Photos have come from Britain showing that the book now physically exists. Woo.
British orders should receive them before Christmas. US orders, end of January, beginning of February.
I hear tell that some copies of the book are to be shipped my way in the next few days, taking however long it takes to cross the Atlantic ocean. I would assume that customers who ordered directly from Mortons will get their copies shipped soon. Not sure about Amazon orders, though the listing currently says Feb 7.
I will have a limited number for signed copies (around 20). As with the SR-71 bookazine, I will include 18X24 prints made specifically for these signed copies; all copies will be signed and numbered. I expect that these will be $55 plus shipping, though I intend to auction #’s 1 through 5.
Amazon currently has my “SR-71” bookazine for thirteen bucks, plus shipping. Woo. Get a few copies now, before Christmas comes and you fall short and you have to live in eternal shame that you did not have enough copies to gift to all your friends, family, co-workers, arch-enemies and random people on the street.
My book on the B-52 is now being printed (I understand that copies physically exist), so it is perhaps a little late for additions and revisions. Still, I remain on the lookout for relevant information. To that end I recently plunked down a fair chunk of change for a pair of documents on ebay… a set of blueprints of the B-52G cockpit, and a B-52G mockup review. I eagerly await their arrival. I have high hopes that the US Postal Service won’t drop a tractor axle dipped in anthrax onto the package.
These will likely end up in the catalog for monthly rewards. If they are of interest, and/or if you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
I have not yet heard how much it will cost me to buy copies of my new book for signing. But for estimating purposes I think I’ll probably have to charge something like $50 each plus media mail postage. I don’t want to guess what it’d cost to ship them internationally. Yikes. But as I did with the SR-71 book, signed copies would likely have signed 18×24 prints as a bonus… in this case, probably 3 or 4. Subjects as yet undetermined. I’m far from taking orders, but I’m interested in getting a read on the level of interest. If spending $50 or more on a signed copy sounds like something you’d want to do, send me an email:
So today I signed the contract for my third book. This one will be a little different than the previous two: rather than covering one or two specific aircraft types and their evolution, competitors and derivatives, this one will cover a *category* of aircraft. Details later.
Currently going for fourteen bucks and change (the ad below says $23, but the page it links to shows $14). Christmas is coming. Stock up!
Half off the price of their books, plus free shipping. Woo! So if you have any money left over after you buy suspiciously large numbers of copies of “SR-71” and “B-47/B-52,” go get you some books about ships and such.
And if you end up saving some cash on a haul of books, why not show your boundless appreciation…
Below is a somewhat rambling video by a YouTuber who focuses on comic books. He makes, eventually, what I think is an interesting point. He realized that a *lot* of British authors seem fascinated with magic and wizards and sorcerers and the like, putting magic into stories in somewhat the way Americans might put guns into a story. The YouTubers hypothesis is that this is because magic is to the British “creation myth” like what guns are to the American “creation myth.” Of course, America’s creation is hardly mythical, since records keeping was fairly reliable at the time… but guns were as important tot he Revolution as Merlin was to Arthur. There are, as he also points out, distinctly American “myths” such as Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed… and as he also points out, nobody much cares. Paul Bunyan chopping down trees hardly stacks up with that time George Washington routed the entire British army with a small number of Dodge Chargers.
Of course, with changes in British educational/government policies, British “creation myths” and other cultural tales will be largely unknown to British children within decade, if not sooner.
Here are some screenshots snagged from a not-quite-final version of the book, showing the sort of content you can expect from the final product.
As before it is available for pre-order from both the publisher and from Amazon: