[net.books] Four book trilogies

boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (12/15/85)

> From: utcsri!tom      (Tom Nadas)
     
> Credit where credit is due.  It was Isaac Asimov who thought up
> the "fourth book in the trilogy" joke for his Foundation series,
> which predates Douglas Adams fourth book, however his publisher
> Judy Lynn del Rey talked him out of it.

Wrong.

First, FOUNDATION'S EDGE was originally published by Doubleday,
so it wouldn't have been Judy Lynn del Rey that "talked him out
of it".

Second, I've seen a reproduction (in SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE,
August 1982, if you want to look it up) of the original proof
for Doubleday's dust jacket for the book that actually said
"The fourth book of the Foundation Trilogy" (someone must have
realized it was stupid and changed it to "The fourth novel in
the Foundation Series" before the book was released).

Third, the joke predates FOUNDATION'S EDGE. When Berkley was
issuing Eric van Lustbader's Sunset Warrior novels in paperback
in 1980, they billed them as "The Sunset Warrior Trilogy". At
roughly the same time, Doubleday published a fourth novel and
folks jokingly referred to it as "the fourth book in the Sunset
Warrior Trilogy".
     
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA)

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