glottal stops. *keels*

[erastes]

I guess I'm not a natural fantasy reader. I do enjoy them in the main, but I get itchy with unpronounceable names for one thing.  I've just been sent an ARC for review and it just has "names" in it that take effort. I suppose it is difficult to write a whole new world with new names for everything but it just makes me tired. Especially anything with glottal stops and X's in them, too.  I think that's what I like about Hobb's books - I like the idea of the upper class and middle class named after attributes: Chivalry, Verity, Shrewd, Blade, Riddle, Civil. I suppose I don't have the concentration these days to cope with Xe'ida and Riwgwil and names like that.

Just like to recommend this fic - Harry Dresden fandom  "The Affairs of Wizards" by gehayi which is BRILLIANT - and highly recommended if you are into Harry/Marcone and a fic that reads like Butcher wrote it himself - in fact my canon is now muddled, I'll be wondering why John isn't shagging Harry in the next book.) And she said that she couldn't write erotica. WRONG!!!

Comments

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think a number of people who choose names with apostrophes (whether for their characters or for their children) don't realize the apostrophe can represent a glottal stop. It doesn't excuse the abuse--it's one of my pet peeves, too--but I wonder how many people actually would like the way some of these names sound if they knew that the apostrophe sounded like a hiccup instead of just being decoration.

[crawling-angel.livejournal.com]

*icon love of teh Gro'mit* :P

I agree. When reading I tend to skip over names that tax my poor braincell. Too much skipping gives you a damned headache...and sore ankles!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I hate not being able to say the name in my head, too - that's what annoys me the most.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I have trouble enough naming my guys in historicals, i wish I could just hit the top row of the keyboard.

Weoruew Purwe!

[zehavit-lamasu.livejournal.com]

Well... I AM a natural fantasy reader and awkward names drive ME up the wall... it is one of the genre's most annoying plagues ¬_¬.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Glad it's not just me!

:D

I have the perfect icon answer to your icon!!!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I figure if Tolkien could write the best fantasy I ever read without giving the readers mental hiccups, so can other folks. T'Pring was ok - that was spoken - but when the names on the first page of a story are full of X's, apostrophes, and exotic" spellings of ordinary names, don't usually stick around for the second page. "Xrthe*foo of K'bang, First XZzzp of BEep-plrt, clutched his broodmate to his --" No. Can't face it. Get yerself some syllables, for heaven's sake!

It's the same with pen names--if it's too cutesy or contrived (unless it's a really clever pun) I probably won't even look at the first page. A friend who shall not be named uses a more mundane pen-name because her own is "Goodbody," and I admire her restraint!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

exactly - GRRM is the same, he takes normal names and just twists them a little bit, Eddard, Jaime, Osmynd etc.

I loved the way the Douglas Adams really took the piss out of this - or perhaps he actually invented the non-vowel name!!!

[kethlenda.livejournal.com]

I think that's part of why I like GRRM's stuff. People are basically running around with regular English names, and sometimes with names that are made up but sound like they could be regular English names.

I can also deal when everyone's name is French, though my BF's brain goes TILT if he tries to read something where the names are French.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - it was a very sensible way to manage a HUGE cast list.

[suryaofvulcan.livejournal.com]

In the AU novel I'm working on, I've taken existing names and twisted them a little - say by removing a consonant or changing a syllable. It makes them sound foreign, but still familiar. And I say them out loud. I don't see any point in making my (as yet hypothetical) readers work too hard to identify the characters they're reading about.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I think that's a good way of managing it.

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

I really wish fantasy writers (and others who use non-standard names) would provide a pronunciation guide at the end of the book. I can't even cope with Gaelic and it really bugs me, and it would only take a couple of extra pages.

And speaking of cutesy, I was put off the 'dragon' books for ever because the hero of the first book is called Aiken Drum. All I could think of every time I saw his name was the old nursery rhyme 'and he played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle'. Not conducive to concnetrating on the book. O.o

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Could have been worse. Could have been Aiken Back.

*snorts*

That's not a nursery rhyme I know!

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

Nursery rhyme or very old song. I only really know that first line which is even more irritating when it gets stuck on your brain...

*giggles* at Aiken Back.