My science fiction paperbacks were treasured as much for their imaginative cover art as for the words inside (The hill I will die on: Heavy, awkward and incredibly expensive – we don’t need hardback books, 6 May). Reading science fiction in hardback just feels wrong. I miss the lurid covers, smudgy print and acidic paper that marked it out as a subversive genre.
Tony Durham
Brighton
• Further to recent references to stalking horses, I am much cheered by recalling a radio commentator many years ago who declared that the then dissidents were waiting in the wings for a stalking horse to test the water with.
Helen Cooper
Cambridge
