Book Vandalism

Only a short dream today, but it was bad enough.

A relative of mine - naming no names - popped into the house for a visit. He said that he had brought along a mountain of books, and asked me if I'd like to look them over and see which ones were valuable, which ones I'd like to keep and which ones to give to Oxfam. The books were on the table in the dining room, and a mighty stack it was - Niven, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, William Gibson, Olaf Stapledon, John Wyndham, Geoff Nelder's book Aria: Left Luggage, Stross, Mieville, Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson and more.

I heard this awful sound - tearing paper. I looked in in incredulity as I saw the relative tearing out a page of one of the James Blish Star Trek TOS adaptations. To a Trekker, that is utter sacrilege. The damned thing was a first edition, and hadn't even been taken out of the packaging - the plastic sleeve lay on the floor at his feet as he began tearing off the back cover.

So I threw him out.

Nobody damages books in my house. Nobody.