Writers Cannot Do Math: Two errors in the calculation of ages, and a third possible in the calculation of mass:
Marilyn de Noram is first described, through Leland's eyes, as a young woman who "couldn't have been much older than Leland" (two years older, it is later revealed). Later, Dulan de Laal says that Dillan de Laal is "fifteen years older" than Marilyn. In the family tree at the beginning of the book, Leland is 17 and Dillan is 27.
At another point, it is said that when Dulan was 25, Dillan was 2 and Dexter "a slight swelling in his mother's figure". Dillan is in fact listed as three years older than Dexter (27 and 24), but Dulan is listed as 52.
The Floating Stone at Laal Station is described as "a single piece of granite carved in the shape of a half cylinder" four meters high and five meters in diameter, and is stated to weigh thirty-seven metric tons. A solid granite half-cylinder of those dimensions would have a volume of thirty-nine cubic meters and weigh over one hundred metric tons. That said, the text does not strictly specify that the cylinder is solid — and a half-cylindrical granite shell fifty centimeters thick would have the specified mass.
both because the errors might plausibly be those of the characters and because it really doesn't matter.
I yanked this:
both because the errors might plausibly be those of the characters and because it really doesn't matter.