Quote:
Originally Posted by BooksForABuck
Editing is hard and expensive. Recently I've noticed that several of Baen's releases have been underedited. For me, octopuses/octopi would rate fairly low as a howler. Then again, I am really bothered by new world foods showing up in medieval-set stories. Everyone has their pet-peeves.
Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com |
Hey there, Rob, Harry, everyone else --
First, thanks for reading, and I'm glad that despite Octopi you're enjoying
Boundary;
Rendezvous With Rama was one of my two major targets for feel/inspirations while writing, the other being some of the RAH Juveniles. (FYI, I found the forum and discussion because Google pings me when my name is mentioned in various contexts)
I think the latter part quoted above -- "everyone has their pet peeves" -- is one of the key items. All authors have writing quirks, ranging from using unusual plurals, to similar turns of phrase, to either ignoring or being unaware of various elements of what they're writing, which will annoy some number of readers. I agree with some posters that to me, "octopi" is just more fun than "octopuses" -- and my father, a biology teacher and pharmacological researcher, preferred it as well, and thus it became fixed in my head.
(I also like "virii", but I know THAT one is just wrong)
*MY* pet peeve is inconsistency in the universe -- I don't care how bizarre your world is, or what it does that doesn't fit the real world (unless you strongly indicate it's SUPPOSED to be in the real world) but if it's internally inconsistent, then I'll really start twitching. That is of course also my nightmare as an author; publishing a story where I have something happen that is so inconsistent that I can't even fanwank an explanation for it.
Naturally, all SF authors (at least all those I have talked to) have to make decisions about how far they're going to take their research and realism. Sometimes you make decisions based on what makes a better story even when you know that you are glossing over the realism. In the case of
Boundary and its sequel
Threshold, I did quite a bit of that in terms of exact transit times; I cheat and assume favorable positions of celestial bodies, I have a particular drive system in Threshold come up to full levels of operation in minutes when I suspect the actual time would be hours or possibly even days, and so on.
In softer SF (such as my recent
Grand Central Arena) you can of course get away with more because it's clear you're already, um, not precisely adhering to the rules of our universe. In fantasy, it's almost entirely down to consistency; you can do anything you like, but make sure that you understand the implications of what you're doing and that you either hold to them, or explain somehow why those implications don't hold. The latter issue is one of the constant bugaboos of RPGs; the rules give a character the power to do X, and the player realizes that by doing X in a certain way he can do Y and Z, which were not the intent of that power but make perfect sense, and the GM has to figure out either how to change the explanation for the power or how to deal with the suddenly-expanded utility of the power. In a novel, the author controls all the characters' actions and can prevent them from taking certain paths; not so in an RPG.
Well, enough rambling. Thanks again for reading!