The Sword and Laser discussion

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but I'm noticing a few typographical issues here and there. 'They' instead of 'The', 'Wash-erwoman' instead of 'Washer-woman'. Granted they're not the sort of mistakes that would crop up in a spellchecker, but I would've thought some of them would have been a little more obvious to any proofreaders. Is this a common problem with new ebook releases with them being just converted then sold without anyone checking them through first?

I'm also mildly irritated by the first letter of a new chapter appearing on the line above the next one. It works well in books when it's just a larger letter, but it just looks strange in an ebook.

I have seen some of the typos in this edition but I have not seen the first letter of a chapter appearing on the line above the next one. I have been reading the Kindle version on an ipad so perhaps thats the difference.

Typos are not uncommon in Kindle editions but I see just as many in regular books so it doesnt surprise me when I do see them. Of course I have been reading ebooks for 10 years now going back to reading on my old palm pilot (many of which were scanned copies, illegal I know) and many of those had whole sections that were garbled so I guess I may be more patient with it because of the convenience.

It normally takes a year to 18 months to go from manuscript to published book. This took maybe four. It'd be amazing if there weren't errors everywhere.

Considering that it only costs $1.50 to print a hardcover, publishers don't care about ebooks much.

I'm not buying anymore books I care to keep on Kindle. I'm reading State of Wonderand it has unnecessary line breaks in the last sentence of some paragraphs. I wish I had bought the hardback.

I am more tolerant if an ebook is discounted.

Don wrote: "I'm not buying anymore books I care to keep on Kindle. I'm reading State of Wonderand it has unnecessary line breaks in the last sentence of some paragraphs. I wish I had bought the hardback.

I am more tolerant if an ebook is discounted.
"

Agreed. I generally buy paper since it usually represents the definitive version of the text. You never know what you'll get with an ebook sometimes, especially with pictures, uncommon characters and whatnot. I've had copies of texts with odd question marks simply because the apostrophe or some other character didn't convert well, and no proofreading was done. Another recent example, the DwD maps are awful on every version of ebook I could test using the free previews (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks) on my iPad. They are VERY low-res so that zooming in is pointless even if your ereader has a zoom function, so I wonder why they bother including them at all.

I was irritated by the dropped-cap start to each chapter, where you get the capital letter on the first line, the rest of the word on the line below. That was on a Kindle 3, for what it's worth.

There were a few typos sprinkled throughout the text, but nothing too bad from my point of view. I'd say that it was on a par with some hard-copy books I've read, but obviously you'd like it to be error-free.

With eBooks, of course, the possibility remains that the publisher could offer to update the versions we've purchased with corrected iterations... although I doubt that we'll see that any time soon.

Pyr claims to be making higher quality ebooks.

I've not noticed any typos after the first few chapters (up to ~20% through so far) but I've got a new peeve. When two characters are having a conversation it usually goes like this.

"Character 1 stuff"
"Character 2 stuff"
"Character 1 comment" "character 1 continues"
"Character 2 retort"

But here's how it appears frequently throughout the ebook

"Character 1 stuff"
"Character 2 stuff"
"Character 1 things" "Character 2 response"

It's really easy to get lost on who's saying what in conversations that go like this and I've been caught out by it a number of times. Granted you get typos and mistakes here and there, but I haven't found these sort of issues with any other ebook to date. Granted I'm still new to ebooks as a whole having only had a Kindle since October, but still.

Been wrote: "I've not noticed any typos after the first few chapters (up to ~20% through so far) but I've got a new peeve. When two characters are having a conversation it usually goes like this.

"Character 1..."

Agree completely. It has Tyson me a couple of times at least and is quite off-putting. These errors are certainly obvious using the kindle app on my iPad.

The only thing I've noticed is how often Davos is mentioning that he had seven sons, lost four and has two still at home. The last time it was mentioned I was mentally yelling at GRRM: "I get it! Seven sons, four dead, two at home, one a ward! I'm not stupid."

Was this always a problem or is it just me?

Sounds like it was scanned in and OCR'd.

Noel wrote: "It has Tyson me a couple of times at least and is quite off-putting."

Tyson?

The random hyphens, I understand. They're just taking the pages from the print format and re-sizing without anything else. The dialog stuff I either haven't noticed or it hasn't bothered me. I've gotten used to some of the quirks of books on ereaders, I guess.

terpkristin wrote: "Noel wrote: "It has Tyson me a couple of times at least and is quite off-putting."

Tyson?

The random hyphens, I understand. They're just taking the pages from the print format and re-sizing witho..."

Hehehe Tyson is a typo. The dialogue thing is quite off putting as I expect that when a different person spaaks, a new line is started. I have had to backtrack a few times to check just who is speaking.

Yeah the dialogue thing has got me a few times too but I hadn't noticed any other issues.

Anne wrote: "The only thing I've noticed is how often Davos is mentioning that he had seven sons, lost four and has two still at home. The last time it was mentioned I was mentally yelling at GRRM: "I get it! S..."

oh, if you think that is bad, try reading Harry Turtledove's Great War series, I swear 3/4 of that ENTIRE series is repetition and how bad the sun south of Greenland was bad for the skin of a redheaded Irishmen