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War of Honor (waist of time and money)

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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by Exidor   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 10:52 am

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Weird Harold wrote:
Needaname wrote:blah blah blah
You should probably just donate all of your Honorverse books to a homeless shelter and don't let the door hit you in thass on your way out.


Or a hospital / hospice might appreciate such donations.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by robert132   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 2:26 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:
While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.

A lot of things came into collision while I was working on that book, including a collaboration project that hit a massive pothole and sucked up bunches of time, a Simon & Schuster decision to bring forward the release date, and a family medical emergency. I flat ran out of time to do the final edit I would otherwise have done, and in which I would probably have squeezed out about a quarter of the total word count. There's nothing in the book that doesn't need to be there for the purpose of that novel and the overall story arc, but some of it is in there more than once when it doesn't have to be and there are a lot of places I could have --- and would have, if I'd had time --- tightened it considerably.

Toni and I have discussed the possibility of releasing a re-edited version of it which would do the things I'd wanted to do then. We just haven't found a workable time and place to do it.


I imagine critics like this guy are a dime a dozen or so. You've already paid him more attention than he probably deserves, my opinion of course.

Frankly I like the book. That said there probably isn't an author (or artist, or ... ) who doesn't wish they could go back and correct something or another in their works.
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by robert132   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 2:30 pm

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Exidor wrote:Or a hospital / hospice might appreciate such donations.


A hospital isn't a bad idea, that's where I spent a lot of time mind-tripping through the Honor-verse. Laying there in a hospital bed with nurse Ratchet ready to lay into you if you even THINK about getting out of bed and ruining the surgeon's good work, you have nothing but time. David's works brought me lots of enjoyment through the pain and still do even though I'm hale and hearty (more or less) now.
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 4:05 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.
While this doesn't beg the question it certainly invites it -- what is the other Honorverse book you'd really like to re-edit?
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by runsforcelery   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:13 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
runsforcelery wrote:While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.
While this doesn't beg the question it certainly invites it -- what is the other Honorverse book you'd really like to re-edit?



Shadow of Victory. I was . . . pretty sick when I was finishing that one up. If I hadn't been, I'm fairly sure I would have gone back in and rendered the names of the Polish and Czech police forces, security forces, seafood cooperatives, army, etc., in English after the first time or two each name appeared in the text. I'd've kept the Polish and the Czech in dialog and in the acronyms, but not breaking them into English in most places made it difficult for non-Polish and non-Czech readers to keep track of which was which and what planet I had them on this Tuesday.

There are a couple of other things I'd probably have tightened a little, but otherwise, I'd've left the book pretty much as it was because it did things for the story telling that I thought (and still think) needed to be done. But I do with I'd been feeling enough like myself to have recognized that while I had no trouble keeping things straight as the writer, readers could have used a little more assistance.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by saber964   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:29 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:[quote="runsforcelery"
While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.
While this doesn't beg the question it certainly invites it -- what is the other Honorverse book you'd really like to re-edit?



Shadow of Victory. I was . . . pretty sick when I was finishing that one up. If I hadn't been, I'm fairly sure I would have gone back in and rendered the names of the Polish and Czech police forces, security forces, seafood cooperatives, army, etc., in English after the first time or two each name appeared in the text. I'd've kept the Polish and the Czech in dialog and in the acronyms, but not breaking them into English in most places made it difficult for non-Polish and non-Czech readers to keep track of which was which and what planet I had them on this Tuesday.

There are a couple of other things I'd probably have tightened a little, but otherwise, I'd've left the book pretty much as it was because it did things for the story telling that I thought (and still think) needed to be done. But I do with I'd been feeling enough like myself to have recognized that while I had no trouble keeping things straight as the writer, readers could have used a little more assistance.[/quote]



Oh yeah, trying to figure out the local equivalent of the NKVD GRU KGB and Stasi. Was a bit of a pain in the butt.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:47 pm

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saber964 wrote:Oh yeah, trying to figure out the local equivalent of the NKVD GRU KGB and Stasi. Was a bit of a pain in the butt.

I'll admit there were a couple points (though the one I remember was translating Firebrand's ship's name) where in a fit of excess technology I had google translate on my smart phone with the camera pointed at my kindle to get the live translation so I could see what the various foreign names meant :D
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by frasernator   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:58 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
saber964 wrote:Oh yeah, trying to figure out the local equivalent of the NKVD GRU KGB and Stasi. Was a bit of a pain in the butt.

I'll admit there were a couple points (though the one I remember was translating Firebrand's ship's name) where in a fit of excess technology I had google translate on my smart phone with the camera pointed at my kindle to get the live translation so I could see what the various foreign names meant :D

I did the exact same thing! Great minds or something like that I guess.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by runsforcelery   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 6:46 pm

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saber964 wrote:
runsforcelery wrote:While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.


Jonathan_S wrote:While this doesn't beg the question it certainly invites it -- what is the other Honorverse book you'd really like to re-edit?



runsforcelery wrote:Shadow of Victory. I was . . . pretty sick when I was finishing that one up. If I hadn't been, I'm fairly sure I would have gone back in and rendered the names of the Polish and Czech police forces, security forces, seafood cooperatives, army, etc., in English after the first time or two each name appeared in the text. I'd've kept the Polish and the Czech in dialog and in the acronyms, but not breaking them into English in most places made it difficult for non-Polish and non-Czech readers to keep track of which was which and what planet I had them on this Tuesday.

There are a couple of other things I'd probably have tightened a little, but otherwise, I'd've left the book pretty much as it was because it did things for the story telling that I thought (and still think) needed to be done. But I do wish I'd been feeling enough like myself to have recognized that while I had no trouble keeping things straight as the writer, readers could have used a little more assistance.




Oh yeah, trying to figure out the local equivalent of the NKVD GRU KGB and Stasi. Was a bit of a pain in the butt.



Yup.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: War of Honor (waist of time and money)
Post by Lunan   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 8:21 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:While I could wish for a critic with better spelling skills, WOH is one of the two books in the Honorverse I actually would like to re-edit. I wanted to edit it more tightly at the time, as a matter of fact, but the production crunch precluded it.

A lot of things came into collision while I was working on that book, including a collaboration project that hit a massive pothole and sucked up bunches of time, a Simon & Schuster decision to bring forward the release date, and a family medical emergency. I flat ran out of time to do the final edit I would otherwise have done, and in which I would probably have squeezed out about a quarter of the total word count. There's nothing in the book that doesn't need to be there for the purpose of that novel and the overall story arc, but some of it is in there more than once when it doesn't have to be and there are a lot of places I could have --- and would have, if I'd had time --- tightened it considerably.

Toni and I have discussed the possibility of releasing a re-edited version of it which would do the things I'd wanted to do then. We just haven't found a workable time and place to do it.



The intersting thing for me is i took war of honor with me to england when i went all those years ago(this was before it was out in paperback)

WOH would be very interesting to do an anniversary reedit as its always been one of the hardest rereads in the series
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