I shipped four books home from Wiscon, using the Send-It-Now store that set up at the con Monday (they were there last year as well). The man running things recommended I use FedEx ground instead of the US Postal Service, and I let myself be persuaded. He sold me a padded envelope to ship in; he did not suggest I use a box instead.
Today, I received a box with a note saying that FedEx "regret that your package was damaged in transit," with boxes checked for "The entire contents are enclosed" and "Your package has been repacked." The second is true. The first I take to mean that I am never going to see three of those books again. The box contained Cathrynne Valente's Under the Mere. It did not contain Nnedi Okorafor's The Shadow Speaker[1], Nicola Griffith's With Her Body[2], or Eleanor Arnason's Mammoths of the Great Plains. I suspect that the absolute most I will get is a refund of my shipping costs, which would pay for replacing one and a fraction of the three books.
It's not that I don't have things to read. It's that they stole my books. Worse, they didn't even steal them to read them: they're burying them in soft peat, recycling them as firelighters, and feeding them to illiterate trolls. Grrrr.
In the meantime, I will read my library books, and then go back to rereading Dhalgren, which I began last Friday morning on my way to Wiscon,. Unfortunately, all of these are inconveniently large to carry with me on days that I'm going to the gym.
ETA: I have spoken to FedEx, and they say they will look for my books, and either deliver them if they can find them, or reimburse me if not. If true, the worst case is a bit of inconvenience and three good writers get royalties on two copies instead of one. (I assume for the moment that all three are still available; since I just got them new this seems like a fair assumption.) For my reference: claim number 0603545585
[1] I won the Okorafor in a drawing at the Carl Brandon Society's party Saturday evening. It was fairly simple: put your name in an envelope, winners of books drawn every half hour, you must be present to win. A little before 11,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
badger2305 encouraged people to put our names in if we hadn't already. At 11, he pulled a name. "Don." No Don. So he pulled another name. Again, not present. Repeat. By the time he pulled the same name for a second time, he was getting frustrated, and I was quite amused, and suggested that there was nobody at all there, and he was imagining all of us. Somewhere around the 15th name, he pulled out a slip of paper, looked at me, said "Thank you Vicki Rosenzweig," and handed me The Shadow Speaker. I was in the middle of two other books (one being the one I'd started on the plane to Madison) so put it aside for later. It's going to have to be much later.
[2] This one I at least read 2/3 of (it's a three-story collection), but that's not sufficient comfort, especially as I'd already agreed to lend it to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle when I was done with it.
Today, I received a box with a note saying that FedEx "regret that your package was damaged in transit," with boxes checked for "The entire contents are enclosed" and "Your package has been repacked." The second is true. The first I take to mean that I am never going to see three of those books again. The box contained Cathrynne Valente's Under the Mere. It did not contain Nnedi Okorafor's The Shadow Speaker[1], Nicola Griffith's With Her Body[2], or Eleanor Arnason's Mammoths of the Great Plains. I suspect that the absolute most I will get is a refund of my shipping costs, which would pay for replacing one and a fraction of the three books.
It's not that I don't have things to read. It's that they stole my books. Worse, they didn't even steal them to read them: they're burying them in soft peat, recycling them as firelighters, and feeding them to illiterate trolls. Grrrr.
In the meantime, I will read my library books, and then go back to rereading Dhalgren, which I began last Friday morning on my way to Wiscon,. Unfortunately, all of these are inconveniently large to carry with me on days that I'm going to the gym.
ETA: I have spoken to FedEx, and they say they will look for my books, and either deliver them if they can find them, or reimburse me if not. If true, the worst case is a bit of inconvenience and three good writers get royalties on two copies instead of one. (I assume for the moment that all three are still available; since I just got them new this seems like a fair assumption.) For my reference: claim number 0603545585
[1] I won the Okorafor in a drawing at the Carl Brandon Society's party Saturday evening. It was fairly simple: put your name in an envelope, winners of books drawn every half hour, you must be present to win. A little before 11,
badger2305 encouraged people to put our names in if we hadn't already. At 11, he pulled a name. "Don." No Don. So he pulled another name. Again, not present. Repeat. By the time he pulled the same name for a second time, he was getting frustrated, and I was quite amused, and suggested that there was nobody at all there, and he was imagining all of us. Somewhere around the 15th name, he pulled out a slip of paper, looked at me, said "Thank you Vicki Rosenzweig," and handed me The Shadow Speaker. I was in the middle of two other books (one being the one I'd started on the plane to Madison) so put it aside for later. It's going to have to be much later.[2] This one I at least read 2/3 of (it's a three-story collection), but that's not sufficient comfort, especially as I'd already agreed to lend it to
adrian_turtle when I was done with it.