Heptadecagon

As you all know, my three Rs are reading, (w)riting, and running. I'm taking a hiatus from running right now, in an effort to let my pubic (there it is again, Nikki!) symphysis heal. But I'm not letting up on the (w)riting and reading. If I did, I'd probably--no certainly--go insane. And while my reading is mostly for pleasure, I glean information from everything I read, and tuck it away for possible future use. I see what works, and what doesn't, whose style I might want to emulate, and where I can go in a new, different direction. I also look for mistakes--from everything grammatical to repetitive exposition or dialogue to basic lack of research. Sadly, I ran into a book recently that, while lauded as a wonderful tale and the first in a trilogy of YA books (now that is something that's starting to sound very repetitive), is lacking in the research department. Woefully lacking, if you don't mind my use of an adverb. Case in point? The author's use of ...