13) The Great ABD-W Typo Hunt (David Weber)
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This article is from the David Weber FAQ, by Cynthia Gonsalves/Daniel Bernstein with numerous contributions by others.
13) The Great ABD-W Typo Hunt (David Weber)
* 13.0. Note from the Deputy Mad Archivist: This section has
not been updated with this version of the FAQ. We've had
several new books published, and plenty of new typos found,
since the last version of this FAQ was created. However, all
of these are stored away somewhere in the secret depths of
the Mad Archivist's computer, which is currently
inaccessible since Cap'n Cynthia's ISP has just gone under
at this point.
* 13.1. Joe Buckley calls them Weberisms in his recent
compilation of the spoils of the Typo Hunt [Archivist's
Note: This is not to be considered a blanket indictment of
the quality of work the proofreaders are doing (Kate
Verleger gave a most impassioned defense of that most
thankless job) but when a writer like TOWiDW creates such
detailed universes, Deity alone knows that there are plenty
of opportunities for gremlins to do their will and have
discrepancies show up in the final product.] The top
offenders so far are:
o 13.1.1. Honor Harrington Series
+ 13.1.1.1. When Honor is knighted at the end of
Honor of the Queen, Sir Anthony Langtry says his
authority to do so is as Her Majesty's Ambassador
to Haven, not Grayson. Whoops! (attribution is
unclear, John Moreno and Splifford had this
discussion on both abd-w and rasfw recently, but
this could also have been brought up in the
infancy of the newsgroup)
+ 13.1.1.2. Sir Lucien Cortez, head of the RMN
BuPers, gets called Lucius several times. (Jeanne
Hedge posted about this one)
+ 13.1.1.3. Another contribution by Jeanne Hedge...
In HAE, at the Steilman-Wanderman Captain's Masts
(pgs 442-446 of the US hardcover edition):
Steilman's charges include violation of Article 35
(assaulting a fellow crewman). Wanderman is
charged with violating Article 36 (fighting with a
fellow crewman, with aggravated circumstances).
Yet when Captain Harrington passes punishment on
Wanderman, she says it is for violation of Article
35, with aggravated circumstances.
+ 13.1.1.4. The first paperback printing of Flag in
Exile gives the Gregorian equivalent date of 3919,
the second printing is corrected to 4019 and is
consistent with the time line in More than Honor.
(I caught that one in late 1997)
+ 13.1.1.5. Joe Buckley recently found this in his
re-reading of the saga: "One I spotted the other
day was during the scene when McKeon, Harrington,
and her Guard are in "Prince Adrian's" lift after
Honor's arrival aboard and McKeon was discussing
the 'burn-before-reading' secret multi-stage
missiles and mentions that he worked on the first
field trials of the FTL coms when he was with
"Madrigal_. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but
he's only had "Troubadour" and "Prince Adrian_. He
may well have worked *with* "Madrigal" before he
showed up in Yeltsin in the same short squadron as
her, but it was when he was CO of "Troubadour_.
(In Enemy Hands)
+ 13.1.1.6. In Enemy Hands also provided additional
fuel for Joe's musings: "Then we have a section
that several rereadings has failed to illuminate:
About the time when "Prince Adrian" is about to
translate out of hyper, we get a discourse on the
relative lack of sophistication of the "Prince
Consort" class ships' accomodations. I have yet to
sort out what he means when he jumps from
discussing "Prince Consorts" to "Crown Princes" to
"Star Knights_. The "Prince Consorts" and the
"Star Knights" are easy enough to see, but where
do the "Crown Princes" fit into that discourse?
Unless the "Crown Princes" were supposed to have
had the squadron flag accomodations before the
"Star Knights" rolled out.
+ 13.1.1.7. And Joe found the following in the
prologue to Echoes of Honor: Something that stuck
out at me when I first read the prologue to
"Echoes of Honor" was during Boardman's mention
the "Sirius_. Well, correct me if I'm wrong (and
I'm sure *someone* will!), but in "On Basilisk
Station_, she was designated PMSS "Sirius_." Joe
suggests "If you want some more fun with "tHotQ_,
reread the section where the Grayson/Manticore
task force gets spanked. Particularly where it
discusses the engagement envelope for "MSN
Principality_/_PNS Breslau_. ( Re: closest
approach of Graysons to "Breslau" being one
hundred million kilometers.)
+ 13.1.1.8. Jack Tingle found a rather serious
timeline problem: "As an exercise, I put together
a simple timeline from the HH books. Frankly, it
doesn't hold water. There's a 0.52% error in the
long term time line, and all of the events in
"TSVW" had to have taken no more than 2 days.
That's the time between HH assuming command of the
Nike and the final battle as reported in Lord
Young's court martial. (RE: Honor assumed command
of "Nike" on 6/21/282 and White Haven stated at
the courts' opening that the events in question
took place on or about 6/23/282.)
+ 13.1.1.9. Navbuoy noticed the following
discrepancy: Honor got an elevation in rank from
Knight Companion to Knight Commander between THotQ
and tSVW.
+ 13.1.1.10. Brom O'Berin has the following inquiry
about the Manticore wormhole termini... OBS
paperback version pg 52 describes the Manticore
wormhole as having 'no less than six additional
termini' ... plus 'the survey readings suggested
there should be at least one more undiscovered
terminus' ... and the diagram at the front of OBS
shows and names six (Basilisk, Republic of Haven,
Phoenix, Solarian League, Mazapan and Anderman
Empire) termini ...However the MTH appendix
(Universe of HH) ... in (4)(B) on the Manticore
Junction - pg 350 - has the junction connected to
"five" additional termini (names all but Mazapan)
plus possibility of one, maybe more undiscovered
termini ...Which one is canon ... or blooper, etc.
+ 13.1.1.10.1. Joe Buckley replies: "I'd
imagine that "MTH" was in error, since Book 1
(_OBS_) mentioned the six and named them, as
well as all of the subsequent Junction Maps
showed all six. (Unless, of course, this is a
further example of letting the treecat out of
the bag early like his FTL-comm pulse rate
fiasco.) Just my two bits.
+ 13.1.1.11. Brom O'Berin also had the following
question about the number of Honor's hyper-capable
commands: "How about where Honor in uniform is
described as having "six" gold stars ...
representing 6 hyper-capable commands. Unless I
have Alzheimer's, shouldn't that be five ... for
'Hawkwing' (DD), 'Fearless' (CL), 'Fearless' (CA),
'Nike' (BC), and 'Wayfarer' (AMC)?
+ 13.1.1.12. An unknown contributor found the
following discrepancy between On Basilisk Station
and the technical appendix in More than Honor
(thanks to Joe Buckley for finding it for me):
"Well, IIRC, the Honorverse forts are *not*
driveless. They can maneuver slightly. I seem to
recall a mention of their being able to pull about
100g's (perhaps in OBS?), but that was negated by
the acceleration tables supplied in MtH."
+ 13.1.1.13. Scott Powers caught the following, and
Navbuoy confirmed that this is a major typo in the
series: In "On Basilisk Station" the forts are
described this way: "The smallest fortress out
there massed close to sixteen million tons, twice
as a superdreadnaught" (Chap. 5, pg. 55). Later in
that same chapter, is this: "the 'forts' in the
outer ring had to be able to move to fill in the
gaps and mass upon an attacker. Their maximum
acceleration rates were low, well under a hundred
gravities, but their initial position had been
very carefully planned. Their acceleration would
be enough to intercept attacking forces headed
in-system, and their engines were sufficiently
powerful to generate impeller wedges and sidewalls
to protect them." (pg. 57) In "More Than Honor",
at the back of the book, in the section titled
"The Universe of Honor Harrington" 8,500,000 tons
is the limit of a warships size, with maximum
acceleration dropping rapidly. An SD has an
acceleration of 420 gees, a ship of 9,547,500 tons
would have an acceleration of 1 g. (Pg.309-310) By
this, we can assumethat the 16,000,000 ton forts
would have an acceleration of effectively ZERO
gees. Either I missed something, or DW did.
+ 13.1.1.14. Casey Lazo says, "My favorite is in
Honor Among Enemies (I think): the one with the
reference to the *Sky* Kingdom (of Manticore).
IIRC, it appeared in both the hardcover and
paperback releases.
+ 13.1.1.15. Casey also found the following in the
online version of Chapter 14 of Echoes of Honor:
"[Honor] stepped closer, moving slightly to one
side to get the sunset out ofher *eyes*..." ?!?
Unless she's developed a third eye, that ought to
have been in the singular, ne?
+ 13.1.1.16. On page 6 of Field of Dishonor, TZ
found: "The heaviest Manticoran units were 6
battlecruisers, 3 of them already circled by the
flashing yellow bands of combat damage, and 6
superdreadnoughts led the Peeps charging up their
wakes." However, Admiral Chin's heaviest unit was
a dreadnought and not a superdreadnought.
+ 13.1.1.17. Thomas Ambuehler points out a German
typo in Honor Among Enemies: "When the Andermani
Admiral Rabenstrange challenges the Q-ship, he
firstly uses German, and he says "Gutten Morgen,
Kapitain!" This really struck me like a bolt. It
should be "Guten Morgen, Kapit¿n!" But that is
only because he used my mother tongue." That just
goes to show that typo hunting is an international
and multilingual pastime!
+ 13.1.1.18. Here's a typo that Miguel Velez had to
remind me about after an eleven-month lapse (my
bad): In IEH, there's a line about Haven being
over 1800 light-years from Earth which justifies
not recalling the Foreign Secretary and making him
take a six month trip back home. However, Miguel
noted that the appendix of MTH states that Haven
is 667 LY from Earth (155 LY more than Manticore).
David confirmed that it is a typo, but that the
six month transit time is about right. DW
elaborated further: "Assume the distance is 620
LY; to make the trip in 6 months, you'd have to
average around 1,240 times the speed of light
which is just about right for a "fast" merchant
ship. Given that merchies don't go above the Delta
bands, where the maximum attainable effective
velocity is about 1,100 cee (don't have the tech
manual in front of me), even at 6 months, you'd
have to assume a merchie in the Epsilon bands (max
effective V = about 1,400 cee) to get a 6 months
turn around. Now, if they put him on a courier
boat and ran him home clear up in the Zeta bands
(which they wouldn't normally do with an important
diplomat), they could cover 620 LY in about 3.5
months, which is still a pretty long time.
Assuming your 667 LY figure is right (and it
probably is) a merchant ship in the Epsilon bands
should take about 5.6 months--still close to the 6
month transit figure. A courier boat would take
about 3.7 months for the same trip. Yes, I suppose
you can go ahead and post it with Cynthia. As I
said, I'm not sure how it got in there in the
first place. Sigh."
o 13.1.2. Dahak/Fifth Imperium
+ 13.1.2.1. Just to show you that we're not just
picking on the Honorverse for typos, Jason found
the following in Mutineer's Moon: "In the October
'94 edition, p156, when Colin is getting ready for
the fighter strike. Sentence reads "He hung his
gray gun on his suit webbing" As that's the only
mention of gun color that I've come across, I
presume it's supposed to read "grav gun"."
+ 13.1.2.2. Joe Buckley found this as well: "Another
little glitch that I always trip over is in "Heirs
of Empire", just after "Isreal" (spelling?) is
unceremoniously ejected from "Imperial Terra" and
the kids are doing their systems checks: Harriet
refers to her brother Sean during her part of the
brief as *Colin*.
+ 13.1.2.3. And another goodie caught by Joe's eagle
eyes: "When Gen. Hatcher is discussing recent
developments of the Siege with (I believe) Horus
and the Achuultani use of Iapetus as a bludgeon,
he mentions that the current orbital position of
Saturn puts it 1.5 *trillion* kilometers from
Earth."
o 13.1.3. The Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand
+ 13.1.3.1. Daniel Bernstein found this in Oath of
Swords: On page 192, when Bahzell and Brandark are
counting their money, it says "...and Bahzell sat
back to let Brandark count it." At the bottom of
the same page, though, we have "Bahzell finished
counting..."
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