SoV eARC errors edits and spoilers

Decided to make a clean thread for this to make it easy to read. This thread is intended to collect errors and mistakes in the e-Arc folks notice.

Two I've found so far:

Green Valley is suddenly used in place of Green Pines for Gamma Center.

The Hoplite is referred to several times as the HMS Hoplite, despite being a Solly Ship.

Are the sample chapters on baen.com from the e-ARC, or from an earlier, or later, version? 'Cause I noticed a few things ... which I can't remember off the top of my head.

Finished it just a little while ago and posted first thoughts in Snerks at Baen.

I liked the last 51% very, very much. The first 49% is important for the over all story but I did not enjoy most of it nearly as much as I would have liked to. But the last 51% is bang on.

Warning: the book advances Cauldron line by about a day. A Rising Thunder by more than a day but only in a specific thread and Shadow of Freedom not at all. (caveat to that. Many characters from those books get their personal stories advanced and quite satisfactorily.)

Starting around 70% of the way in I started bookmarking typos and other things such as incorrect names (for instance Breitbach is often called Breitbart) Tremaine is both a Capt JG and a Capt SG. And Gail may have been confused with Lisa in a chapter. Less sure on that one. By the time I realized they were two different characters I did not bother to go back and check. And, of course, I need to compare to Cauldron.

If the copy editors would like I can provide specifics.

Something I have thought of before. I wish that each chapter had a location header. SLNS Hoplite, HMS Whatever, Planet Bearclaw Aweful People, Planet Bearclaw Rebels and etc. The cast is so large it often takes me a few paragraphs to figure out what I am reading. I have assumed that RFC wants it the way it is for his own artistic reasons but figured it does not hurt to say....

Trevin wrote:Something I have thought of before. I wish that each chapter had a location header. SLNS Hoplite, HMS Whatever, Planet Bearclaw Aweful People, Planet Bearclaw Rebels and etc. The cast is so large it often takes me a few paragraphs to figure out what I am reading. I have assumed that RFC wants it the way it is for his own artistic reasons but figured it does not hurt to say....

Especially between the Polish and Czech planets. I got them confused a bit too easily. I had the same problems occasionally with the various groups in Shadow of Freedom.

Bill Woods wrote:Are the sample chapters on baen.com from the e-ARC, or from an earlier, or later, version? 'Cause I noticed a few things ... which I can't remember off the top of my head.

I think those are e-arc. The earlier versions were the snippets.

feyhunde wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:Are the sample chapters on baen.com from the e-ARC, or from an earlier, or later, version? 'Cause I noticed a few things ... which I can't remember off the top of my head.

I think those are e-arc. The earlier versions were the snippets.

The sample chapters come from the eARC, at least until the first proofed copies become available.

Just finished the E-ARC and the only real howler I noticed was that in several places the number of Rolands under Zavala at Saltash was THREE, when the actual number from Shadow of Freedom was FIVE.

I missed the inter-book continuity issues RFC pointed out in his thread, but I noticed a couple odd or erronious items that a copy editor might miss.

Mantie-missile performance:
"it went on accelerating at 46,000 KPS2" Should be "46,000 gees" (seen that g vs KPS^2 slip through in at least on other book; but what's a roughly 2 orders of magnitude error between friends. )

Also that same missile, just a paragraph before, was only flying at "an overtake of one-three-six KPS squared!". 136 KPS^2 is a poky 1,387 gees. Improbably slow for a missile even if it didn't directly contradict the 46,000 KPS^2 in the next paragraph. It should be four-fify or four-fifty-one KPS squared from rest; or slightly less for overtake if the targets are accelerating away from it.

Also the M9 red dwarf used as a rendezvous - "M9-class star, with a hyper limit which lay only fifteen light-minutes from the primary"; seems to have it's hyper limit wrong. The chart says a M9 has a limit of 9.24 LM; while the star with a 15 LM limit is a K6 (orange; not a "Red Dwarf").



I'd also mention, though it's no an error that I kept getting the Polish? and Czech planets mixed up; not sure if it would be possible to better differentiate them.

Jonathan_S wrote:I missed the inter-book continuity issues RFC pointed out in his thread, but I noticed a couple odd or erronious items that a copy editor might miss.

Mantie-missile performance:
"it went on accelerating at 46,000 KPS2" Should be "46,000 gees" (seen that g vs KPS^2 slip through in at least on other book; but what's a roughly 2 orders of magnitude error between friends. )

Also that same missile, just a paragraph before, was only flying at "an overtake of one-three-six KPS squared!". 136 KPS^2 is a poky 1,387 gees. Improbably slow for a missile even if it didn't directly contradict the 46,000 KPS^2 in the next paragraph. It should be four-fify or four-fifty-one KPS squared from rest; or slightly less for overtake if the targets are accelerating away from it.

Also the M9 red dwarf used as a rendezvous - "M9-class star, with a hyper limit which lay only fifteen light-minutes from the primary"; seems to have it's hyper limit wrong. The chart says a M9 has a limit of 9.24 LM; while the star with a 15 LM limit is a K6 (orange; not a "Red Dwarf").



I'd also mention, though it's no an error that I kept getting the Polish? and Czech planets mixed up; not sure if it would be possible to better differentiate them.

I saw very little that an editor would not catch. The annual death rate of Mesa is likely POINT four percent, not four percent. Mesan system defenses seem to have really bad detectors, a they think that 62 SDs mass half a *M*illion tons. But it was very well done, and advanced a lot of characters.

I also noticed some possible inconsistencies around the Flight Two Cataphracts in their one engagement.

SoF established a Javelin's acceleration as 47,600 gees[1], which matches that Duckk gave us for the Cataphract's first stage "467 KPS² for 180 seconds" (aka 47,600 gees; allowing for rounding).

However (allowing for the KPS² to gees correction) SoV seems to be claiming the Javelin could instead do 49,220 gees.
"46,000 KPS². The Javelin’s acceleration was actually seven percent higher than that" 46,000 * 1.07 = 49,220 gees. (That might the the 1st stage performance of the flight 2 cataphracts; but I don't think Technodyne upgraded all the SLN's Javelins at the same time)


Then we have

Multiple launches. Acceleration rate is five-six-one KPS squared. That’s about thirty-five KPS better than Filareta’s Cataphracts could turn out, Sir."
And, he did not add, twenty percent better than the Mark 23’s maximum acceleration.

First that claims Filareta’s Cataphracts could do 526 KPS², or 53,673 gees. That's too high for their half-power setting (see above established to be 467 KPS², or 47,600 gees) but too low for full power 934 KPS², or 95,200 gees)

Second 561 KPS², or 57,245 gees is again too high for even the high claim above for Javelins, but seems too low for full power. Yet the Manties assume that's for a 1/2 power 3 minute burn.

Third, 561 KPS² being 20% better than a Mk23's "maximum"; it's actually 20% better than it's half-power setting (451 KPS²). Though to be fair they seem to be comparing 1/2 power to 1/2 power; it's just phrased poorly.

Finally there's an issue with the range calculation. The text says:

“From rest, assuming a three-minute burn and no change in the final stage’s acceleration rate or endurance, about niner-point-one million klicks,” the ops officer replied. “Call it roughly a hundred thousand KPS terminal velocity. Assume they’ve got the same final stage, and we’re looking at about one-six-point-four million kilometers total powered envelope.

OK, 9.1 (really 9.08) million km is 180 seconds at 561 KPS². But if you threw on the unchanged final stage (75 seconds at 98,000 gees) the combined would end up at: 19.3 million km. (Up from the 16.5 of the flight 1 cataphract); not the 16.4 million km stated.
(Also mentioning the final stage just before giving the initial stage's numbers is confusing; if I were editing that I'd remove the first reference to the final stage)

BTW it claims that "Tamaguchi’s surviving shipkillers streaked towards TG 10.2.9 at an acceleration of 98,000 KPS² and a closing velocity that was already above 102,000 KPS." Ignoring the KPS² that should be gees it appears that the final stage accel is unchanged from the flight 1 cataphracts.


However after all that we go back to the statement "And at least all of Tamaguchi’s battlecruisers carried the new Flight Two Cataphract, with almost twenty percent more powered range". 16.5 million km * 120% = 19.8 million km; so 19.3 is "almost" that. So I think the 561 KPS² number is correct, there just needs to be cleanup around how it's referenced. (Though I'd point out that you now have the bizarre situation where the CM based final stage has a lower acceleration than the shipkiller based initial stage. Final stage is still 98,000 gees; but the initial stage is now up to 114,490 gees/57,245 gees (full/half). Though to be fair the CM is extended drive; 75 seconds vs 60 for the full power initial)

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[1] "Acceleration forty-six thousand gravities! [...] That was six-teen hundred gravities lower than a Javelin, but a Javelin’s maximum powered endurance at that rate was only three minutes"