Field of Reeds

This story is based around the invention of an electronic method of measuring the human soul. Not everybody thinks this is a wonderful idea - some religious nutcases even want to kill the inventor. Our hero, Spencer, is detoxified and sent out by the world's biggest software company (not Microsoft!) to track down the inventor before the bad guys do. Many of the things that happen to him mirror the judgement scenes of the world's major religions, with the finale based on the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

In case you're wondering what the standard's like (let's face it, the Internet isn't known for its quality control) this version is a publisher's proof, produced just before the publisher decided to stop publishing books. Life's like that sometimes.

The entire novel can be downloaded free of charge in lots of formats. Click on any of the links that follow to begin your download.

Here's a PDF version (600k, so takes around two minutes on a regular modem). Click the disk icon at the top left of the PDF screen to save the file to your machine.

A text version (460k, around 90 seconds). This version may appear on your computer screen without linebreaks, but if you save it using 'Save As', and then re-open the file you saved, that problem goes away.

And Microsoft Word 6/95 (500k).

Or how about a zip file containing each chapter as a separate document (266 kb), or a Microsoft eBook (.lit 300k) or Rocket Edition (.rb 220k)?

If you're still not convinced, you can preview the first two chapters as HTML files.

It's been a great success as a free book on the Internet and by June 2005 has been viewed over 20,000 times.

All rights are reserved on the novel, though I'm happy for you to pass it on to friends.

I enjoy receiving praise and criticism, especially criticism, because that helps me improve. Please mail me at ajs@foxglove.co.uk. This address changes periodically, just to keep spammers on their toes.