When it's clear no one bothered to research

archerjoe said:

Just finished a book featuring a older Porsche convertible. It's obvious from the description it's a 911. I started getting a bad feeling when the author described the MC retrieving items from the trunk and opening the hood to work on the engine. Sure enough, when the MC is chasing the bad guys and pushing the car hard, the engine fails and sprays oil all over the windshield (!). The engine in a Porsche 911 is in the back.

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That reminds me of an old anime, Weiss Kruez. There was clearly at least one car fan amongst the animators, because most of the cars were rare models and easily identifiable. Apart from one character's porsche, which would change model mid car chase.

I forget how many parsecs it takes to do the Kessel run. Can someone remind me? I'm too lazy to research.

GiantRampagingPencil said:

I forget how many parsecs it takes to do the Kessel run. Can someone remind me? I'm too lazy to research.

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Less than twelve, if it's the Millenium Falcon.

I presume it takes longer for lesser ships.

/easy

Which leads us a bit OT to one of the great modern mysteries: how can someone with such a tin ear for dialog (and lack of knowledge of parsecs) come up with some of the best names in recent memory? Millenium Falcon, Tattooine, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Jabba the Hutt, Obi-Wan Kenobi...

DreamWeaver said:

Which leads us a bit OT to one of the great modern mysteries: how can someone with such a tin ear for dialog (and lack of knowledge of parsecs) come up with some of the best names in recent memory? Millenium Falcon, Tattooine, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Jabba the Hutt, Obi-Wan Kenobi...

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That's a interesting question. I'm stumped.

archerjoe said:

Just finished a book featuring a older Porsche convertible. It's obvious from the description it's a 911. I started getting a bad feeling when the author described the MC retrieving items from the trunk and opening the hood to work on the engine. Sure enough, when the MC is chasing the bad guys and pushing the car hard, the engine fails and sprays oil all over the windshield (!). The engine in a Porsche 911 is in the back.

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Is it really clear that they are describing a 911 as there are front-engined Porsche convertibles around (944, 968)?

shaldna said:

I'm reading a book at the minute and one of the characters ENTIRE future plot line is based on a two liner where she tells her partner that they are too old to adopt because you have to be under 40, and he agrees. So, instead of checking it out, they embark on another completely different course of action.

Now, why this bothers me is that the novel is set in the UK, where there is no upper age limit to adopt, only a lower age limit. Both characters had a decent income and would have been prime adoption candidates. If the author had bothered to check.

It's a small point, and normally I would have glossed over it, but it changed the course of the rest of their story, and that's annoying me as I read (I'm finding that I'm also getting twitchy because it's written in present tense, but that's by the by)

Has anyone else come across bad/lack of research that has changed a whole story line? How much did it annoy you?

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I have. But it is important to note it may be intentional.

Last week a woman told me she couldnt go to college because her parents didn't have any money. When I asked her if she looked into financial aid her reply was "I don't want to take out student loans." I asked her about Pell grants and she had no idea what I was talking about.

Two years ago, a fellow veteran told me he didn't apply for a job at the VA because the VA won't hire people who received medical discharges. (Not even close to true)

A year prior to that, that same individual told me he was called for the police academy physical but decided "not to bother" because he is 5'5" and the cutoff for the state police is 5'8" (it said right on he PA State Police website there was NO height requirement, if you can pass the physical test, you're in).

My point is that people make life altering decisions because they don't research things. They accept rumor or conventional wisdom as fact without verifying it and they go off blindly in another direction.

So when I see something like that in a book, I might cringe. But I'm cringing because unfortunately, people really can be that stupid and maybe the author is fully aware of that.

Wasn't Luke's last name originally Starkiller?

I have the giant hardback sketchbook from a few years ago, and some of the ideas are so bad they wouldn't have even stood up in a forties serial. He also has a lot of people around throwing ideas at him, and there's the entire EU to take inspiration from.

Ah, Count Dooku, one of the worst names ever. Why not call him Baron PooPoo? You're right, AK. I think I forget the bad ones. Please tell me there really wasn't a Sleazbaggano?

I think a lot of the time writers get caught out by the things they're so sure they know that they don't bother to check. Then there's the things you don't know you don't know.

I remember my sheer joy at finding a website that enabled me to calculate the appearance of the night sky from any point on Earth at any time in the past or future. I worked out the long/lat for where my characters would be (not easy for me, that, as I'm geographically challenged) and got the data, then wrote the scene. Later, I realised I'd set the date on the site not for the month when the story was set, but for when I was writing it, which was not at all the same. Doh. Had I not noticed that, well, I'd be in this thread, probably, should the book ever be published .

Conversations in our house often go like this:

Me: What're you watching?

My Dad: Cracker

Me: That's not at all how profilers work, you know--

My Dad: WHO CARES????

Alessandra Kelley said:

I think it's just random. I think Lucas has a notebook of names he thinks are cool and he assigns them and some characters (like the above) get lucky.

Others, not so much: Greedo, Count Dooku, Shmi, Jar Jar Binks, Sio Bibble, Elan Sleazbaganno, Jango Fett, Fisto, Biggs Darklighter, Senator Grebleips, Qui-Gon Jinn, Djas Puhr, Commander Cody, Voolvif Mon, Ephant Mon, Mon Calamari, Mon Mothma, Queen Amidala, Darth Sidious, Chirpa, Pello Scrambas, Plo Koon, Yarael Poof, Bib Fortuna.

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Don't forget Jek Porkins.

waylander said:

Is it really clear that they are describing a 911 as there are front-engined Porsche convertibles around (944, 968)?

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Good question. It was described as an iconic classic model.

archerjoe said:

Good question. It was described as an iconic classic model.

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That came out a little terse and doesn't convey everything.

I had the same thought and the more I looked at the interactions with his mechanic and the reactions of other people when they first saw his car, I'm sure it's a 911. After the car is totaled, his mechanic helps him find a fixer-upper in his price range and they discuss how hard it is to find "old beauties" in reasonable shape without spending a lot of money.