Date, what date?

Someone on TrekBBS asked, "What is the publishing order?" for a very recent trilogy of Star Trek novels.

Inside every book, usually on the page opposite the title page, one will find a year of publication. Some books, including all of Pocket's Star Trek tie-in MMPBs (mass market paperbacks), include the month of publication as well. Pocket makes it very easy to put the paperback ST novels into publication order. ("First time in hardcover" ST novels create a shelving challenge.)

Pocket also identifies how often the book as been reprinted: that row of spaced digits below the date - ie. the "1" is removed for the second printing; the "2" is removed for the third printing, etc.

It amazes me that so many people never discover the publication dates, nor read forewords, prefaces, introductions, "historian's notes", afterwords, postscripts, or glossaries in ST books about which that they have urgent questions. Are these the same people who leave cinemas long before the end credits roll, too? (Mmm, that's almost everyone these days!)