The book first mistake found--by me.
Saturday, January 10, 2009 at 2:06AM Actually, I already discovered an odd discrepancy that isn't a mistake but rather just an inconsistency that preys on my tiny mind like a hobgoblin.
I'll reveal that in one of my future "director's commentaries."
This one is just a present-tense sentence WRT Bush-Cheney on page 14. I've tried several times to read it charitably as an arch construction but the grammatical mistake (okay, just in an historical sense since the book comes out officially on 5 Feb 09) is clear.
In effect, both Moscow and Beijing suspect the Bush administration is trying to erect close-in strategic missile defense capabilities against their own nuclear arsenals, raising the unholy specter of America trying to eliminate its vulnerability not just to terrorist strikes but to the very logic of mutually assured destruction itself, thus calling into question the entire stability of nuclear deterrence as a strategic bulwark against great-power war.
The next sentence begins badly in the same sense/tense, but I can fudge my guilt there because the sentence immediately shifts into past tense:
It is this kind of behavior that got us Russia threatening to target our missile defense sites and China staging a showy shoot-down of its own satellite--clear signaling that neither state will let America permanently tilt the correlation of strategic forces in its favor. Can we achieve such a permanent tilt in this manner? Not really.
I include those last two sentence for the pro-missile defense types who like to argue that our puny defense plans for Eastern Europe shouldn't scare the Russians: i.e., I acknowledge that, but that--as I continue in the next sentence--"only makes our behavior seem all the more provocative--as in, What else do the Americans have up their sleeves?"
I know, Neil, I know: in any book of this length, the mistakes inevitably emerge. But damn it! I caught and corrected the present-tense usages in the next para (on the Final Pass) and then cleverly did a universal search of the rest of the text--but only forward from that point!
ARRRRRRRRGH!
Still, the books reads great.
I will try not to spend a second longer on this nit--as much as they drive me nucking futs!
We pursue all such corrections in the paperback a year from now. Sean will set up a space for readers to send any other nits they discover.
Reader Comments (3)
But, yeah, don't beat yourself up.
The editing effort was solid and mostly effective.
No book is pristine.
The point, I think, is that every action has a corresponding reaction and we need to consider the other great power national interests, anticipating their next moves, like in a chess match. It reads fine enough, your point is clear.