Has anyone ever contacted an author when details from one book in a series does not match that in another book?

I am having a problem with one little detail in Phillippa Gregora (sp) Boleyn series, but it is driving me nuts :bash: . I am going to pop her an email to ask her why she did this and see what she says.

I've never actually emailed an author about a little detail but I've felt like it before. :lol:

I really wanted to let someone have it over the Stargate movie novel, they got the whole Egyptian gods and goddesses and what they were for all messed up, and it seriously bugged me! :lol:

Or when there are just a bazillion typos, to the point where you KNOW it wasn't the author that did it, but the stupid person who was editing, and decided that THEY knew better, and just ended up making a complete grammatical mess, or bizarro spelling error. And I'm thinking, did you not go back and read that after you did it, because if you had, i feel sure that you wouldn't have left it that way?!

(and yes I prolly made all sorts of bizarro errors, just in typing that, but we aren't talking about ME now are we? :giggle: )

Yes, actually, once in a VC Andrews series (Dawn series, I think), in book one and 2 (or something like that) the main character's boyfried played baseball all his life; in the rest of the series they said he played football all his life. Confusing. :blink:

In the Harry Potter books, the password to Dumbledore's office in the first book (US edition) is lemon drops or something like that. In book 2 or 3 (I don't remember) when Harry tries it again, he tries Sherbet Lemon or something like that... but he's supposedly trying the same word.

I was all confused until I got my hands on the UK edition, and it turns out it was Sherbet Lemon (or whatever it really is) all along, but in book 1 the editors had changed it to a US candy for American readers... but they didn't change it in book 2 or 3.

I just remembered, I didn't email VC about the dawn series, as I can't actually recall it was from that series.

On the other hand, I had a textbook for History of theater, on one page, it ends with a sentance continuting on the next page. Instead of the rest of the sentance on the next page, they started the entire paragraph again and the line that match up with the last sentance on the other page had its own paragraph!! :blink: :wacko:

The thing that always bugs me is when books are written by American authors, but set in the UK, and have the characters using American sayings or products that aren't available over here!

Depending on when it's set and the type of character, I can justify slang... but not the products.

After all, I use some UK slang. I've picked it up from my internet friends. :lol:

I picked up an Ian Rankin book once and didn't realise it was an American edition until I started reading. It was horrible!!! How can a book set in Edinburgh, Scotland use American wording, grammar and slang! I had to get rid of it and get myself a British copy.

It goes the other way too. I read an awful Britishized Jack Kerouac. Imagine him using British slang! :blink:

What happens with this kind of thing?
Do they say, translated from the original American English to English English?? :rofl:

Why on earth would they (the publishers) do such a thing????

Do they think people are too stupid to figure out a few unfamiliar words or phrases? :angry:

I read plenty of British books with unfamiliar references in them and I think it makes the book more interesting.

The @#$% book should be read as the author intended. I mean, it's already in English, isn't it? :rant:

however some british does needs to be changed for americans(the ones in the states) because as i've said before and the tidbit i'll remember for the rest of my life is that when jk had ron in a jumper --that would have been confusing for us because that's a little girls dress over here while it's a sweater over there. we'd wonder why he was in that.

i've just recently read a book which couldn't decide if they needed british slang or american slang..it did both and i can't remember where the locale of the book was. it was a bit annoying but i got over it.

i could see how the one playing the sport could be changed from football/soccer because of that difference in what we call the sport but baseball to football? that's weird.

let us know if you hear from the author and what she says.


i've only left emails for authors that i like.

I just finished reading Good Ghouls Guide to Revenge and in it there's someone who died in the beginning of the book only to run out of the door near the end of the book. It definitely confused me for a minute, cause at first I thought I just wasn't paying attention to who was in the second scene.

What I dont like is when authors set a book in NYC or some town but it's clear they've never been there. I remember once book I read had the NY Public Library - the famous branch with the lions on 5th ave - down on Wall Street. Wha?? :blink: :blink:

I am sad to say that I have yet to hear from the author. I am a little disappointed about that. :unsure:

What is the detail? Or is it a spoiler?

I had something similar happen once... there was a battle scene, where people were yelling orders back and forth, and someone yelled something, and I paused... and flipped back... and yup, that character had been killed 2 battles and about 50 pages back! :lol: In that case, it was the only error in an otherwise excellent book, so I was able to find it funny and laugh it off.

However, I HATE sloppy research and it drives me batty and really drags me out of the world. The Red Tent in particular drove me nuts... I loved that book for the first bit, for the writing style, but once I started hitting the MAJOR liberties that were taken with history, I just went completely sour on the book. :P