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A review I got today on Out of Season:
My primary difficulty with the story was the similarity of many of the names, but since that adds realism, I cannot really complain.
...
I confess to complete bafflement, as the only names I can think of in that story that come close to looking similar to me are Axartha and Ahoshta, and those two don't sound alike. (They are also both canon, incidentally -- Ahoshta Tarkaan is the Vizier during HHB, is an indirect plot driver (as the man Aravis runs away to avoid marrying), and has a minor speaking role in one scene, and Axartha is mentioned as having been the previous Vizier until his recent death.)
If we were talking To Every Thing There Is a Season, I would be less confused, because that story, in addition to having a main character named Ilgamuth and a secondary character named Ilvari, has a scene where a third character explicitly lists off a bunch of names beginning with the syllable "Il" and thus equates the two. But even there, I don't think the names are any more similar than, say, Gabriel or Raphael (to grab an example that tells you pretty much where my head was when I noticed that Lewis gave us two "Il" names in canon -- those being the aforementioned Ilgamuth and an ancestor of Aravis named Ilsombreh).
Hmm. Maybe it's the titles causing the confusion? There are a lot of titles thrown around in "Out of Season" -- Tisroc, Takhun, Tabek, Tolkaar, Tolkheera, Tarkaan, Tarkheena -- and if you read them as names instead of the rough equivalents of King, Queen, Royal Consort, High Priest, High Priestess, Lord, and Lady, I suppose that could get confusing.
But aside from what the reader may have meant by "the similarity of many of the names," I find it odd that anyone would review the middle chapter of a story to tell me that they think my use of names is a problem, but don't worry, they're not actually complaining about my use of names. Speaking as a person who can be fairly passive-aggressive in real life (just ask my coworkers), that is pretty damn passive-aggressive... particularly when it is the sum total of the review. *wry*
My primary difficulty with the story was the similarity of many of the names, but since that adds realism, I cannot really complain.
...
I confess to complete bafflement, as the only names I can think of in that story that come close to looking similar to me are Axartha and Ahoshta, and those two don't sound alike. (They are also both canon, incidentally -- Ahoshta Tarkaan is the Vizier during HHB, is an indirect plot driver (as the man Aravis runs away to avoid marrying), and has a minor speaking role in one scene, and Axartha is mentioned as having been the previous Vizier until his recent death.)
If we were talking To Every Thing There Is a Season, I would be less confused, because that story, in addition to having a main character named Ilgamuth and a secondary character named Ilvari, has a scene where a third character explicitly lists off a bunch of names beginning with the syllable "Il" and thus equates the two. But even there, I don't think the names are any more similar than, say, Gabriel or Raphael (to grab an example that tells you pretty much where my head was when I noticed that Lewis gave us two "Il" names in canon -- those being the aforementioned Ilgamuth and an ancestor of Aravis named Ilsombreh).
Hmm. Maybe it's the titles causing the confusion? There are a lot of titles thrown around in "Out of Season" -- Tisroc, Takhun, Tabek, Tolkaar, Tolkheera, Tarkaan, Tarkheena -- and if you read them as names instead of the rough equivalents of King, Queen, Royal Consort, High Priest, High Priestess, Lord, and Lady, I suppose that could get confusing.
But aside from what the reader may have meant by "the similarity of many of the names," I find it odd that anyone would review the middle chapter of a story to tell me that they think my use of names is a problem, but don't worry, they're not actually complaining about my use of names. Speaking as a person who can be fairly passive-aggressive in real life (just ask my coworkers), that is pretty damn passive-aggressive... particularly when it is the sum total of the review. *wry*
