Question about CP's Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Hi all, I've been thinking about picking up one of these for a while. There's currently one on Ebay, but I noticed that there's no title or author on the spine of the book; it appears to just be blank black leather.

At first I assumed this was just a quirk of the edition, but then I saw an old listing on Abe that does have the author/title/publisher on the spine:
https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Forever-Joe-Haldeman-Lakewood-Centipede-Press/30.... Does this mean there's something wrong with the one on Ebay? Anyone know what's going on here?

>1 phxrising77: My copy also has a black leather spine without any lettering. It's #113 out of 150. I now share your confusion.

Edit: I found number #91 with a google search and it also has a blank spine: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/forever-war-signed-numbered-centipede-196...

Yes, this edition has a blank spine with only the slipcase labeled. I'm guessing a previous owner had the titling added on their edition.

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Would you recommend this book?

>4 RATBAG.: Absolutely! Winner of the 1975 Nebula Award, 1976 Hugo and Locus Awards, signed by Haldeman, Burns and Scott. BTW, the angle bracket goes before the post number when referencing previous posts.

The book is fabulous, the CP edition, so-so.
The overall quality of the book is not as high as other editions. For the prices people are listing the book, I would recommend you pass.

1: that was the "deluxe" edition which had the title on the spine. I suspect the regular edition was meant to have the title on the spine as well but did not because of quality control issues.

Sheesh, you'd think with only 150 copies printed they'd all be the "deluxe" edition. Anyway, mystery solved, thanks for your help everyone!

>6 astropi: That would've been my guess too if it weren't for the description that accompanies the photo: "One of 150 copies, each signed by Joe Haldeman, Jim Burns (illustrator), and Ridley Scott (foreword) ..." The deluxe edition has a limitation of 22 copies. But you're probably right, and the Abebooks listing has either the wrong description or the wrong photo.

Edit: I think the description is wrong because why doesn't it mention the number of the book.

By a raise of hands, who would say that it is worth splurging on CP's edition? With the quarter-leather binding, I mean.

>9 RATBAG.: Nay. It's a flawed edition because of the missing title on the spine. I own this edition but until this thread it hadn't occurred to me this was a potential quality control issue. The book itself is a must read. I'm convinced FS will publish it eventually, because Haldeman wrote the introduction to the Folio edition of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, and it's a classic in the genre.

>10 Czernobog: Ah, noted. I will wait in hope of a Folio soon. :)

This is an old thread, but note there isn't a quality control issue. Or at least the speculation about an owner putting the title on their spine isn't accurate. The signed edition had a blank spine and a titled slipcase. And the unsigned edition had a title on the spine of the book, so that is what one of the earlier posters saw.

As well, the signed edition was bound in a velvety material, while the unsigned was paper or cloth, I can't remember which, but I had handled both in the past.

>12 What_What: I had the signed edition myself. It was poorly produced. Not because of Centipede Press per say, rather at the time they were unbeknownst using Chinese printers of poor quality. It might have been after this particular volume that Jerad stopped using overseas printers - at any rate he did tell me at some point that he had had enough with QC issues and was done with them! I had issues with all of the following CP titles and each one of them was printed with the same Chinese printers


Master of the Weird Tale -- Henry Kuttner
Forever War
The Anubis Gates
Ender's Game


If others had no issues, that's great! But, those four titles I had QC issues and was not pleased with them. They are all great works mind you, but I just could not recommend those particular editions.

>13 astropi:. Sorry to hear about your difficulties. I have a copy of all of those titles and my copies are fine.