Why is it that authors don't spend more time on the details? Blue Angel is a perfectly fine novel, a good read until the author spoiled it for me. I really was enjoying it until I came upon this stupid exchange. The scene is the protagonist and his student. He's agreed to give her a ride to the next town to get a new computer.

“Do you know what kind of computer you want?” “I don’t care about speakers and graphics. Fancy video games. All I want is a big screen and lots of memory so I don’t have to keep deleting stuff to put more of the novel on it. That’s what happened with the last one.” Swenson says, “You used up all the memory?” “I write a lot,” Angela says.

Oh yes that text takes up shitloads of memory. The book was written in 2000 when the typical computer had more than enough memory to accommodate any novel. Maybe Francine is still using with an Apple II with 48K of memory. I don't believe it, but I don't want to think she was so careless as to make such an error. Or maybe she's using the famous WOPR that was nearly taken down by a game of Tic-Tac-Toe in War Games. I read on, I finished the story, and it has much to recommend it. It's an excellent satire of academia, mostly English and writing departments. The author Francine Prose has spent a good part of her life teaching writing and her dialogue rings true, that is most of it does. It's all in the details.