I had the slight barrier when reading it of, uh, being a translator. (But not an interpreter, which is what Lydia actually does although not what Robson calls it, but nobody outside the field ever gets that right anyway.) Most crucially, that meant being aware that it's standard practice that interpreters often work in pairs in this kind of situation, so they trade off every 20 minutes or so, because it's mentally exhausting work! Even in our world, where they don't get physiologically drunk as a hazard of doing it, lol. And that would have absolutely kicked out the foundations of the plot. Which meant that I kept wanting Robson to give us a reason why they weren't working in a buddy system, instead of making Lydia and all her peers get drunk for an evening of solid work. (Cultural reasons on the Logi end why they insist on only working with one? Too few qualified translators to manage it? Robson could absolutely have justified it easily for plot purposes!! But the fact that he never mentioned it, along with some other details I've forgotten since, made me kind of suspect he never actually talked to any interpreters about how their job actually... works in real life.)
But that truly was a minor side nitpick about what was a really fun book, for me if not necessarily for Lydia. Loved the worldbuilding! Loved the Lydia-Madison team-up! Loved the increasingly complicated Lydia-Fitz dynamics! Had a great time! And for all my nitpicks, it's still pleasant to have a book where interpretation is a central focus and being done by humans; I loved that part, too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2024-09-10 05:38 am (UTC)I had the slight barrier when reading it of, uh, being a translator. (But not an interpreter, which is what Lydia actually does although not what Robson calls it, but nobody outside the field ever gets that right anyway.) Most crucially, that meant being aware that it's standard practice that interpreters often work in pairs in this kind of situation, so they trade off every 20 minutes or so, because it's mentally exhausting work! Even in our world, where they don't get physiologically drunk as a hazard of doing it, lol. And that would have absolutely kicked out the foundations of the plot. Which meant that I kept wanting Robson to give us a reason why they weren't working in a buddy system, instead of making Lydia and all her peers get drunk for an evening of solid work. (Cultural reasons on the Logi end why they insist on only working with one? Too few qualified translators to manage it? Robson could absolutely have justified it easily for plot purposes!! But the fact that he never mentioned it, along with some other details I've forgotten since, made me kind of suspect he never actually talked to any interpreters about how their job actually... works in real life.)
But that truly was a minor side nitpick about what was a really fun book, for me if not necessarily for Lydia. Loved the worldbuilding! Loved the Lydia-Madison team-up! Loved the increasingly complicated Lydia-Fitz dynamics! Had a great time! And for all my nitpicks, it's still pleasant to have a book where interpretation is a central focus and being done by humans; I loved that part, too.