I actually love Sherwood Smith, but I think her strength lies more with fantasy (especially her Sartorias-Deles series). Although I did find her post-apocalyptic novel (or at least the first draft of it, which I beta-read) very intriguing.
Anyway, my point is, I think her writing works much better in a fantasy setting, where everything, from plot to villains to names/language work much better (even when we have names which are hard to pronounce, she usually tells us how to pronounce them - usually by having actually interesting conversation on how people from different places pronounce them differently). But maybe I'm biased.
this book sounds... entertaining. Still, I think I'll read your review, not the book XD
Though I will add: Tah-lis Yi--mar-more and Dole Ji-har is not so hard to me to pronounce. though I admit, I grew up in Hawai'i near a street called A'alapapa, pronouncing words like Kalanianaʻole and having no issues saying things like 'Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono' ;)
The thing is, usually apostrophes indicate a glottal stop. Which you can have between vowels, as in Hawaiian, but between a 'Y' and an 'm' or between an 'l' and a 'j'? Not in any human language I know of, and it defies basic phonetics.
They could have, but to vastly simplify a lot of linguistics classes, there are lots of sounds the human mouth is capable of making that are rarely or never seen in human language, because language evolves for ease of use. You never see a word like "kglmnfnch" because while you could learn to pronounce it, sticking vowels between consonants is a natural thing to do that makes speech and comprehension easier.
Hence, the arbitrarily-inserted glottal stop sci-fi/fantasy authors are so fond of because apostrophes look "exotic."
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But anyway. Thank you for the entertaining reviews. :)
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Seriously, if you are ever curious, I can send you a coupon. You might find the Aphorisms interesting. Or at least, different. :)
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Anyway, my point is, I think her writing works much better in a fantasy setting, where everything, from plot to villains to names/language work much better (even when we have names which are hard to pronounce, she usually tells us how to pronounce them - usually by having actually interesting conversation on how people from different places pronounce them differently). But maybe I'm biased.
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Though I will add: Tah-lis Yi--mar-more and Dole Ji-har is not so hard to me to pronounce. though I admit, I grew up in Hawai'i near a street called A'alapapa, pronouncing words like Kalanianaʻole and having no issues saying things like 'Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono' ;)
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Hence, the arbitrarily-inserted glottal stop sci-fi/fantasy authors are so fond of because apostrophes look "exotic."
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