Category: book Nook
Hi all
I'm in the second book of a romance trilogy by Sherryl Woods and have found two glaring mistakes that both the author and editor should have caught. In the first book, there is a kid named Gary. He is not a major character but is the friend of Tommy who is the foster son of one of the major characters. Tommy's foster mother and uncle are both concerned that Gary might be using drugs and are keeping an eye on him. Late in the book, Tommy's uncle, who is acop, is staking out the high school and sees Gary,who is in junior high, handing something that looks like drugs to a high school kid. Later in the book Gary's father is taken down in a drug raid.
Now here is where the inconsistencies start. The biggest one is that in the second book, Gary's name is now Pete. How in the world can an author forget the name of one of her characters? The other thing that bugs me is that in the second book people are saying that just because Pete's father was a drug trafficker doesn't mean Pete is a bad kid. The author seems to have completely forgotten that Pete/Gary was apparently selling drugs in the first book and that Tommy's parents were concerned about him having that kid as a friend. In the second book they are all completely supportive of Tommy's friendship with Pete.
So, have any of you ever caught blatant errors in books that should have been caught by the author and/or editor?
I've caught typos and some small inconsistencies, but I can't recall any books that contain errors as blatant as the one you mentioned.
Was recently reading a stuart woods, book, and early in the book, one of the partners is refered to as Robert, and later on, in the same book, Bill. Here after, in all subsequent books, he's called bill.
Another of his books, published in the past year had a character with one last name for three books, and in the latest book, it's a different last name. I hate those types of inconsistancies.
Yeah, Twilight was fullof them. Spelling mistakes, horrible punctuation, and plot holes you could hide an elephant in quite comfortably.
For example, why is it that her vampires sparkle, yet they are continually going out in the sun? How is it that her characters change entire personalities in the span of a few paragraphs? I could go on and on.
I just thought of another one today. I can't remember the book or the author now, but there were two women having lunch together. The one woman ordered a tuna sandwich, and a few minutes later she saw something across the restaurant that upset her, and it said "she pushed her chicken sandwich away and left the table."
Oh, I do remember a passage in a book--I don't recall the title or author--where two sisters were talking on their porch. At the beginning of the passage, it says they were drinking iced tea, but later it mentions the effect alcohol has on one of them in a way that implies they were drinking something a little stronger.
The Harry Potter series had some of those. For instance in Sorcerer's Stone when Harry is introduced to Nearly Headless Nick, the latter tells Harry he hasn't eaten for nearly 400 years. Yet in Chamber of Secrets he says that he's celebrating his 500th deathday, which would seem to imply that he was able to eat for the first hundred years of his gosthood. Later in Chamber of Secrets Dumbledore tells Harry that Tom Riddle is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin when the correct word would have been descendant. Admittedly I believe this latter was corrected in later printings. Later on in Goblet of Fire after his argument with Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore tells Harry and the rest of them that unless the wizarding world does not stand united, Voldemort will win. Obviously the correct word should have been If the wizarding world does not stand united, or perhaps unless the wizarding world stands united.
I mention this type of thing to my husband all the time, I noticed that in some series the first book a person can have 1 name, but in the second book the name is totally different. Also, I hag a book can't remember the name right now, this lawyer was at a prison meeting with her client and the author described the room as only having two chairs but when the prisoner comes in the room all of a sudden the room has a table. Haven't these people ever heard of proof reading?
I wonder if we blind people notice things that print readers don't catch. Even sighted people who listen to audio books tend to listen while driving or doing other things and may not catch as many mistakes. And I think print readers tend to see what they expect to see and just skim right over mistakes. I'm sure editing is a very monotonous task. But still, when I catch a really obvious mistake, I do have to wonder not only what the author was thinking but why someone in the publishing house didn't notice.
The Belgariad and Malloreon by David Eddings have some mistakes like that, more particularly the Malloreon. One of the seven gods is named Chaldan. He's always named correctly in the Belgariad, but several times throughout the later books of the Malloreon he's referred to as Chamdar, which was actually the true name of one of the antagonists.
I guess I am your stereotypical unobservant middle-aged white male in this instance, blind or not. Reading this thread, it sounds like the problem must be quite widespread, and while I have seen misprints in grammar or occasionally spelling, I have never seen the types of things you all point out.
So much for my powers of observation. Apparently, though, to the poster who mentioned vision, it must be related to something other than vision.
oh wow. here i am, thinking it is the problem with the naritor, or the braille transcriber, or just some bad scann version of book. I've often saw typos and small inconsistencies, like got two caractors name mix up on a plot, but never come across something as serious as what some of the poster mention here. I wasn't paying much attention to Twilight, the language usage of the series, i simply treated is the way the new generation uses, never pay much attention beyond that as the storry itself don't caught my attention.
I read Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce. Most of her books are great, but this did not impress me. Her grammar was horrible a lot of the time, she called characters by wrong names. Or, in some cases, a character would be part of the nobility class, and thus have a title in front of their name like Duke, or Baroness, orwhatever. But I notice she kept changing the formal title for one given character throughout the book. Something little, but added to her horrible grammar and writing in some places, it was very disappointing to see in someone who is otherwise a great author.
Wow. I never would have expected that from her. I liked her Song of the Lioness, The Imortals and Circle of Magic series.
Agreed. Such sloppy writing is very rare for her. It's almost like she wrote Wil of the Empress in some kind of major hurry.
I think the increasing inconsistancies in books are due to authors' reliance on ghostwriters. Basically, there's a trend that's surfaced as of late where a best-selling author or the publishing house they're undercontract with, will employ no=name, behind-the-senes writers to complete the book. The ghostwriter in most cases never gets credit for the writing he or she does, but they do get a good chunk of change even before the book is published. In many cases, a ghostwriter will charge anywhere between 20 to 50 grand to write your standard novel. They get paid per chapter or per page, whatever their going rate may be, and they're expected to sign a nondisclosure agreement so that if they ever reveal that they wrote the book instead of the person credited as the author, they'll get their underwear sued off of them. It's unethical, maybe, but that's how many unpublished writers make their living. It's a win-win situation in the publishing world; The ghostwriter makes a handsome living, as long as they don't care that they don't get credit for their work, the intended author gets credit and royalties for something he didnt' write, and the publishing company rakes in the bucks from the sales of the book. So the only disallusioned victim is the poor reader, who is stuck with inconsistancies, errors, stylistic changes and such, and the bad taiste in his mouth, so to speak, when he finds out that his favorite author did not, in fact, pen the book for which they recieved credit.
Sucks, but that's how it is these days.
I've listened and read quite a few books, but have never come across, such mistakes. I wonder if this is recent?
I think I found a mistake in The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. All the events described happen between 1962 and 1964. There is a scene where one of the main characters is with her family watching TV on New Year's Eve 1963, and she says they are watching Dick Clark. I didn't think Dick Clark did a New Year's Eve show that early in his career, and I looked it up on Google. It looks like he didn't start doing a televised New Year's Eve show until the early 1970's.
not a mistake perhsay but in psychology she's wrong. In Harry Potter, Harry is abused and has to live in a cupboard for 10 years. and be their servant and endure mental abuse, which is much more dangerous then physical abuse in many ways. What abused kid do you know that comes out clean and having no signs? wait. I haven't seen any! He should have have signs or else the dursleys couldn't be as severe, and even if they were mild unpleasantness has a lot of effects on a kid.
also, being lied to about his parents didn't have much of an effect, he didn't try to find out about them, who they were what they were like and his bloodline.
Now that you all have brought this up, there is a small mistake in Stephen King's The Stand:
He is said to have made awkward love to Franny and then chapters later is a virgin with Nadene. Small mistake, and I would have completely missed it except you all have got me thinking.