Mail order was certainly a hassle when I used to use Forbidden Planet. A few years ago I switched to Andromeda, and I've not had a problem obtaining a book since then. The staff at FP were always unhelpful and each person gave a different excuse for a book being unavailable. Ok, I tended to ask about Wildcard books, coz I had some idea of when they were to be published, so the most common answer was that the book was not yet published. The fact that different people gave different answers suggested to me that some of them didn't know what they were talking about.

In contrast, FP would regularly refuse to let me order the latest Wildcard novel, on the grounds that it wasn't in stock that day, even tho it had been a few days earlier, and would be again next week. I have a standing order with Andromeda for that series, plus the Gardner Dozois annual "Best New" anthology. The staff I've spoken with have always been polite and helpful.

Here's their address and phone/fax numbers:
Andromeda Bookshop
2 to 5 Suffolk Street
Birmingham
B1  1LT
Tel: 0121 643 1999   Fax: 0121 643 2001

All Andromeda need now is a website of the quality of the Pastel CD & video mail order company, with catalogue updates sent by email, and it'll be a perfect service. ;) I've been very happy with Pastel, after buying enough CDs from them to lose count. Ok, probably less than 10. They also have a search engine for checking their online cataloue (it had about 5000 CDs, when I last checked it), and if a new CD comes in that matches a previous query, then it emails you! I love it. I've not yet bought any videos from them, but I don't buy so many videos, and so far I've been happy getting them from shops like Virgin and HMV. Too bad they couldn't find that Tomita CD for me, but I bet that's a tough one.