No I have never had the chance to read the short stories or "Enemy of the State" I assume (perhaps Incorrectly) that was made into the movie of the same name with Wil Smith? I won't watch Smith movies unless it's a comedy he ruined Independence Day for me. I hated to see the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air smarting off to aliens.

Sounds like you were happy but disappointed :confused: with Infernal... didn't get enough fpw to read. As a remedy, I would highly recommend checking out Pauls other novels. I recently finished Black Wind and found it to be exceptional. Really enjoyed Midnight Mass and Sims. I've also got a couple of his medical thrillers I'm looking forward to read.

Sounds like you were happy but disappointed :confused: with Infernal... didn't get enough fpw to read. As a remedy, I would highly recommend checking out Pauls other novels. I recently finished Black Wind and found it to be exceptional. Really enjoyed Midnight Mass and Sims. I've also got a couple of his medical thrillers I'm looking forward to read.

Deep as the Marrow! Deep as the Marrow! Read that! Read that!

I like Deep as the Marrow, A LOT. Can you tell?

Sounds like you were happy but disappointed :confused: with Infernal... didn't get enough fpw to read. As a remedy, I would highly recommend checking out Pauls other novels. I recently finished Black Wind and found it to be exceptional. Really enjoyed Midnight Mass and Sims. I've also got a couple of his medical thrillers I'm looking forward to read.

I read all the FPW I can get. I just downloaded "The Long Way Home" from Amazon for $0.49. that worked really well. I read Midnight Mass and Sims a few weeks ago now I'm going to read Enemy of the State if it is available. I will, on your recomendation, try Black Wind.
I am always disappointed to finish a good read.

Deep as the Marrow! Deep as the Marrow! Read that! Read that!

I like Deep as the Marrow, A LOT. Can you tell?

Just bought Deep As The Marrow for my father-in-law for Christmas as part of an FPW package that also contains Sims and Night Kill. Tried to get a variation, while avoiding those with a supernatural element, as they don't usually appeal to him.
Hopefully a new fan is on the horizon.

I dont know much about the publishing/printing business but Im sure I will soon. I am about 2/3 finished with my first fiction novel. I know it took a long time for FPW to get published. I hope it dosent take me quite as long

I don't see your point. You think you would have saved a buck if there'd been fewer leaves?

Maybe you'd be less pissed if you knew something about bookbinding.

I don't know a helluva lot myself, but I'll share what little I do.

A book is constructed of folds called signatures. A signature is a large sheet of paper printed back and front with multiple pages in various orientations so that when it is folded in half X number of times, all the leaves wind up right side up and in proper order. Common in book binding these days is the octavo which is folded in half 3 times to yield 8 leaves (which when numbered yield 16 pages).

Infernal has 22 octavo signatures. Multiply that by 16 and you've got 352.

Now, it's a rare manuscript that typesets out to a number of pages perfectly divisible by 16. This leaves publishers 2 options.

The 1st: simply leave a bunch of blank pages at the end.

2nd: arrange type size and layout to make the pages fill out the last signature to the end. This can involve compression or expansion. Expansion commonly involves "killing" a page (leaving it blank) before the start of a new chapter; sometimes margins are fudged. Publishers much prefer contraction to expansion because fewer signatures mean lower unit cost. But hardcover buyers don't like small type, so publishers are often left with expansion.

The publisher expanded Infernal so that the last printed page would be #351 out of a possible 352.

Numbering is traditionally started on the first leaf after the front endpaper, which is why the body text of most books starts on page 11 or 13.

Very interesting process that I knew nothing about, but brings to mind yet a question that has me stymied.

How is it that mail order catalogs can get the order form (that is in the center of the catalog, or on some occasions the last page) to be preprinted with the same name and address as on the cover ???

Anyone know?