Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
I read a review of Verne's Carpathian Castle, which pre-dates Victorian Dracula. It complained that it was unrealistic etc, as if it was set in contemporary times.
I'm old enough to have stayed in houses with no bathroom or inside toilet, or in one case it had those and no mains electricity. In my first job we typed the weekly report on a mechanical typewriter, though minicomputers and the first CP/M 8080 based homecomputers existed.
|
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. It's as though schools these days don't teach social history along with the glitzy bits, let alone logical thinking. I read a review of an alt hist novel once which 'called out' the author for not including Native Americans (is that the current term?) in a story set in a version of North America which was uninhabited apart from magical megafauna when Europeans arrived. Duh - why would there be Native Americans in an uninhabited continent?
As a teen we used to stay at my godmother's cottage which was a converted shepherd's hut in the middle of a field in Wales. It had an inside loo of sorts (you used to have to dig a hole in the garden at the end of your stay and empty the commode bucket into it), and when it rained, you had to wear wellies in the kitchen. There were mice in the roof - we'd hear them at night. Everything used to be damp when you first arrived as there hadn't been heat for a couple of weeks - it would take a couple of days to air out.
So yes, I agree history is far too clean!