It’s quite clear when an author is writing about San Francisco and has never lived here, b/c all the locations they use are tourist locations. “They agreed to meet in Fisherman’s Wharf.” You bet. Number of times I’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf when not showing out-of-town guests around: Zero.
Gawwwwwwwwwwwd damnit!
:smack:
PS I previewed. I really did!
PPS This is the first time I’ve ever actually used the :smack: key in a post
PPPS OK, now it’s the second time
PPPPS If you want to get technical, I can’t really start any Post Scripts without signing my name. It’s not a post script without the script, is it?
PPPPPS Sorry for hijacking the thread with Gaudere’s Law (again…and again…and again).
PPPPPPS I’m done now.
Kafka has the Statue of Liberty holding a sword instead of a torch in Amerika.
Yup, that happens.
However, since I used sic correctly - as digged is an archaism, and the expression I used is out of the Authorised Version, though I can’t remember where exactly, I’ve no worries on that score.
But I’ll still probably manage a snafu before I hit tthat button.
I once read a story that took place in Spokane, and the author referred to areas of town as “South Spokane” and “North Spokane”. In real life, it’s invariably the South Hill and almost always the North Side.
I would award the “Never Even Seen The Place” prize to a Mexican comic book I once read that was set in Texas and showed a “Houston City Limits” sign out in the desert, surrounded by saguaros.
I’ve seen that in a lot of comic books/cover art depicting places set in the desert. There is always, always a saguaro. Texas, New Mexico, Nevada*, always a big ol’ happy saguaro right next to every town.
*(Also Arizona, but that doesn’t count as much since they really do live there.)
cite?
Yes, but contrary to popular belief, the entire state is not a desert, covered by an unbroken sea of sagauros. Nor do all of the residents wear cowboy hats.
I’ve also noticed this annoying tendency on any national broadcast of a sporting event from Arizona. It’s like the networks are telling their viewers, “Look, it’s the desert and we have proof!”
Alan Dean Foster, a long-time resident, usually describes Arizona pretty well.
In First among Equals, one of Jeffrey Archer’s books (WHAT WAS I THINKING?) one of said equals, who was the fctional Minister for Northern Ireland, in the book talks about Northern Ireland and the “eight million people who live there”
What?
That book was written in the early eighties and twenty years later, there is still nothing like eight million people living on the whole of this island, let alone in the six little counties in question.
Kim by Rudyard Kipling. The guy is a Nobel prize winning author. This is often called the best book ever written about India. It is a great novel. But, Kipling has a Tibetan Lama from western Tibet (which is even more implausible than any other part of Tibet) a 100 years ago droning prayers, blessings and quotations in Chinese. WTF? Tibetans speak Tibetan, and Tibetan buddhists as a rule do not learn from Chinese buddhists. Argh. Could be the best novel ever written, but it is obvious that Kipling for all he knew about India, just wrote crap about Tibetan lamas.
I don’t know about Texas but I would imagine that:
I-XX or maybe The Interstate, The Thruway, or The Turnpike for roads built after 1950.
U.S XX . Route XX can be State or U.S. if no possible confusion.
Then there is the question of which is worse a writer you know is not from the place having a charecter act stupid or a writer who is a local having something that is nuts.
Andrew Greeley is from Chicago. I understand that that is why he had the protagonist of “Star Light” going from Harvard Square to Boston College on “the Red and Green Line”. Given that it is a fine October day there are two bus lines which our hero could use so as not to go into downtown Boston. (I could see using the Subawy/Trolley today.)
I am willing to allow Robert Parker to enlarge Brandeis and call it Taft. But he should have had the FBI in the JFK Federal Building and put the CIA in Center Plaza. And it was just Wrong to give the Moakly Courthous a 15th story. I would have liked it better if the client had said “in the bank on Beacon Street and Park Drive”, and had Spencer then say “The old Shawmut Bank at Audobon Circle. It’s a restaurant now.”
A Sidney Sheldon book, might have been “Windmills of the Gods” (turned into a bad TV movie starring Jaclyn Smith). The main character was supposed to be a political science professor at Kansas State, but he had her living in Junction City (about 15 miles away) rather than Manhattan (where K-State is located). Possibly not too unusual, but IIRC, this character had school-age kids, and most of the professors I knew when I went there lived in Manhattan where the schools were better. Just struck me as odd. For the most part, at least when I was there, the bulk of Junction City was made up of people associated with Fort Riley, not K-State, and the book came out during my college years.
I also read one that took place in Kansas City, but if the author had been there ever, I’d be mighty surprised. In the first 3 pages, she had her main character going - oh, heck, I don’t remember now where she was going or where she was coming from, but let’s just say it was something like having her going north on I-35, but given her origin and destination, she should have been going south.