The Science Fiction Book Club: A Very Opinionated Review

My family's past experiences with the Science Fiction Book Club have been so bad that I cannot recommend joining this club. You wind up spending far too much money for inferior product and books you didn't want in the first place. You are much better off just cruising your local libraries and book stores to read the best science fiction and fantasy.

Low Resell Value

You usually can find someone who collects just about anything - except people who collect editions strictly from the Science Fiction Book Club. In talking to many used book owners, dealers and book collectors, the general consensus was that there just isn't a market for Science Fiction Book Club editions.

This was especially bad in the 1980s, when Science Fiction Book Club editions were set in tiny print on already yellowed paper. The jacket art was always vastly inferior to the original edition's book jacket art. All books offered by the club were in hardback then, which made them more expensive than paperbacks.

Sneaky Rules

You're probably familiar with monthly merchandise club rules, where you are shipped and billed for something each month unless you notify the club that you don't want it. The Science Fiction Book Club would send cards we'd have to return - yesterday. They literally were backdated. They never came to our house on time.

Since we were responsible for shipping costs, and the post office was a distance away, it was often easier for us to just buy the book mailed to us than try and return it. After a few months of this and not receiving any answers from our complaints, we finally bought the required number of books and quit.

Thankfully, today's Science Fiction Book Club doesn't require you to send back cards if you use their website to maintain your account. Also, they claim that now they will cover any shipping charges for books you don't want. I don't know if this is true because none of my science fiction and fantasy loving family and friends will dare try the Science Fiction Book Club again. I certainly won't.

Limited Selection

The Science Fiction Book Club stocks particular titles for a short amount of time and then that's it. If, a few months down the line, you decide that you wanted a certain book, forget it. They no longer stock it. They only stock books at the time they are at their most expensive - when they are first released.

You can get much better bargains at Amazon.com or eBay, where if you wait a few months, new titles go on sale and older books are easy to find. They will be in great condition and may even rise in value over time, unlike Science Fiction Book Club special editions.