Welcome, dear visitor...and may the luck of Madonna 13 be with you. This is the official website for the Last Nevergate Chronicles. It's an experiment in extending the content domain of the ink-and-paper novel. The particular novel is Book One of these Chronicles, The Luck of Madonna 13. The collectible signed and numbered first edition -- the Chronicler's Edition, officially -- rolled off the presses in August 2002. The Chronicler is hard at work on Book Two as you read this.

Let's talk about curiosity. This site is a place for curious people in general, but mostly for people who are curious about the history of that particular future explored in these Chronicles. If you've gotten your hands on Book One (or downloaded a sample...see below), this site will allow you to explore what's at the other end of the quincunx (pronounced "kwink-ess" by most folks) icons in the margins. There are also informatives that aren't linked to the book (these have numbers beginning with X) but are part of the world.

SITE NEWS

A couple new informatives have found their way here recently:

The Great Nevergate Hack — Ever wonder what "computer" gaming might be like a century or so from now? Here's one speculation that postulates realistic pain and death simulations, among other features. Not so far-fetched really, and may actually arrive a lot sooner that 2131. This informative is complete with player reviews. A still image of the game's controversial animated pakwrap is at the left. 493k pdf file added 3/9/03 GET IT

Oprah 5 Interview with Victoria and Donella Dunnigan — In 2117, Oprah 5 (the fifth clone of Original Oprah) sat down in North Castle's Plaid Salon for a Thanksgiving Day chat with new moms, Donella and Victoria, one half of the founding Dunnigans. Back in 2003, fear of possibility seems to be dominating the debate on genetic modifications and cloning, but fortunately there are some eloquent, rational and well informed voices like Gregory Stock. Someday, we'll get past this nervous phase. In my Nevergated future these technologies have been in everyday life for a long time and life still seems to be, well, life. The real future probably won't be quite like this, and it won't be biopunk, and it probably won't be too much crazier than it ever is.... 65k pdf file added 3/9/03 GET IT

AWARDS

Yikes! An embarrassment of riches has befallen the humble Chronicler: ForeWord Magazine (the esteemed voice of independent and university presses) has awarded The Luck of Madonna 13 their 2002 Book of the Year first place gold prize in science fiction. Earlier, this tome made January Magazine's list of their 92 Best Books of 2002. For more details click here.

OTHER NEW STUFF

There's now a whole new section on the site devoted to The Luck of Madonna 13. Click here or find one of the eyeball buttons.

FREE SAMPLES

If you don't have your copy of the Chronicler's Edition of Book One yet, you can still indulge your curiosity and explore whatever's here. If you're curious enough to want to read a sample chapter with a genuine quincunx icon, you can get one in an Acrobat PDF file by clicking this get chapter one link. Or, if you don't have Acrobat yet (shame on you) or don't want to wait for it to download, the Chronicler has now put chapter one in regular old HTML pages. Click here.

If you're the type of person who really likes to begin at the beginning, you can also download an Acrobat PDF file of the Genesis section which contains the entirety of Dr. Lavendra Cortioli's chapter on St. Coriander from her monumental 2183 history of the IsoTown movement, Oddballs, Cults and Worldchangers. It's not your usual dry-as-a-bone history text.

If you'd like to go out on a limb and buy a copy of the Chronicler's Edition, you can do so from any page on this very small site by clicking on the Buy a Book link here or under the navbox on each page of this site.

On the next page, I'll explain a little about the oddments of content you might find here and also offer a little site navigation guidance. But before you go there, I must apologize to both you and to that most generous of chronophiles, the excellent Fyliam (aka Ike 3.1.14), Resident Archivist of the Transpoint Independent Archive: no chronovix. This website's lack of proper chronovix presentations is unfortunate, but necessary due to technical limitations of this time. We have had to convert the Archive's chronovix materials to mere JPEG and PDF files. Still, we can only do the best we can with what's available to us.

I hope you enjoy your visit. Feel free to return from time to time and see what's new. And please feel free to share your thoughts about this site (and the book, of course), good or bad. I can take it. Just click on the "Email the Chronicler" link under the navbox.