historical romance can bite it. imo.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a historical romance solely on the basis of a review over at Dear Author, and even granted that historical romance is so very far from my thing, in this particular instance I was intrigued by the reviewer's observation that the story's conflict was almost entirely internal. I'm used to, and usually prefer to read (and write) stories with a much stronger external conflict, so I was curious how a story works out when the conflict is internal. Well, assuming it's not one of the wants-to-be-literary, all-talk-no-action, kind of Important Work that's doing its best to mimic a French film: lots of people talking about sex and philosophy but not really doing much other than drinking too much wine, angsting a bit, and chain-smoking.

Okay, so the historical romance had none of the chain-smoking and so on, and it was rather intriguing from a deconstructionist viewpoint to read a story that, yes, really was almost entirely internal, but... man. I didn't bother to finish it. Just couldn't, for two reasons.

( The first was more a symptom of how much I'm a modern person, and far from a romantic about any past era, really. )

Shorter kaigou: whomever likes this genre is welcome to it, because that was more than enough for me. Cripes, these stories make Clavell look like an unparalleled linguistic genius, and that's saying something.

from a comment elsewhere

Unfortunately the comment was anonymous, so I may redo these with credit if Anon steps forward & gives me name to use as credit. Will post here if that happens; in meantime, have a bit of someone else's brilliance: credit for quote goes to ticktocktober!

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Table created with accio.nu's icon table(less) generator

geography fail

Awhile back, Dear Author asked whether a book's location is important to readers -- as in, make you want to read, or not read. I had answered that what matters to me is is getting nods, the kind of local color that only a local would know. If I see that, I'm willing to forgive any blatant inaccurate locale details on the grounds that the author must've chosen willfully to change those for the sake of the story (like making a street one-way, or putting an apartment building where there's a park, that kind of thing).

Just a bit ago, I stumbled over the first three chapters posted online of a book published in '97, so I get that Google maps weren't at the easy fingertips of just anyone, but it's not like the internet (or libraries!) didn't exist at all. But still, in the second chapter, we've got:

zipping onto the Washington Beltway like the leader in a Grand Prix event

Alrighty, then. Who the hell calls it the Washington Beltway? It's simply The Beltway. (CP's contribution: "or the Capital Beltway".) This blares non-local at me. The localized (or local-assisted) version, to create a nod, might be "the Beltway's Outer Loop" -- which to a non-local might just be "some highway name of no import" while to a local it says "I did my research and know what locals call it!". Oh, and it also tells me, the local, that the person is going in a counter-clockwise direction around the beltway. ( But wait, there's more! A page later... )

and enough of that and I can't even make it all the way through chapter 2. Next!