Boneman
Well-Known Member
So, recently, I met some fellow chronners at Forbidden Planet, then had an enjoyable evening of food and drink and like-minded conversation. Whilst in Forbidden Planet, I bought a book. The hardback, signed edition of Twelve Kings by Bradley Beaulieu. It went like this:
a) Saw the cover on the shelf, liked it.
b) Picked it up, read the blurbs, wanted to know more.
c) Read the 1st chapter (we were waiting for others to arrive)
d) Liked the writing, the story, and the main character.
e) Bought the book (by the way, you should see Bradley's signature, must take him ten minutes to do each one!)
Publisher's job done well: book prominent in store, attractive cover, good blurbs, great 1st Chapter and a sale made. Everyone happy.
Except... the typesetter for Gollancz should either be sacked, or was sacked, and was taking his revenge. By the time I reached the middle of the book I was ready to throw it at the wall, because of the crescendo of end-of-line typos that began increasingly to ruin my enjoyment of some terrific writing. The more it happened, the more distracted I became, then annoyed, then angry. The writer should feel royally pi**ed off with what they have done to his book, because they managed to reduce the professionalism of his writing. I did finish it, with gritted teeth, and wondered who I should see about a refund. Wasn't cheap - £18 - but when I was in the store I thought it would be worth it. If any other product in the world had the same amount of errors, I'm pretty sure I could get a refund. Should Forbidden Planet refund me because they're selling a faulty product? Should Gollancz refund me because they made the product that had so many errors?
Will I buy the sequel? Well, next time I will spend a lot of time in Waterstone's and browse a lot more than the first chapter. If I can see the wordkiller is no more, I'll buy it there. Sorry FP, I'm not sure you deserve my business if you're selling faulty goods. If the wordkiller is still at work, I'll give up on the series, and wait for this 1st edition, error-strewn copy to be worth more than I paid for it (when Bradly becomes a best-seller, as he may if Gollancz sack the typesetter) and flog it.
And Gollancz? I'm going to be very careful with your books in future. Shabby job, I'm afraid.
I hear you ask what it was that upset me. So I'll tell you: here's a line from the 1st page that is properly typeset:
She checked the straps of her armor. Her greaves, her bracers, her heavy bat-
tle skirt. And finally her breastplate. etc etc
'Battle' is broken into a hyphenated word to better fit the page and my eyes read it perfectly. Could have had the whole word on the second line, but Gollancz do like to keep tight line spaces and it always looks good. On page two there's another example:
The walls of the fighting pit towered around her and above them, arranged in concen-
tric circles, were the seats of the stadium.
I'm pretty sure this is the last time the typesetter bothered. A trickle of words than run over a line and are split without hyphens begins almost immediately, and thickens into a torrent. On page 3 the first one appears:
In response Ceda* strode toward him and pressed her thumb to an ex
posed edge on the back of her mailed gloves.
Exposed or ex posed? Was it showing, or had it been modelling?
16 lines later:
Pelam stepped out from another darkened tunnel. The calls of betting rose to a tu
mult as the audience saw the first bout was ready to begin
It makes me mentally stammer as I read it, tripping me up, because I'm scanning perfectly easily and then I have to think what the heck the word was. Just for a second, granted, but it is a jolt out of the storytelling. If these were the only ones, I'd have skimmed on, enjoyed the story and wanted more, waited for more. But...
As if to show he/she can do the job the typesetter does it correctly on page 4, top line:
(...)were rare but not unheard of, especially if one of the fighters was inexperi-
enced and jumped when the snake drew near.
And then does three more properly hyphenated words on the same page, and seems to settle into a rhythm, hypenating words that run over two lines. But in Chapter 2 it begins to creep in again:
(...) watching with no small amount of interest. He wore fine clothes - ref kaf
tan, rich leather sandals etc
She took a half-step toward him, acutely aware of the trail of sweat tick
ling its way down the small of her back.
By page 400 (of 580) I'd lost count of them but there were over a hundred. A hundred irritating, stand-out testaments to poor typesetting, and poor presentation. We might (often unfairly) attribute poor presentation to books that are rushed out, or use more disreputable printers. But Gollancz? This was a surprise...
*Sorry, couldn't put the C cedilla in, without typesetting jumping...
'Çeda'
a) Saw the cover on the shelf, liked it.
b) Picked it up, read the blurbs, wanted to know more.
c) Read the 1st chapter (we were waiting for others to arrive)
d) Liked the writing, the story, and the main character.
e) Bought the book (by the way, you should see Bradley's signature, must take him ten minutes to do each one!)
Publisher's job done well: book prominent in store, attractive cover, good blurbs, great 1st Chapter and a sale made. Everyone happy.
Except... the typesetter for Gollancz should either be sacked, or was sacked, and was taking his revenge. By the time I reached the middle of the book I was ready to throw it at the wall, because of the crescendo of end-of-line typos that began increasingly to ruin my enjoyment of some terrific writing. The more it happened, the more distracted I became, then annoyed, then angry. The writer should feel royally pi**ed off with what they have done to his book, because they managed to reduce the professionalism of his writing. I did finish it, with gritted teeth, and wondered who I should see about a refund. Wasn't cheap - £18 - but when I was in the store I thought it would be worth it. If any other product in the world had the same amount of errors, I'm pretty sure I could get a refund. Should Forbidden Planet refund me because they're selling a faulty product? Should Gollancz refund me because they made the product that had so many errors?
Will I buy the sequel? Well, next time I will spend a lot of time in Waterstone's and browse a lot more than the first chapter. If I can see the wordkiller is no more, I'll buy it there. Sorry FP, I'm not sure you deserve my business if you're selling faulty goods. If the wordkiller is still at work, I'll give up on the series, and wait for this 1st edition, error-strewn copy to be worth more than I paid for it (when Bradly becomes a best-seller, as he may if Gollancz sack the typesetter) and flog it.
And Gollancz? I'm going to be very careful with your books in future. Shabby job, I'm afraid.
I hear you ask what it was that upset me. So I'll tell you: here's a line from the 1st page that is properly typeset:
She checked the straps of her armor. Her greaves, her bracers, her heavy bat-
tle skirt. And finally her breastplate. etc etc
'Battle' is broken into a hyphenated word to better fit the page and my eyes read it perfectly. Could have had the whole word on the second line, but Gollancz do like to keep tight line spaces and it always looks good. On page two there's another example:
The walls of the fighting pit towered around her and above them, arranged in concen-
tric circles, were the seats of the stadium.
I'm pretty sure this is the last time the typesetter bothered. A trickle of words than run over a line and are split without hyphens begins almost immediately, and thickens into a torrent. On page 3 the first one appears:
In response Ceda* strode toward him and pressed her thumb to an ex
posed edge on the back of her mailed gloves.
Exposed or ex posed? Was it showing, or had it been modelling?
16 lines later:
Pelam stepped out from another darkened tunnel. The calls of betting rose to a tu
mult as the audience saw the first bout was ready to begin
It makes me mentally stammer as I read it, tripping me up, because I'm scanning perfectly easily and then I have to think what the heck the word was. Just for a second, granted, but it is a jolt out of the storytelling. If these were the only ones, I'd have skimmed on, enjoyed the story and wanted more, waited for more. But...
As if to show he/she can do the job the typesetter does it correctly on page 4, top line:
(...)were rare but not unheard of, especially if one of the fighters was inexperi-
enced and jumped when the snake drew near.
And then does three more properly hyphenated words on the same page, and seems to settle into a rhythm, hypenating words that run over two lines. But in Chapter 2 it begins to creep in again:
(...) watching with no small amount of interest. He wore fine clothes - ref kaf
tan, rich leather sandals etc
She took a half-step toward him, acutely aware of the trail of sweat tick
ling its way down the small of her back.
By page 400 (of 580) I'd lost count of them but there were over a hundred. A hundred irritating, stand-out testaments to poor typesetting, and poor presentation. We might (often unfairly) attribute poor presentation to books that are rushed out, or use more disreputable printers. But Gollancz? This was a surprise...
*Sorry, couldn't put the C cedilla in, without typesetting jumping...
'Çeda'
Looks like a dodgy bootlegged Kindle book,Gollancz need to be told,shoddy beggars!
