Chaoswar Saga 02. A Crown Imperiled (Midkemian Trilogy 2) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

The story itself is pretty good, in my opinion at least, but as others have stated all the errors, both typographic and grammatical as well as outright missing words and broken sentences that make no sense are just plain inexcusable. The proof reader, if any, was either asleep and /or blind. Either way they were not doing their job. Then add in the matter of the major character gaffe and it leaves fans of Mr. Feist's works sorely disappointed. To top it all off. Harper Voyager knew about these errors when the UK edition was released but chose to not bother to fix them for the US release. In fact, it looks like they flat out just used the UK edition for the US release as words use the British spelling such as colour and armour. I don't recall that being the case in previous Feist stories.

I checked the author's website and it states that the UK publisher was offering to exchange the defective copy of the book for a corrected edition, but that no such announcement had been made regarding the US edition. I took the time to email Harper Collins to inquire if we, the American readers, would have the same option. Below is the response I received.

--------------------------------
Good Morning,

There is a known defect in this book. A chapter in the book is incorrect and all of our inventory is like this (including the UK edition).

We are not reprinting the book in hardcover. However, the paperback edition will be corrected when it is published (march 2013).

Unfortunately, we cannot replace it. Please return it to the point of purchase for a full refund.

I am sorry of any inconvenience. Thank you.

R***** B*****
Customer Service
HarperCollins Publishers
---------------------------------
I consider this an absolutely unacceptable response on their part and a poor way to treat us the readers! "We goofed. Our bad. Tough luck!" I have collected all the hardcover volumes of the Midkemia novels over the years, so now my two choices are A) Return the book to Amazon for a refund, leaving a gap in my hardcover collection. Wait a year for the paperback edtion and hope they managed to actually get it right the second time around, or B) Keep the hardcover edition and have a flawed volume in my collection. They're only printing ONE run of the hardcover edition?! If not for these errors, would they done additional printings? Do they just not want to be bothered to fix the errors in the hardcover edition so they're washing their hands of the matter?

We the readers, who are paying customers, need to speak up and let them know how we feel! I think those who make these decisions at Harper fail to realize the power of social media these days in getting word out on matters such as this.

UPDATE:
I have received a second email which seems to reverse the statement of the first response.
----------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
We sincerely apologize for the errors you have found in Chapter 15 of Ray Feist's book, A CROWN IMPERILED. We are reprinting the book with corrected chapter. Please advise your name and mailing address and will send the revised edition to you very shortly.

Thank you for your patience,
---------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure if they'll also fix the myriad of other errors, but this is better than nothing.
---------------------------------------------------

Update number 2 (5/13/12): Sorry I didn't update here sooner but things have been very hectic and stressful for me as of late. I did receive a new copy of the book, but it was exactly the same as the copy I purchased here. No revisions. I contacted the woman who offered me a revised copy to inform her of this fact. At first she asked if I was "sure" it was the same as the bad copy, but before I could reply she then replied to me again stating that their shipping department sent me in error a copy of the bad version instead of the revised copy. Why do they still have the bad copies in their warehouse? Are they still selling them to the unsuspecting? Anyway, she then told me she was shipping me the corrected copy via UPS Next Day Air. I received it the next day along with a hand-written apology on a personalized note card and one of her business cards. I really appreciated this extra effort on her part to make things right.

I just don't have the time right now to proofread the whole book through, but they did fix the chapter 15 error by changing about two paragraphs or so to fix the continuity error of Pug being present on the Isle of the Snakes in chapter 4. I did manage to locate a couple of the other errors that were in the first printing, a misspelled word here and a broken sentence with a missing word there, so it would seem they only edited the couple of erroneous paragraphs in chapter 15 and left then it at that. I can only hope they make the additional corrections before they print the paperback edition next year.

I had been in contact with an admin at Mr. Feist's official site to inform them of the second US printing and offered replacement. He responded that they were seeking their own confirmation but had not as yet gotten a response from Harper Collins. You'd think the publisher could at least notify the author, no? I gave him the email address of the woman who contacted me about getting a revised copy, but I don't know if anything came of that. Maybe I need to play matchmaker and give her his email address.

As for posting the Harper Collins customer service manager's personal email address here, I think I should ask her permission first so she's not inundated with requests for revised copies of the book. Maybe they have a general email address better suited for this? I'll reach out to her and post the results here when I can get the time. Thank you for your interest in my review.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 3: Use orders@harpercollins.com for all requests to exchange the book for a revised copy.

I've been a fan of Feist's books for the better part of 20 years now, and it pains me to say it, but I am glad the series is ending soon. The last few books have gone downhill in quality and I really hope Feist pulls something special out for the finale.

The biggest problem I had with the book, however, was the horrible typos, errors, and overall oversights in editing. In the first 20 pages I caught no less than 3 passages that just make no sense, the worst of which is Arkan handing off the reins of his horse and dismounting two different times in the span of three paragraphs. Later Pug seems to think that Amirantha and Guldamendis are the same person since he calls Amirantha a taredhel demonmaster and then later in the same sentence compares him to "the star elf demon master, Guldamendis"

The story if fine, if nothing special, but the typos and errors make the book very difficult to read

As always the story is entertaining and the action brisk. One problem that I had was that there have been so many books over such a long period that I sometimes forget the relationships and the past events and politics. Maybe I should re-read the old ones or hope for a "guide to Midkemia." Maybe there should be more background provided in each volume.

What is unforgivable in this volume is the poor proofreading. British spelling is used throughout (the books are published in the UK first but they forgot to change to American spelling for the US release). A couple times the wrong word is used ("I mean you no hard" instead of "harm," "I never told anyhow else" instead of "anyone."). Lots of commas are after the wrong word, are missing, or should be periods or semicolons. Sometimes punctuation is inside quotes (US usage) and sometimes outside (UK usage). There are apostrophes where there should not be (it's, king's). I had to read a few pages twice to make sense of some statements, sometimes unsuccessfully.

The biggest goof is that the author changed his mind about which character should be in a situation but forgot to make it consistent. If you are confused when you read this, know you are not alone.

I blame the publisher and not the author for these mistakes.