Authors, please do some research.

[kengr]

Read a few stories recently where authors *really* should have done some research.

In a SF series, the author has colonies on planets around Type O, B, and A stars.

Sorry, won't happen. Type O and B stars aren't on the mainsequence long enough for planets to *form* much less become habitable. Not sure about Type A stars but it'd need to be looked up.

These things aren't just "color" for the stoiries, they are physical details that need to be checked.

Then there's the fantasy series I've been reading. Medieval setting, with dragons and some magic.

They've got a captured dragon (magically bound so it can't *easily* get free. This was not exactly planned. But they've got it in a courtyard, and have a chainmail "net" over the courtyard. Aside from the fact that I don't think a 100 foot or more span of chaimail could support its own weight, there's the fact that it'd take months, if not a year or more, to *make* the chaimail. That's all hand labor.

There are also mentions of gunpowder but no evidence of it being used for anything.

Finally, they are drinking water with meals. Now some of this is likely because it's a YA book. But historically, and *practically* they'd be more likely to be drinking wine (perhaps watered, but still wine) or small beer.

This is because of water putity issues.

Details do matter.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

If they have magic, perhaps they have a way to magically purify the water? A magic stone in the castle well for example. In most D&D type games it's one of the more basic spells.

But yeah, I'm with you on the chainmail net, that's just dumb. A steel wire net would work just as well and be a lot easier to make..although not *easy* as such.

[conuly]

They no more need to purify the water than anybody else on well water today does - which is to say, they probably don't. This idea that people didn't drink water because it was dirty is just false. They drank wine and ale for the same reason people drink those things today - because they liked it.

[conuly]

This is because of water putity issues.

This is not true. People in that time period in the real world drank beer and ale for the same reason that people today drink tea and coffee (and beer and ale) - because they liked it.

They also drank water. We know this because they wrote about drinking water, and we know this because they invested a great deal of effort into building aquaducts and wells and resevoirs to bring clean drinking water to populated areas.

[stickmaker]

Don't forget "A Horse is Not a Motorcycle."

I spent some of the writing in a fantasy novel I recently completed not only on the breeds of horse involved (the pursuers are riding coursers "good for covering ground quickly over the long haul.") but on their care and feeding. ("The healer fussed a bit with Carol's mount, which had somehow picked up a nest of burrs on the inside of one hind leg. Bergen wasn't the least bit surprised the gelding put up with this attention; crafters were very good with animals.")

[kengr]

Actually, that hasn't come up because the protagonist was walking everywhere in the first few books, and has been riding her dragon since.

Though admittedly, there's a bit where the dragon is hiding outside of town and "hasn't left the clearing" the whole time (weeks) she was there. One wonders what he ate?

[stickmaker]

If these dragons are reptiles they don't need to eat often.