Can I come clean on something? I unabashedly read over people’s shoulders on the Metro. If I am within five feet of you, and can see your screen or page, I’m not just glancing at the title, I’m waiting for you to turn the page so I can find out what happens next to Captain JimBob or Darcy or Slorgoth the Magnificent.
But I have a problem with Slorgoth the Magnificent, in particular. You can read whatever you want to read, I’m not judging … it’s just that, for me, the following selection from a made-up fantasy book is a huge bummer:
Slorgoth the Magnificent furrowed his brows. “You don’t think,” he said to Ral Vermal, “that Kravmir might attack by night?”
“Who can say?” Vermal replied, hancing his belmoth torpidly, “It is nigh upon Miktomberfast. The Kravmir have never reverenced the Dun Lord, since the Eve of Wilberburn. These borogroves might try anything.”
The Keep of Shu was quiet above them, but Slorgoth could not shift the weight of worry upon his halberd. “To unleash the War Bundt-Riderkin upon Miktomberfast. Such a thing was unthinkable at the time of my grandfather, Hadrid the Bunglemere.”
“These are the days we live in, Slor,” sighed Vermal, cinching the last crisscrossikins of his belmoth and making the Sigil of the Ancient Bun. “These are the days.”
AUGH.
AUGH AUGH.
I’m sorry. I love me some fantasy or science fiction as much as the next nerd, but have you seen this stuff? I snoop on people who are reading pages of prose like this frequently, and at a certain point, I just have to wonder … at what cost a “realistic” world?
I think a lot of fiction would be better if people stopped wondering about whether to date their events from the Year of the Great Crossing vs. the Annulment of the Great Friction and spent a little more time making people sound like people, instead of jargon-spouts.
(Okay, I’m through ranting for now.)
//EDIT: Kudos to @awtiren, who pointed out this diagram. Once again, XKCD hits the gravpalath on the widdenmark.