Is the Aggro Just Mine? Poor Editing

[frkcd]

Has anyone else noted what seems to be an increase in the last several years of books with words that should have been removed before publication (usually a word repeated twice with another word or words between the word in question because it seems the author decided to rewrite the sentence) or words entirely missing from the sentence or the wrong ending on a verb?

I'm reading Child of Two Worlds and finding quite a number of these. I'm not particularly enjoying the book, and the sheer number of these has caused me several times to consider tossing the book (though this goes against my inclination to finish a book regardless).

I don't know if this a failure on the author's part or a failure in the editing process or both, but I view novels as art and, while putting forth my money, expect that the artist has an investment in the work such that these things would be rare. I'm left questioning whether the writer and publishing company care enough to ensure readers are getting a professional piece of work or craft.

So, have others noted an increase in this in the past few years?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Newspapers and book publishers have trimmed sub-editors to save costs in recent years and are more reliant on auto spellcheck programs. It is industry-wide, not just at Simon & Schuster. Sometimes author corrections to galleys can get overlooked, or new errors creep in when attempts are made to correct the original error. Without the old quality control, standards appear to drop.

 

[Christopher]

I always take care to compare the copyedits and galleys against my original manuscript to try to spot any glitches that slipped in beyond the significant edits. But even with many eyes on a text, the occasional error will inevitably be missed.

 

[Greg Cox]

For what it's worth, CHILD OF TWO WORLD passed through the several sets of eyes, including the editor, the copyeditor, and the proofreader. Plus, I personally reviewed the page proofs and submitted several corrections.

How those errors got through anyway is a mystery, but it wasn't for lack of trying on the publisher's part. Sorry they interfered with your reading of the book.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

I think Pocket does a pretty solid job on its Trek novels and eBooks. I just finished Child of Two Worlds and only noticed a few word omissions or typos; certainly nothing large enough to pull me out of the narrative or ruin my reading experience.

Other publishers however...

A few months ago, I read IDW's first anthology of X-Files short stories and it was a mess. The dates and settings printed on the first page of each story were nearly all shuffled and attributed to the wrong story. Characters were incorrectly identified in the text, which caused no shortage of confusion for the reader. Add in the typos & misspellings and the book just seemed slapped together, sloppy and amateurish.

The two best stories (written by Brian Keene and our own KRAD) were also -- not coincidentally -- the most polished of the bunch. Another story in this volume (the one featuring Arthur Dales) could have been great, but the editors bungled the dates of the story's events so thoroughly that it becomes a miserable slog to finish.

Trek editors, in comparison, are capable professionals that can easily be forgiven a tiny error, here or there.

 

[Greg Cox]

I think Pocket does a pretty solid job on its Trek novels and eBooks. I just finished Child of Two Worlds and only noticed a few word omissions or typos; certainly nothing large enough to pull me out of the narrative or ruin my reading experience.

Other publishers however...

A few months ago, I read IDW's first anthology of X-Files short stories and it was a mess. The dates and settings printed on the first page of each story were nearly all shuffled and attributed to the wrong story. Characters were incorrectly identified in the text, which caused no shortage of confusion for the reader. Add in the typos & misspellings and the book just seemed slapped together, sloppy and amateurish..

Dare I mention that I have a story in Volume 2? I promise to proof the galleys carefully when they come my way.

 

[Corran Horn]

For what it's worth, CHILD OF TWO WORLD passed through the several sets of eyes, including the editor, the copyeditor, and the proofreader.

Irony?

 

[JD]

I've never really been bothered by this kind of thing. I'm willing to forgive a few mistakes making it through to the final book.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Cant say I've run across these errors in my copy. Though I did notice Number One was called "Lieutenant" instead of "Commander" once.

 

[Christopher]

Cant say I've run across these errors in my copy. Though I did notice Number One was called "Lieutenant" instead of "Commander" once.

Which is correct. Pike addressed her as "Lieutenant" when insulting her femininity. ("No offense, Lieutenant. You're different, of course.")

 

[Greg Cox]

For what it's worth, CHILD OF TWO WORLD passed through the several sets of eyes, including the editor, the copyeditor, and the proofreader.

Irony?

Universal law: Any post on the subject of typos and proofreading will invariably contain at least one typo.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Cant say I've run across these errors in my copy. Though I did notice Number One was called "Lieutenant" instead of "Commander" once.

Which is correct. Pike addressed her as "Lieutenant" when insulting her femininity. ("No offense, Lieutenant. You're different, of course.")

She had been called "Commander" earlier in the book. But you're right she was an Lieutenant in "The Cage".

Those sort of errors seem to crop up when setting a story preTOS. People (including pros) default to TOS. I've read books where preTOS security officers are described as wearing red shirts.

 

[Christopher]

What bugs me is when people writing stories (or coloring comics) set in the second-pilot era assume there were only two uniform colors, greenish-gold and blue. There was a third, beige-khaki sort of shade used for engineering, but it's similar enough to the greenish-gold that they can be hard to tell apart, particularly in older video transfers that dulled the colors.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(2250s-2260s)#Department_color_codes

 

[Nerys Myk]

Back in the 70s I couldn't tell the difference on the TVs of the time.

 

[Greg Cox]

Cant say I've run across these errors in my copy. Though I did notice Number One was called "Lieutenant" instead of "Commander" once.

Which is correct. Pike addressed her as "Lieutenant" when insulting her femininity. ("No offense, Lieutenant. You're different, of course.")

She had been called "Commander" earlier in the book. But you're right she was an Lieutenant in "The Cage".

Damn. I thought I'd caught all those "Commander" references. I originally assumed she was a Commander, then went back and fixed it when I realized she referred to as a Lieutenant in the episode . . ...

 

[Nerys Myk]

No biggie. Doesn't ruin the story. My inner fanboy takes note and I move on.

 

[Christopher]

Back in the 70s I couldn't tell the difference on the TVs of the time.

I probably couldn't either, because I had a black-and-white TV...

 

[Bibliomike]

I am sure authors and editors alike do their best to catch things, but these things happen. In the rare book world, these things can become "issue points" to distinguish true first editions, etc. Whenever I spot one, I generally just smile and move on.

 

[Greg Cox]

I tend to begin each writing session by rereading what I wrote the day before. I catch a lot of typos that way, but even still . . . .

Just the other day I caught myself typing "Kirk" when I meant "Flynn"--and it wasn't even a STAR TREK book. Needless to say, I fixed it.

 

[JD]

Ok, now you've just made me want a Star Trek/The Librarians crossover.

What bugs me is when people writing stories (or coloring comics) set in the second-pilot era assume there were only two uniform colors, greenish-gold and blue. There was a third, beige-khaki sort of shade used for engineering, but it's similar enough to the greenish-gold that they can be hard to tell apart, particularly in older video transfers that dulled the colors.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(2250s-2260s)#Department_color_codes

I honestly didn't realize until I saw the remastered version that the command and operations uniforms were different. I wonder if that was part of the reason why the third batch of TOS uniforms we such drastically different colors.