Very sad news from the printer a few days ago. The supplier has delivered the wrong type of paper. They do not have enough in stock to print ENDGAME PLAY as well as the two other books. And as it is quite costly to set up the printing, there is no chance of half a batch of books to take us through early publication.
So EP is delayed a few weeks. Mating the Castled King and Tal 1 – The Magic of Youth will come out on the 30th of April as previously announced.
Those buying all three books on the website before this post will of course receive the first two books by mail and the third one later; while those buying these three combined after this post, will fall for our rules of “combined orders are shipped when all books are published.”
I am very disappointed of course, so please, if you want to share your feelings, let them be of sympathy.
That’s a cold hamburger. I’m glad that “quality” is not just a catchphrase with this outfit. My book shelves have quite enough freakish chess books from over the years with grave defects that should have been attended to. I was going to order EP this weekend and wait on the other two, but now I will switch around my order. A feast of riches, great books either way for both now and later.
Will it now be delivered with the end May batch of releases, do you think? Or sometime in between? A pity as I was looking forward to the book from the extract, but these things happen.
@Paul
I will get an update from the printer next week, possibly on Monday. It is not just our one book affected – it seems the printer was let down by his paper supplier and it affected dozens of books. So the printer is struggling to catch up everywhere.
So while our other two books are fine, anything we say about “Endgame Play” now would just be a wild guess. It is a pain (to put it politely) as we have been extra careful recently to wait until the books were totally under control before announcing a date. The book was at the printer. We had a delivery date agreed from the printer, so we announced. Now this happens.
“Delivered the wrong type of paper”?! Gareth/Dwight must be responsible.
I’m sincerely sorry for you…it’s harsh to work so hard and can’t be pleased by the final result…
@John Shaw
Ok, will look to see where you are. On the books that you actually can produce without paper -ebooks- the Slav is still not on the Apple version of Forward Chess. I think Nikos estimated/best guessed it would be there last Monday (Apple dependent). Any idea when it may appear?
Slav is on Forward 🙂
@Paul
Hello Paul, in order not to overload John with more work, i’ll try to find out why the book is not yet available at the App store (i sincerely thought it should have been untill now) and answer to you soon.
The book should be available pretty soon, if not available already now. I got a very quick response, that’s why my posts are only minutes apart from each other :).
Thanks Nikos! As if by magic it has appeared!
@Paul
It ain’t magic, my friend 🙂
@ Nikos Ntirlis
Please could you tell me is the Slav on Forward chess with or without the later ammendment by Boris adding the missed line of exchange variation?
@Ed
I am quite sure that Nikos put it in. This was one of the reasons it took a bit of extra time to get it out.
Now for all the other books that are supposed to appear on FC…
@Bill
At least 3 new books will apear in the next few days at the forward chess store and a fourth really soon as well.
@Ed
The Slav update is in the ebook.
Got the three new volumes today. That saves the rainy weekend.
@Thomas
Excellent. We will expect a fully detailed review of all three by first thing Monday morning.
@John Shaw
John, I have seen that you changed the name of “middlegame books” to “improvement books”
How come?
@LE BRUIT QUI COURT
For the deterioration books you have to choose a different publisher.
I’d guess that with so few books fitting under ‘endgame’ it made sense to consolidate the categories?
“Middlegame” was the wrong word for many of the books listed in there. e.g. The Yusupov series is not just middlegame, but Opening, Middlegame and Endings. Plus “Endgame Play”, the Polgar books, the Carlsen book and various others – calling them “Middlegame” is not accurate.
So we looked for another word: “Chess” “Others” “Miscellaneous” “General” (all boring and not descriptive) and settled on “Improvement” as the term that was closest to a theme. Our books are usually about improvement. Maybe a few are mainly entertainment, but “Improvement” seems the main QC theme.
@John Shaw
All 3 books arrived on Saturday, thanks. However I myself can only provide a brief review of Gormally’s book, which is the one I tucked into. It is superb in every respect.
I think the grouping by theme is excellent material for the “woodpecker” method in “Pump up your Rating”
I didn’t get further then the book on Mischa Tal.
Wonderful.