At 09:45 AM 27/05/2003 +0100, you wrote:

>I don't suppose that Coriolis are owned by the same group as Wrox Press as
>they have just recently gone belly up thanks to their parent company as
>well. :o(

I don't think they were - they appear to have been a subsidiary of the
Thomson Publishing Group. Interesting to see Wrox come up in the context
of failed publishers. I had a notice from my publisher (Apress) at the
beginning of this month pertaining to Wrox and the other publishers in the
Peer group - here's a snippet from it:

"Apress has acquired the remaining assets of the former Peer Publishing
group, including the vast majority of Wrox, and all of Glasshaus, Friends
of Ed, and Curlingstone."

I think the downturn in the US economy shook up tech publishers a lot. I
recall my editor mentioning that tech book sales had dropped 33% between
November and April. That is indeed the reason why the Firebird book is
going to be 750 pages instead of 1500.

>PS. hope you have recovered after your flight home, the only (?) bad thing
>about Australia is the distance :o)

Yep. About the only redeeming thing about flying to Europe out of Sydney
is that the trip is three hours shorter than flying out of
Auckland. Still, I gotta hand it to Austrian/Lauda Airlines - they keep
the food and drinks going. That helps to break up a 21-hour journey. Oh,
and they made it interesting, by leaving my luggage in Vienna when I flew
on to Frankfurt.

Gotta hand it to Lufthansa tho' (they look after Lauda's interests in
Germany) - they found my bags in Vienna and got them to Frankfurt by
lunchtime. They put them on a courier to Fulda early afternoon, for
delivery by 6 p.m. When the courier failed to show up by midnight, they
put a fire under him and I had my stuff by 12.30 a.m. I made four calls to
Lufthansa that day. Every time, the phone was answered by a different
person, and all spoke impeccable English.

cheers,
Helen