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Typo hunt: Neptune's Brood

Lo, Neptune's Brood is coming out in paperback in a few months. And so, I am looking for typos in the first (hardcover, US) edition so that I can get them fixed in the page proofs. Did you stub your eyeball on something that shouldn't have been there? If so, please post a comment, citing the page and line number and some context. (This needs to be a page number in the US hardcover edition only: the British edition is paginated differently.) Thanks!

4 Comments

1:

If I report a typo through the "Report Content Error" button on Amazon Kindle, does that ever make it back to you?

2:

Nope, reports to the Kindle never go anywhere near the author or publisher. Ditto other ebook stores (e.g. Kobo et al).

If you spot a typo you need to send it to me, and me alone.

Moreover, if you spot a typo after the book is released in paperback, you are too late.

The only opportunity for corrections occurs when a book is typeset or reflowed for a new print format on a different size of paper. This happens when a book is issued in a new format -- e.g. going from hardcover to mass market paperback -- or if a book that has gone out of print is reissued in a new edition (e.g. the revised Merchant Princes omnibus editions). A publisher will not take note of typos/bloopers and reissue a book at other times unless the error is so egregious that it's worth burning several thousand dollars in billable hours/wood pulp -- for example, a whole run of pages have become hopelessly mangled, or the text contains a libelous statement such that the book has to be withdrawn.

3:

I sent these to you by email, but just so you don't have to dig them out:

(Ace Hardback, pg 269) At 1% of c it takes more than 2 minutes to get from Earth to the Moon. (You may remember from Apollo that the round-trip lag was about a couple-or-three seconds.) [About 22 days to Pluto, so you got that right. (It is near perihelion now, so in 7000 it will be most of the way to aphelion. If you are in a hurry-- go now. If you leave today can get there in about 18 days at 0.01 c)]

pg 108: interstellar distances are off by a factor of 10. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=5000+meters+*+(10e6+km/1cm)+in+lightyears&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

pg 111: 0.001 percent compound interest does not really rack up after a few centuries. Over 5000 years it turns a pound into a guinea with the compounding adding a bit more than a farthing (if I have the Old Money right). Maybe you meant 0.1%, which is double what my checking account pays, but only turns a pound into about 10 stone by 7000 AD.

4:

These are from the Apple iBooks edition.

Beacon Departure Despite looking outwardly human and imprinted with a set of human memories, Despite looking outwardly human and being imprinted with a set of human memories, Through the rest of the book, she normally uses 'human' to refer to her mechanical successors, and mostly uses 'Fragile' for homo sapiens. I don't see why she would use 'human' for homo sapiens here.

The Church of the Fragile

I was one of a round hex of newly forked children But 'hex' actually means 6, and she's one of sixteen.

The stalker followed Krina to the air-lock node, where the chapel was docked with all due haste. The stalker followed Krina to the air-lock node where the chapel was docked with all due haste.

Visitors Your motives for visiting this system is not a legitimate subject Your motives for visiting this system are not a legitimate subject Your motive for visiting this system is not a legitimate subject

Kidnapped! hijacked a church on flight, hijacked a church in flight,

Permanent Crimson

Federal Inhabited Republics of Shin-Kyoto FHR/S-K dollars Then shouldn't they be FIR/S-K dollars?

(That: And, being a gregarious people, I cannot figure out what the colon is doing there.

Shin-Tethys is young. Dojima System formed only a billion years ago. I thought they used exclusively seconds as units -- feels like our descendants backslid to years.

Declining good-natured invitations to orgies from the crew because I had pivot tables to analyze. Well, no! We have already seen that she's a prude, and finds sex disgusting.

Local Customs

For if I had become the object of my lineage mater’s enmity, what future was there for me? Why is she freaking out about pissing off Sondra? That was her plan all along!

So I stared, slightly appalled, until Marigold winked at me, and I dropped my gaze to hide my expression. So I stared, slightly appalled, until Marigold winked at me, and then I dropped my gaze to hide my expression.

A Thousand Years Ago The long leg bones, with their buried marrow techné let go next, The long leg bones, with their buried marrow techné, let go next,

Krina Descending the chapel’s flight clearance and passenger manifest has been registered the chapel’s flight clearance and passenger manifest have been registered

The Halls of Hades-4 The squid rolled in the water, pointing both great golden eyes at me, its mantle flashed silver and red and yellow when it spoke: The squid rolled in the water, pointing both great golden eyes at me; its mantle flashed silver and red and yellow when it spoke:

It should therefore not come as a surprise to learn that every splendid and visionary fraud needs the collusion of a banker. Or, in the case of the Atlantis bust-out, several thousand of them. Later you call Sondra the Atlantis banker several times. And you talk about the need for at least 3 bankers (or embodiments, at least).

The Atlantis scam was so vast and overarching that it involved hundreds of bankers Is it several thousand, or hundreds, or 1?

Unimaginably Rich They, downloaded into regular bodies in the arrivals hall. They downloaded into regular bodies in the arrivals hall.

It swallowed the core of the group as more guards held the onlookers at bay: Then reextended its legs and loped away toward a cargo duct. Again, I cannot figure out what the colon is doing here -- should it be a semicolon?

“The dark coordinates?” The security analyst had been asked to do many things in the service of his employer, but uploading into a beacon station’s outbound channel over a laser pointed at empty space, well away from any settled star system, was one of the most unsettling experiences he had ever had. Andrea's spy saw that the scope was not aimed at Taj Beacon, so if one Sondra went to Vengeance, and another copy went to Taj and then on to Vengeance, there would have been 2 Sondras on Vengeance.

Cold Vengeance the ground crew—for want of a better word—jetted away, the ground crew—for want of a better term—jetted away,

Jubilee And what nation would be . . . ? And that nation would be . . . ?

Specials

Merchandise

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This page contains a single entry by Charlie Stross published on February 7, 2014 10:59 PM.

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