thoughtfulBy page two, I was ready to fling the book across the room. Why? Because the author had chosen to scramble the spelling of a common-to-the-genre word in a way that made it look not only pretentious, but difficult to read. This is a personal bug-a-boo of mine, since I really do feel that spelling was standardized for a reason, and while I managed to soldier through, it colored my ability to sink into the text for several chapters.
(As an aside, seriously: not all words become more interesting and mysterious when spelled with a vestigial "y." The worst example I've ever seen was in a YA series full of "mermyds," and the fact that I made it through all three volumes is a testament to the power of raw stubborn.)
One reader of Rosemary and Rue posted a lengthy, positive review, more than half of which was taken up by complaints about the pronunciation guide. Specifically, I didn't write down the correct pronunciation of "Kitsune." It's a fair cop—if you pronounce the word as written in the pronunciation guide, you'll be saying it wrong—and it's been corrected for A Local Habitation, but it was, for this person, as bad as if I'd spelled Toby's name "Aughtcober" and then claimed it was pronounced just like the month. Bug-a-boos for all!
Kate recently delivered a long and eloquent diatribe on "back cover buzz-word bingo," which I really wish I'd had a video camera running for, because it was awesome. The summation is that she watches the back covers of books for certain "buzz-words," and, if the book works up to a magical bingo score, she doesn't read it. I do something similar with bad horror movies, since there are specific buzz-words that mean "soft core porn" and "gratuitous torture," and those really aren't what I'm watching the movie to see.
So what are your bug-a-boos? Terribly twisted spelling? Pronunciations that you don't agree with? Buzz-words oozing off the back cover and getting all over your shoes? How about heroines with ruby hair and emerald eyes who aren't appearing in an Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld fanfic epic? Inquiring blondes want to know!
November 3 2009, 18:21:56 UTC 7 years ago
I can live with some science and tech being wrong, especially in older books (e.g. 'lasers' which stun), and definitely with things which are "generally believed" to be wrong (I've seen SF fans who refused to read anything with FTL travel, beacuse "nothing can travel faster than light", which knocks out some 90% of the plots in the genre). Similarly, I can live with potatoes and tomatos in a 'mediaeval' (or even 'medieval') setting.
Spelling and grammar are big ones for me, I proff-rede everything because of my limited language parser and "large chunk at once" reading style. Although I don't object too much to sentences starting with conjunctions. Exclamations marks not in dialogue tend to bug me (yes, Agatha Christie, who managed to get over ten of them in narration on the first partial page!), in dialogue I'll put up with more of them as long as they aren't together.
Lots of names starting with the same letter and around the same length (see limited parsing above). Especially names which don't indicate gender (as a lot of invented names). Names which are used cross-gender (yes, there is probably a boy named Sue but it will distract me every time I see it).
Back covers which give away the entire plot. I'm tolerant of back covers in most other ways, I mostly ignore them because I go by personal recommendation a lot more often than I pick up books randomly.
Pronunciations in lists like yours don't bother me, I'm likely to ignore the list until I've finished the book (if a pronunciation is really important to the story the author should tell me /in/ the story, and give me a reason if it isn't an accepted or natural one: if you have a person named Featherstonehowe and it's important that he pronounces it Fanshaw (or that he doesn't), tell me!). The same with cast lists and genealogies and maps, I should be able to get enough information from the story without consulting references. (And R&R was good at that, I didn't feel any need to look at the pronunciation guide or a map.)
November 3 2009, 20:50:57 UTC 7 years ago