[LMB] authors goofs that bug me

[Dorian E. Gray]

Raye said...

> Anyone else encountered something like that, where
> what should be a casually passed-over aside hits just
> the right way to reveal a sad lack of research, and
> colours the rest of the book?

There's a rather odd book I have called "The Rising of the Moon", by one 
Flynn Connolly.  It's SF and set in Ireland - which is why I bought it; 
there isn't enough SF set in my country.

Unfortunately, Ms. Flynn never visited Ireland, and made a really jarring 
setting error.  At one point, an address is given as "1237 Sackett. On the 
corner of Sackett and Garrity".  No-one in Ireland *ever* leaves off the 
"Street" (or "Road", "Avenue", whatever).  And house numbers rarely get into 
the hundreds, let alone the thousands.

Still, this isn't nearly as bad as the 1970s post-apocalyptic novel set in 
Ireland (whose title I have mercifully forgotten), which gave Glendalough as 
west of Rosslare (it's about 100 miles *north*) and posited a thriving steel 
industry in an Ireland apparently cut off from the rest of the world (we 
have bugger-all iron or coal deposits).

Until the sky falls on our heads...

Dorian.
--
Dorian E. Gray
israfel at eircom.net
http://dorianegray.livejournal.com

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte