I liked the first book well enough, though the first half was much stronger than the second. But she should have stopped at one.
And I see no problem with authors creating entire fictional languages. If it's good enough for Tolkien and the Klingon fans, there's no excuse; if they just switch to a slow shift at Starbucks, that will give them all the time they need. Sure that may be a bit too much effort for the producers of Extruded Fantasy Product, but those people are switching over to Urban Fantasy and Supernatural Romance anyway, so its all good.
We could also use more annotated fantasy books along the lines of "The Phoenix Guards", especially if the translator is intrusive and annoying. I can easily see a short chapter largely being taken up with the footnotes including the translator's ongoing battle with other translators:
"And while on the other hand Pospernicus states that this passage is really a convoluted play on words indicating a romantic subtext, it must be remembered that Pospernis is a Thraxian, and as such are unable to think past tier groins. It should also be noted that Upandiso completely misses the context in his translation, thereby showing that he should have spent more time on his studies, and less on debauchery and brawling in the street."
Now I want to see a fantasy book on the lines of "the Princess Bride", where the main character turns out to be the translator, not the alleged characters he's writing about.
Or, the author could simply avoid using puns or commenting homophones. There was no need for Lindgold to point out the correlation, since it didn't add to the character, plot, or well, anything.
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And I see no problem with authors creating entire fictional languages. If it's good enough for Tolkien and the Klingon fans, there's no excuse; if they just switch to a slow shift at Starbucks, that will give them all the time they need. Sure that may be a bit too much effort for the producers of Extruded Fantasy Product, but those people are switching over to Urban Fantasy and Supernatural Romance anyway, so its all good.
We could also use more annotated fantasy books along the lines of "The Phoenix Guards", especially if the translator is intrusive and annoying. I can easily see a short chapter largely being taken up with the footnotes including the translator's ongoing battle with other translators:
"And while on the other hand Pospernicus states that this passage is really a convoluted play on words indicating a romantic subtext, it must be remembered that Pospernis is a Thraxian, and as such are unable to think past tier groins. It should also be noted that Upandiso completely misses the context in his translation, thereby showing that he should have spent more time on his studies, and less on debauchery and brawling in the street."
Now I want to see a fantasy book on the lines of "the Princess Bride", where the main character turns out to be the translator, not the alleged characters he's writing about.
Or, the author could simply avoid using puns or commenting homophones. There was no need for Lindgold to point out the correlation, since it didn't add to the character, plot, or well, anything.