local car boot sale. They are well presented and in good condition, and the rear covers described the sort of story I wanted to read, but the first two were missing. “No bother,” I thought, “I can pick up the others on eBay.”  So I paid for the five books and left.

But the chap I bought the books from said he had the others at home, and his wife (nice passing the buck there) didn’t pack them, so I went back to him, brandished a green beer token and asked him to post them to me. Call it an exercise in human decency. I stood to lose, well, a fiver, which I had already saved several times over by buying five books for £2 when the RRP is about £8 each, and I stood to gain two more books for £5 (or so, after postage and packaging) which, again, woould have cost £8 each in the shops. Whatever the outcome I was quids in: five books for £2 (saving £38 of the £40 RRP) or seven books for £7 (which is nice, considering the title and number of the books) saving £49 of the £56 RRP…

I suppose I always knew the last/first two books would turn up, judging from the well-to-do, easy-going nature of the chap I entrusted my hard-earned cash to, but I wouldn’t have even considered doing that back where I used to live in Somerset.  Maybe I’m not giving the people there enough credit, but I think I know the people and the place well enough not to trust even a penny to someone I met 10 minutes ago.

I love it down here.