The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't mind the disclaimer. It usually means 'look, this book was written long ago and people behaved differently' and I would rather see that than have the book bowdlerized like the big discussion about Christie and Dahl a while back.

This one make points about mobile phones and stuff and only incidently attitudes. But it's just a standard thing because it doesn't seem relevant to the book other than a call box is used rather than a hotel phone (privacy). It's not a YA novel written in 1982.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That same 1982 SF novel I wrote about a while back (with no personal comms in the 22nd cent.) also had a hostess offering ashtrays to her guests, in the living room. That gave me a jolt. Well, I don't really know what the contemporary customs in other countries are, but indoor cigar/cigarette smoking in the 22nd century?

Oddly there was only a narrow era when it was acceptable to smoke in the living room. Books before WWII would only have smoking in a particular room or outdoors and by 1980s it was becoming anti-social, a visitor wouldn't light up unless it was suggested.
But my dad gave it up in 1960s and was against it on health grounds. Many schools by late 1960s had forbidden the teachers to smoke in class (the staff room could be a fug!).

[hildea]

Originally Posted by Quoth

...and by 1980s it was becoming anti-social, a visitor wouldn't light up unless it was suggested.

Hm, I don't remember it like that, but of course there were probably differences from place to place. I was a teenager in the 80s in Oslo, Norway, and when coming home from a party (which usually was in the home of someone with understanding parents) I usually had to wash my clothes and hair because I was reeking of cigarette smoke.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by hildea

Hm, I don't remember it like that, but of course there were probably differences from place to place. I was a teenager in the 80s in Oslo, Norway, and when coming home from a party (which usually was in the home of someone with understanding parents) I usually had to wash my clothes and hair because I was reeking of cigarette smoke.

In the 80s indoor smoking was pretty common here as well. But a SF writer should have so much foresight as not to assume people still smoke indoors (or at all) 200 years later. After all, it was well known by the 80s that smoking was harmful.

I don't remember smoking people in the future from other SF novels, unless they were written in the first half of the 20th century.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

While it's irritating, I can find it in my heart to forgive it if the point is to derail criticisms of content based on current mores. Not that there are any commercial considerations to doing so!

As for the glossary, if it's at the back so I won't see it until I'm done anyway, I'm good. Although I do nurse a resentment regarding the practice of dumbing down British books for the perceived idiocy of the American reader.

I have two options for reading something UKish that I don't know. I can look it up or I can ask my wife. But I'd rather have it in the book then have it converted for Americans.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't mind the disclaimer. It usually means 'look, this book was written long ago and people behaved differently' and I would rather see that than have the book bowdlerized like the big discussion about Christie and Dahl a while back.

A good example of this is The Muppet Show running on Disney+. Disney has not edited the shows. They have added a disclaimer were appropriate. Which I think is the way to do it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Oddly there was only a narrow era when it was acceptable to smoke in the living room. Books before WWII would only have smoking in a particular room or outdoors and by 1980s it was becoming anti-social, a visitor wouldn't light up unless it was suggested.
But my dad gave it up in 1960s and was against it on health grounds. Many schools by late 1960s had forbidden the teachers to smoke in class (the staff room could be a fug!).

I would be complaining to the Principal about the teachers smelling like a used ashtray.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

Although I do nurse a resentment regarding the practice of dumbing down British books for the perceived idiocy of the American reader.

Two times I had an issue with translating British to 'merican were:

A book I read in the '90's where the hero kept putting on a jumper. Pre-internet, I just couldn't figure out what purpose it served. There weren't enough context clues for me to figure out 'sweater'

Just recently I read Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss about humans in a generation starship that have devolved back to hunter/gatherer level after a long-ago mutiny. The heroes carried torches and given the context of the story, I had a tough time figuring out what that meant.

[ownedbycats]

When reading an unedited edition of a book originally from the late 1800s or early 1900s, I was a bit concerned about the characters stuffing [a bundle of wood, but also a slur for gay people] into a fireplace, because before that I'd only ever seen the word used as a slur.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That same 1982 SF novel I wrote about a while back (with no personal comms in the 22nd cent.) also had a hostess offering ashtrays to her guests, in the living room. That gave me a jolt. Well, I don't really know what the contemporary customs in other countries are, but indoor cigar/cigarette smoking in the 22nd century?

Why not? It was completely normal in 1982, and at that point there was no real reason to think that would change.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Two times I had an issue with translating British to 'merican were:

A book I read in the '90's where the hero kept putting on a jumper. Pre-internet, I just couldn't figure out what purpose it served. There weren't enough context clues for me to figure out 'sweater'

Just recently I read Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss about humans in a generation starship that have devolved back to hunter/gatherer level after a long-ago mutiny. The heroes carried torches and given the context of the story, I had a tough time figuring out what that meant.

Even if you didn't get torches meaning flashlights, you'd at least get torches meaning fire on a stick.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

When reading an unedited edition of a book originally from the late 1800s or early 1900s, I was a bit concerned about the characters stuffing [a bundle of wood, but also a slur for gay people] into a fireplace, because before that I'd only ever seen the word used as a slur.

You've never seen the word used to mean cancer sticks (aka cigarettes)?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Why not? It was completely normal in 1982, and at that point there was no real reason to think that would change.

If a writer can't imagine things changing in 200 years, what's the point of writing SF at all? Stick to contemporary fiction then. I expect some imagination from authors who write speculative fiction.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If a writer can't imagine things changing in 200 years, what's the point of writing SF at all? Stick to contemporary fiction then. I expect some imagination from authors who write speculative fiction.

In the 1973 movie Sleeper, a heath food store owner is cryogenically preserved for 200 years and wakes up to a world where medical doctors are touting the health benefits of tobacco smoking.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Why not? It was completely normal in 1982, and at that point there was no real reason to think that would change.

No, it was obvious by 1960s it was killing people and Something Would Be done.
Playground nicknames in the mid 1960s: coffin nails (a pun).

Big Tobacco was already spending a fortune on lobbying.
In 1929, Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany, published a paper containing formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer–tobacco link.

Richard Doll in 1950 published research in the British Medical Journal showing a close link between smoking and lung cancer.[32] Four years later, in 1954 the British Doctors Study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors over 20 years, confirmed the link, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.[33][34] In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health demonstrated the relationship between smoking and cancer.[35] Further reports confirmed this link in the 1980s and concluded in 1986 that passive smoking was also harmful.

Wikipedia
So the writer was careless, or a keen smoker.