"New Canon" inconsistencies....

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 29 May 2008 05:17

(Kewl. Me, too. Have to add "stick" or "ink" to distinguish your pins and pens if both are on the table? Got any kin named Ken?

)

Pardot Kynes · Post by **Pardot Kynes** » 29 May 2008 09:24

Nope, to both questions

Also, did you put your location as Seitch Tigr on purpose

Dune Nerd · Post by **Dune Nerd** » 29 May 2008 10:24

Pardot Kynes wrote:You could prevent it, but not stop it, if that makes sense.

The problem though is that the lasgun and the shield touched and did not blow up appropriately, there is nothing about prevention once it happens, there is nothing that is being done to prevent the action...it happened, it's wrong.

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 29 May 2008 11:37

Pardot Kynes wrote:If you are prescient, chances are you know which events lead to which outcome, or at least can make a good guess. So we can assume that it could be prevented until it was set in motion, at which time it was unstoppable.

Yes but that applies to day to day life and social/political trends; not physics.

Unless as Chig says you bring in telepathic powers. Which is what they should have written in that answer. They already had those kinds of powers in the books so they had an "out" right in front of them and they couldn't even get that right.

orald · Post by **orald** » 29 May 2008 11:56

SC wrote:"better latent then never!"

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 29 May 2008 19:15

Pardot Kynes wrote:Also, did you put your location as Seitch Tigr on purpose

Yep...'cause here at the sietch...WE BOUNCE!

(Unlike over at Sietch Thing...where they all float.

)

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 29 May 2008 19:27

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
Pardot Kynes wrote:If you are prescient, chances are you know which events lead to which outcome, or at least can make a good guess. So we can assume that it could be prevented until it was set in motion, at which time it was unstoppable.
Yes but that applies to day to day life and social/political trends; not physics.

Unless as Chig says you bring in telepathic powers. Which is what they should have written in that answer. They already had those kinds of powers in the books so they had an "out" right in front of them and they couldn't even get that right.

Telekinetic, please. (Telepathic would have Norma speaking to the lasgun mind-to-mind: "You're not going to explode! You're NOT going to explode!"

)

Norma, using her "untapped powers of prescient manipulation" (which are hers because she's the mutant daughter of a Sorceress of Rossak...Fetid...Jungle Planet!), FORESEES the lasgun about to explode and telekinetically PREVENTS it from happening. That's the only way I can make any kind of sense of their bullshit.

And since there is no "T-K" (only hints of "T-P") in the original books, it's doubly BULLSHIT! Gah!

I think part of the problem is that Kevin is doing most of the writing and he doesn't actually WRITE text, he dictates it. He doesn't SEE what he has "written" until the typist returns the files to him. And we know (from what he has written on his blahg and comments at MySpace) that minor inconsistencies between books (like a character having blue eyes in one book but brown ones in a later one) are not a problem for him. In fact, he expects them as "unavoidable".

I don't think he really goes back through and checks the details chapter-to-chapter or even book-to-book for HIS OWN series, so why should anyone expect him to do it for Dune?

The man is a hack, pure and simple. Period.

Pardot Kynes · Post by **Pardot Kynes** » 29 May 2008 19:32

Agreed.

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 29 May 2008 19:41

I originally wrote telekinetic in my first post, slipped past me the second time.

orald · Post by **orald** » 29 May 2008 20:03

Their eye color changes...telekinetically.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 29 May 2008 20:46

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I originally wrote telekinetic in my first post, slipped past me the second time.

No biggie, I'm just messin' with ya.

I always switch into hypercritical corrective mode whenever dealing with anything they've written, and sometimes it spills over. (And my own weird image of Normacle mindmelding with a lasgun was too titter-inducing to pass up!)

chanilover · Post by **chanilover** » 30 May 2008 11:57

Even the level of shittiness in the books is inconsistent; they range from bearable to fucking atrocious.

Hunchback Jack · Post by **Hunchback Jack** » 02 Jun 2008 12:06

SandChigger wrote:I think part of the problem is that Kevin is doing most of the writing and he doesn't actually WRITE text, he dictates it. He doesn't SEE what he has "written" until the typist returns the files to him. And we know (from what he has written on his blahg and comments at MySpace) that minor inconsistencies between books (like a character having blue eyes in one book but brown ones in a later one) are not a problem for him. In fact, he expects them as "unavoidable".

If that's true (i.e. that's really his attitude), then that's pretty depressing. It also makes all his talk about poring over the previous Dune volumes to get the details right just so much shite.

But then, it also explains a lot.

HBJ

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 02 Jun 2008 17:13

If he hasn't deleted them, the comments should still be on his blog and his wife Rebecca's. It was a while back and IIRC started on a reposting on his blog of something she'd written on hers and he wanted all his fanboy/girl readers to see. The exchange started on his but moved back to hers. Basically, they presented a united front on the issue.

Their argument starts out reasonably enough: because of the nature of the publishing process that text goes through in its journey from author to publisher to printer, it is inevitable that a few errors will creep in. (Entropic universe we live in, after all.) So it's impossible to publish a perfect book. And those errors may lead to something in a new book being inconsistent with a previous one. So writers can be excused from trying to achieve 100% consistency.

It's the conclusion they reached that bothers me, you know?

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 02 Jun 2008 17:31

Yeah, I think he's missed the point that if one doesn't aim for perfection, impossible though it may be, one will fall even shorter than if they had tried.

Also, I doubt very much that the editors were sitting there reading the Legends series and said; "wait, the laser exploded too? that must be wrong, take that out" I've never worked with an editor but my understanding is that any real changes other than cleaning up the grammer (which by the way, I just finished sadworms and I doubt very much that they put any work at all into the grammer) will be passed back to the authors to review. If this isn't the case then authors everywhere must have gaping assholes from shitting bricks everytime their novels come out and they get to read someone else's writing.

What a fucking cop-out, just blame the editor. There is no way an editor created the EIGHT PAGES of inconistancies and other problems that I copied out of sadworms into my notes. And I just took what stood out, almost any sentence in those books could be used as an example of shoddy writing.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 02 Jun 2008 17:34

I can't wait to see your list.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 02 Jun 2008 17:38

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I just finished sadworms and I doubt very much that they put any work at all into the grammer

Yeah...historians in the Duniverse and the TOR editors of the new Dune books are definitely getting their salaries for free.

almost any sentence in those books could be used as an example of shoddy writing.

Oh, many have been, believe me.

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 02 Jun 2008 17:47

Freakzilla wrote:I can't wait to see your list.

I'm working on editing it down, may be split into two sections as it's literally eight pages (full microsoft word pages) of quotes and my own commentary. I wrote it as I read each page, so everything was fresh.

orald · Post by **orald** » 02 Jun 2008 20:38

Guys, don't be rediculous. Kevin never said anything so silly as the editors being responible.

Clearly, it's the printers.

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 02 Jun 2008 21:15

Maybe even the bookstores.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 02 Jun 2008 23:39

Well, whoever it is, it isn't the writer.

(Or hiker, in this case.)

Hunchback Jack · Post by **Hunchback Jack** » 03 Jun 2008 00:54

In the case of Hunters, it would have been nice if the editors had gone further than just correcting grammar (not that they did), but actually pointed out words that wouldn't be used in a far distant future.

"Turncoat", for example. Or "Bulldoze". (Real examples from Hunters which forcefully ejected me from total immersion).

HBJ

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 03 Jun 2008 01:39

Especially when you remember that they're not speaking English.

What would have been REALLY nice is for the editors or even the HLP to have had the moral fortitude to actually tell them "NO, you don't need to write two books. Frank wouldn't have written two books, especially not just to cash in on any residual loyalty of old fans or to milk the idiotic new ones who'll evidently buy anything."

What am I thinking? No one at a publisher of quality like TOR is going to say something like that. Nor any of the hongry leetle peeggies at the HLP.

orald · Post by **orald** » 03 Jun 2008 06:12

It's the readers to blame.