(no subject)

For the record (because it's annoying me still) the two not-quite-thought-through notions that kept throwing me out of the novel I was reading yesterday (and finished today, despite everything) were a tavern in the wilderness with no passing custom and town level specialisation of occupation in the same wilderness, with no-one to sell goods to. It's made very clear that the local population is miniscule and that there is no travel on the small unused track through the forest, too.

I kept on hitting mentions of this or that showing me that the writer had done a lot of solid research. Sometimes, though, it's better to have less work and more understanding. Not all the wonderful work that was put in was wasted. Just enough was, though, so that a work that should have been a classic kept on falling short.

My next research piece of fiction is going to be one that contains no seriousness whatsoever. Also no isolated hamlets in dark forests. I promise this to myself.