If character names are impossible for time & place. 1 of worst is Noah Gordon's vastly overhyped 'The Physician'. Starts in London, *1020* (Cnut's reign): main character is "Rob J. Cole", with siblings William Stewart Cole, Anne Mary Cole, Jonathan Carter Cole, & Samuel Edward Cole…
There was also a character riding down Princes Street in Edinburgh, a decade before it was built. "Good luck with that," I thought, "Have you got a snorkel?", as it was then the Nor' Loch.
Dr Nuits de Young
Dr Nuits de Young
This is the kind of thing that shows a historical novelist doesn't actually know or care abt setting. Depiction of London was v much late-mediæval/Tudor, also, with trade guilds & c. But the names are 19-20C American/UK, incl fixed surnames, not Anglo-Danish era at all.
He's also Frank in 'The Bride!'
It's freezing the history at one point in time, as if that's the one moment that matters.
It's also v much abt privileging one layer of a building's history above others. At Stirling, if I recall correctly (used to live in the area), they stripped out a lot of the stuff relating to its more modern history as military barracks.
Was it before the Wachowski sisters came out?
There are some stunningly bad examples… Working in a charity shop in Fife 20-odd yrs ago, I came across some US historical novels set partly in area, which incl an old inn in 18C – in a post-WW2 'new town' – called by its 'new town' name, not those of the villages it was built around.
It worries me, tbh. It's one thing when you can furnish a place with actual objects of the time, or, better still, its original furnishings; but I'm unsure abt making what is, in effect, a theatrical set. I understand why – to bring site back to life – but…
It's more in the agricultural sense, comparison with seeds in a field.
