Susan, yep, that works better.

As for the writer in question, it might be interesting to find out who her agent is, and ping them. Your stuff is actually researched.

As for the writer in question, it might be interesting to find out who her agent is, and ping them. Your stuff is actually researched.

Hmm, I was thinking the opposite--that any agent or editor who'd accept that is wrong for me, because they clearly don't know or care about getting this stuff right. To me it's insulting to the readers--sort of, "Who cares if all the history is wrong? It's just a romance novel." Except of course that I've run across readers who say much the same thing.

And it reminds me that in some ways what I'm writing is bucking the current trend toward light-and-fluffy historicals, though most of them aren't nearly as bad as the example I cited--they don't so much contradict actual history as use it in a surface way. Which I know could eventually benefit me--I could be the author of that fresh, different book that's not like everything else on the market. But it makes it harder to get your foot in the door, and frustrating when you receive rejection after rejection while seeing books inaccurate enough to send you into a rage get published.

No, no, not ping them with your stuff; ping them to let them know the book is full of historical inaccuracies. But really, I'm just being spiteful. The usual move there is a polite (in my case, the word is chilly, since the old history tutor in me hates bad research) note to the author via her website or publisher, pointing out said inaccuracies.

All most agents care about is whether it's saleable or not.

Susan, the choir was just here nodding away. The state of research is very sad in many genres, not just historical. You may have heard the loud thump when I threw the Patricia Cornwell book about the nuclear plant across the room. She had the terrorists gun down a few guards and immediately have access to anywhere in the plant. I have been to the plant in question a number of times. Every door requires a card swipe. There are guards behind bulletproof glass who just have to push one button to lock all the doors. There is no way to get enough exposure to radiation in a nuclear plant for it to be instantly fatal, as happened in her book. Shall I go on?

Omigawd, yes, I've heard quite a few people (including my brother, the actual real live rocket scientist) on the subject of how fiction writers deal with nuclear plants. Do they honestly think security for this stuff is two guys with Saturday Night Specials?

But I think the woman Susan's talking about has no excuse at all. While Cornwell might not have been able to get access to a nuke plant, all this woman had to do was open an encyclopedia, or google a few dates. This is laziness.

Ah, but until 9/11 everything about nuclear power plants, including the layout, was on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website and Virginia Power gave public tours.

Ah, didn't know that. So all Cornwell had to do was look? No biscuit for her - that's also plain laziness.

I still think putting it up on a website is a stupid idea, but then, Joanna's dad was working for the UKAEA when I married him, and they had little free pamphlets you could pick up in the lobby, including one handy dandy little DIY called "how to build a nuclear reactor".

Um, no. Especially when I'm standing there reading this pamphlet the day after the London Times ran the front page story about how the UKAEA was running plutonium through London's main yards on anonymous trains.

The utilities were none too thrilled about some of the information the NRC had up, but the NRC's stand was that it was information submitted to the federal government and therefore covered under freedom of information. I'm really not all that worried about nuclear information getting out. In everything from terrorist attacks to making bombs, it's the execution that's the bitch.

Oh, I generally agree. But I think there's a huge difference between handing out "this is how we do it, with materials you can't get and bazillions of dollars you don't have" and "this is how you do it home! And here's where we hid the plutonium!"

Oh yeah, by the way, I totally failed on my NaNoWriMo again this year! Yay! Anyone top my massive 589 word count?