I wouldn't call that cold
Feb. 26th, 2015 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inevitableentresolI'm reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I'm only a few chapters in, but so far it's a really good book.
Then I came to a part where an escape artist has to make an escape in 23 degrees Celsius water. He acts like that's a really big deal. The character specifically mentions that he tried to use the tap water at home to practice on, but it was nowhere near that cold.
He lives in Europe. And it's April.
Just this one tiny detail is throwing me so hard that I had to stop reading. Where I live in Europe, where it hardly even ever snows, tap water is usually 5-10 degrees Celsius at that time of year. It doesn't reach near 23 degrees unless we have a crazy heat wave at the end of a long hot summer.
Seriously. What parallel universe does this guy live in where 23 degree Celsius water could be called cold?
And why has this one tiny thing thrown me right out of the story?
Then I came to a part where an escape artist has to make an escape in 23 degrees Celsius water. He acts like that's a really big deal. The character specifically mentions that he tried to use the tap water at home to practice on, but it was nowhere near that cold.
He lives in Europe. And it's April.
Just this one tiny detail is throwing me so hard that I had to stop reading. Where I live in Europe, where it hardly even ever snows, tap water is usually 5-10 degrees Celsius at that time of year. It doesn't reach near 23 degrees unless we have a crazy heat wave at the end of a long hot summer.
Seriously. What parallel universe does this guy live in where 23 degree Celsius water could be called cold?
And why has this one tiny thing thrown me right out of the story?
no subject
Date: 2015-02-26 07:34 pm (UTC)Small things like that often kill one's suspension of disbelief much more than bigger, much weirder stuff: a guy who can fly/read minds/travel through time? I can get behind that. Getting wrong how the gravitational pull of the Moon works? Now that's ridiculous.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-26 09:48 pm (UTC)That's why it's so puzzling and off-putting. They repeat the temperature more than once. It can't even be a typo.
I can only assume all the editors used Fahrenheit in their daily life or else they couldn't help but notice it.
I have no problem suspending disbelief for all manner of sci fi nonsense, but this - my brain is caught up in it, like it's a detective story.
It's a good lesson. I'm in the middle of a fic about space travel right now, and I'm often tempted to skip on the research. (And then the rocket flew, because of SCIENCE!)
I don't care if I get some obscure technical fact wrong, but I wouldn't want to make such a strange everyday mistake like this.