# I hate authors who can't be arsed to research **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922 "2009-07-22T22:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/21 "2009-07-23T16:32:38Z")
Well, Jim Butcher put a parking lot around Wrigley Field in Chicago in one of the Dresden novels, which is when I started to suspect he’d never actually _been_ to Chicago. At least he’s admitted his mistake and has since visited the city. Google maps, Mr. Butcher, Google maps… The satellite view is your friend. (Well, OK, there’s a small parking lot on the NW corner of the block, presumably for employees and team buses, but it’s very clearly NOT what he had in mind, which was a parking lot _surrounding_ the ballpark) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/22 "2009-07-23T18:35:03Z")
**I hate authors who can’t be arsed to research** _Another_ Bill Bryson thread? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/23 "2009-07-23T18:52:10Z")
Stephen King has made a few trillion dollars without any help from me, but Steve… baby… would it KILL you to do just a TEENY bit of research? Maybe you’d only crank out 9 books a year instead of 10, but is that too much to ask? Examples? In “Salem’s Lot” he has a Catholic priest explain that St. Paul was crucified upside down. Nope. That was St. Peter. And in “The Stand,” which I haven’t looked at in 20 years, one line stood out: during the plague, he wrote of soldiers wearing “white Andromeda Strain suits.” ANDROMEDA STRAIN SUITS??? How lazy can you get? It would’ve taken a minute or two to find out what epidemiologists call the suits they wear around contagious patients! There’s no excuse for that kind of silliness. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/24 "2009-07-23T18:54:26Z")
Dear Mr. Koontz, An Uzi does not have a 400 round magazine. Nope, it was not a misprint. Further, ‘Custom light weight bullets’ would not be a good thing unless you where the one being shot with them. Thank you. A fan that got blown out of the story by your 400 round magazines with light weight bullets. Really. How many people read these things before they go to print? ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/25 "2009-07-23T19:06:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > And in “The Stand,” which I haven’t looked at in 20 years, one line stood out: during the plague, he wrote of soldiers wearing “white Andromeda Strain suits.” > > ANDROMEDA STRAIN SUITS??? How lazy can you get? It would’ve taken a minute or two to find out what epidemiologists call the suits they wear around contagious patients! There’s no excuse for that kind of silliness. Mr. King may or may not have known what the suits were called, but if the POV was Stu Redman’s (I’m assuming it was) there’s nothing to say _he_ knew what they were called. When you get description like that from a POV character, you shouldn’t necessarily attribute it to the author’s ignorance, but rather to just what sort of knowledge would be deemed in-character for the character to possess. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/26 "2009-07-23T19:15:45Z")
Speaking of King, he admitted to pulling a big boo-boo in the \*Dark Tower \*books when he put Alphabet City (where Eddie was from) in the Bronx (or was it Brooklyn? Either way, it was the wrong place.) He explained it later by saying in Eddie’s world, Alphabet City _is_ in the Bronx (or Brooklyn) but he did say that was his goof. I think it was one of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon, who said in one of her forwards that she didn’t know or care if on such and such a date high tide hit at such and such a time, so don’t bother writing her if she got it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/27 "2009-07-23T19:51:52Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Really. How many people read these things before they go to print? Quite a few. As a freelance copyeditor, I am one of them. And sometimes even though we point out egregious errors, the author has the final say. Historical romances are the worst IME. I had one in particular that was really bad. The author had the major facts and motives wrong for the Battle of Little Bighorn and the massacre at Wounded Knee. (She was not writing a revisionist history; it was just a minor side plot.) I pointed these out and suggested some fixes. When the book came out, the plot stayed as is. Hey, I tried! ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/28 "2009-07-23T19:54:21Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > I was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii but lived in Kahuku, which was over a half hour drive away in good traffic (which I had going to work at 5AM but most assuredly NOT coming back in the evening, when the tourists were rubbernecking on that fucking 2-lane road…) > > ETA: Coincidentally enough to your novel, I outprocessed from the Army at the Presidio, just before they closed it. > [@aruvqan](#): > > Varies by command. mrAru and I live 25 miles north of Groton CT in Canterbury CT, and one guy in his shore division when we first moved up here was waivered to live in Waterbury, some 80 miles away [he had previously been on recruiting duty and had bought a house, and it was his final 2 years before retirement. > > Normally they prefer no more than 30 minutes from your duty station. Huh. She got something right then. For laughs I’ve decided to provide a [link](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=st+francis+wood&sll=37.725583,-122.466574&sspn=0.024236,0.034761&ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=37.734829,-122.467901&panoid=rSmMtJS8p7RaDMgSUd7VaA&cbp=12,325.44,,0,9.44&ll=37.734781,-122.468033&spn=0,359.965239&z=15&iwloc=A) of your basic street in that neighborhood. Looks just like a young military couple’s starter home, eh? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/29 "2009-07-23T20:05:04Z")
> [@De\_La\_Rue](#): > > Does she actually say something like > > _It was awful, for soon I would run out of chloroform. And, given my life in the wild west of the 1890s, few opportunities existed for acquiring it._ > > Because that just seems like bad writing. more or less, she is looking at the decreasing level and self whining that once her last few spoonsfull are gone she will not be able to get any more…she brought the bottle with her from England … :rolleyes: Nice, given that it was invented in 1831 and was in common use as an anasthetic, toothpaste and cough med at the time … in the 1890s. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/30 "2009-07-23T20:19:28Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > This requires actually having a pharmacy in the area, though. From your description, it sounded like the heroine’s problem was that there wasn’t a pharmacy, not that the pharmacy didn’t have chloroform. > \*I personally would not assume that any given late-19th century Kansas town of a few thousand people had its own pharmacy. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. This is a question that would indeed require the author to do some research, but of a totally different (and rather more difficult) kind than you suggested in the OP. Even if the author was lazy on this point, the idea that a late 19th century woman in a frontier town might have trouble getting chloroform _in a hurry_ doesn’t strike me as implausible at all. There might have been A pharmacy in the area but there certainly wouldn’t have been a pharmacy on every corner, and a trip of even a few miles takes time on foot. Dodge City KS in 1890 had a population of 1763, and was proud of being very ‘eastern’ with stores, doctors and the whole shebang. As the woman in question was also traveling on the Mississippi, and specified heading to St Louis, lack of actual compounding pharmacies was not a problem. 1890 was actually VERY late, and much of the west was very easternized. When most people think wild west, they are stuck still in the 1850s and the original gold rush, and paint your wagon style boom towns. They are generally getting their impression of the west from hollywood :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/31 "2009-07-23T20:21:58Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Huh. She got something right then. > > For laughs I’ve decided to provide a [link](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=st+francis+wood&sll=37.725583,-122.466574&sspn=0.024236,0.034761&ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=37.734829,-122.467901&panoid=rSmMtJS8p7RaDMgSUd7VaA&cbp=12,325.44,,0,9.44&ll=37.734781,-122.468033&spn=0,359.965239&z=15&iwloc=A) of your basic street in that neighborhood. Looks just like a young military couple’s starter home, eh? damn, those mcmansions would drive me nuts, there is NO yard … ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/32 "2009-07-23T20:26:08Z")
I used to read a particular mystery writer quite frequently, partly because I liked her stories, and partly because the stories are set in Fort Worth. However, she moved out of Fort Worth, but kept setting her novels in my home city, and hasn’t bothered to check on any new developments. This was brought home to me when I opened up a new book, and found that her heroine was doing something at a structure that had been torn down some years ago, and that the story was set in current times. Yes, I did check the copyright page. The writer had been getting preachier and preachier about a certain religion, too, so I quit looking for her books. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/33 "2009-07-23T22:06:00Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I used to read a particular mystery writer quite frequently, partly because I liked her stories, and partly because the stories are set in Fort Worth. However, she moved out of Fort Worth, but kept setting her novels in my home city, and hasn’t bothered to check on any new developments. This was brought home to me when I opened up a new book, and found that her heroine was doing something at a structure that had been torn down some years ago, and that the story was set in current times. Yes, I did check the copyright page. The writer had been getting preachier and preachier about a certain religion, too, so I quit looking for her books. This thread adds to my belief that people like Stephen King and Anne Martin are right: fake places are better to write about because people notice when you flub real places. **I** may know that Warsaw, NH and Killkenny, NH in my current unfinished stories are based on Portsmouth, NH and the town I live in respectively, but who else would? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/34 "2009-07-23T22:52:22Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > **I hate authors who can’t be arsed to research** > > _Another_ Bill Bryson thread? I thought Dan Brown. And yet neither’s been mentioned, so far. Quite right, too, probably. No sport in shooting fish in a barrel. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/35 "2009-07-23T22:54:34Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > This thread adds to my belief that people like Stephen King and Anne Martin are right: fake places are better to write about because people notice when you flub real places. **I** may know that Warsaw, NH and Killkenny, NH in my current unfinished stories are based on Portsmouth, NH and the town I live in respectively, but who else would? Did you know there’s a real but uninhabited township in NH called Kilkenny (one L)? I only know that because it’s home to four or five of the hundred highest peaks in New England that I intend to climb eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/36 "2009-07-23T23:07:33Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Dodge City KS in 1890 had a population of 1763, and was proud of being very ‘eastern’ with stores, doctors and the whole shebang. None of that is evidence that the heroine could easily have walked to a pharmacy whenever she wanted some chloroform. > [@](#): > > \*As the woman in question was also traveling on the Mississippi, and specified heading to St Louis, lack of actual compounding pharmacies was not a problem. \*If she needed chloroform while she was in Dodge then a pharmacy in St. Louis (600 miles away!) wouldn’t do her much good. If the author really did claim that the character was traveling from Dodge City to St. Louis on the Mississippi then that \*would \*be a blatant sign of lack of research though, as the Mississippi River is likewise hundreds of miles east of Dodge. > [@](#): > > \*1890 was actually VERY late, and much of the west was very easternized. When most people think wild west, they are stuck still in the 1850s and the original gold rush, and paint your wagon style boom towns. They are generally getting their impression of the west from hollywood :rolleyes: \*As I said, if the author underestimated how common _pharmacies_ were in the specific time and place where she set her story then that does indicate a lack of research, but of a totally different kind than that described in your OP. The author couldn’t just “call the nearest university with a department of pharmacology” and ask for a period map of circa 1890 Dodge City with all the pharmacies circled. An author who was concerned about historic accuracy could find out this kind of thing with some effort, but it wouldn’t be as simple as establishing when chloroform became commercially available in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/37 "2009-07-23T23:21:00Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Point taken – but Hanover is right on the river. A teacher at Dartmouth could easily **live** in Vermont, crossing the Connecticut River (by bridge, of course) to go to work. Particularly if the plot line involves differences between New Hampshire and Vermont law, or some other gimmick involving the difference in the two states. My wife lived in White River Junction (Peyton Place!) when she went to Dartmouth. But that’s no excuse. I’m sure some Harvard and MIT profs live in Boston, but that doesn’t excuse saying those universities are in Boston (though MIT used to be.) ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/38 "2009-07-23T23:40:25Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Speaking of King, he admitted to pulling a big boo-boo in the \*Dark Tower \*books when he put Alphabet City (where Eddie was from) in the Bronx (or was it Brooklyn? Either way, it was the wrong place.) He explained it later by saying in Eddie’s world, Alphabet City _is_ in the Bronx (or Brooklyn) but he did say that was his goof. Eddie is from Co-op City, in real life it is in the Bronx, and in the books it starts off being in Brooklyn. I also suspect Stephen King didn’t have a great grasp on what Co-op City is like. Alphabet City is a neighborhood in Manhattan. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/39 "2009-07-23T23:45:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My wife lived in White River Junction (Peyton Place!) Gilmanton, NH. > [@](#): > > I’m sure some Harvard and MIT profs live in Boston, but that doesn’t excuse saying those universities are in Boston (though MIT used to be.) Harvard actually owns more land in Boston than Cambridge. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922/40 "2009-07-23T23:58:07Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Were _werewolves_ common in the Wild West in the 1890’s either? :dubious: Do you not understand the difference between accepting fantasy elements in a novel and not accepting non-deliberate mistakes and discrepancies from the known world, or did you just have to move your bowels and didn’t have time to get out of the thread? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-authors-who-cant-be-arsed-to-research/503922.md?page=3)