Gene Wolfe's "The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories" (1980)

Friday, August 10, 2007

Typos or not

In a previous post I pointed out a typo in our copy of Alien Stones, and Kevin found one in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories. And in reading through the book I've noticed a few more, and wondered why the proofreading is so poor. But now that I've read Cues, I have to reconsider...

Near the beginning there is a 'typo' that is really a slip of the tongue (if the bowling balls have tongues...): 'goblin' for 'gobbling'. So far, so good. Halfway through, when explaining how a ball full of stars could be mistaken for a bowling ball with holes, the ball says: "Ever heard of the Coalstack Nebula?" Of course (as amateur astronomers know) there is a Coalsack Nebula, but no Coalstack. Then, in the last paragraph, the second bowling ball says: "I bed your pardon. We give no quarter." Now this is one sentence after the first bowling ball has begun to "think sexy"; so I think we have to conclude that 'bed' for 'beg' is deliberate.

So my question is: Given that Wolfe seems to like playing games with his readers, how many of the other apparent typos in these stories are really intentional?!

No comments: