The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And it happens constantly today. If you're reading a novel set in, say, 1810, the characters will look/speak/act as though they are in 2022. It's...frustrating. I don't mind the author "softening" what would be infuriating attitudes, for the reading audience, a bit or rather, tamping them down, but pretending that they don't exist? Nyah.

Hitch

Indeed. Conversely, I'm always impressed when a character expresses viewpoints that are progressive for the time, and does so more or less in the language of the time. My patience and tolerance for lazy writers who just dump modern characters as is into an 'historical' setting is now itself history.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And it happens constantly today. If you're reading a novel set in, say, 1810, the characters will look/speak/act as though they are in 2022. It's...frustrating. I don't mind the author "softening" what would be infuriating attitudes, for the reading audience, a bit or rather, tamping them down, but pretending that they don't exist? Nyah.

Hitch

I recall one fantasy series set in a Bronze Age-like world I read back in my paper book days. It was not a particularly good series overall, but what I liked was the refreshing behavior and attitudes of its characters, appropriate for their setting. And one reviewer actually complained about that! They said they were unable to like the main character, because he didn't have 21st century values, and hoped he would "improve" in subsequent books. (Luckily he didn't ). Really.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I recall one fantasy series set in a Bronze Age-like world I read back in my paper book days. It was not a particularly good series overall, but what I liked was the refreshing behavior and attitudes of its characters, appropriate for their setting. And one reviewer actually complained about that! They said they were unable to like the main character, because he didn't have 21st century values, and hoped he would "improve" in subsequent books. (Luckily he didn't ). Really.

Well, it's hardly surprising today.

Hitch

[DNSB]

Or the comment from one person on a quote from A Vindication of the Rights of Women that the author lacked knowledge of the real issues of women's liberation. Pointing out the book was written in 1792 didn't help since that made the book irrelevant along with much other nonsense that nothing written before the 21st century could hold any relevance.

I will admit my quote in response was not appreciated.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."—George Santayana

[Apache]

I like my historical books historically accurate. If they want modern values in a historical book maybe, they should write time travel books.
Apache

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And it happens constantly today. If you're reading a novel set in, say, 1810, the characters will look/speak/act as though they are in 2022. It's...frustrating. I don't mind the author "softening" what would be infuriating attitudes, for the reading audience, a bit or rather, tamping them down, but pretending that they don't exist? Nyah.

Hitch

On the converse, reading older sci-fi novels leads to another amusement.

I recently read Asimov's Foundation... supposedly takes 10,000 years in the future where humans have colonized the entire galaxy, and yet everyone is still smoking cigars and using microfilms and the sheer lack of females. Is this 10,000 years into the future or 1950s America?

[DiapDealer]

I was once reading a fantasy novel (not at all based on our Earth/Universe) in which a character used the word "quixotic" in dialogue.

I suppose I could have forced myself to believe that someone similar to Cervantes might have been born in that world, became an author, and subsequently wrote of a character named Bill Quixote. And I suppose it's possible that Bill Quixote technically could have become so famous for undertaking impossible, ridiculous tasks that his surname inspired a new adjective in the local language. But I chose to stop reading it instead.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

On the converse, reading older sci-fi novels leads to another amusement.

I recently read Asimov's Foundation... supposedly takes 10,000 years in the future where humans have colonized the entire galaxy, and yet everyone is still smoking cigars and using microfilms and the sheer lack of females. Is this 10,000 years into the future or 1950s America?

Well, history tends to repeat itself. It's just 1950s America come round again.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

On the converse, reading older sci-fi novels leads to another amusement.

I recently read Asimov's Foundation... supposedly takes 10,000 years in the future where humans have colonized the entire galaxy, and yet everyone is still smoking cigars and using microfilms and the sheer lack of females. Is this 10,000 years into the future or 1950s America?

When I was a kid, I read a book written at a time when slide rules were still in widespread use, but computers had been invented (and were huge power hungry monsters).

In the book, a spaceship pilot was doing complex interstellar navigation calculations with a 3 foot diameter circular slide rule.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

When I was a kid, I read a book written at a time when slide rules were still in widespread use, but computers had been invented (and were huge power hungry monsters).

In the book, a spaceship pilot was doing complex interstellar navigation calculations with a 3 foot diameter circular slide rule.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I recall one fantasy series set in a Bronze Age-like world I read back in my paper book days. It was not a particularly good series overall, but what I liked was the refreshing behavior and attitudes of its characters, appropriate for their setting. And one reviewer actually complained about that! They said they were unable to like the main character, because he didn't have 21st century values, and hoped he would "improve" in subsequent books. (Luckily he didn't ). Really.

I don't mind fantasy series where they use more modern language (unless it is an alternate history or something). Even 'quixotic' would be okay for me in a fantasy novel. I mean, it is an imaginary world.

What does pull me out is the use of slang that will be dated in a couple of years.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I was once reading a fantasy novel (not at all based on our Earth/Universe) in which a character used the word "quixotic" in dialogue..

Since the character in question would not have been speaking English at all 'in real life' as it were, I see this as a Babel Fish thing, the character's words being translated into words the reader would understand. It would actually be interesting to see how that word was translated if the book was available in other terrestrial languages

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't mind fantasy series where they use more modern language (unless it is an alternate history or something). Even 'quixotic' would be okay for me in a fantasy novel. I mean, it is an imaginary world.

What does pull me out is the use of slang that will be dated in a couple of years.

More modern language in a fantasy world doesn't bother me either, unless there's a word people in that setting should definitely not know (adrenaline in a medieval setting was one example; there are others). Characters having values and thoughts clearly not fitting for their level of civilization and not explainable by any other factor (like post-apocalyptic world, visiting aliens or whatever) bothers me far more. Even imaginary worlds must have some inner logic, at least for me. I don't much like total whimsy without any rules or logic.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Since the character in question would not have been speaking English at all 'in real life' as it were, I see this as a Babel Fish thing, the character's words being translated into words the reader would understand. It would actually be interesting to see how that word was translated if the book was available in other terrestrial languages

That's how I would see it too. Now a character in a medieval fantasy world using a 20th century scientific term would really disrupt any suspension of disbelief.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't mind fantasy series where they use more modern language (unless it is an alternate history or something). Even 'quixotic' would be okay for me in a fantasy novel. I mean, it is an imaginary world.

What does pull me out is the use of slang that will be dated in a couple of years.

I'm inclined to agree, especially if you consider just how much of our language is derived from historical context ... which would be everything.

Here's a list of Words That Shakespeare Invented, and Eight Words Invented by Charles Dickens (And One That Wasn’t) The heritage of some of these might be arguable, but you get the point, I hope: anyone that does not share our history will not share our language, but I'm not about to learn a whole new language every time I pick up a new fantasy.

But I do think there will be a point where most readers are likely to find too-modern language use jarring - unless the author is doing it for deliberate effect. And much of this is down to reader expectation: an other-world fantasy with knights and swords seems unlikely to have those knights getting down and hanging with their mates, even though there is no reason why they shouldn't.

Obviously, different readers have different expectations. For example: I find quixotic is sufficiently divorced from its origins to be acceptable as just part of our language, whereas nerd might give me pause if it appeared in an other-world fantasy. The origins are like 150 years apart, so I presume that somewhere in there is the fuzzy line describing what to me is part of English versus what constitutes modern home-planet vernacular.

Adrenalin is a curious example. Even in modern Earth-bound fiction I often find its use as a synonym for getting excited to be troubling. In historical fiction with a first person perspective it would definitely feel wrong, but with an omniscient perspective probably not any worse that its use in a contemporary setting. (It's not like adrenalin only came into existence with the word.)