neadods | A series of random statements

I hope I can find my "Sherdoc" icon on the hard drive of the backup computer, because LJ appears to have eaten it. Dang. I'm fond of it.

I'm glad I got the audio download of Pratchett's latest book, because there has been a lot of discussion online about massive typos in the electronic and even printed versions. Wow. A major publisher working with one of their major writers and nobody actually checks the proofs? Listening takes a lot longer than reading, but Stephen Briggs doesn't throw me out of the story with mispronunciations.

Speaking of audio and people named Briggs, the first of the Big Finish Sherlock Holmes S2 audios is up for download. This time they're doing audios of canonical stories, although they've picked an odd set to start with. I'll check 'em out... I want to support this series, but I found S1 far more meta than I was in the mood for.

Tonight I'm going to pass on the wool for soldier's hats. I think I'm also going to pass on the good condition paperback mysteries out of the WTF do I do with these? stack for Stockings for Soldiers. (For those on the "list 'em!" team, there are still going to be plenty of things to list. Like signed first editions.)

The ethical dilemma du jour is if I should volunteer for a clinic shift this weekend, and if I should be volunteering more often anyway. I'm leaning towards "not" as it's going to be a long weekend and I've got a crapload to do, but... well, but.

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This icon?

Yes! I have no idea why it's suddenly gone from my set. Thank you!

the first of the Big Finish Sherlock Holmes S2 audios is up for download. This time they're doing audios of canonical stories, although they've picked an odd set to start with

I'm curious about 2.4, The Tangled Skein. It's based on David Stuart Davies' Holmes/Dracula novel (and it's a sequel to HOUN, err, The Hound of the Baskervilles, to boot), and of the Holmes/Dracula stories I've read, that one's nearly my least favorite. (Absolute worst: Fred Saberhagen's Seance for a Vampire, which pits Holmes and Dracula against Rasputin.) The BBC has already adapted my favorite Holmes/Dracula story, Loren Estlemen's Sherlock Holmes Vs. Dracula.

If Big Finish wants to do a fannish crossover, I'd love to see them tackle a Holmes/Phantom of the Opera story. I'm currently rereading Sam Siciliano's The Angel of the Opera, which does exactly that.

I'm rather dreading that one. The final ep of the first BF Sherlock season - forget the title off the top of my head - was the only one that wasn't so meta that it could legitimately be called a "Sherlock Holmes Adventure" but at the same time was a combination of a 20-year-old movie and Pat Cornwall's "I'm smarter than Scotland Yard" book... hardly breaking new territory.

And now their original story is once again going to be older ideas dusted off.

TBH, it makes me rather leary that Nick Briggs and the BF crew are now joining the Great Sherlock Holmes debate on the "traditionalist" side... I'm getting a strong impression that they may know the original canon, but they're not at all familiar with the fandom that grew out of that canon over a century ago. Either that, or they think that most of the modern Holmes fans are *only* familiar with the Ritchie and BBC versions.

Apparently the ebook of Snuff has now been corrected and reissued.

Have to say, that I've regularly noticed typos (and worse - misnamed characters) in Pratchett's books for the last couple of years at least. So clearly someone wasn't doing their job properly.

I've been relying on audiobooks for a while, so I didn't notice. It shows a great lack of respect for the man - that his work isn't worth fixing - and even more lack for the fans, on the apparent assumption that we don't care!

Yes... I think the worst one I can recall is in 'A Hat Full of Sky', where one of the witches is misnamed (ie the name used is of a witch who isn't even in the scene!).

Oh, no! That one I have in print in the American edition, which must have been corrected.

Pratchett has always struck me as being too fond of language and precision to pull that Ann Rice/Laurel Hamilton//Tom Clancy "I'm too cool for editors" attitude. Unfortunately, the horrible truth is that their books sell in the billions even without editing, but that doesn't mean all readers and authors are undiscriminating!

I'm quite sure that TP doesn't think himself above editors - but I also know that proof-reading is not done properly these days.

Just another corner being cut. Maybe that's one of the jobs that needs to be added back into our economies - proofreader!

I do think so!! I get tired of pencilling corrections into books!

The ethical dilemma du jour is if I should volunteer for a clinic shift this weekend, and if I should be volunteering more often anyway. I'm leaning towards "not" as it's going to be a long weekend and I've got a crapload to do, but... well, but.

It's just as possible to burn out on volunteer work as anything else. If you need to occasionally cut yourself slack so that you don't one day declare, "I hate you guys, I'm going home!" Than do cut yourself that slack. Remember you want to be a long term volunteer, not a long weekend one.

I feel like I ought to do more... but the issue has been taken out of my hands by the people who cut down the lighting-struck tree. I wanted the mulch; I didn't want a huge pile of untreated mulch sitting right next to my wooden house! So I'm going to need the shift time to shift that mound.

Read Snuff last weekend in e-book, didn't notice more egregious typos than the nearly inevitable small scattering, but I was a bit slow off the mark in my purchase and maybe they'd gotten in some hasty corrections before I got paid and was able to get my copy. It set me off on a round of acquiring Discworld e-books, though, since I wound up buying Unseen Academicals so I could reread it before getting to Snuff (I think I got UA from the library and hadn't actually bought it before), and now I've gone back to the beginning of the City Watch subseries and am working on Guards! Guards!

Also, turns out Amazon seems to have reissued most or all of the Discworld series of e-books -- in that there appear to be two Kindle versions of most of the titles, one running about $7.99 and the other $5.17 or so, and the $5 version shows the link to the $8 version but the $8 version's page doesn't always show you the cheaper version available. I suspect the later versions may be reformatted for better Kindling or something. At least it's saving me some money when it comes to rebuying a bunch of titles at a stretch.

Two prices? How odd. I've been buying in iBook format, which doesn't have that discrepancy. And while it will take heavy machinery to pry my print Pratchett away, I'm probably going to get most of them in ebook too because I like the idea of having them with me always.

Amazon is really used to multiple prices for slightly varying formats or different editions, so I'm not actually all that surprised to see Kindle reissues at differing prices. I actually noticed it as I was going through my wishlist a week or two back -- I think doing a bit of birthday money pre-shopping, figuring out what I wanted to buy the most -- and noticed some items on my wishlist were no longer available. The editions I'd originally wishlisted were no longer available -- but I was able to find all of the titles in question, still in Kindle format, just in different editions. I think there was some standardizing and consolidation of format going on -- and I suspect those pricier earlier Kindle versions of the Discworld books may gradually disappear and be entirely replaced by the new black-cover versions.

Then again, I tried to buy Jingo before leaving for my grandfather's a few days ago (the internet access and phone signal at his house being shoddy and intermittent) and shopping via my Kindle app it was only the $8 version that was showing up in my search. I came in to work today and did some searching around and was able to refind the $5 black-cover version -- notice A) how there are fifty jillion versions of the title and B) how the black-cover version shows the $8 e-book but the $8 e-book doesn't show the $5 version.

the black-cover version shows the $8 e-book but the $8 e-book doesn't show the $5 version.

No real surprise there. Annoying, but not surprising.

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