The Early RJ trilogy, consisting of Secret Histories, Secret Circles, and Secret Vengeance, were books I bought in the Tor hard cover editions a year or two after the last book in the series appeared—the books were published between 2008 and 2011. After some research, I see that I bought my copies some time in 2012. For some reason, after the first book in the series, Tor’s marketing department changed the cover designs for the next two books; while the latter two bear similar designs, these differ wildly from the first one.
I didn’t plan to buy the limited editions of these books. These were published by Gauntlet Press, which usually price their FPW books at $60. Then again, I’d recently bought the other RJ trilogy covering his first years in New York in their limited editions, even though I had the Tor books, and the same for the ICE-trilogy (how irony, given the current ICE acronym as a government agency).
Still, when I came across the first in the series listed online for far less then $60, I pulled the trigger and bought it. My copy of Gauntlet Press’s edition of Secret Histories is signed and numbered as #9 of the 500 limited copies. This book came with a slipcase, which I thought was only meant for the lettered editions.
A few months later, I saw a copy of the second book, Secret Circles, listed for around the same price, and went ahead and bought it as well. This copy is numbered 202 of 500 copies, but didn’t come with a slipcase. At least Gauntlet Press didn’t go all wonky again and change the numbers in the editions, as they’ve done with other series—good luck collecting all books if they are in editions of 500, 450, some random number, vis-a-vis the “City” trilogy, or even the Nocturnia trilogy.
The covers in the Gauntlet editions are far better than the Tor editions, that’s for sure. The spines are almost identical in design, thought the covers use different fonts and placements of the subtitles and Wilson’s name. “Arg!” I said when I saw this. Can we have some consistency in design?
Now, if I can just find the last book at a reasonable price, it will complete the set. Then I’ll have to find a way to buy FPW’s last two novels, as Gauntlet released the first of these just recently, and will release the second shortly. It’s madness, I know. I’ve already read them, as I bought the trade editions, which I thought would be the only editions. So it goes.
