Author Topic: Keep track, dang you!  (Read 1604 times)

Sigyn

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Keep track, dang you!
« on: September 25, 2007, 08:37:13 PM »
Why can't authors keep track of what they write in their own books?  And I'm not even talking about between multiple books in a series but just within one book.  I read O Pioneers! by Willa Cather this weekend and she doesn't pay attention in it to how much time is supposed to have passed versus how old people are.  It drove me batty!  How hard is it to count?  I really enjoyed the book, but the age mess up kept drawing me out of the story, and I found that frustrating.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else wants to vent on books they read where authors made some sort of glaring mistake like this.

Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Keep track, dang you!
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2007, 11:21:55 PM »
Patrick O'Brien had his characters repeat the year 1813 three times. The actual war just wasn't long enough for them to do all the stuff he wanted them to do without a lot of fudging, especially since sea voyages take so darn long.

I love his books, though.
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The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Keep track, dang you!
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2007, 01:10:39 PM »
that is *exactly* why I won't read Stephen King anymore.

Sigyn

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Re: Keep track, dang you!
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2007, 03:39:58 PM »
That's pretty funny about Patrick O'Brien.  I remember when I was younger reading a book possibly called Brother Night that also had an author mess up.  At one point the characters lose a necklace in a flood.  Later on they have the necklace again but there was no explanation to how they got it back.  It made me so annoyed.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Keep track, dang you!
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2007, 05:36:35 PM »
Kristine Kathryn Rusch once wrote a review of the Goosebumps series to highlight mass-market kids' SFF offerings, and she said that in the first book the kids managed to defeat some mummies at the end by tricking them into direct sunlight—but at the beginning of the book the mummies were running around during the day with no problems.
All Saiyuki fans should check out Dazzle! Emotionally wrenching action-adventure and quirky humor! (At least read chapter 6 and tell me if you're not hooked.) Volume 10 out now!