History CowboyBeBopAtHisComputer / Literature

* The 1998 sf textbook ''Decades of Science Fiction'' says "[[MarionZimmerBradley Bradley]]'s husband, Leigh Brackett, wrote ''The {{Darkover}} [[UniverseConcordance Concordance]]: A Reader's Guide'' (1979) to help sort out the complexities of the series." Leigh Brackett is a woman sf author who died in 1978. Bradley's husband and the author of the ''Concordance'' was Walter H. Breen.

* Andre Norton's ''Beastmaster'' series in general. Anyone who writes about it, but hasn't read it, assumes it's about a NatureHero in a loincloth, which it's not.

** This response is about the same for claims that he is jealous of Rowling's fame and gobs of money. This is a bit like trying to put down Richard Feynman by saying he wasn't as brilliant as Einstein.

* The book ''Futurespeak: A Fan's Guide to the Language of SF'' contains ''numerous'' examples where the author DidNotDoTheResearch. One of the most notable (if only for SF critic John Clute's alleged claim it had "more mistakes than words") defines "Slan" as superhumans from a series beginning with ''Galactic Lensman'', a 1925 novel by A.E. Van Vogt. (There was never a book called ''Galactic Lensman''; the ''{{Lensman}}'' series started in 1937, with ''Galactic Patrol''; the Slans aren't even ''from'' the ''Lensman'' series; van Vogt's name has a lowercase "v" on the "van"; van Vogt didn't write the ''{{Lensman}}'' series, EEDocSmith did; the book in which van Vogt created the Slans was called ''Slan'', and was published in 1948; and the entry is phrased as though "Slan" were the plural, which it isn't).

* Andre Norton's ''Beastmaster'' series in general. Anyone who writes about it, but hasn't read it, assumes it's about a NatureHero in a loincloth. [[CaptainObvious It's not.]]

* Andre Norton's ''Beastmaster'' series in general. Anyone who writes about it, but hasn't read it, assumes it's about a NatureHero in a loincloth. [[CaptainObvioius It's not.]]

* Sebastian Faulks' book on British fictional characters makes a reference to the play ''Abigail's Party'', citing "Abigail proposing to put the wine in the fridge" - but the "Abigail" of the play's title is a character who, like Godot, never actually appears onstage. The party hostess who puts wine in the fridge is called Beverly.

* TerryPratchett and NeilGaiman were interviewed for the book ''GoodOmens'' by a New York radio presenter who hadn't quite figured out that the book was fictional. The interviewer hadn't read the book, and was probably just given some cards with notes on them by an assistant. The presenter thought it was a book about the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter. (Which it is, but she never existed.) Sort of as if Gaiman and Pratchett had written a book about Nostradamus.

** To be fair to them, two kids do kill god (sort of).

** The most ironic part? Rowling herself made a casual refference to being raised ''catholic'' on a Dateline special they did about her. She mentioned that she and her sister used to volunteer at a cathedral when they were kids. Just because she's not completly open about her religious beliefs, doesn't mean she's a wiccan.

* A Game Informer preview of the then-upcoming ''Genji'' for Playstation 2 describing it as based on the ''Tale of Genji.'' Given that said work was a '''romance''', it would have led to a very different game than the actual result... which was based on ''The Tale of the Heike''.

* Games Workshop subsiduary "The Black Library" are guilty of this on the blurbs of ''their own books''. For example, the blurb of ''Redemption Corps'' refers to the main character as both 'Sergeant' and 'Captain' Mortensen. He's a Major.

* One review of the new ''[[TheSagaOfDarrenShan Darren Shan]]'' movie said that it was a rip off of ''{{Twilight}}. Cirque Du Freak'' came out ''five years'' before ''Twilight''. Screw that, the ''last'' book was out before ''Twilight''! And anyway, the only thing they have in common is vampires.

** Speaking of ''{{Twilight}}'', ABC World News did a story about fans' excitement for the second movie ''New Moon''. In it, while talking about the books and their popularity and impact, they showed the book covers. Which is all well and good... except for the fact that the covers were for the ''"House of Night" series'' and ''not'' the highly recognizable ''Twilight'' covers.

* ''The Metro'', when doing a piece on a village populated mostly by fans of Terry Pratchett who had gotten their road renamed to Peach Pie Street and Treacle Mine Road, offered a "comprehensive guide to the diskworld". Yes, with a "k". It then went on to compare Ankh-Morpork to London, listing the disc's newspaper as "The Truth Newspaper". Because that was the title of the book in which the ''Ankh-Morpork Times'' was introduced, and somebody couldn't even be bothered to read the freaking ''blurb''.

** The synopsis writer was probably thinking of a different Heinlein story, "All You Zombies," in which the protagonist not only becomes one of his/her ancestors, s/he becomes [[{{Squick}} all of them]].

** It mostly involves one author ripping off C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

* Games Workshop subsiduary "The Black Library" are guilty of this on the blurbs of ''their own books''. For example, the blurb of ''Redemption Corps'' refers to the main character as both 'Sergeant' and 'Captain' Mortensen. He's a Major.
* Though most educated people at least know that the original {{Frankenstein}} monster was intelligent, not a stupid brute, and that it was its creator who was called Frankenstein, not the monster, you can still count on them to say that the monster was made from dead body parts. The monster was more of an ArtificialHuman.
** Hold up. I read Frankenstein--I've never actually seen any of the movies--and I ''distinctly'' remember a mention of Dr. Frankenstein raiding cemeteries. He ''didn't'' dig up body parts and build the monster out of them? What ''did'' he make him out of, then, and why was he raiding cemeteries?

* The book ''Futurespeak: A Fan's Guide to the Language of SF'' contains ''numerous'' examples where the author DidNotDoTheResearch. One of the most notable (if only for SF critic John Clute's alleged claim it had "more mistakes than words") defines "Slan" as superhumans from a series beginning with ''Galactic Lensman'', a 1925 novel by A.E. Van Vogt. (There was never a book called ''Galactic Lensman''; the ''{{Lensman}}'' series started in 1937, with ''Galactic Patrol''; the Slans aren't even ''from'' the ''Lensman'' series; van Vogt's name has a lowercase "v" on the "van"; van Vogt didn't write the ''{{Lensman}}'' series, E.E. "Doc" Smith did; the book in which van Vogt created the Slans was called ''Slan'', and was published in 1948; and the entry is phrased as though "Slan" were the plural, which it isn't).

* Though most educated people at least know that the original {{Frankenstein}} monster was intelligent, not a stupid brute, and that it was its creator who was called Frankenstein, not the monster, you can still count on them to say that the monster was made from dead body parts. The monster was more of an ArtificialHuman.

* ''The Ottawa Citizen'': in its story about Askjeeves.com, it claimed that the website took its name from a butler in some P.G. Wodehouse books. ''TrivialPursuit'' made the same mistake. Jeeves was not a butler. He was a valet. Perhaps they were thinking of Beach.
** This seems OverTheTop on the nitpickometer, since most people are at best fuzzy on the precise distinction and Wooster himself says that Jeeves "can buttle with the best of them."
** Trivial Pursuit also thinks LordPeterWimsey's valet is called Butler. Sorry. It's Bunter.

* An Australian magazine claimed that [[TheMillenniumTrilogy Stieg Larsson]] was a neo-Nazi. This is especially puzzling since the man was a committed Communist who received death threats from far-right and racist organisations for his work against them, and depicted the Nazi characters in his first book as having kidnapped, raped, and murdered literally dozens of women, making one wonder whether the magazine's writers had any familiarity with him whatsoever.

* Though most educated people at least know that the original {{Frankenstein}} monster was intelligent, not a stupid brute, and that it was it's creator who was called Frankenstein, not the monster, you can still count on them to say that the monster was made from dead body parts. The monster was more of an ArtificialHuman.