On authors who make up arbitrary units of measurement

[erratio]

For anyone who cares, the author in question is Carol Berg. I'd just read an excerpt from one of her novels after Zhe told me that he borrowed a book of hers from the library. The following conversation ensued.


me: there was far too much exposition in it though, and i really hate it when authors come up with arbitrary units of measurement to make hteir world feel more foreign

17:38 Zhe:
i would prefer if authors used metric units of measurement

 Zhe: like

17:39 he wielded a huge sword of 95 cm

 me: actually i lie, the excerpt i read before was also in first person

  lol i don't mind imperial that much

17:40 at least we're somewhat familiar with both imperial and metric

 Zhe: that's true

 me: whereas i don't have any idea what a quant is and it just makes one more thing you need to explain to me before i can start appreciating the parts of the story that i care about

17:41 Zhe: u sure it's not a real unit of measurement?

 me: considering that she defined it immediately afterwards, almost certainly not

  apparently its the length of a knucklebone

  or somesuch

 Zhe: to make it extra difficult, they should use a logrithmic unit if measurement for lengths and weights

17:42 me: or obsolete ones like links and chains..

  haha

 Zhe: or to the power of some irrational number

  like e

 me: his sword was 3 times the golden ratio phi in units

17:43 or the new way they like to measure metric, in terms of vibration of caesium atoms or whatnot

  or the amount of time it takes light to travel X distance

 Zhe: or in terms of mythical creatures that they themselves invented

17:44 like "it would have taken a gobberwookie three seconds of the fourth moon's lunar time to travel it's breadth

 me: heh i think you're onto something

17:45 i had to wait thrice the fourth moons orbit before meeting her

17:48 Zhe: i had to wait thrice the eclipse of the third and seventh moon, whereby the third moon has an orbital frequency 1/pi of the second second moon, and the seventh moon had an orbital frequency of 1/e of the fourth moon, and the second and fourth moon eclipses when the jabberwokkie migrates across the great plains of elih

Comments

[lotusvine.livejournal.com]

I read Carol Berg's Transformation and enjoyed it, but don't recall the made-up units of measurements (assuming that was the book in question.) The sequels were a little bit disappointing, as I thought they drifted off into a tangent, like this comment here.)

In my current writing, I was using imperial as the basic measurements - technically it should be cubits or whatever, but imperial is more intelligible and isn't as jarring as metres in a raw, typical fantasy setting.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Hmm the one I read the excerpt from was about some guy who steals a bunch of maps and is addicted to pain or something like that, and it was actually quite enjoyable (silly units of measurement notwithstanding). She won a bunch of awards for it. I'm guessing the Transformation one is the 4-book series that starts with the premise that magic is banned? The blurb turned me off, since magic being banned and the protagonist either being a mage or being forced to protect one is practically a subgenre in itself.

Basically, I don't think it matters what units you use, as long as it's somewhat intelligible to the reader. If you want to make your world seem more exotic there are better ways to do it than to rename basic terms.

[lotusvine.livejournal.com]

Four book? I've thought it was a trilogy. Maybe there's a sequel. Argh!

Transformation is essentially about a former mage who's the slave of an ruler, a young Alexander the Great type. It does fit into the subgenre you mention, but is well told. The relationship between them, and how the ruler is slowly changed due to his slave's influence. The friendship/relationship was quite well done. I recall what ruined it for me (now that I'm thinking of it again) was that the secret culture of demon-hunting mages was hiding in a My Secret Valley only a few days away from the Imperial capital, which seemed rather ludicrious to me.

The sequels are more about what the demons are/where they come from, which was a rather large shift in gears from the strong character-based work in the first book. I liked the ideas, but it didn't have what I liked in the first book. Will investigate fourth book, however.

I've got the books somewhere. Will dig them up if I remember.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Ha, no hurry. I'm not allowing myself to read new cool things until after this month (my exam is conveniently on the 30th Oct so are my assignments more or less, for easy planning)

I would appreciate getting to read them at some point though :)