Pulp Blurb

When analyzing the text of a book, it is sometimes interesting also to contemplate the book itself as a physical artifact.

"Time Patrol" is the first short story in the collection, Time Patrol (New York, 2006). Page 1 of Time Patrol, which is also the first page of "Time Patrol", is preceded by, counting backwards:

a blank page;
"Contents";
the publishing history;
the title page;
a short list of BAEN BOOKS by POUL ANDERSON;
blurb;
the inside front cover displaying a bar code, ISBN numbers, the BAEN logo of a rocket flying out of a circle and prices in US and Canadian dollars;
the front cover (see image).

It was the blurb that caught my attention. It is a full page of abridged text from the story, "Delenda Est." The abridgement is reasonably effective, transforming Anderson's leisurely descriptive prose into the kind of faster moving text that might be found in a pulp magazine. I recommend a careful reading of the blurb and comparison with the original.