It follows a privileged teenager who loses everything because he refuses to accept his father’s chosen career path. Think Dune without the dry language. But then Hadrian becomes stranded on a miserable planet after a failed escape attempt and the story slowed to such a crawl that I could not keep reading.
I thought returning to familiar ground with Fugitive Telemetry (Book 6 of the Murderbot Diaries) would break my reading slump. But I was wrong. While I successfully finished the novel, Fugitive Telemetry is easily the weakest of the series; so forgettable that I can’t be bothered to discuss it.
So, instead, I will briefly dissect a conversation I keep encountering in reading circles: anachronistic language. The internet describes anachronisms as chronological inconsistencies; that is to say, objects and elements popping up in the wrong historical periods. For instance, a wristwatch on a medieval knight, or sneakers in the Victorian era.
Anachronisms are problematic because they ruin a story’s authenticity. Yes, fantasy fiction does not strive for historical accuracy, but that does not mean audiences will overlook blatantly modern concepts in settings where they don’t belong. But does that include anachronistic language? Readers have yet to reach a consensus on that issue.
On the one hand, some people want purity in their fantasy. They use the genre to escape modern trials and modern language breaks their immersion. They side with Tolkien who supposedly avoided vocabulary that entered the English language after the 1600s while writing The Lord of the Rings because he wanted to drown readers in the antiquity of his fictional setting.
Others are more forgiving. First, they argue that modern language simplifies reading. Medieval fantasy that features authentic medieval dialogue can exhaust readers. Consider calendars and clocks.
The most popular fantasy novels use the same units of time we know today. Why? Because mainstream audiences understand minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Inventing brand-new units of time that utilize your fictional setting’s cultures, religions, and traditions is bound to alienate mainstream audiences.
Secondly, modern language allows modern audiences to relate to fictional characters. For instance, everyone knows what ‘smart- ass’ means. You know dozens of individuals that fit that description. So, a character using ‘smart-ass’ in medieval times does more to endear them to you than whatever made-up insult you can conjure.
I fall somewhere in the middle. Anachronistic language does not bother me. In fact, fantasy novels that are dripping in fake terminology annoy me. Let the basics stay the same. You don’t have to invent new words for sunlight or soil. That said, colloquialisms with components that don’t appear in your fictional world are unacceptable.
One Reddit thread gave the example of authors who use ‘Kangaroo Court’ in fantasy worlds with no kangaroos, or curses like ‘Jesus Christ!’ on alien planets with no Christianity. Where would those characters encounter such words? Modern slang in historical settings is particularly problematic.
I can’t help but roll my eyes at it, and if it keeps materializing, I will drop the novel. The key is to find a balance. If you are talking to an English-speaking audience, stick to terminology they understand without straying into the overly informal speech patterns specific to the 21st Century.
Keep in mind that even Shakespeare exaggerated; his language does not reflect the way people spoke during his time. If modern audiences are willing to give Shakespeare a pass for the inaccuracies in his language, they have no excuse for policing mild anachronistic language in modern fantasy fiction.
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