Potty about Potter

He's back. Again. For the 7th (and hopefully last) time.

Who's that, you might ask. HARRY POTTER, that's who.

Honestly, there has been too much hype about him. I've finished all 7 books, and I have to admit, it's been a fun time. Books 3, 5 and 6 were just horrible, but the others were fairly good, with the exception of book 7. This one was great. Still......

Potter's great, but I've read better. Any ardent Potter fans are welcome to send me hate mail, but I still think the Bartimaeus trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud, is loads better. Moving on....

Here's a comment on what happened recently, before HP7 came out. Maybe I'll do a review next time. Here goes:

First, the rumours, i.e purported spoilers and fans' ideas. Some fans' speculation turned out correct, but the majority of spoilers were wrong. These people who post spoilers seem to have nothing better to do besides spoiling people's fun.

Then there was the leakage of the Scholastic version of the book 3 days before the launch. How come this never happened before? There are so many people involved in the publishing and distribution process, don't tell me that God sent his angels down to print the books. With such a massive operation, I'm really surprised this didn't happen earlier (shows the genius of J.K. Rowling's lawyers). I'll have to thank the Time mag for telling me about Mr. Byron Ng. Anyone who wants to download the book, got to The Pirate Bay to download it. It's a PDF file, so everyone should be able to read it.

On Friday, 1 day before the launch, something really unexpected happened. In Malaysia, the RRP for Deathly Hallows is RM 109.90. The major bookstores offered about 10% discount plus some goodies if you pre-ordered the book (I was one of the suckers). Anyway, what happened is that Tesco and Carrefour decided to sell the book at RM 69.90, roughly 30-40% cheaper, and advertised it 24 hours before the launch. Naturally the 3 major bookstores ( MPH, Popular, Times) were pissed off. They paid for the advertising for MONTHS, organised plenty of activities to be held on D-Day, and suddenly 2 fellers drop out of nowhere to hijack all the hard work. So the 3 bookstores decided to throw a tantrum. At 4 p.m, they announced that they were cancelling all activities and sales (except pre-bookings). Now, THAT is fun.

Honestly, this shows the horrible side of human nature. Firstly, the major bookstores were profiteering. I mean, if they were selling at about RM 10 more, I wouldn't complain, but RM 40 more is just ridiculous. Then, the hypermarts took advantage of the bookstores. As it is, the bookstores aren't making much money, now some presumptous people start hijacking their business. AND the distributor says that the hypermarts aren't making money out of selling at such a low price. The bookstores weren't too smart as well, just giving away their business to Tesco and Carrefour. Everyone loses, except the customers who didn't pre-order.

Until next time....... draco dormiens nunquam titillandus