# Badly researched novels.



## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

I read a lot of novels. Recently I've been reading quite a few set during the two world wars. I like a good yarn and can become completely absorbed and read for hours.

What jars me out of that state are inconsistencies in the continuity. If a book has a few such flaws I can try to ignore them but if they crop up regularly I find I am distracted from what I'm reading while I wonder how an author could be so slipshod in their work.

Just now I'm reading a book set during WW2 and written by Ronn Munsterman http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ronn-Munsterman/e/B004OH84IA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1464339316&sr=8-1

Ronn gets good write ups on Amazon so I thought I'd give him a go. He's an American and this novel features a young English nurse who the hero of the novel is in love with. This 1920s english rose employs American idioms right from the "get go". She talks about people having done things "right out of school" etc.

Those are annoying but I've just read the best one yet.

The scene is a French farm. Some Americans who've been shot down are hiding in the barn. The inevitable beautiful farmers daughter turns up with her faithful old dog. The dog sniffs around suspiciously but Jeanette pays no attention because she assumes that a cat or a raccoon has been sleeping there.

For gods sake don't authors ask appropriate people to proof read their work? In this case any English person over the age of 50 could have kept him right with the dialogue and probably even about the French raccoon population.


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

What gets me in films and on TV, even in documentaries, is how they portray Morse Code.

The physical action with the sending key usually bears no relation to what is actually being sent.

Even the way they operate the key is totally wrong.

It's the same when they show someone receiving Morse - they are not writing down what is actually being sent.

There are enough Morse "speakers" around (like me!) who could do it authentically.

Di dah di dah dit, di di di dah di dah!!


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

Well I could not agree with you more erneboy. I also read maybe more than I should, but if a book is good I hate having to put it down.I find that american authors do tend to spend too many pages with information that is truly unnecessary for the story, unless of course you really need to know the bore of the gun and the weight of the bullets etc. There are many books that I have even read twice. I blame having to do English Lit at school.

cabby


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## HurricaneSmith (Jul 13, 2007)

I completely agree, Alan. I remember watching Peter O'Toole eating Bedu food with his left hand in the film "Lawrence of Arabia". Such a shocking mistake and obvious to anyone who has travelled even a little.







.


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## WildThingsKev (Dec 29, 2009)

Come on Alan, I thought everyone knew that "Raton Laveur" is thriving along the Canal du Midi. I know this because my wife bought a hat in Carcassonne with a Raton Laveur pompom on it.

Seriously though, I try to avoid books and films about which I have a professional knowledge, ie seafaring. Stick to scifi and let the imagination go.

Kev


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## gaspode (May 9, 2005)

I wonder if he got confused with "Ragondin" (Coypu as we know them)?
France is teeming with them.


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## autostratus (May 9, 2005)

A couple of years ago I started to read a book called Stolen by Jordan Gray. 
Supposedly set in Blackpool and and to do with events after 1940.

As I lived in Fleetwood and Blackpool between 1940 and 1948 I thought it would perhaps be interesting.

The precis says:-
A cozy English seaside town built on secrets and smugglers, Blackpool is a haven for tourists and home to generations of locals who like their privacy. American Molly Graham and her British husband, Michael, are considered outsiders, but feel irresistibly drawn to this town.and its darker curiosities. Because Blackpool harbors dangerous mysteries.

And murder is just the beginning...........

That should have been a warning to me.
This was a few pages in:

Tonight the black night was fought off by more streetlights than normal, illuminating the squat stone-and-wood buildings in the town square. The brightness seemed out of place amid warehouses and shops more than a century old.

and more

In the distance, Michael noticed Glower Lighthouse standing tall over Blackpool. Even when fog shrouded it and the light appeared to stab out of nowhere, the place seemed threatening, and seeing it at night chilled Michael. During the day, he experienced nothing out of the ordinary, but when he went to the lighthouse at night, especially with the local group of cave explorers he sometimes accompanied, he definitely felt something unsettling lingering in the timbers and stone. And he didn’t believe in ghosts. At least, not much.

I couldn't read it as it was so far removed from the Blackpool I remember.
A little research would have been useful to the author.


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

That's the kind of thing Gillian. 

I suspect that given the myriad other errors Ronn makes in my book he just didn't know any better and made no effort to check.


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## BillCreer (Jan 23, 2010)

pippin said:


> What gets me in films and on TV, even in documentaries, is how they portray Morse Code.
> 
> The physical action with the sending key usually bears no relation to what is actually being sent.
> 
> ...


No you got that wrong. It should go..........Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do!!

Or -.. --- .-- .- .... -.. .. -.. -.. -.-- -.. .. -.. -.. -.-- -.. ..- -- -.. .. -.. -.. -.-- -.. --- for the hard of hearing.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Don't get me started I could rant for days on stuff which pisses me off.


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## charlieivan (Apr 25, 2006)

I stopped reading James Patterson novels in the Alex Cross series because of glaring inconsistencies. In one book Cross's wife was shot and he held onto her, carried her to a hospital where she eventually died. In another book in the same series the story has her being shot in a drive-by shooting and taken to a completely different hospital and Cross is informed of her death by colleagues. Surely an author of Patterson's standing could get his own stories right !!!


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## autostratus (May 9, 2005)

charlieivan said:


> I stopped reading James Patterson novels in the Alex Cross series because of glaring inconsistencies. In one book Cross's wife was shot and he held onto her, carried her to a hospital where she eventually died. In another book in the same series the story has her being shot in a drive-by shooting and taken to a completely different hospital and Cross is informed of her death by colleagues. Surely an author of Patterson's standing could get his own stories right !!!


Could it have been a second wife?

I've read quite a lot of novels with James Patterson's on the spine with the addition of a n other.
I think he has a factory with other authors which produces novels.:wink2:

Check the list:- https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/james-patterson/


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Yes, he's done that factory writing recently, much to the detriment of the novels.


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

The problem I often come up against is having read all the books that they have written what does one do then, apart from find a new author.I do gallop through a book, speed reading I believe they call it. I grasp the story and the subjects and can tell what the story is about afterwards.Amazing how teenage skills sometimes stay with you. 

cabby


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

gaspode said:


> I wonder if he got confused with "Ragondin" (Coypu as we know them)?
> France is teeming with them.


now......

they were introduced in 1882......

WHY? WHY? WHY ? they are a major pest now and even the French have found a use for them Coypu pate (I joke not :surprise: :frown2, don't bother to try it though, take it from me it is not worth the money and IMO is worse even than andouillette or tripe and those are VERY low in my "wish to eat" list....

On the OP, I think many authors start off well and slide down as they progress - the "Da Vinci Code" was superbly researched (American visitors accused Le Louvre of changing the floor as it was not like in the book !) but subsequent books are nothing like so well detailed.....

Probably a reflection of what happens when one gets popular, so I have LOADS of time to research my book - which I have not even thought about writing and never will so I will never be famous....

Dave


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

cabby said:


> Amazing how teenage skills sometimes stay with you.
> cabby


Just some of your teenage skills Cabby, I bet not all of them! :male: :sign10::spermy: >


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## salomon (Apr 20, 2011)

WildThingsKev said:


> Come on Alan, I thought everyone knew that "Raton Laveur" is thriving along the Canal du Midi. I know this because my wife bought a hat in Carcassonne with a Raton Laveur pompom on it.
> 
> Seriously though, I try to avoid books and films about which I have a professional knowledge, ie seafaring. Stick to scifi and let the imagination go.
> 
> Kev


Errm. We do have Racoons in France, I have seen them. They were introduced just like coypu for their fur. Racoons are quite a pest all over Euope these days. So maybe your Author was not so badly informed after all :serious:


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Eeeerrrmmm please try to remember that we are discussing the thoughts of a French farmer's daughter in 1944.

You are correct that there are now Raccoons in Northern France according to Wiki, I admit that I didn't know that, but they were imported by members of the USAF. That would have happened after the war don't you think unless they were paratroop trained raccoons.

I'll continue to regard that and all the Americanisms used by the European characters as indications of poor research. 

He even had people thinking out of the box before the phrase was invented.


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## salomon (Apr 20, 2011)

I dont disagree with you at all regarding research and Americanisms. Its pitiful sometimes.

I have no idea how or why the raccoons got here but they are here in Southern France. Regularly find dead ones and have seen a couple of live ones too. I have also seen them in Italy. And they have long been a pest in Germany...and I am sure that had something to do with the war but cannot recall why.

But its very unlikely a Wartime farmers daughter woukd have come across one, thats for sure


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## caulkhead (Jul 25, 2007)

Alan, ever so slightly off topic I know, but have you read "All the light we cannot see" by Anthony Doerr? It's set in WW2 and it's a cracking good read. Not your usual wartime tale but an unusual tale about a blind French girl and a young German radio operator who's lives are destined to collide in an unusual way. It's not a love story I should add!!!! I loved it and will admit to getting a little misty eyed at the end.


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

I haven't, I'll give it a go. Ta.


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## cabby (May 14, 2005)

Yes I will too.

cabby


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Can't remember (!) which American author it is but one of them drives me mad with pages of descriptive text about the street plans and architecture of the towns in his books. I think it is to prove that he has actually been to the place where the book is set.


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