[LMB] OT: When Favourite Authors Screw Up

[Elizabeth Holden]

This is not exactly a case of the author herself screwing up (unless possibly in the
proofreading), but in one of my favourite books, Karin Lowachee's "Cagebird", there's a line that
is totally mangled - I don't remember now if it's transposed words or missing words or both, but
the actual line came out as nonsensical.

Well, this happens.  Shouldn't be a big deal, right?

Except it happens to be the pivotal line in the most significant turning point of the whole book.

You can figure out from context what happened, but you shouldn't have to. Such a powerful moment
shouldn't be a moment of confusion. 

Likewise there's a missing line in the original paperback publication of Dorothy Dunnett's "The
Game of Kings".  The line itself isn't especially significant but it throws off the sense of a
very intense, important scene about whether the hero will or will not kill himself. 

I can't imagine caring about a failure of arithmetic (as with Anne McCaffrey) or fact - but this
kind of publication carelessness bothers me because it really shouldn't happen.  Authors shouldn't
get facts wrong, either - but there's a balance of quality of writing (or storytelling) and
quality of material, and I'll forgive a lot for a well-written story.  For instance: Jean
Anouilh's play and movie "Becket" is historical nonsense - most of it total fiction. The main
theme is that Becket was a Saxon who betrayed his own people and regretted it - but the real
Becket wasn't a Saxon; he was from Rouen.  But frankly, I don't care.  Anouilh wrote an excellent
story about a personal moral dilemma. Call it alternate history.

I do care about many types of errors when it comes to history, though! Such errors are usually
about culture or viewpoint - I wouldn't care if, say, a set of dates were wrong or fudged, but to
have 12th century people acting with 20th century viewpoints will make me put a book down. Or,
worse - and much more common - to have 12th century people acting like 18th century people because
most of the medieval myths we have now came from the Victorians.

namaste,
Elizabeth