‘I resemble that remark’

It used to take years to get a book into print. And during the laborious process of re-keyboarding the manuscript, plenty of people had a go at the thing.

Today’s technology has enormously speeded the process of creating a book from the author’s original computer disc. But in an era when young high school graduates will actually argue with me that there was never any “golden age” in which 16-year-olds knew who commanded the Yankee forces at both Yorktown and Vicksburg — or at least in which years and in which wars those battles were fought — the results can be shocking.

I’m interested in the Steampunk genre. (Think Gibson & Sterling’s “The Difference Engine.” Think David Lynch’s film of Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”) So I recently picked up “The Affinity Bridge” (Snowbooks, London, 2008), by George Mann, who bills himself as “the head of a major SF/Fantasy publishing imprint.”

Maybe that’s the problem. Who will edit the publisher?

This is not a question of “typographical errors.” Mr. Mann’s exercise in jaw-dropping literary self-abuse goes far beyond that.

Is this — the first in a series, my God — a terrible book? There were enough chases and fist fights to keep me turning the pages, for a time. But I’m jealous of wasted hours. And while it may be estimable to overshoot and fail nobly, it’s hard to be patient with those who have nothing new to show us, and won’t even put in the time to try and hone their craft — which happens to also be my craft.

On page 18, we’re informed by Mr. Mann that our protagonist, Sir Maurice Newbury, is “enamoured by” airships. The word is almost always used in the passive. Shouldn’t someone have asked the author whether he didn’t mean his character is “enamoured of” the vessels?

On page 68, the clerk’s pale face is described as “belying his apparent displeasure at receiving customers so close to lunch.” The sentence makes no sense unless the author means the face “reveals,” “betrays,” or even “betokens” his displeasure — the polar opposite of “belying.”

On page 89, the mechanical man’s “brass fingers … were affixed with little leather pads to prevent them from shattering the tumbler.” No they weren’t. They may have been “equipped” with little leather pads, or the little leather pads may have been “affixed to the brass fingers,” but as little leather pads are unlikely to perform the same function as glue or (alternatively) screws and hex nuts, it’s unclear how they could be used to “affix” the brass fingers to anything, even as mundane as the hands.

Meantime, we’re assured we need not doubt the Scotland Yard inspector’s discretion. Sir Maurice “trusts him impeccably.”

On page 133, Sir Maurice opens his mail and realizes he and his assistant, the anachronistic but still largely useless Miss Veronica Hobbes, have only a brief time to get across town for a proposed meeting with a gentleman who claims to have vital information concerning the fiery crash of a passenger dirigible. “Let us not prevaricate any longer,” Sir Maurice cries as he leaps to his feet, in a moment apparently intended to bring to mind age-old references to the game being afoot.

Should we pay close attention for some stunning revelation, now that Sir Maurice has asserted he’s finally willing to stop lying and spill the beans? Nope. I’m afraid we must instead conclude our lexicographically challenged author simply meant to write “Let us not procrastinate …”

On page 214, a character asks “Impressive isn’t it?” as he turns “to encapsulate the room with a gesture of his arms, indicating the various machines.”

Well … no. I don’t think he intended to shrink the room down till it would fit inside a little gelatin pill. Try “encompass.”

An unlikely brass cane which can be made to emit a disabling jolt of electricity is described as a “lightening cane” when the author surely means “lightning.” Minor characters speculate whether Miss Hobbes has employed her “feminine whiles.”

Was this entire project merely a ploy to get the author’s parents to buy him a decent dictionary?

Do I ever use one word when I mean another? Of course. In casual conversation, we usually hear our own errors and correct them before we reach the end of the sentence — though I’m sure a few slip through.

In typing, a homophone — a sound-alike word — will creep in from time to time. They’re evidence that the writer is “hearing” what he writes “in his mind’s ear.” Ninety-eight percent will normally be caught and corrected on an author’s first read-through. Doesn’t he owe it to us to take that much trouble?

I wish I could report there’s some subtle joke-within-a-joke here, a parody of those who attempt to cobble together Sherlock Holmes simulacra, reaching for the kind of “fancy words” Conan Doyle’s Watson sometimes employed, and constantly falling short.

Richard Sheridan’s Mrs. Malaprop famously said “I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries.” No one worried that the playwright had “got that one wrong,” any more than they feared Norman Lear had made a mistake when he had Archie Bunker express his distrust of the feminists in “the women’s lubrication movement.”

But there’s no sign the joke here is intended.

There are clubs that gather to watch the worst films ever made, often reserving their highest honors for Ed Wood’s “Glen or Glenda” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” I’m not sure “The Affinity Bridge” rises to a high enough level of goofiness to merit inclusion in such a pantheon, but this literary equivalent of a lurching creature sewn together out of other people’s cast-off plot points does share with Wood’s masterpieces that odd characteristic — the author seems so earnest yet unaware, so totally lacking in wit (self-deprecating or otherwise), that it’s clear none of the humor is intentional.

Finally, why do so many reviewers seem to have let this one slip past with a modest pat on the rump, a “ripping good yarn” and all that? I haven’t located the full review, but the usually reliable Guardian is cited saying: “Steampunk is making a comeback, and with this novel Mann is leading the charge. … An engaging melodrama that rattles along at a breakneck pace.”

Members of the younger generation will likely respond by shouting (they so often do) “Oh, you know what the author meant!”

Yes, all too often we DO know “what the author meant,” here, as he piles one scientific absurdity on another (disembodied human brains that survive and function for months, absent any bloodflow? Mrs. Shelley knew better than that), not to mention the predictable parade of perfectly able-bodied police officers and others who seem preturnaturally unable to outrun the omnipresent undead. (Why, oh why, must zombies always crave human flesh? Why can’t they, just this once, show an irresistible appetite for crispy chips with sea salt and vinegar?)

I wish there were some ironic social commentary intended in Mr. Mann’s decision to fill Whitechapel with sponge-brained zombies, working-class creatures inescapable by their able-bodied betters despite the fact they seem to be endlessly shuffling, shambling, stumbling, and lurching.

But there ain’t.

5 Comments to “‘I resemble that remark’”

  1. Lava Says:

    Is this the promised prose-poetry of Ella Mae Brewer? Will we receive samples of Commentator Without Portfolio? Really, I’m eager to see it.
    As for this “buk”, it’s just a part of the problem that people don’t think words have to mean anything.

  2. Pam Maltzman Says:

    The art of proofreading seems to be dying out, even in items which are not self published. I’m sorry to say that most of the self-published things I’ve read are as bad as your examples, and some even worse (a lot worse). When someone hires a publisher to do a self-publishing gig, unfortunately proofreading and editing are optional services, no matter how crappy the manuscript actually is, and the publisher obviously wants the business badly enough not to turn down a horrendous manuscript.

    I’ve had several people ridicule the notion that spelling things correctly signifies intelligence. Well, I’ve had several jobs, including medical transcription, where it is absolutely crucial to spell things correctly, and I vehemently disagree with that. Duh… when you’re transcribing medical reports for doctors, it certainly does matter whether the part of the body is peroneal or perineal!!

    I recently read a self-published book which was a fictionalized account of the life of Hypatia of Alexandria. It might not have been too bad if the author had any knowledge of spelling, word use, punctuation, grammar, etc. I thought it was a total waste of the publisher’s time.

  3. Steve Says:

    Vin, the truth here is publishing is becoming so simple as plugging a thumb drive into a PC and submitting it to the digital front end then making the credit card payment on time is about all it takes to publish anything someone wants. On one hand this means real silliness, on the other truly well written tomes will be worth even more. Keep writing.

  4. Jake Witmer Says:

    …Amazing. I wonder how much money he’s made, writing crap. Could it be enough to make those credit card payments? If so, perhaps he’s technically a smart guy, since his income is made without the expenditure of effort necessary to justify it. So long as he’s not accepting government money, he’s more moral (and probably more talented) than say, a George W. Bush or Barack Obama. This might leave him more time for the pursuit of physical pleasure.

    It’s interesting that he chose writing as a career. Sad that people lack the ability to differentiate between excellent information and worthless information. “Reproductive organs of the welfare state,” indeed.

    There is so much amazing science fiction out there that one could write 100 reviews every day of one’s life, and it would be impossible to cover all of it. (SEK3 was somewhat like that, in the way he kept up with sci-fi, as far as I know.) Most people have very little ability to distinguish good from bad at a significantly high hierarchical level.

    Most “sci-fi/fantasy” writers don’t send blood flow to their zombies’ brains. Much has been written about this crappy genre. For that reason, I’ve mostly stopped reading science fiction, and drifted more to reading “science possible.” By this designation, I mean things like the science and technology writings of K. Eric Drexler (“Engines of Creation”), Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Ray Kurzweil (“The Singularity is Near”).

    I am also re-reading the Unabomber Manifesto, and some other luddite writings, though, because they are going to become more relevant before they (hopefully) become discredited.

    Anyway, I laughed really hard when I read this review. Classic stuff.

  5. Jake Witmer Says:

    HEADS UP: I’d like for you (and your readers) to get more involved with the blog “Less Wrong,” which deals with the topic of human rationality. The author (Eliezer Yudkowski) is working on advanged artificial general intelligence (AGI), and became a libertarian when he pursued the formal study of ethics, in 2005. I think that Eliezer would like it if more libertarians commented on his blog, and I know I’d like to see your intellectual firepower displayed on the topics he writes about. You can google “Less Wrong” or you can find him through his profile and writings at the Singularity Institute. 🙂

    Best wishes.