Internal consistency

"Oh no.  Not the Senethar this early in the morning. I'm [Timmon] for my bed again." ... Still grumbling, he and Jame dutifully squared up as their ten-commands followed suit. Fire-leaping Senethar consisted of a series of kicks and blows.  Its kantirs could be practiced alone but when in class two opponents mirrored each other, starting slow, getting faster, not seeking to connect.  Jame's fist brushed past Timmon's ear, and his past hers.  Simultaneous kicks pivoted them away from each other, then back.  So far, properly speaking, they were engaged in the Senetha, the Senethar's dance form. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 27.

Then she [Jame] and Brier both got whites after fighting each other to a draw at the Senethar in a match that took the entire class period and left both barely able to stand. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 215.

"Well, there is that. I [Timmon] hope to get another white  for the Senetha, though Shade has."  Jame [Jame] wasn't surprised, given what she had seen of the Randir's skills.  She hoped she would also score in that discipline, but so far the class hadn't appeared on her daily roster. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 215-216.

In the three quotes, above, a tiny part of the sometimes-dark, always-quirky (particularly in the later books), and complex story of Jamethiel (Jame) Priest's-bane illuminates an unfortunately common lapsus in editing of sci-fi/fantasy books:  inconsistency within the storyline.  I can easily understand how such bits can crop up in an author's submitted manuscript as she or he moves bits around and changes wording during the writing.  However, an editor paying attention should really catch such mistakes.

The bit about "whites" relates to the giving of stones by instructors (three each, white and black) to cadets during their final testing at Tentir (a military academy).  White stones are given to the best cadets by each discipline's instructor, the blacks to the worst, though no instructor need give out all, or even any, of that instructor's six stones; most cadets receive no stones, white or black. White and black stones cancel each other out, and a cadet "passes" by receiving a non-negative score, with even a single white (canceled by no black) earning a cadet high honors and pride of placement in duty assignment after graduation.

While there may seem to be some ambiguity as to whether the above represents a lapsus or not, my reading of the full storyline makes me believe that the Senetha and Senethar are taught in the same class, by the same instructor; it is one discipline. If so, the second and third quotes contradict each other, as Jame won a white in Senethar, but just a half-page later, she is hoping to receive another white in the same discipline, which does not happen. Though this sort of lapsus requires quite-careful reading to catch, catching such is decidedly an aspect of an editor's task.

Though my focus in this essay is on internal consistency, the editor(s) and copy editor(s) of this book missed a fair few other bits in the above quotes, including missing commas in numerous places and using an adjective (slow) where an adverb (slowly) would be correct.  Finally, despite my promise to pick on a different publisher (Baen), I did not manage it, though I did use a different author's work.  I cannot really help it -- Baen's stable includes many of my favorite authors and the company has published a huge percentage of my favorite books.