Help in buying Culture novel set

[Coldie]

Hi all,

I'm currently considering buying a set of all the Culture novels to date. The thing is I'm trying to buy ones that have the same style of covers, and I thought I'd found matching books until I took a closer look at them and noticed that there are two distinct and different layouts that are used.

Now, I originally wrote this post up with the links to amazon in it but the forum won't let me use them since this is a new account so I'll just provide the ISBN numbers so you can take a look at a couple books and see what I mean about the covers. Just searching for the ISBN numbers in the amazon search bar shows the book.

Style #1 has an "A Culture Book" label and Iain's name is on a single line:
Consider Phlebas: 031600538X
The Player of Games: 0316005401
Use of Weapons: 0316030570
Matter: 0316005371

Style #2 lacks the "A Culture Book" label and Iain's name is on two lines:
The State of the Art: 1857230302
Excession: 185723457X
Inversions: 185723457X
Look to Windward: 1841490598

Now if it weren't for Matter being in Style #1, I would have assumed that the style of the covers was simply changed to #2 with the later novels, but the fact that Matter, the latest novel, was done up in #1 makes me feel like all of them exist in both styles.

Can anyone tell me if all books do, in fact, appear in a single style, and if so please provide the ISBN numbers so that I can order them? Or otherwise tell me where I can get a complete set that matches.

Thanks very much!

 

[iansales]

I don't think you'll be able to find a complete matching set. It's usual for publishers to re-issue books in a series in a common design, but for new additions to the series to have completely independent cover designs. I can think of at least three separate cover designs used for the Culture novels, but each time they were re-issued it was changed.

 

[Lenny]

You'd be surprised! This is my Banks collection (+ Consider Phlebas, which is being read by my Grandfather at the moment), bought at Easter from Amazon, Play.com and BooksEtc:

---

Where are you ordering from, Coldie? These are all UK editions (published by Orbit), but, depending on where you are in the world, they might not be readily available, or they might cost a lot to import.

 

[Coldie]

Thanks Lenny! It looks like the U.K. editions are the ones I'm after.