What truly ANNOYS you in books? And not in a good way.

Aerial · Jul 31, 2014

I've always struggled to label my daughter's eye color. If you get up close enough to see her eyes in detail, they're gray (an elephant gray kind of color) with an uneven light brown ring around the pupil. But from any kind of ordinary viewing distance all you can say about them is that they're not blue, not green and not brown. We decided to call them hazel and be done with it, but they really aren't.

Our other three kids have brown eyes, green eyes and blue eyes, respectively.

Kris Ashton · Jul 31, 2014

When an author falls in love with his or her background research and includes it in the novel by the shovelful instead of adding it like a dash of spice. False Memory by Dean Koontz is a fine example.

Roxxsmom · Jul 31, 2014

BethS said:
Interestingly enough, in people with blue or green eyes, there is no blue or green pigment in their eyes at all. The color comes from the Rayleigh effect, which scatters light and can make the eyes look blue or green. (This is similar to why the sky looks blue, even though it isn't.) Because of this, blue, green, or gray eyes (though a different light scattering effect causes gray eyes) can seem to change color depending on the lighting.

This reminds me of another pet peeve I have in novels--albino humans with pink eyes. Albino rabbits, mice, and rats have pink eyes, but humans with albinism typically have pale blue eyes (because a lack of pigment causes the Rayleigh effect in the human iris), though you may get a "red eye" effect in some lights. People with this condition also tend to have poor vision, and they're no more likely to be evil than people with melanin (for some reason, people with albinism seem to be portrayed as evil a lot in fantasy).

BethS · Aug 1, 2014

Roxxsmom said:
People with this condition also tend to have poor vision, and they're no more likely to be evil than people with melanin (for some reason, people with albinism seem to be portrayed as evil a lot in fantasy).

I seem to have missed all those fantasies, thankfully.

As for red eyes in human albinos, this can happen under certain lighting conditions. The lack of pigment allows blood vessels to show through.

thedark · Aug 1, 2014

Roxxsmom said:
This reminds me of another pet peeve I have in novels--albino humans with pink eyes. Albino rabbits, mice, and rats have pink eyes, but humans with albinism typically have pale blue eyes (because a lack of pigment causes the Rayleigh effect in the human iris), though you may get a "red eye" effect in some lights. People with this condition also tend to have poor vision, and they're no more likely to be evil than people with melanin (for some reason, people with albinism seem to be portrayed as evil a lot in fantasy).

See, now I'm pleased that at least my evil albino "Big Bad" has clear blue eyes. Got that part right.

And I never actually spit out that he's albino. It's just the picture of the guy in my head (think Tobin Bell -- is he albino, or isn't he?). Pale blond. Appropriately sinister.

I didn't know "Evil Albino Bad Guy" was a trope back when I built the mental image of the character, but honestly, I got a good laugh out of realizing my bad guy was a perfect stereotype. I still love him as is, for it's always been Tobin Bell in my head, and that's the description that comes out when I write.

Pale blond. Clear blue eyes.

And his eye color actually matters to the plot, go figure.

If you've never explored the TV Tropes site.. it's hilarious. Waste a half hour, and see what tropes your characters fit in!

Helix · Aug 1, 2014

thedark said:
If you've never explored the TV Tropes site.. it's hilarious. Waste a half hour, and see what tropes your characters fit in!

Only half an hour? You're not doing it right!

Mr Flibble · Aug 1, 2014

Scribhneoir said:
Well, it's nice to learn that gray eyes are genetically possible, though I'll still roll my (greenish brown, but not quite hazel) eyes when the entire cast of characters has them.

Glad to know half my Mum's family aren't genetic impossibilities

Are gray eyes common in the UK? It seems like every British author I've ever read has given at least one character gray eyes.

Are grey eyes really rare in the US or something? They're reasonably common here. No one would say OMG LOOK AT THAT GUY WITH THE GREY EYES WHAT A FREAK lol. They are pretty common. Actually I can think of several US actors with grey eyes, so that can't be that rare over yonder either?

Reziac · Aug 1, 2014

Today's annoying books: Time travel plots that didn't bother to think things through. ARGH!!!

thedark said:
I got a good laugh out of realizing my bad guy was a perfect stereotype. I still love him as is, for it's always been Tobin Bell in my head, and that's the description that comes out when I write.

Elric! you can't have albinos without Elric!!

I know someone with roughly the same coloring as Tobin Bell -- pale, lint-fine hair that wanted to be red (her eyebrows are dark red) but wound up a sort of pale strawberry blond; very pale, extremely thin skin; eyes somewhere between hazel and blue. Her mom's brother is a colorless albino, but my friend's coloring looks like the result of a dilution gene, akin to a palomino horse. A cremello horse is a a homozygous dilute, not an albino, while palomino is heterozygous.

Which makes me think some human albinos are absent pigment, and some are dilute pigment, and some may have both traits.

thedark said:
Pale blond. Clear blue eyes.

And his eye color actually matters to the plot, go figure.

Heh.... I have a character with white hair (not due to aging) and white eyes (and he has a half-brother with white-blond hair and ice-blue eyes). Both have bronze skin and dress to set themselves off. It matters to the plot mainly because my guy knows he's striking, and uses his appearance to intimidate. I based him on MLB pitcher Don Sutton after Don's hair went white, cuz I thought he looked cool.

flapperphilosopher · Aug 1, 2014

Aerial said:
I've always struggled to label my daughter's eye color. If you get up close enough to see her eyes in detail, they're gray (an elephant gray kind of color) with an uneven light brown ring around the pupil. But from any kind of ordinary viewing distance all you can say about them is that they're not blue, not green and not brown. We decided to call them hazel and be done with it, but they really aren't.

Our other three kids have brown eyes, green eyes and blue eyes, respectively.

I thiiink that's probably a form of what's called central hetereochromia-- one overall eye colour with another one fringed around the pupil. I have it with blue on the outside and a yellowish-green inside (if you google the term, you can see people with pretty much my exact eyes-- I see some that are grey and brown, too, maybe they match your daughters?). I only found out the term a couple months ago, and found out it's really quite rare. I think it's pretty darn neat-looking.

thedark · Aug 1, 2014

flapperphilosopher said:
I thiiink that's probably a form of what's called central hetereochromia-- one overall eye colour with another one fringed around the pupil. I have it with blue on the outside and a yellowish-green inside (if you google the term, you can see people with pretty much my exact eyes-- I see some that are grey and brown, too, maybe they match your daughters?). I only found out the term a couple months ago, and found out it's really quite rare. I think it's pretty darn neat-looking.

Ohhh there's a word for that.

I thought that was just what hazel meant? Two colors.

Mine are like this - brown closest to the pupil, and dark green around the outside.

Funny thing though.. I had solid brown eyes until I was around fifteen. Then they started turning green. The green ring was little at first, but every year it grows. Now, I have maybe .2 mm of brown left, and the rest is green.

Maybe in another five years, I'll have solid green eyes.

I thought that wasn't supposed to happen either, but...

*wanders off to google Central Heterochromia more*

*wanders back*

Now that's just cool. Turns out the outer color is your true eye color. So... I have green eyes! Fun fun.

And it turns out that your eye color can change, and Central Heterochromia can happen due to illness or injury to the eyes. Perhaps that explains why it changed from solid brown.

The real question here?

How do you pronounce Heterochromia?

asroc · Aug 1, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
Are grey eyes really rare in the US or something? They're reasonably common here. No one would say OMG LOOK AT THAT GUY WITH THE GREY EYES WHAT A FREAK lol. They are pretty common. Actually I can think of several US actors with grey eyes, so that can't be that rare over yonder either?

I wouldn't say gray eyes are rare in the US. My eyes are gray (with a couple of yellow speckles so depending on the light or what I'm wearing they can look green) and it's a pretty common color in my family and the area I live in. Although most people in my neighborhood are of Irish or some other northern/western European descent.

More importantly, are gray eyes considered desirable? I always wanted a proper eye color, like actual green or brown, because I thought gray eyes are really boring.

On topic, I don't like it when characters suddenly get all philosophical, especially when they have no appropriate background. You've got a character who's never displayed any signs of significant intelligence or education before and suddenly they launch into a metaphysical monologue, complete with eloquent vocabulary that nobody would use in normal conversation. It's distracting because it's just the author in love with his own observations.

K. Q. Watson · Aug 1, 2014

My left eye is more grey-blue, my right eye is more green. I ~~have a medical condition called coloboma wherein my iris didn't close all the way and my pupil looks like a keyhole~~ am special.

Squids · Aug 1, 2014

jallenecs said:
The book that set off today's rant, in it the main character has never handled a gun in her life. But at a crucial point in the story, she picks up a pistol and shoots it with amazing accuracy. The book says she figured it out from watching the others in her little group (that only formed 24 hours before; she figured this all out in a day? No, seriously....).

People do get lucky, I'm not denying that. People discover that they can hold their own, or wing it well in extreme circustances? Yeah, okay, rare but not unheard of. But going from Ghandi to Rambo in the course of three or four paragraphs? No, I'm not buying it.

Sorry for the delay, but I've been underway, and the internet can be spotty out there. I think it is not as uncommon in real life as you think, but I do agree that in fiction it is overdone and done poorly in most instances.

I fired a gun one time before I joined the military, and that was just to shoot a zombie target for fun at a range. When I had to qualify at my first command, I discovered that I just have a natural ability to shoot. I regularly shoot perfect scores with both the pistol and the rifle, including practical weapons courses that involve running around with gear on and changing weapons under a time limit. Out of 327 people at this command, maybe 5 of us can shoot perfect scores, and the other 4 shoot a LOT outside of work. I have a weird stance, and I look like an old man when I shoot, but it works for some reason.

As to the other point, I have seen people who have never been in life-threatening situations before (even in the military) react like it's just another day at the office, and I've seen people with the same amount of training break down and cry or run and hide in the face of real danger. It is very much something that is inside you, and you can't know which way you will go--away from the bullets or the fire or the missiles, or towards them--until it actually happens.

Now, with absolutely zero training, will the kind of person who will run towards danger be able to defeat trained personnel in a fire fight or a hand-to-hand struggle? Probably not, most of the time. It does happen though. My point is just that training isn't everything. If your default "flight-or-fight" mode is "flight" then you're gonna run every time. If it's "fight," then you're gonna do whatever you have to, and sometimes that's enough.

dantefrizzoli · Aug 1, 2014

What frustrates me is long, literally monotone writing that drones on and on for pages

benluby · Aug 2, 2014

Squids said:
Sorry for the delay, but I've been underway, and the internet can be spotty out there. I think it is not as uncommon in real life as you think, but I do agree that in fiction it is overdone and done poorly in most instances.

I fired a gun one time before I joined the military, and that was just to shoot a zombie target for fun at a range. When I had to qualify at my first command, I discovered that I just have a natural ability to shoot. I regularly shoot perfect scores with both the pistol and the rifle, including practical weapons courses that involve running around with gear on and changing weapons under a time limit. Out of 327 people at this command, maybe 5 of us can shoot perfect scores, and the other 4 shoot a LOT outside of work. I have a weird stance, and I look like an old man when I shoot, but it works for some reason.

As to the other point, I have seen people who have never been in life-threatening situations before (even in the military) react like it's just another day at the office, and I've seen people with the same amount of training break down and cry or run and hide in the face of real danger. It is very much something that is inside you, and you can't know which way you will go--away from the bullets or the fire or the missiles, or towards them--until it actually happens.

Now, with absolutely zero training, will the kind of person who will run towards danger be able to defeat trained personnel in a fire fight or a hand-to-hand struggle? Probably not, most of the time. It does happen though. My point is just that training isn't everything. If your default "flight-or-fight" mode is "flight" then you're gonna run every time. If it's "fight," then you're gonna do whatever you have to, and sometimes that's enough.

Pretty much this. You can't teach courage. It's either in someone or it isn't.
And the combat comment is spot on as well. A trained combatant will, nearly 95% of the time, make short work of an untrained assailant.
That's why one of my biggest pet peeves in either books or movies/TV is the scientist/non-military person picks up a weapon and suddenly they are the most deadly person on the field.
Shooting ability is pretty much taught, but there is natural ability, just as with most other such things, and while it can be honed, some people will require hundreds of rounds, others will require minimal training, and others, no matter how much you give them will never even be adequate.

BethS · Aug 2, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
Are grey eyes really rare in the US or something?

They're not unknown in the US, but they're not at all common, either. They're much more prevalent in northern and eastern Europe.

Scribhneoir · Aug 2, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
Glad to know half my Mum's family aren't genetic impossibilities

And if the characters in that book had all been related, I wouldn't have been so annoyed.

Are grey eyes really rare in the US or something?

Well, I worked my way through college by selling souvenirs at Disneyland, so I came face to face with tens of thousands of people from all over the world, and I've never seen anyone with gray eyes. Take from that what you will.

Actually I can think of several US actors with grey eyes, so that can't be that rare over yonder either?

Ooh. Who are they? I wanna see.

Scribhneoir · Aug 2, 2014

thedark said:
Mine are like this - brown closest to the pupil, and dark green around the outside.

Funny thing though.. I had solid brown eyes until I was around fifteen. Then they started turning green. The green ring was little at first, but every year it grows. Now, I have maybe .2 mm of brown left, and the rest is green.

Maybe in another five years, I'll have solid green eyes.

When I was little I had blonde hair and dark brown eyes, so dark that my mom said they looked like two holes in a blanket. As I grew, my hair darkened to medium brown and now as I age, my eyes have lightened to greenish brown with a dark blue-green ring around them. Does that mean my eyes will be blue-green eventually? That would be fun.

Off to check out this Heterochromia thingy...

GrimMoody · Aug 2, 2014

Kris Ashton said:
When an author falls in love with his or her background research and includes it in the novel by the shovelful instead of adding it like a dash of spice. False Memory by Dean Koontz is a fine example.

Another example is Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. He spends a tedious amount of time describing the Scottish countryside. He also gives a character a massive background, only to immediately kill the guy. Doesn't help that the character is a Jew who escaped the holocaust, only to end up accidentally killed by a non-hostile dog.

Yeesh.

Though I will say I liked this during the book Farmer in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein. It's far more (possibly outdated) space science than plot, but I still love it anyway. The research was mixed in better, besides being in and of itself more interesting.

ArachnePhobia · Aug 2, 2014

I almost resurrected the "Books You've Thrown Against the Wall With Force" thread, but instead, I'll post this here.

I made it 1/3 the way through a certain book yesterday (which I then threw against the wall) that reminded me of one of my biggest annoyances: thoroughly vile "heroes" I am supposed to agree with and find plucky and charming. It isn't that I demand likeable protagonists, but self-centered bullies that turn things like "goodness" and "righteousness" into informed abilities aren't flawed, subversive, or Byronic. They just suck.

Mr Flibble · Aug 2, 2014

asroc said:
More importantly, are gray eyes considered desirable?

They are if you are me.

Hubba hubba

Scribhneoir said:
Ooh. Who are they? I wanna see.

Well I can think of, off the top of my head, Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Gillian Anderson, Heather Graham, Joan Collins, Joaquin Pheonix, Barbara Streisand...

You know, people no one has heard of

I'm sure a good google could turn up loads more.

Mr Flibble · Aug 2, 2014

asroc said:
More importantly, are gray eyes considered desirable?

They are if you are me.

Hubba hubba

A whole cast of grey eyes would be weird though

And aren't a lot of USians descended from Europeans? Not sure why there would be less grey.

Scribhneoir said:
Ooh. Who are they? I wanna see.

Well I can think of, off the top of my head, Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Gillian Anderson, Heather Graham, Joan Collins, Joaquin Pheonix, Barbara Streisand...

You know, people no one has heard of

I'm sure a good google could turn up loads more.

Squids · Aug 2, 2014

benluby said:
Pretty much this. You can't teach courage. It's either in someone or it isn't.
And the combat comment is spot on as well. A trained combatant will, nearly 95% of the time, make short work of an untrained assailant.
That's why one of my biggest pet peeves in either books or movies/TV is the scientist/non-military person picks up a weapon and suddenly they are the most deadly person on the field.
Shooting ability is pretty much taught, but there is natural ability, just as with most other such things, and while it can be honed, some people will require hundreds of rounds, others will require minimal training, and others, no matter how much you give them will never even be adequate.

I should just delete my post and leave a link to yours. Was exactly what I was going for, but more succinct. Well said.

Anna Spargo-Ryan · Aug 2, 2014

asroc said:
More importantly, are gray eyes considered desirable?

As a fellow grey-eyed person, I'm going to keep telling people they are

BookmarkUnicorn · Aug 2, 2014

Books that should have been a series but are stand alone. I had a lot of these with MG favorites when I was little, where the author made really nice characters and a nice, interesting world they were set in, the ending talks about meeting other characters the supporting MC was talking about the whole book and then...the story just ends. I don't mean that every book needs to be the size of the Harry Potter series, but it would be nice if there were more two book ones sometimes.

What truly ANNOYS you in books? And not in a good way.

There is no spoon.

Lurking in the Shadows

Beastly Fido

Weaving through the night.

socially distancing

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Resident Alien

Weaving through the night.

Alex

Battling the Sea

practical experience, FTW

Reinventing Myself

Reinventing Myself

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Battling the Sea

Just pokin' about

does believe in fairies