VIE Rhialto

I received my third proofreading assignment for VIE a few weeks ago. It was a book I had read many years ago, Rhialto the Marvellous, fourth book in the Dying Earth series, and I had been pecking away at it over the last two weeks. I didn't finish up in time for the original deadline, but should finish up very soon and just be a few days late.

The things we are supposed to look for are text errors, such as skipped numbers in subchapters, misspellings, quotation marks out of place, etc. The hard thing is misspellings, as Vance, especially in his fantasy novels, often invents words, so it is hard to tell at first if the word is spelled wrong or invented. For example is poinct which we determined was just a Vance-ism.

Part of the reason I was late is I notice inconsistent British and American spellings in the text, about midway through. The text referred to colour and honor, so I made a note to be extra alert for this as I skimmed from the beginning again. Right now I'm not sure if the British or American spelling is preferred, so I'm noting all of the words like this.

This will probably be the last proofing assignment as the project is just about finished. I might try to get a hold of my favorite Vance novels (the Lyonesse series) in electronic format, as all three of my proofing assignments have been sent as PDF files.