Open Note to Charlie Stross
I don't suppose Mr S reads my LJ, but what the heck, press on.
Dear Mr Stross:
I love your books. I love your characters and your settings and your stories and your wonderful way of packaging them all up in language. I immerse myself in them and eagerly look for your next works. Glasshouse should have won, dammit.
BUT ...
I have a complaint. When you have a story told in USAn idiom and characters from USAn cities speaking in USAn, it is very anti-immersive to run into Briticisms. When I am reading in British, "torch" maps to "electric hand light" seamlessly, but when USAns are shouting at each other to grab torches, I will inevitably get an image of the villagers going at Frankenstein's castle. These misplaced bits drag me right up out of the story.
If you throw in a British bit that has somehow not appeared in Masterpiece Theater, Dr Who, or MI-5, I might even have to sit and figure out what you are talking about. "Ex-directory" was pretty straightforward from context. Someone moving an "instrument trolley" was a real tripper-upper, though. Trolley? Tracks? Hospital room? Wurruh? Once I got to "Oh, cart", then I tripped over the instruments that had been scattered while I was examining the trolley, because what were they going to do to the poor patient in that room? FYI, we would use "instrument" for an active tool like a retractor or a scalpel. A "monitor" is a passive, uh, monitoring device, which is what I decided you must mean. Plus, I don't think that most USAns would mention the cart at all, just shove that monitor aside and forget about it.
I urge you to give this some thought when you are preparing your next Clans novel.
Thank you for your attention,
MAO
Dear Mr Stross:
I love your books. I love your characters and your settings and your stories and your wonderful way of packaging them all up in language. I immerse myself in them and eagerly look for your next works. Glasshouse should have won, dammit.
BUT ...
I have a complaint. When you have a story told in USAn idiom and characters from USAn cities speaking in USAn, it is very anti-immersive to run into Briticisms. When I am reading in British, "torch" maps to "electric hand light" seamlessly, but when USAns are shouting at each other to grab torches, I will inevitably get an image of the villagers going at Frankenstein's castle. These misplaced bits drag me right up out of the story.
If you throw in a British bit that has somehow not appeared in Masterpiece Theater, Dr Who, or MI-5, I might even have to sit and figure out what you are talking about. "Ex-directory" was pretty straightforward from context. Someone moving an "instrument trolley" was a real tripper-upper, though. Trolley? Tracks? Hospital room? Wurruh? Once I got to "Oh, cart", then I tripped over the instruments that had been scattered while I was examining the trolley, because what were they going to do to the poor patient in that room? FYI, we would use "instrument" for an active tool like a retractor or a scalpel. A "monitor" is a passive, uh, monitoring device, which is what I decided you must mean. Plus, I don't think that most USAns would mention the cart at all, just shove that monitor aside and forget about it.
I urge you to give this some thought when you are preparing your next Clans novel.
Thank you for your attention,
MAO