Print-on-demand is different from regular publishing. For one thing, it means that I can correct typos as soon as they’re spotted.
If you’ve found a typo in the book, please email it to me and I’ll correct it right away, and add your name to the bottom of the page in a footnote (and yes, I am indeed hoping you’ll buy a(nother) copy to get one with your name it it!). I’ll also give you a credit here — your name in lights!
Typos:
Andrew Crocker: “understandingthe”, The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away, P31, Nov 1, 2010.
Thank you, Eunah! “Heirarchy” was already fixed in the print edition, but the missing sentence was missing from both the electronic and print texts. I’ve fixed and uploaded all versions now. What an amazing setup for proof-reading you’ve got!
In Epoch in the paragraph explaining PEBKAC there is a sentence “Sysadmins live in the turbulent waters PEBKAC.” I would think this should be “Sysadmins live in the turbulent waters of PEBKAC.”
Happy new year and love your work!
Hey, Henk! Nope, that is correct. Thanks, though!
i. In the Coulton introduction (1/1/11 pdf page 5, paragraph 3, third sentence), “how will finally” should be “how it will finally”.
ii. As previously noted by Johan,near the end of “Weak and Strange” (page 39 of 1/1/11 pdf) “He called Greta” should probably be “He called Gerta.”
iii. As of 1/1/11, the “Filetype” entry on the final page of the pdf (under the “Version Information” heading)still contains only a series of “no such file or directory” errors.
Page 225 of the PDF version of WALH:
“Look”, he said, “I’m really sorry…
It’s a temporary skip from first person to third person.
Sorry, Paul! That one was claimed and fixed on Dec 28 — thanks, though!
On page 197/259 of the PDF download, in story ‘Chicken Little’, just before the ‘#’ section divider, Leon says ‘Buen suerte’ to the receptionist as he walks out. ‘Suerte’ is feminine, so you have to make the adjective agree: ‘buena suerte’. Unless I’m missing something…
(forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1369243)
PDF page 27, footnote page 24:
“He had several known associates on Campus, people he ate with or playing on intramural teams with…”
I believe “playing” should be “played”
That’s all for now. :)
~Joe
In “The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away,” it says, “He had several known associates on Campus, people he ate with or playing on intramural teams with, or did a little extreme programming with. Gerta had bulk-messaged them all with an oblique query about his personal life and had forwarded the responses to Lawrence.”
I believe that you meant to say, “played on intramural teams with,” not “playing on intramural teams with.”
Sorry, I forgot to mention that this was in the HTML version. I’m not sure about other versions.
Right you are, Tom! Thanks — fixed!
Thanks, Joe! Fixed.
Hey, Joe! Thanks for this! Sorry to say that someone beat you to it by a couple of days (I was on holidays last week and didn’t get a chance to update the files). I appreciate it, though!
Cory
In the paperback, on p31, (“The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange…”) there is a switch to first person.
“That was clearly my cue to go, and he’d changed into a fresh set of trousers, …..”
Not sure if it is a typo or me just reading it incorrectly…
In Epoch, in paragraph 2583 (it’s the ebook version), the rollover is said to be 19 January, 2038. In paragraph 2588, BIGMAC says ‘…lots of important things go blooie on September 30.’
Is this a programming thing I’m missing? I’d have thought that if the rollover was in January, they’d know fairly soon if things were going blooie.
Hey, SJ! Thanks for that one — it’s already been caught, though!
Hey, Matthew! Thanks for that — it’s a good one and has now been fixed in all editions, print and digital. You’ve got a footnote on page 302 of the paperback, too, in case you want to get a copy with your name in it!
In “Visit the Sins”, Sean says:
“You ever been to Universal, Dad? I hear you come here down a lot.”
I imagine you mean ” … come down here a lot.”
Thanks, Mike! I’ve fixed that one in the electronic and print editions — you’ve got your own footnote on page 226!
the following were noticed in the hardback version:
In “Power Punctuation”, page 206, the second line of the paragraph beginning “He said, “I don’t…” shows the word “naive” spelled as “na(square root character)(slash O character)ve”
same story, page 189 paragraph beginning “I moved the boxes…”, 5th line has “time I(comma)(capital A two dots)(little o with a “hat”)d”, instead of “time I’d moved” (note – sorry i don’t know the real names of the characters)
same page, next paragraph, 4th line “I said, you aren(comma)(capital A two dots)(little o with a “hat”)t” instead of “you aren’t”
or maybe those are examples of “power punctuation”?
in the hardback version:
In “Visit the Sins”, page 226, paragraph 3, begins “*How’s Grampa” – I think that the asterisk should be omitted
In “Constitutional Crisis”, page 236, point 4, third line, there is an odd character befofe the pound sign (looks like an L on its back, flipped over)
in the hardback version:
Not sure about this one, but in the story “Chicken Little”, page 255, third paragraph, third line has “Hansel and Gretelprize” – i think it should instead be “Hansel and Gretel prize”
again, hardback version:
In the story “Epoch”, page 349, 4th paragraph, second line. Not sure about this one but it reads “…just sent an init o to…”
In the fifth paragraph, fourth line, there is an unnecessary close paragraph after “electricity”
on a separate note – really enjoyed the stories, and the hardback version is wonderfully put together – excellent work, and I hope that this model is very successful!
Thanks, Rob! That one was already claimed, but it’s appreciated.
Thanks, Rob! The asterisk was already claimed, but the other spurious character is good — I’ve fixed it and will upload shortly, along with your acknowledging footnote!
Hey, Rob! All those are claimed, but thanks!
Thanks, Rob! “Init 0” is correct and that isn’t a paragraph break, but I appreciate it!
sorry – i ment an extra “close parentheses” mark after electricity (one open, two close in that sentence)
In the paperback edition (I’ve got the Pablo Defendini cover), on page 162, second paragraph, Sûreté, that is spelled correctly on page 160 is printed funny:
Sûreté
— Vincent
Thanks, Vincent! That one was claimed early on, but I appreciate it!
-Cory
This is more of a grammar thing than a typo (or maybe it’s an intentional part of the narrator’s “voice”), but just in case…
“The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange” pg 21 (pdf).
“The Securitat treated the Order the way that Lawrence’s old bosses treated the company sysadmins: expendable geeks who no one cared about — so long as nothing went wrong.”
Should that “who” be a “whom”? It’s a quibble, I know.
Hardback edition, “Weak and Strange” page 42, the first paragraph of the message quoted with ‘>’ isn’t indented.
My copy (#48) also has the ‘backto’ typo in the previous paragraph, but I see that’s been reported an corrected in the electronic version.
Is there still time for FTW typos? Or has that ship sailed. Bookmarked several as I read (and enjoyed!) it last week.
Sure, just email them to me.
Thanks, Ralph! The first paragraph after a scene-break isn’t indented — it’s intentional!
I’m checking typos I found in the paperback (dated December 11, 2010 on the last page) against the .pdf version downloaded today, Feb 20, 2011.
Page 128 of the paperback, page 87 of the .pdf:
`Come on,“ she said.
Apostrophe instead of quotation marks.
Page 271 of the paperback, page 188 of the .pdf:
I was thinking of you know, how the samurai banned firearms.
Missing comma between ‘of’ and ‘you.’
Page 297 of the paperback, p. 206 of the .pdf:
understood that this is so much bullshit That statistically, your
Either there should be a period after ‘bullshit’ or ‘That’ shouldn’t be capitalized.
All the other typos I found have already been fixed.
The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away
page 32
‘They wouldn’t make it so easy if they didn’t expect everyone to do it — and once everyone’s done it, we’re ttttt.’
I’m sure that would have been caught already but it’s still in lulu’s downloaded pdf, yet not in the version on craphound. According to that the sentence ends ‘we’re all guilty’.
In the story “The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away”, there is a typo in the following sentence:
Anja Krotoski had lived on “23d Street” in a co-op near Lexington.
That should be “23rd Street”, as in third I think.
– Kris
Hey, Mark! Thanks for these, and sorry for the delay — this fell into the moderation queue and I missed it.
The first typo is a good one, but the second is deliberate (the speaker is drunk and the lack of punctuation is meant to indicate the meter of his dialog); and the third had been fixed in print but not online. So you’ve got a typo credit on P128 of the Lulu editions and a second credit for the formatting error in the ebooks. Thanks again!
Cory
Scroogled pg 82
“Greg turned rotated his head this way and that.”
Liberation Spectrum pg 172
“…who ran a little to fat…” should be too, right?
I’m kinda creeped out by how excited I am to find these errors missed by all the smart people!
This is such a cool project and it’s really exciting to be a part of the process. Take a look at these:
Visit the Sins
Pg 209 …a way of delivering (an) argument…
Pg 212 Visit the Sins
“That’s not (a) coping mechanism…”
Pg 226 I hear you *come here* down a lot
Pg 228 Grampa spread (his) hands on the table.
Chicken Little
Pg 256 The corner stores sold blunt-skins to trustafarian hipsters with a bag of something *gengineered”…
Pg 303 “Sound(s) pretty good to me”
Chicken Little Afterword
Pg 306 …predicted happiness can be completely disjoint(ed).
Epoch (my favorite from the collection)
Pg 316 Those boxe(s) are huge energy-sinks.
Pg 317 …crumbs down the cleavage of the salarylady… should there be a space?
Thanks!
Great ideas and insights. Just landed here today on my path to self publishing my mystery novel. Found this on your website at http://craphound.com/?cat=4
referring to your Compl Idiot’s guide:
espeically the pieces on how to write
cory-
as noted above, i reported many errors in december:
> http://z-m-l.com/walha/walh-copy-editing
but i wasn’t credited or thanked for the corrections,
which were made much later. not a big deal, i guess,
but i put a good deal of work into the process, and i
would have expected you to uphold that honorably…
maybe there is something that i’m missing?
-bowerbird
In the story “Liberation Spectrum” I think there is a mistake on page 108 of the PDF (page 9 of the story in the ePub version):
The roadhouse was the kind of TAZ that got less entertaining at the square of the amount of time spent within its animated walls.
Shouldn’t that be “as” instead of “at”?
I also just noticed the pain in that section doesn’t really increase as the square of the amount of time :) Right now it goes:
first minute = “painful”
second minute = “twice as horrible as the first” (should be 4x if increasing as the square)
third minute = “twice as horrible as the first two minutes”, which would be 2×3=6, but should be 9 if increasing as the square, so that the third minute is 1.8 times as horrible as the first two, since the first two should add up to 5.
Not that it matters at all, and I didn’t notice it while reading the story, just noticed now while reporting the typo.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit; looking forward to your next one!
Matt
Thanks, Matt! “At the square” is correct here — it’s a colloquialism! Thanks for the technical analysis, you’re right, but again, it’s a figure of speech. Much appreciated!
Thanks, Helen! The Scroogled one was already claimed, and I’m afraid that “ran to fat” is correct. Sorry — thanks, though!
Sorry, Bowerbird — I misunderstood your comment. I thought you were adding a link to a reformatted version, I didn’t understand you to be reporting typos as well (comments here are a lot less reliable than using the report typos email address that’s given above). I’ll have a look at these and see if there are any I missed.
Thanks, Helen! “delivering argument”, “come down here”, “gengineered”, “disjoint” “boxen” and “salarylady” are all deliberate, but “coping mechanism” “spread hands” and “sounds pretty good” are all valid typos! I’ve fixed ’em and uploaded the changes. You can get Lulu editions with credits for you on pages 212, 228 and 303!
It’s not a typo but it’s jarring. In The Things That Make Me Weak, when Lawrence leaves the campus, the guard explains that the doors in the vestibule open inward (so the 10 atmospheres make them impossible to force.) But once he’s inside, the outer door “swung away.”
“The roadhouse was the kind of TAZ that got less entertaining at the square of the amount of time spent within its animated walls.” at should be as.