C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 108

The Deliberations Typo fix:

TYPO: Closed Circle has a policy of creating a new file for all purchasers when there is a “significant” typo, and there was, in Deliberations. I have e-mailed all of you who purchased Deliberations before the fix, giving you a link to request a new (correct) download. Because it has 8 or so people in each addy and because it contains a link, certain spam blockers may prevent your getting that e-mail. IF YOU BOUGHT DELIBERATIONS, check your spam filter. You should be getting a letter from me any minute now. I personally apologize. Now and again we glitch. But we try to fix it fast. I fixed a few other things just because I could, but the significant one is Tabini’s age when his father died: he was 14.

ANNNNNNNNNNNND our software screwed up bigtime and didn’t give anybody any links. WRITE to me (cj@cherryh.com) and I will get you a new link, personally. It is no trouble. A writer wants the file to be ACCURATE. Sigh. And we have worked on this one file from 9Am until now, at 6PM, to try to get this thing right. It takes that long to produce files—and now the demned re-download program spits out gibberish.

For me to give you that re-download personally is two buttonpushes if you will email me that you are ready to receive it.

IF YOUR ORIGINAL LINK IS LESS THAN 48 hours old you can re-use it to trigger a new download, which should now be correct! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Need help, friends: need instructions for getting CC file onto Nook TABLET…and others

The Nook is one thing, and we’ve had no problems with that. The Nook Tablet seems to be something else. One thing that apparently works is buying the .epub only, directly onto the tablet—but buying the .zip file to get the other formats and unzipping on the computer… apparently presents special problems re a computer delivering a file to that tablet.

1) getting a ‘mini’ file. These are .zip files and need to be unzipped: to do this– Step one: download to a computer. Step two: click on the file. [Your computer likely has an unzip program already, and it will respond by breaking open the .zip file and revealing files in all our formats...mobi,.epub, and .pdf. If you do not have an 'unzip utility' on your computer, look at winzip.com and jzip.com, and download a free utility. Once it is on your computer, it will work whenever you click on a .zip file.]

2) getting a file onto a device:

A) To read via your computer: choose .pdf. Click on the file. Your computer should have an Adobe pdf reader that responds to this and opens the file. If it doesn’t, download this free reader: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.... other options: calibre.com (uses .epub); and the Kindle for PC download from Amazon (uses .mobi) (both are free).

B)Kindle. Open the zip on your computer as above to get the .mobi file. Plug the Kindle’s USB into your computer. Your computer will find the device as a drive: open your My Computer’ screen and just drag the .mobi file onto your Kindle and drop. It will now open like any other book.

D) C) Nook. Choose .epub. AND?

E) iPhone >go here for instruction, with screenshots: Adding DRM-Free books to your iPad or iPhone?

E) iPad: go here for instruction, with screenshots: Adding DRM-Free books to your iPad or iPhone

F) Nook Tablet: 3 steps: you want the .epub file, and this method gets the color covers.

1. Download and install Calibre from http://calibre-ebook.com/

2. Start the program, then add the .epub file you downloaded from Closed Circle into Calibre by using the drop down menu on the “Add Books” icon.

3. Plug your Nook into a USB port on your computer using the USB cable that came with the device. Calibre will recognize the Nook, and add a button in the tool bar labeled “Device”. Then you can transfer by clicking on the drop down arrow on the “Device” icon.

G) Android device.

If anything here is ‘the same as’ just say that.

Your help much appreciated.

It was a success, dear friends!

WE’re pretty fried last night—we stayed up til midnight to fold up the special offer on schedule, and since the little ‘freebie’ advert lacked a bottom tag, I first blew all the right sidebar off the CC home page, then lost all the text on Jane’s beautiful Netwalkers theme page…sigh—thank goodness for backups. I did it right on the e-books catalog page.

But we think we have shut down all the portals we opened. If you notice anything left unsecured, let us know.

It’s amazing trying to place notices where people, attracted by the ‘shiny thing’ will actually see the information. Placement of advisory labels is not a science—it’s an art and a learning curve.

And we have walked no few people today through the process of downloading and opening files.

Meanwhile we had a good birthday for Jane, a really good dinner out, and we are preparing to fall on our faces.

Thank you all very, very much—welcome, our new members—and all you who may lurk are welcome to join us! We’re easy-going and flame-free, and discuss just about anything.

WE ARE UP!

It’s up there. Go ye forth, get Jane’s free offer of the first volume of the ‘Netwalkers duology, Partners—and the short story, and the third Rusalka book. Enjoy! We’ve had electronic adventures—whenever you deal with a file involving Wesley, who is a computer geek and prankster—you’re in for it.

But all’s well. Let us know if there are any problems we didn’t catch. And wish Jane a happy birthday!

We’re in the process…

You may see things on Closed Circle come and go and bobble about for a bit. We’re making changes and bringing things live. Our first priority will be to get the actual books/story up and linked to live ‘buy this’ buttons, and correctly entered in the shopping cart mechanism. After that we will go after discrepancies in the comments and other non-vital details. Main thing will be—is the process going to work if you push a button to buy it. Prettification will come soon.

Note that Jane is (atevi-fashion) giving you a present on her birthday: Partners, the first of the Netwalkers duology, will be free from midnight tonight through tomorrow. Go for it!

An announcement on Jane’s Blog

Go see! Jane’s blog

[And if you are following the Wiishu slideshows, you will have to seek them out, top bar, in the Slideshows, as she gets back to her regular posts, and in this case, a special offer for our blogsite regulars and others on her birthday---like atevi, she believes in giving on her birthday.]

For those of you who haven’t been following the Wiishu posts, understand—Japanese ball-jointed dolls are a blatant excuse for costuming and clever photography, and they’re cuter’n spit. The little ones not only imitate human jointing so well they can balance on one foot, they are also downright spooky to hold in your hand, because they move on their own, under gravity, and they move like people, unlike dolls that just flop, and you keep thinking—if this thing turns its head and stares at me I’m handing it to someone else. This is the offshoot of a really ancient artform in Asia, and when Jane has spare time (ha!) she wants to do some complex traditional costume.]

Editing older novels to new editions…

The rewards of doing it— the sheer petty joy of typing grEy instead of grAy, an Americanism I detest; the delight of cleaning up things I noticed AFTER it was in print…the freedom of being able to use a long dash WITHOUT butting it up against the prior word and overriding a comma, thus:

John—come here! becomes John, —come here! The sheer luxury of not having to re-correct my subjunctives when some copyeditor has misconstrued them. The delight of being able to say leapt instead of leaped (I swear the next pernicious change will be sleeped) —And the happiness of doing a book as long as I want it, with the typography I want, and the ending I want…and without the philosophy of an editor, who arrives new on the scene and doesn’t like ooky scary things, getting between you and your book. That definitely happened on Faery in Shadow, and to a certain extent on Rusalka.

Plus—a decade can give you a clearer vision of what you needed to do, and experience gives you a whole arsenal of skills you didn’t have back when…

I am so, so, so much happier with the Rusalka set (aka ‘what it’s REALLY like to grow up a wizard’–)

I’ve gotten through the new Yvgenie edit. You’ll notice some other changes. Rusalka is under my name, Chernevog is me and Jane, because Jane had such good insignts, and actually wrote some that I happily used, that I happily shared the authorship (my idea, not anything she asked;) and the third book, Yvgenie, is back to me again. This is honest-to-God magic-works-in-our-world fantasy that will also give a nice little aha! to people who do like physics; AND to people who know something about Russian folklore. How’s that for pleasing a diverse audience?

———–

The short story is Foreigner, of course, before Bren arrived on the scene….I hope you enjoy it.

————

And Jane’s new book is Netwalkers, which begins the NEW version of her whole universe. This is brilliant, gutsy science fiction—and if you THINK you know where it’s going or you THINK you’ve seen this sort of thing before…don’t be too sure. This is sf of a very special sort, and if you’ve not read Jane’s sf, —read this!

Launch date is the 24th of October, and we are on schedule.

Reminiscences of the old days, pre-internet and pre-simulations…

Back when, there wasn’t info on starfields and distances except in numerical form. There wasn’t the ready access to beautiful simulations…

So…I made my own. This is from a question a reader asked me:

My answer: “So many things are now available. Back in the 80′s, I used a star catalog that gave observed position, and input them into an Atari computer to get the X,Y, and Z on a graph, then got sheets of glass and made proportional dots on them at various levels to get a 3-d star map of the solar neighborhood. I had already chosen some close to us, like Ep Eri, A and B Cent, Wolf 354, Tau Ceti, etc; so they were there—my radius was about 30 light years. And it helped me conceptualize the distances, because without the ‘elevation’, you can’t see that 2 stars rhar appear close on a flat map are vertically separated by huge distance. I also turned up a curious spongelike threadiness to the location of stars, highways of stars, as if soap bubbles had stars only where they touched each other—and I was fascinated by this. I began to read up on cosmology, to see if my observation was elsewhere noted. Now it appears on 3-d computer maps, and these ‘filaments’ are, yes, observed, and part of the structure of the universe: they appear in macrocosm in the organization of galaxies, and rhey exist also within our galaxy (remember my observation was at max 50 light years, on version II) as strings of stars. So I envision the progress of star colonies as following these ‘highways in the sky,’ as the shortest distance between planeted stars. I’m delighted with modern discoveries, my ‘brown dwarf’ jump points are out there, my notion of extra-solar planets, which I never did use, is out there, and just so many wonderful things. Turns out my mining station at Viking (Ep Eri) has not one, but TWO asteroid belts, by recent observations—just really, really neat stuff.

I had several catalogs at hand, and they disappeared in a move so long ago I can’t remember. One was a (then) unpublished catalog I had sworn not to mention, so I didn’t; I’m sure it now is published; and the necessary imprecision of sticking little dots on glass sheets was such that it wouldn’t give away anything at all. Names that stick with me, yes, Gliese, Lalande, Luyten…but what I recall principally is two xeroxes in copper pin binding; and where those went, I wish I knew. But 6 house moves are between me and those catalogs.

I used that chart to work out a schedule of sublight ships and primitive stations, with dates. We need to get a move on to keep my schedule, but it tracks the movement of the sublight ships of my universe up to the point FTL is discovered and all but one of the old sublighters converts to FTL. It’s the ‘historical’ foundation of the Alliance-Union universe, and contains the makings of a lot of stories I haven’t quite found the characters to tell.

I am really pretty good with concept and really horrid at arithmetic. But my results kept coming out weird, where I knew they couldn’t be; so I found out my edition of the Encyclopedia Americana had screwed up the circumpolar coordinate equation—my second grade teacher, who undoubtedly despaired of ever teaching me to add and divide, would have been amazed that lil’ ol’ me found and fixed a math error in the encyclopedia (just a minus sign) without having to ask anybody. I knew when my stars assumed the configuration my astronomical knowledge expected.

I started working on some of this with Diane Duane, who had some relations with the Hayden Planetarium in Boston, and the Planetarium asked me if they could use my data—I of course was flattered and said yes. Then a reader volunteered to do a computer simulation flythrough—well, my programming was definitely limited, and adding the ‘theta’ so that you could do a real flythrough was considerably beyond my skills in Basic, which was all I knew. So the chap did it, back in the day (abt 1983) or before, when joysticks outside of airplanes and video parlors were a bit of a novelty. You could indeed fly through, and it was beautiful. As I say, so many things we expect now, but back then, it was wholly unexpected, and when I got that program I was so enchanted. It froze, it hung, it had problems, but it was wonderful to me.

I find myself wondering—do today’s young folk even know what 48 k means? Nowadays nobody whiffles at 48 gig. But back then, programming was so elegant, in the computing sense: I had a word processor that ran well in about 14 k. No failsafe, no advisement to save before shutting down: you command, it obeys, instantly. But it ran as well as any word processor. It just stored stuff on a LOT of ‘floppy’ disks. I neglect to mention my lightspeed acceleration-at-1-g calculations, which I set to print out, just to get a notion of scale and time—when I got back from an errand, the thing was still running, the tractor feed paper was nearly gone, and the sea of printout about reached the level of my desk in that little work area. I had to do my own mental adjustments to the scale of distance and accelerations we routinely work with.

And again:

The Foreigner Short Story is prepped.

All ready to go, on the 24th. All I have to do is the copyright process, and that takes about fifteen minutes. We’ll offer that one as .epub, .mobi, and .pdf, in keeping with our new format policy.

Yvgenie is proofed and in prep…we’re in html, and doing cleanup, and close to e-pub. which is step one. Conversion takes only a second. Prepping for conversion takes days, looking at every dot and bracket and spacing.

Then I’ll be doing the text-prep on Jane’s Netwalkers, which will follow the same course, for the same scheduled release.

Futzy does not begin to describe the process. And one of the LEAST cooperative processes is .pdf. If you have something manifest as an html problem, there is a fix. There is no fix for some .pdf problems. You just have to grit your teeth and say it’s ok if a line that should stop extends all the way across the page.

We actually care how the books LOOK…you won’t see all our wonderfulness on Kindle, alas, which is very meat-and-potatoes, but has a good look; epub lets us get a bit fancier, and displays the covers nicely. To see the cover on Kindle, you have to back up a bit, which is odd, but, hey, it at least works smoothly.

How do you get a Closed Circle book onto your iPad? Reader expertise, please?

Can you break this down into steps? I know it’s ePub, but recommend some specific apps, outline procedures, and help a new reader use a device which is getting more common.