Science Fiction Carver, Jeffrey A.: Neptune Crossing, v. 1, 18 Jan. 2009

[starrigger]

I am the author, uploading Neptune Crossing, Volume 1 of The Chaos Chronicles, as a limited free download. Please feel free to share with your friends and family, but observe limitations on use as noted on the copyright page of the book. Please do not repost without permission. Neptune Crossing is copyright (c) 1994 by Jeffrey A. Carver, and was published by Tor Books. This ebook is a reproduction of that edition, including cover art (by permission of the Tor art director).

Many thanks to DMcCunney for his excellent help in converting and formatting the book for Mobipocket readers.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[mtravellerh]

Many thanks to you for offering us these books

[desertgrandma]

Very generous. Thank you for your time and work.

[starrigger]

You're welcome. I should add that if you like these books, the fourth book in The Chaos Chronicles, Sunborn, is now available as a Tor hardcover, a free PDF download from my website, and will soon (I hope) be available as a Tor ebook. You can get it free as a properly formatted ebook from me now with the purchase of a hardcover. Details are on my downloads page.

Oh, and if anyone is moved to offer tangible thanks, there's a Paypal donation button on that page, too.

[starrigger]

UPDATE (10/27/2010): I have since put this book up for sale in the Kindle store and at Smashwords. I have opted to leave the free downloads here for people to try. The difference between these editions and the ones up for sale is that I have added a new Afterword to each of the for-sale editions, offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the writing of the books, and the evolution of The Chaos Chronicles as a whole. Take your pick!

[Chris Jones]

I noticed a problem with the so-called "fancy breaks".

As I understand it, this CSS class is meant to cause a page break and the display of a tiny image, thus dividing chapters into sections.

What happens on the Kobo Glo is that instead of being displayed at the top of the next page, the image and the ensuing text start some half-way or two thirds down the page, but what's more serious, there are missing lines at the end of the previous section/sub-chapter.

Here's an example at the beginning of Chapter 4, Return To Base.

It should read something like:

He squinted through the windshield, an uneasy clarity coming to him. The robot in the power compartment. The flashes. /Oh./

/// Remember that when you get in.
An electrical malfie. ///

He let out his breath and didn’t answer.

-------------------------------- fancy break ----------------------------------

With the exception of Napoleon bouncing on his front fender, the robot escort peeled away as he rolled into the maintenance shed. The glare of lights inside threw off his visor-augment for a moment, and he squinted as he followed a shop mech, directing him to drive straight into the service airlock for the shirtsleeve repair section. ..

What happened is that "... The flashes. /Oh./" was displayed at the bottom of the page and when I flipped over to the next page there were about tens blank lines, followed by the section marker and "With the exception of Napoleon bouncing on his front fender, the robot escort... etc.".

In other words the lines "/// Remember that when you get in... " down to "... didn't answer." on the previous page had altogether disappeared.

I played with it a bit, changing the font size on the Kobo to cause the text to reflow and saw that when I used a smaller font I could lose up to a couple of paragraphs.

Since I couldn't code a basic style sheet to save my life, I have no idea if the problem is with the CSS syntax or with the rendering on the Kobo.

In any event, since this was happening with every "fancy break" I checked and I really enjoyed reading the book, I eventually worked around the issue by re-creating the epub after removing all references to class "fancybreak" in the html files.

Oh.. if someone more knowledgeable than myself has the time to take a look and manages to recreate , they may want to also check Volume 2 of the Chaos Chronicles, Strange Attractors.

[starrigger]

Hm. I didn't do that conversion, so I don't know what the story is. However, more updated versions of Neptune Crossing are available in all the major ebook stores, still free at this time, so you might want to download a newer copy from Kobo or any other epub store. (It's DRM-free where permitted.)

(Newer copies of the sequel books are also available on the market, not free but inexpensive.)

Thanks for the warning for others. If someone wants to try to fix the problems with this version, have at it.

Glad you're enjoying the book!

[Chris Jones]

Thanks, Jeffrey. Smashwords edition downloaded through www.starriger.net is fine as indicated.