I got two very different impressions about this book. On one hand, Elizabeth Vaughan has written a light and entertaining romance. On the other, TOR did an absolutely execrable job editing and copysetting the book.
So, about Vaughan’s novel. It’s well paced and fun. The author moves her story along without any noticeable lags, and in places exhibits a very nice turn of phrase. Some of her images are really striking; for example, a sentence from page 136: “But other thoughts whirled about, skittering around like colts on ice.” She also injects a bit of humor into the narrative, as when one of the nomads asks the princess to give them a tour of her castle by saying, “Show us this stone tent of yours.”
Vaughan also manages to construct a good reason for why the “savage” hero doesn’t just immediately deflower the heroine once he has her in his charge. This is no mean feat; speaking as a man, the single most frustrating thing about the romance genre is slogging through endless plot contrivances that artificially keep the hero and heroine from falling into bed together. (And don’t give me any of that delayed gratification being better stuff; I want the sex scene!) But Vaughan makes it work. I’ll read her next one.
So, about TOR’s book. As you can see from the link, the publishers gave Warprize a fantastic cover. Unfortunately, once you open the book things immediately get worse. Actually that’s not quite true; they start getting worse around page 70, when all of a sudden whoever edited the book seems to have forgotten the difference between “lie” and “lay”. Along the way “than” and “then” get a sex-change operation. There are multiple periods on a single sentence, and on page 138 the coup de grace — “Atira’s needs rest.” — which in context makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I would normally lay — I mean lie…no wait, lay…god, this is so confusing! — the blame with the author, but considering that Vaughan is a lawyer, she probably got it right.
I know things are bad within the publishing industry, but really. Is it too much to expect literate copy? Thirty years ago you almost never saw a spelling error in a mass market paperback. It’s getting to the point now where I feel like borrowing a copy of a friend’s book, reading it, and — if I like it — sending the author a few dollars directly to show my appreciation. This, of course, would leave the publisher absolutely nothing — which is about what they deserve for a slipshod, piece-of-shit job like this. There are so many typos that it is honestly somewhat painful to read. TOR really should, if they’re going to publish books in America, employ at least one person in the editing process who actually knows English.
Okay, costs are up and the publishing houses have to make money. Well you know what? I’ll pay the extra dime or whatever it would cost to get a decent human proofreader to go over the manuscript after it’s been spellchecked.
The record companies are facing a massive paradigm shift right now because their years of putting out inferior products and charging the consumer too much are coming back to haunt them. Seems to me the publishing industry is heading the same way. My advice: change for the better before you’re forced to change. Consumers care about this sort of thing, and we remember who the consciencious publishing houses are.
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