Mistake in Flight of the Night Hawks or am I going nuts? (..

Or I am going barmy.

HarperCollins UK Release (Small soft back cover).

Page 339 - It says "Kaspar had been an only child, as was his daugher,
but even a blind man couldn't miss that these brothers were close".

Unless I complete misread Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes and
Exiles Return. Kaspar has a sister and no children?

I suspect I must have just misread somewhere along the lines as I am at
work and cannot go back and check through the other books.

Cheers, Paul.

In article <1183557658.87346.0 RemoveThis @iris.uk.clara.net>,
Paul <paul.richards RemoveThis @uk.clara.net> wrote:

> Or I am going barmy.
>
> HarperCollins UK Release (Small soft back cover).
>
> Page 339 - It says "Kaspar had been an only child, as was his daugher,
> but even a blind man couldn't miss that these brothers were close".
>
> Unless I complete misread Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes and
> Exiles Return. Kaspar has a sister and no children?
>
> I suspect I must have just misread somewhere along the lines as I am at
> work and cannot go back and check through the other books.
>
> Cheers, Paul.

No, it is a typo. Or rather a brain cramp. I'm not even sure what it
was I was trying to say. The point being Kaspar never had any brothers,
yet he could tell how close they were, etc.

Sometimes, in the dead of the night, up against a deadline, with too
much coffee going . . . also, the days of really good copy editing are
over, sad to say. I had a copy editor named Elaine Chubb at Doubleday
who made me a better writer, just because of the rigor she brought to
the craft. She'd ask me questions that would just floor me. My current
editors try very hard, and it's not a question of lack of skill, but
they're not copy editors; they're editors, and the demands of being a
copy editor are very narrow and deep, a combination of being a
continuity expert and a proof reader.

It's a symptom of modern publishing's problems in general, that costs
cutting impacts the final product, i.e. the story itself.

My problems are trivial. I've heard stories about books where a major
character's name changes half way through and no one notices, because
two different people were vetting copy, and one decided that Character A
must be Character B. You get problems in style, too. In Prince of the
Blood, the first book Elaine didn't copy edit for me,
Bantam/Doubleday/Dell went to an outside house, that divided the book
into 3rds and gave it to three different people. One insisted that
every title be capitalized, i.e. He spoke to the Duke. Duke Borric said
.. . . The second only capitalized specific titles of characters. He
spoke to the duke. Duke Borric said . . . And one who couldn't make up
his mind. I spent HOURS correcting that one.

Anyway, you're not losing it. It is a mistake. Kaspar has a sister, not
a daughter.

Best, R.E.F.