An anonymous reader picked up a copy of Ben Bova’s Mars Life from the Salvation Army without realizing that it was missing thirty-two pages. Books don’t come with warranties, but our reader wanted to know how the story ended. Would the New Morality conservatives stop people from examining that eerie Martian fossil? Would the U.S. government ever solve the pressing environmental crisis? How would our reader know without the missing pages?! Macmillan publishing had the answer.

Anonymous writes:

I bought a copy of Mars Life by Ben Bova and it turned out to be missing 32 pages about 3/4 of the way through the book. It’s a hardcover copy of the book I bought at a Salvation Army thrift store for a dollar. The book isn’t damaged, it just looks like the pages were never put into the binding. I went to the website listed inside the cover and sent them a message about it, including telling them I bought it used at a thrift store.

Someone replied the next business day asking for my address so they can send a new copy! They don’t sell the hardcover version any more so they offered to send a mass-market (paperback) edition. Seeing as how I was happy to buy a book from a thrift store, that was just fine with me.

A week and a half later I can finish the story!

Great work, Macmillan! Nice to see that your authors aren’t the only ones who know how to weave a decent ending.

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