Old Urth vs. New Urth

Dan Rabin · 04 Jul 2006, 13:52 · from 2006-July.txt.gz

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From: wolfe-lists at danrabin.com (Dan Rabin)
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 06:52:36 -0700
Subject: (urth) Old Urth vs. New Urth
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Fred Kiesche asks:

>Greetings:
>
>I have "Urth" in the origina four-volume set from
>Timescape (Pocket Books, those were the days!). Is
>there any reason to get the new Tor/Orb omnibus
>editions? Text that was excised put back in? Corrected
>errors? Etc.?

There are no significant divergences that I've ever noticed.  Some 
typos are corrected, some retained, some introduced perhaps.  The 
omnibus is missing the poetic epigram for _Citadel of the Autarch_ 
(Kipling, "At two-o'clock in the morning...").  I recall also that 
there's a spuriously repeated passage late in _Citadel_ in the 
original that's corrected in the Tor edition.

I haven't conducted a detailed comparison, but I have read the old 
paperbacks several times and have compared any text that strikes me 
as different while reading the Tor editions.  I made marginal pencil 
notes of thes (whether they turned out to be differences or not), and 
could flip through and list them if there's any demand.

You might also consider whether the physical state of your originals 
will sustain your intended level of future use.

   -- Dan Rabin

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