Had a water pipe break and damage part of my book collection. Insurance will pay to replace the WOT books but my printed-out copy of the short story about the assault on Shayol Gul and sealing the bore was completely destroyed. Is it in the archives someplace?

Thats awful!

 

Luckily, The Strike at Shayol Ghul is still available online.

 

http://www.tor.com/shayol.html

Awful was a good start.

Out of +1500 bound and paperback books I lost maybe 70. The Tolkien paperback collection (with the original watercolor covers) I had since the late sixties (first printings) is safe. Alas, Xanth is no more (but some argue that is a Good Thing). More of the sci fi collection got soaked (by my solar water heating) than the fantasy (in a perfectly balanced world tunnel snakes will now eat the fantasy collection). I will press/bind-dry what I can- a shirt silk screener is letting me use one of his tables and I get to use his dryer. The pulps (Amazing, Astounding, Analog) and the leather-bound signed first editions were in a sealed case so there was no damage. A good friend of mine is my insurance agent (and frequent borrower from my library); he signed off my claim without fuss so I can replace the WOT collection and whatever else is damaged beyond reasonable repair. All in all I was fortunate to lose so little; I will have to start haunting used books stores for the older out of print ones but that isn't exactly what I'd call a hardship!

 

Almost forgot- Thank You for the link!