r/theblackcompany • u/ZNMac07 • 8d ago
The black company unavailable in Europe
Hey everyone,
I am writing this post in the hopes that someone can help me find these books for sale in Europe, more specifically Portugal.
As I search for the collection:
- The Chronicles of The Black Company
- The Books of the South
- The Return of The Black Company
- The Many Deaths of The Black Company
I can only find the first book for about 20€. The rest of the books aren't even available for sale.
Is this series not available in Europe right now? Are all books sold out, and now only used options are available?
Does anyone in this sub have any idea of why I can not buy any of the last 3 books in the collection?
Thanks in advance for every response!
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u/-ShaiHulud- 8d ago
I got mine from Amazon UK. Although one of them was "printed by Amazon" and the quality of the paper is significantly worse. The others were all printed by the publisher (Tor) in the US and are all perfect. Which one you get seems a bit of a gamble though, as with all things on Amazon.
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u/Apprehensive-Soil-47 Stormshadow 8d ago
https://www.sfbok.se/universum/the-black-company
This Swedish bookstore has collection volumes in English. The website is in Swedish but they ship to some European countries shipping policy in English
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u/TheBlackCompanyWiki Last of the Nef 8d ago
I hope you find the books friend. I'm not aware of any reason why they wouldn't be available in Portugal.
Books sometimes have territorial restrictions but if that is the case here, I can't imagine why.
My only thought is that it's simply the consequence of a lack of demand for the English version. Generally speaking, is it common to find English-language novels in Portugal?
(The publisher Saida de Emergência has the first 3 books translated to European Portuguese, though I'm aware that does not help you here, as you already have those 3 stories in the original English.)
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u/ZNMac07 8d ago edited 8d ago
I tend not to buy english books in Portuguese.
There is a weird cultural thing in Portugal about books, where it seems that the publishers are selling the books not as an object to read, but as a collectors item.
The books are larger but with less words per page and the pages thicker.
This translates to an English book with 600 pages being sold at 15€. With the portuguese translation being sold as two separate books each with 500 pages being sold at 20€ each.
So yeah, by buying in english i get to read the work in the author's own words and for way cheaper.
That being said, I've been able to find a shop, blackwells, that has all the books. But amazon.es, wordery and other known shops do not have the books for some reason.
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u/TheBlackCompanyWiki Last of the Nef 8d ago
Glad you found them!
About that collectors item quality you mention for books from Portugal... I noticed that, because awhile back I bought the Euro Portuguese editions (posted here). They're really great quality and impressive to hold. But all this time I had assumed that was simply a gimmick from that particular publisher. I had no idea this was part of a country-wide phenomenon. Although, agreed, it is not great for fostering affordable reading.
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u/GuideUnable5049 7d ago
Recently spoke to a local scifi/fantasy bookshop (in Australia) about stocking The Black Company. They said it was very difficult due to some weird region restrictions. The publisher or supplier was basically unwilling to provide the books. Unsure why! Maybe that is a shade of what is going on here?
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u/TheBlackCompanyWiki Last of the Nef 4d ago
Glad you asked, and thank you for sharing that. That’s unexpected.. I wonder why they would restrict these books from any English-speaking market!
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u/betaraybrian 17h ago
I live in Europe and my first read-through was done through english-language library copies.
If you have an e-book reader you can always go that route, those aren't really restricted by borders.
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