More on Jay Kristoff and Stormdancer

[karenhealey]

A brief follow up to my previous post, because dammit I really do have lots to do today:

From this interview:

How much research did you have to do with regards to authenticity?

Less than people seem to think. It's kinda odd - I've had people ask if I did a degree in Japanese studies, but the closest I've come is reading all six volumes of AKIRA in a week. Maybe I'd picked up a lot of detail through film and manga that I've consumed down through the years, but Wikipedia was really my go-to-guy. I have a friend who lives in Japan who I bounce ideas off too. I pay him with the promise of booze.

Good lord.

From a review that talks (among other things) about some of the misuse of Japanese language conventions, which would bounce me right out of the book even if the rest of it were superb and I had never read these interviews:

Let's start with my primary nails-on-a-chalkboard issue, the usage of the words "hai" and "sama", shall we? Here are a few examples of these words in action in Stormdancer:

Sama:
"That is more than fair." [...] "Ameterasu bless your kindness, sama."
"I want for nothing. Thank you, sama."
"He slew Boukyaku, young sama. The sea dragon who consumed the island of Takaiyama."
"Honor to you, great sama."
"What is Raijin song, sama?"
"Forgiveness, sama."
"Apologies, sama."

So. Yeah.

Comments

*headdesk*

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

Look, you know I'm not always the most clueful person in the room, but this is just... too outrageous to have words assigned to it.

I mean, if research is so (and you know I don't use this word lightly) goddamn hard for the poor boy (and the barely-concealed scorn for writers who, like, you know, WORK and stuff is a whole 'nother rant), all he had to do was to take careful note of how the Avatar dudes dealt with martial arts to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, a teeeensy bit more respect would make the book better.