Kicked Out Again

[akirlu]

I think I may need a *facepalm* icon.

So there I am, this morning, on the bus, happily reading a bit of Bear's Dust as a break from studying and I'm really enjoying it because she has a nice light touch with the poetry of language, and there's a lot of crunchy stuff going on in the interstices and then I get to the passage where the protagonists eat silkworms for breakfast and, *bam!* *woah!* I'm kicked out of the book. Not for the reason you might suppose. I'm not especially grossed out by descriptions of eating bugs, especially not after some fairly graphic descriptions of physical recovery from a bacterial infection. No. But getting basic science stuff really wrong is distracting. In particular, larvae =! pupae. In fact, they're different life stages. I'm sorry if that makes you work harder to come up with different words to use for the same thing, but it's one or the other. Also, pupae is at least two of them. If there's only one, it's a pupa. This is like 5th grade science, right? Wah.

Otherwise lovely book so far...

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Besides which, the pupae are fine (for some flavor of that word) to eat [if I'm remembering the technical terms correctly] -- assuming that this is done soon after they're boiled and the silk is unwound from around them. (Or if the cocoon is cut open -- which is done in certain circumstances, resulting in short pieces of fiber, which are commonly used as fluffy filling in clothing & futons.) Moreover, it's not uncommon for more eggs to be laid, and more larvae/worms to hatch, than the supply of mulberry leaves can support. And yes, of course meat protein generally takes priority over fiber when push comes to shove.

(I note, with no surprise, that you're a Quibbler. Welcome to the Club.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Quibblers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your...er, hmm, not sure what goes best here. Must give it a think.