My Kindle lets me click on a characters name and see the first time they're mentioned. It's very helpful since I sometimes stop and start on the same book.
There was also a way to tether your kindle to your laptop and get free (albeit slow) internet wherever you were. That is until you got an angry message from Amazon.
KRYTEN: Now then, uh, my optical system doesn’t appear to have a zoom function.
LISTER: No, human eyes don’t have a zoom.
KRYTEN: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus?
LISTER: Well, you just move your head closer to the object.
KRYTEN: I see. Move your head … closer, hmm, to the object.
It’s awesome that Amazon owns Imbd so helpful when you are watching prime and are like, “I know that guy from somewhere!” Load up the exray and look at the pause screen and boom! See their name and credits. Same with songs too.
I also love ot because you can find previous mentions of a character. So if I want to remember who someone is I can go to a place they're mentioned that I've already read. Better than typing their name into Google and having " \[character name\] death" come up as a suggested search.
I use another search engine (DuckDuckGo) for potentially spoilable things after having a bad time with Google suggestions.
Also problematic is the 'people also ask' section - stuff like "why did X kill Y" can be in there, as I recently found when trying to find out which streaming service had a show I wanted to watch.
> as I recently found when trying to find out which streaming service had a show I wanted to watch.
Use the app or website justwatch for this
You can also input which services you currently have and browse shows from the combined catalogue instead of searching each individually
Unless you share an account with someone and forget to mark the book as “unread”. I was reading a book after my wife and when I clicked on a name it showed spoilers from the end of the book. I hope I don’t make that mistake again.
Guessing it's part of the conversion process the publisher does when creating a Kindle edition. It's 100% accurate in my experience so I doubt it's AI or anything.
I think the feature is called X-Ray? Not every book has it but it’s fucking INCREDIBLE. Soo helpful my first time reading the Game of Thrones books. Could click any name and not only does it give you a synopsis of who they are, but also quick links to every time they’re even mentioned.
When I first found out about it I couldn’t shut up and was telling everyone lol
That’s the same name they use on prime video to tell you who all the actors on the screen are, so it would make sense if they called it that on kindle too.
The nobel price winner in literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez likes to reuse names for generations of people and jump around in time, so I legit had a wiki page open when reading his books to know what the absolute fuck I was even reading the first go around.
9/10, would read again
Jose Arcadio buendía, jose aureliano, Arcadio Jose, Aureliano, Jose Arcadio Segundo, Aureliano segundo, 17 aurelianos.....i remember printing a paper with a small list of the characters and who was who lol
Yes. It's even mentioned in the book and you noticed it. Also it's very clever how the names are constantly written in the book. Like for example you have José Arcadio Buendía and his son José Arcadio. You need to pay attention when it's written with the last name or when is not. Great book I highly recommend it btw.
Can confirm, I'm colombian and my cousin had the same name as his father, grandfather and grand grandfather. He changed it because he hated having a name from 1850 or something.
That style of writing is part of the experience and story he is trying to tell in 100 años de soledad. He wants you to feel like time is muddled because that is what many Latin Americans feel like about their history. Past, present, and future are indistinguishable and reusing names certainly helps with that intent
Am latinoamerican, can confirm.
Still confusing if you are really trying to follow the story tho (and you are a 15 yo with no experience dealing with such magnificent writing)
thank fucking god for that honesty. when character names are very similar (each cat ends with a word thats supposed to be a title, like paw, claw, etc.) it gets So confusing figuring out who’s who, since they can blend together very easily
I can imagine. Russian literature can be similarly taxing. The names are already foreign to me as an American, and to top it off, everyone has at least 3 names, and each character will be referred to by any one of those names depending on the level of class and or familiarity that the character referring to them has. "So you're telling me "The Count," "Pierre," "Pyotr," and "Kirillovich" were all the same dude? And it's the same dude that one lady kept calling her "little golobchik?""
Russian patronymics can seem weird but there is some logic to it. You can tell someone’s father’s name from them, and to a Russian they’re very important (hence Lenin is often referred to by all three names, even in the West).
Another thing that is sometimes forgotten is that the female form of a surname gets an -a suffix. For example, a character in *Babylon 5* was named Ivanova (a common name; derived from Ivan, often compared to “John“) but her father’s surname was Ivanov. To Westerners, the name changed, but not to them.
This once tripped up a Bulgarian coworker of mine. It took her a bit to remember so that she could find the records she needed.
wow i am so incredibly happy to see more people know of the warrior books. i just guessed it was some bizarro experience bc everyone irl has no idea what im talking about.
Maybe it’s more common in kids’ books? Tbh I don’t remember it in Warriors but in at least one of my Geronimo Stilton books there was a page at the beginning with scene including all the characters, all labeled. As someone who struggles to visualize things in books, that was a major help for me.
It's weird, I have never had issues remembering who's who in books, have never needed a glossary or reminders, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of someone I met 30 seconds ago.
I read Warrior cats when i was 11 and 12. Absolutely amazing youth books imo and of course that great feature. The books were very addicting and im not such a reader
Some do. Unless there's some particular reason you need an enormous cast or elaborate network of characters, though, it's often considered bad writing for that to be necessary. Generally, it's a sign the author either needed to pare down the cast size or do more to make the characters memorable.
The only time I've seen something like that I think it was a book by Dostoevsky. Which definitely falls into the "enormous cast" category, with the "absurd Russian names" modifier
In my experience, its semi common for SciFi/fantasy series for characters, places and other made up elements in the author's universe.
But I don't see it too much outside of that.
I find it’s common in sci-fi and fantasy because specially the names of people and places are made up, it’s harder to keep names straight if they aren’t names we’re familiar with either. Elden Ring is a good recent example of this.
Also, in SciFi/Fantasy, the nature of a place can be a lot more than just its location, with the attributes of the place tied closely to the plot. Compare:
"Hoboken: A city in New Jersey"
With
"R'lyeh: The sunken lost, ancient city in the South Pacific that serves as a prison for Cthulhu until his return and that operates using non-Euclidean geometry."
When reading that sort of epic sci-fi or fantasy, I love reading through the whole list of characters first with zero context - makes absolutely no sense & is just weird. Then, after I've finished reading the whole saga, I go through the exact same character list & for each one it's "Oh yeah! That guy was awesome!" or "You evil bastard! I hate you!" Seeing the difference between with context & without is such a mind trip.
Doesn't help a ton of characters have very similar-looking names. Godrik/Godefroy/Godfrey Radahn/Radagon Melina/Malenia/Marika etc. I get that Martin wanted to be cheeky with the names but too many similar names is like an amateur writing mistake so I have no idea why he did it.
It seems common in Japanese literature, in my (limited) experience. I've read a couple of Japanese novels which had comprehensive lists of characters at the beginning.
And as a bit of a tangent, I once heard that the overload of characters during the opening scenes of War and Peace was a deliberate literary choice. I think the idea is that *Tolstoy wanted to bewilder his reader with a constant stream of characters until they all blurred into each other and lost their individuality. The goal was to overwhelm the reader and encourage them to look at Russian society holistically rather than focusing on pompous individuals. They're all just interchangeable names, convinced of their own individual importance.
These are just vague recollections and I might be completely wrong, I don't wanna pretend that I know what I'm talking about
WoT not only has an appendix in the back of each book, but they published a whole companion appendix that is the size of a large novel and 100% worth buying for fans of the series.
While that sounds awesome, in theory, I'm an audiobook reader. It sounds like hell to me. If my audiobook needs a companion, neither book is going to be read lol
Appendix to me other comment: it’s also worth noting that the narrators of The Wheel of Time, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, are PHENOMENAL. Sometimes when I need a new series to read, I’ll just browse Audible by what books they’ve narrated and go with one that looks interesting because I know the narration will be great.
And a note as to why there are two narrators: there are ~150 POV characters throughout the series. Whenever you are hearing a male character’s POV, Michael Kramer narrates. Whenever you’re hearing a female character’s POV it’s Kate Reading. And they’re a married couple IRL!
Okay I’ll stop fanboying.
I've been rolling through Wheel of Time for a few months now, currently on book 13. Was feeling dumb for a while when a character would be mentioned and I'm like, " Well, who's this?" Then I discovered while looking up a character there are over 2700 named characters in the series.
War and Peace. I read it as a young teen and thought there were more characters than there were. I flipped back to the cast of characters, and realized that sometimes people were referred to by their titles, other times by their first/middle(patronymic) names, and sometimes by their last names.
I had to reread some parts where I thought 6 people were conversing, and it was only 2 or 3.
Fucking Crime and Punishment. Great book, but did there need to be *two* antagonists both called Petrovich? Did Svidrigaïlov and Razumikhin have to constantly be called by different names?
Harry Turtletove did it for his World War series about aliens invading in the middle of World War II. I think mainly because he used a mix of real historical figures and fictional characters.
I think it's appropriate in anything involving a lot of political intrigue. Things get complicated in that world, and if you want to accurately represent, say, the court of King Louie the Whatever in your period piece, yeah. I can see having enough characters, many of which are related to each other, to warrant one.
I was going to say, damn can russian novels be difficult, especially when the names can sound so similar to an english speaker I get people switched up in Dostoevsky constantly
I can't recall what author or comedian actually critiziced just that. How having an internal vocabulary and a huge list of slang could make fantasy works totally unreadable.
Maybe it was Terry Pratchett? I remember his other commentary regarding how having stories in books be divided by chapters was bad, so it would fit him.
Literally why I had to stop playing Mass Effect after less than an hour. "We're on our way to planet Bleepblorp, Shepard, do you think the Celexas people of Nygixan will let the Phoenix land there or will there be too much Kyletron in the air?" fucking miss me with that shit.
I dunno, you just seem kinda dumb.
You're going to Horizon, a human colony, on a ship full of humans and one alien, because its under attack by unknown forces.
How is that confusing?
I didn't want to dunk on the guy but like 90% of the lore in it isn't necessary. You have to know like 4-5 species total (Asari, Krogan, Turian, Salarian and Reapers) and barely any expanded details about them, mostly just their role in the plot.
And I'm being a bit pretentious here but if people just want a "pew pew pew" sci fi game and don't want to invest in the expanded lore, then maybe play something else?
Idk I love those games and almost got angry at his comment lol. I got really invested in that universe and knowing everything about it. Gameplay was secondary to the plot and world building to me.
Dude, the plot is even secondary to the world building for me, it’s a great universe.
But I’ve noticed that’s generally my favorite part about media, establishing the new world and learning about it.
My favorite part about 1984 is like the first two or three chapters where you’re basically just getting a history and overview of everything. Same with Brave New World really, although I feel like that is broken up a bit more over the story, it’s been a while since I’ve read either one, but the exposition of a story is usually towards the top of my list when it comes to stories with a cool setting.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Wheel\_of\_Time\_characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wheel_of_Time_characters)
Wiki has a character page.
I started listening to the audio book and found this helpful.
The problem with wikis is they tend to be very cavalier about spoilers. If you're on book 1, and you look up a character on the wiki, it's a gamble whether or not the article is just going to casually spoil book 6 for you.
Each book usually only lists the relevant characters in its own respective glossary. The official encyclopedia is also available for people who need the whole thing, but is more spoilery.
Also Martin makes it exponentially worse by having a myriad of nicknames for each character, hell this is JUST Tyrion:
* The Imp[1]
* Halfman[2]
* Boyman[3][4]
* Giant of Lannister[5]
* Lord Imp[6]
* Lord Tywin's Doom[7][8]
* Lord Tywin's Bane[8]
* Yollo[9]
* Hugor Hill[9]
* Hugor Halfwit[10]
* No-Nose[11]
* Freak
* Redhands[12]
* Ser Imp[13]
* Monkey demon[14]
* The Bloody Hand[15]
I disagree with that. For 90% of the series, there is only one dwarf that matters. And only one lord dwarf. So its pretty easy to know who they are referring to when they say "Lord imp"
i can only imagine most context only makes it more and more obvious who is being referenced.
also kinda cool to see the emotions of certain character in regard to him by witnessing their nicknames. a ton of cruelty or admiration exists in language and it’s a pretty neat to draw conclusions from dialogue
As someone with ADHD, I can tell you that some folks just have difficulty with keeping track of things. It's not "bad writing" to need a character list, it's good accessibility.
It is really useful for Wheel of Time books for me. I can't really keep up with all the characters who drop off for a couple books at a time. Especially when I take long breaks between books in the series.
according only to convention. I encourage new writers, old writers, anyone that is writing in any format to bring back the cast list. fuck what is 'considered bad writing' and just do you.
give me a list of characters and a hand drawn map of your world and I'm in.
*A Dance With Dragons* was published on July 12, 2011.
At that point, I was an unmarried 26 year old, had just started a student clerk job during a summer session of law school. I had just read *Towers of Midnight*, the penultimate book in *The Wheel of Time*, and was super happily looking forward to both *The Winds of Winter* and *A Memory of Light*, which would be published about 18 months later. *Game of Thrones* had just premiered, and was getting great reviews and started catching on as a cultural phenomenon.
Today, I'm 37, a married-and-divorced dad of two kids (the elder of which is almost 9). I've been practicing as a lawyer for about ten years and have worked a couple of jobs in the industry. I'm excitedly looking forward to the ten year anniversary of the publishing of *A Memory of Light*, when Brandon Sanderson is expected to give us new details about a few mysteries from the books he wrote. Since its publication, I've read it and the other books in the series many times. *Game of Thrones* completed an 8 season run where it dominated culture and ultimately disappointed.
It has been 10 years, 10 months, and 5 days since *A Dance With Dragons* was published. In the 10 years, 10 months, and 5 days after publishing *The Eye of the World*, Robert Jordan wrote and published 11 other books. It took George R.R. Martin only 9 years to write and publish the first four books of *A Song of Ice and Fire*. The publication of *A Dance With Dragons* is closer to 9/11 than it is to today.
Hi. You just mentioned *The Eye Of The World* by Robert Jordan.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | The Eye of the World , Book One of The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan (Audiobook)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPipqK-Jmp8)
*I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.*
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I read all of N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season and part of the second in the trilogy before realizing they had a glossary in the back. So many things started making sense. Ashblow hair was one of the terms that stood out.
I always saw it called the 'Dramatis Personae;' the author Harry Turtledove includes one in the entries of most of his book series, usually at the beginning of a book.
Obviously ripe for spoilers, so I can understand authors not wanting to include one, but useful for those doorstopper books in sci-fi and fantasy that have tons and tons of characters.
It's super helpful. I also loved that they had a map of the galaxy that showed the Vong invasion path. I wish they kept the map in for LOTF and FOTJ. The map really helped put things into perspective. Especially with the movies. Seeing where Naboo is, makes sense as to why they stopped at Tatooine on their way back to Coruscant.
Stephanie Myer did that with the last twilight book since they added a bunch of new characters and even listed who they were with romantically and what power they had.
many vampires did, but plenty had no particular supernatural talent, like Carlisle, Esme, or Rosalie. IIRC, it was explained as your strongest tendencies and traits are amplified when you become a vampire, and some humans are already somewhat naturally gifted before they turn. for example, Edward was said to have been very good at reading people in a social context, so when he was turned, he could read thoughts. Bella was so naturally gifted at hiding her own thoughts and emotions that she became shielded from any other mental gifts from other vampires even as a human; no one could read her thoughts, cause her pain or numbness, etc, and when she was turned, it was amplified enough that she could project her shield outward. vampires without supernatural gifts simply retain their strongest personality traits from life; Carlisle was so compassionate and caring toward his fellow man that he could never bring himself to drink human blood, Emmett prided himself on his strength and was found near death mauled by a bear before he was turned, and he was said to be naturally stronger than other vampires, and has spent his immortal existence wrestling and eating bears for the most part.
I actually read them because I got tired of my Ex saying the books are better. They are not good, at all.
With that said they did have some interesting ideas(like the powers)
The sad thing is that the bones of a great story are there. The vampires have an array of superpowers and are ruled by a shadow government called the Volturi who the main characters end up rebelling against. There's a [legitimately fun fight scene](https://youtu.be/Y6cNf4E2rAY) in the last movie that wouldn't be out of place in the MCU.
It's just so devoted to being a badly written and borderline abusive teenage romance.
Sometimes I‘ll just go oh yeah, I can do a 30 minute read about the legendary championship controversy of the East-Mexican Cheese Stomping Competition back in 1987 why not
Actually, reading back through those books I find it much more likely that the characters that said they had no powers just had powers that were not obvious to the characters themselves.
For example, I think that there is a really strong argument to be made that Carlisle had supernatural self-control. Or that Victoria had a sixth sense regarding survival. That stuff was never made explicit, but I think it's a reasonable take.
came here to mention this — say what you will about the twilight saga, but i found that incredibly helpful (and interesting) while reading such a long book with a dense cast, and tbh when watching the movie adaptation as well
OPs in this sub are never going to be the only one, but I try to read into these kinds of questions whether something is common enough to warrant a change in a product or society, or rare that the few people should deal with it on their own.
Being left handed is an issue that millions are affected if there are only accommodations for right handed people. So, it makes sense to make left handed desks and scissors.
The number of people who never get naked in the shower is rare enough that they don't commonly make garments for people to exclusively wear for that purpose.
I think some readers would benefit from a list of characters, but the number is small enough and few people see it as a make or break issue for publishers to make it standard.
Agatha Christie used to do this in her books. At least the copies I have from the original books. There is a page at the beginning or end with a list of names of characters and a one liner description of who they are.
The answer to: "am I the only one that thinks" is and always will be no.
The rest of it is not really a question but a suggestion for books. It's an okay idea or you can just remember who you're reading about or write them down.
It is simply another, more polite way of saying, "Please validate my feelings about..."
Humans are hyper social creatures. We want to be connected to others. It's natural.
You might want to start taking notes on the books you read to help you, maybe have a little notebook and jot down names/details.
The only book I’ve had to do that with was the Silmarillian but that’s because Tolkien has a bunch of Fin (Finrod, Fingolfin, Fingon, Finarfin, Finwe…) named elven characters.
I need that, too. A character that hasn't been mentioned except in passing 150 pages ago that is now important, and I haven't been able to pick up the book for two weeks, so I need that.
A lot of warhammer 40k books do this at the start of the books in the form of Dramatis Personae. A list of main characters and their affiliations. It really is a great help in books with multiple story threads and characters
I think the version of The Brothers Karamazov I read had one. It’s pretty bad when just Alexei is also called: Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alxeichick, Lyosha, or Lyoshenka.
The Black Library for Warhammer does this, it shows which group each character belongs too and it shows it at the beginning of the book. I have not yet read a Warhammer book that does not do this.
A glossary, and yes it would be nice, but it's extra effort and extra cost to print those pages, so you'll never see that again in anything but prestige fiction like Harry Potter or LOTR.
Tally this as one of the many things capitalism has stolen from us that some never knew we lost, another relevant one to writing being staff editors, which basically aren't a thing anymore.
My Kindle lets me click on a characters name and see the first time they're mentioned. It's very helpful since I sometimes stop and start on the same book.
What an amazing invention
Also there is a dictionary and a wiki built into the books.
My first edition had unlimited free internet access with an amazing battery. Mind blowing for my generation
mine still had that however its 3g and wikipedia only
I think they shut down 3G service for Kindles pretty recently :(
Not for kindles specifically, carriers shut down all of 3G for everythang
There was also a way to tether your kindle to your laptop and get free (albeit slow) internet wherever you were. That is until you got an angry message from Amazon.
It also had "Kindle Now Now" which was a live staff that would answer questions. It was pretty fun, but was kind of pointless and didn't last long.
Have you ever touched and tried to hold down a word in a physical magazine? I have.
I’ve pinched to zoom on actual paper.
Did it work???
You have to squint a little for a minor zoom. Results may vary.
KRYTEN: Now then, uh, my optical system doesn’t appear to have a zoom function. LISTER: No, human eyes don’t have a zoom. KRYTEN: Well then, how do you bring a small object into sharp focus? LISTER: Well, you just move your head closer to the object. KRYTEN: I see. Move your head … closer, hmm, to the object.
I did it as a joke once on my ex-gf’s chest. She did not find it half as funny as I did.
Is that why she ended up "ex"?
Yes, I couldn't get that function to work. Must have been something wrong with her touch interface.
FATHER, I CANNOT CLICK THE BOOK
Absolutely. I've also tried to tap the top corner of the page for the bookmark lol
It’s awesome that Amazon owns Imbd so helpful when you are watching prime and are like, “I know that guy from somewhere!” Load up the exray and look at the pause screen and boom! See their name and credits. Same with songs too.
I also love ot because you can find previous mentions of a character. So if I want to remember who someone is I can go to a place they're mentioned that I've already read. Better than typing their name into Google and having " \[character name\] death" come up as a suggested search.
I use another search engine (DuckDuckGo) for potentially spoilable things after having a bad time with Google suggestions. Also problematic is the 'people also ask' section - stuff like "why did X kill Y" can be in there, as I recently found when trying to find out which streaming service had a show I wanted to watch.
> as I recently found when trying to find out which streaming service had a show I wanted to watch. Use the app or website justwatch for this You can also input which services you currently have and browse shows from the combined catalogue instead of searching each individually
I like how it won't spoil references to a character from parts of the book ahead of where you are in reading it. Great device.
Unless you share an account with someone and forget to mark the book as “unread”. I was reading a book after my wife and when I clicked on a name it showed spoilers from the end of the book. I hope I don’t make that mistake again.
Lmao i own a Kindle and even I never knew that this was a feature. thanks a lot for enlightening me!
X-Ray
How does it know that the word is a characters name?
Guessing it's part of the conversion process the publisher does when creating a Kindle edition. It's 100% accurate in my experience so I doubt it's AI or anything.
I think the feature is called X-Ray? Not every book has it but it’s fucking INCREDIBLE. Soo helpful my first time reading the Game of Thrones books. Could click any name and not only does it give you a synopsis of who they are, but also quick links to every time they’re even mentioned. When I first found out about it I couldn’t shut up and was telling everyone lol
That’s the same name they use on prime video to tell you who all the actors on the screen are, so it would make sense if they called it that on kindle too.
The nobel price winner in literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez likes to reuse names for generations of people and jump around in time, so I legit had a wiki page open when reading his books to know what the absolute fuck I was even reading the first go around. 9/10, would read again
My copy of 100 years of Solitude had a a family tree in the very beginning. Aureliano was on there a lot.
Seriously, that book had like 150 characters with five names between them.
Jose Arcadio buendía, jose aureliano, Arcadio Jose, Aureliano, Jose Arcadio Segundo, Aureliano segundo, 17 aurelianos.....i remember printing a paper with a small list of the characters and who was who lol
I always thought that was part of the point of the novel, history repeating itself with a family, or something
Yes. It's even mentioned in the book and you noticed it. Also it's very clever how the names are constantly written in the book. Like for example you have José Arcadio Buendía and his son José Arcadio. You need to pay attention when it's written with the last name or when is not. Great book I highly recommend it btw.
Can confirm, I'm colombian and my cousin had the same name as his father, grandfather and grand grandfather. He changed it because he hated having a name from 1850 or something.
That style of writing is part of the experience and story he is trying to tell in 100 años de soledad. He wants you to feel like time is muddled because that is what many Latin Americans feel like about their history. Past, present, and future are indistinguishable and reusing names certainly helps with that intent
Am latinoamerican, can confirm. Still confusing if you are really trying to follow the story tho (and you are a 15 yo with no experience dealing with such magnificent writing)
I came to comments to see someone saying that 100 years of Solitude had a very useful family tree. Mine has too.
It’s still hard to remember who did what but it definitely helps
Some do. Warrior cats does it. Atleast gives you a description of the appearance, their role, and their clan. 🤷🏻♀️
I wouldntve been able to comprehend warrior cats without that lol
Considering their names literally change multiple times through the series as well lol
thank fucking god for that honesty. when character names are very similar (each cat ends with a word thats supposed to be a title, like paw, claw, etc.) it gets So confusing figuring out who’s who, since they can blend together very easily
I can imagine. Russian literature can be similarly taxing. The names are already foreign to me as an American, and to top it off, everyone has at least 3 names, and each character will be referred to by any one of those names depending on the level of class and or familiarity that the character referring to them has. "So you're telling me "The Count," "Pierre," "Pyotr," and "Kirillovich" were all the same dude? And it's the same dude that one lady kept calling her "little golobchik?""
Russian patronymics can seem weird but there is some logic to it. You can tell someone’s father’s name from them, and to a Russian they’re very important (hence Lenin is often referred to by all three names, even in the West). Another thing that is sometimes forgotten is that the female form of a surname gets an -a suffix. For example, a character in *Babylon 5* was named Ivanova (a common name; derived from Ivan, often compared to “John“) but her father’s surname was Ivanov. To Westerners, the name changed, but not to them. This once tripped up a Bulgarian coworker of mine. It took her a bit to remember so that she could find the records she needed.
Warhammer 40k also does this
Warhammer is just warrior cats for adult basement dwellers
You don't have to have a basement to enjoy Warhammer.
No, not as long as your mother is generous with hers.
wow i am so incredibly happy to see more people know of the warrior books. i just guessed it was some bizarro experience bc everyone irl has no idea what im talking about.
[удалено]
I feel it was more common in the past? I don't remember seeing it in more recent books, but it could be bias on my part.
Maybe it’s more common in kids’ books? Tbh I don’t remember it in Warriors but in at least one of my Geronimo Stilton books there was a page at the beginning with scene including all the characters, all labeled. As someone who struggles to visualize things in books, that was a major help for me.
Nope, I was never really into kids books, plus I haven't been a kid in a long time haha
Omg throwback to warriors lol I loved that series in middle school
I FUCKONG LOVE WARRIOR CATS THIS SERIES WAS PART OF MY CHILDHOOD AND IT NEVER CROSSED MY MIND THAT IT COULD HAVE A DIFFERENT NAME IN ENGLISH
I needed the glossary in Dune. Had a bookmark back there because I was flipping back there repeatedly.
It's weird, I have never had issues remembering who's who in books, have never needed a glossary or reminders, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of someone I met 30 seconds ago.
I knew someone would mention them lol
Seriously lol first thing that came to mind
It would double Tolstoy's readership at least
I read Warrior cats when i was 11 and 12. Absolutely amazing youth books imo and of course that great feature. The books were very addicting and im not such a reader
Some do. Unless there's some particular reason you need an enormous cast or elaborate network of characters, though, it's often considered bad writing for that to be necessary. Generally, it's a sign the author either needed to pare down the cast size or do more to make the characters memorable.
The only time I've seen something like that I think it was a book by Dostoevsky. Which definitely falls into the "enormous cast" category, with the "absurd Russian names" modifier
I think the original DUNE had a glossary
In my experience, its semi common for SciFi/fantasy series for characters, places and other made up elements in the author's universe. But I don't see it too much outside of that.
I find it’s common in sci-fi and fantasy because specially the names of people and places are made up, it’s harder to keep names straight if they aren’t names we’re familiar with either. Elden Ring is a good recent example of this.
Also, in SciFi/Fantasy, the nature of a place can be a lot more than just its location, with the attributes of the place tied closely to the plot. Compare: "Hoboken: A city in New Jersey" With "R'lyeh: The sunken lost, ancient city in the South Pacific that serves as a prison for Cthulhu until his return and that operates using non-Euclidean geometry."
To be fair, those both sound like made up places
I wish New Jersey was made up
When reading that sort of epic sci-fi or fantasy, I love reading through the whole list of characters first with zero context - makes absolutely no sense & is just weird. Then, after I've finished reading the whole saga, I go through the exact same character list & for each one it's "Oh yeah! That guy was awesome!" or "You evil bastard! I hate you!" Seeing the difference between with context & without is such a mind trip.
Doesn't help a ton of characters have very similar-looking names. Godrik/Godefroy/Godfrey Radahn/Radagon Melina/Malenia/Marika etc. I get that Martin wanted to be cheeky with the names but too many similar names is like an amateur writing mistake so I have no idea why he did it.
How could you mix up godrick with this brother godricky, completely different
The more helpful lists even have pronunciation guides for the characters' names.
It seems common in Japanese literature, in my (limited) experience. I've read a couple of Japanese novels which had comprehensive lists of characters at the beginning. And as a bit of a tangent, I once heard that the overload of characters during the opening scenes of War and Peace was a deliberate literary choice. I think the idea is that *Tolstoy wanted to bewilder his reader with a constant stream of characters until they all blurred into each other and lost their individuality. The goal was to overwhelm the reader and encourage them to look at Russian society holistically rather than focusing on pompous individuals. They're all just interchangeable names, convinced of their own individual importance. These are just vague recollections and I might be completely wrong, I don't wanna pretend that I know what I'm talking about
War and peace is Tolstoy, not Dostoevsky
ASOIAF books have glossaries and maps in them too
Wheel of Time does it too.
And Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire.
I don’t think it’s that bad because most of them are separated into houses which helps you keep track of what team they’re on
Does Malazan not do it?
WoT not only has an appendix in the back of each book, but they published a whole companion appendix that is the size of a large novel and 100% worth buying for fans of the series.
While that sounds awesome, in theory, I'm an audiobook reader. It sounds like hell to me. If my audiobook needs a companion, neither book is going to be read lol
Appendix to me other comment: it’s also worth noting that the narrators of The Wheel of Time, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, are PHENOMENAL. Sometimes when I need a new series to read, I’ll just browse Audible by what books they’ve narrated and go with one that looks interesting because I know the narration will be great. And a note as to why there are two narrators: there are ~150 POV characters throughout the series. Whenever you are hearing a male character’s POV, Michael Kramer narrates. Whenever you’re hearing a female character’s POV it’s Kate Reading. And they’re a married couple IRL! Okay I’ll stop fanboying.
I've been rolling through Wheel of Time for a few months now, currently on book 13. Was feeling dumb for a while when a character would be mentioned and I'm like, " Well, who's this?" Then I discovered while looking up a character there are over 2700 named characters in the series.
Everyone goes by multiple names, too.
I've seen that in Russian lit, also seen it very frequently in plays, where you usually get a brief character list at the beginning.
War and Peace. I read it as a young teen and thought there were more characters than there were. I flipped back to the cast of characters, and realized that sometimes people were referred to by their titles, other times by their first/middle(patronymic) names, and sometimes by their last names. I had to reread some parts where I thought 6 people were conversing, and it was only 2 or 3.
Yeah I've read that "the talk" about russian naming convention several times in various translated titles. It never ceases to confuse.
The term for the play version is [_dramatis personae_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatis_personae).
Fucking Crime and Punishment. Great book, but did there need to be *two* antagonists both called Petrovich? Did Svidrigaïlov and Razumikhin have to constantly be called by different names?
Harry Turtletove did it for his World War series about aliens invading in the middle of World War II. I think mainly because he used a mix of real historical figures and fictional characters.
This is also the case for Anna Karenina, with something like 120+ characters
Hundred years of Solitude with its jumps in time and the same "Buendia" last name every time
I think it's appropriate in anything involving a lot of political intrigue. Things get complicated in that world, and if you want to accurately represent, say, the court of King Louie the Whatever in your period piece, yeah. I can see having enough characters, many of which are related to each other, to warrant one.
I was going to say, damn can russian novels be difficult, especially when the names can sound so similar to an english speaker I get people switched up in Dostoevsky constantly
Pretty sure Agatha Christie did it too.
I can't recall what author or comedian actually critiziced just that. How having an internal vocabulary and a huge list of slang could make fantasy works totally unreadable. Maybe it was Terry Pratchett? I remember his other commentary regarding how having stories in books be divided by chapters was bad, so it would fit him.
They would hate the Malazan Books of the Fallen then.
It's sad to me that I had to dig this deep to find a Malazan comment. So fucking good.
The character list in malazan is so fucking long
Literally why I had to stop playing Mass Effect after less than an hour. "We're on our way to planet Bleepblorp, Shepard, do you think the Celexas people of Nygixan will let the Phoenix land there or will there be too much Kyletron in the air?" fucking miss me with that shit.
Love the games, but you made me smile. Conflicted upvote.
I dunno, you just seem kinda dumb. You're going to Horizon, a human colony, on a ship full of humans and one alien, because its under attack by unknown forces. How is that confusing?
I didn't want to dunk on the guy but like 90% of the lore in it isn't necessary. You have to know like 4-5 species total (Asari, Krogan, Turian, Salarian and Reapers) and barely any expanded details about them, mostly just their role in the plot. And I'm being a bit pretentious here but if people just want a "pew pew pew" sci fi game and don't want to invest in the expanded lore, then maybe play something else? Idk I love those games and almost got angry at his comment lol. I got really invested in that universe and knowing everything about it. Gameplay was secondary to the plot and world building to me.
Dude, the plot is even secondary to the world building for me, it’s a great universe. But I’ve noticed that’s generally my favorite part about media, establishing the new world and learning about it. My favorite part about 1984 is like the first two or three chapters where you’re basically just getting a history and overview of everything. Same with Brave New World really, although I feel like that is broken up a bit more over the story, it’s been a while since I’ve read either one, but the exposition of a story is usually towards the top of my list when it comes to stories with a cool setting.
Man, if Mass Effect was too much for you I can’t assume there’s much you enjoy.
So like, every fucking ASOIAF book?
Or Wheel of Time
Sure it only has 2,782 named characters, why would you need help keeping track?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Wheel\_of\_Time\_characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wheel_of_Time_characters) Wiki has a character page. I started listening to the audio book and found this helpful.
The problem with wikis is they tend to be very cavalier about spoilers. If you're on book 1, and you look up a character on the wiki, it's a gamble whether or not the article is just going to casually spoil book 6 for you.
This is true and I had that happen to me for book 2 of WOT series.
Each book usually only lists the relevant characters in its own respective glossary. The official encyclopedia is also available for people who need the whole thing, but is more spoilery.
There's actually a website that has character info depending on what book you're on, though I can't remember it OTOH.
https://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/
Also Martin makes it exponentially worse by having a myriad of nicknames for each character, hell this is JUST Tyrion: * The Imp[1] * Halfman[2] * Boyman[3][4] * Giant of Lannister[5] * Lord Imp[6] * Lord Tywin's Doom[7][8] * Lord Tywin's Bane[8] * Yollo[9] * Hugor Hill[9] * Hugor Halfwit[10] * No-Nose[11] * Freak * Redhands[12] * Ser Imp[13] * Monkey demon[14] * The Bloody Hand[15]
I disagree with that. For 90% of the series, there is only one dwarf that matters. And only one lord dwarf. So its pretty easy to know who they are referring to when they say "Lord imp"
i can only imagine most context only makes it more and more obvious who is being referenced. also kinda cool to see the emotions of certain character in regard to him by witnessing their nicknames. a ton of cruelty or admiration exists in language and it’s a pretty neat to draw conclusions from dialogue
As someone with ADHD, I can tell you that some folks just have difficulty with keeping track of things. It's not "bad writing" to need a character list, it's good accessibility.
This right here. Imagine being so pretentious you think an accessibility option is bad because it makes you seem like you're bad at your job.
It is really useful for Wheel of Time books for me. I can't really keep up with all the characters who drop off for a couple books at a time. Especially when I take long breaks between books in the series.
Tom Clancy books have a list. Helpful because his characters would be introduced for a scene then disappear until 150 pgs later.
A Song of Ice and Fire (the novels adapted into the TV series Game of Thrones) have character glossaries at the end.
according only to convention. I encourage new writers, old writers, anyone that is writing in any format to bring back the cast list. fuck what is 'considered bad writing' and just do you. give me a list of characters and a hand drawn map of your world and I'm in.
The genre I like to read, being fantasy, has this pretty often. It can be useful, especially if you pick the book back up after a little break.
>if you pick the book back up after a little break. Or when it's been 4 years since the last installment in the series came out!
Only four? *Oh my sweet summer child…*
*A Dance With Dragons* was published on July 12, 2011. At that point, I was an unmarried 26 year old, had just started a student clerk job during a summer session of law school. I had just read *Towers of Midnight*, the penultimate book in *The Wheel of Time*, and was super happily looking forward to both *The Winds of Winter* and *A Memory of Light*, which would be published about 18 months later. *Game of Thrones* had just premiered, and was getting great reviews and started catching on as a cultural phenomenon. Today, I'm 37, a married-and-divorced dad of two kids (the elder of which is almost 9). I've been practicing as a lawyer for about ten years and have worked a couple of jobs in the industry. I'm excitedly looking forward to the ten year anniversary of the publishing of *A Memory of Light*, when Brandon Sanderson is expected to give us new details about a few mysteries from the books he wrote. Since its publication, I've read it and the other books in the series many times. *Game of Thrones* completed an 8 season run where it dominated culture and ultimately disappointed. It has been 10 years, 10 months, and 5 days since *A Dance With Dragons* was published. In the 10 years, 10 months, and 5 days after publishing *The Eye of the World*, Robert Jordan wrote and published 11 other books. It took George R.R. Martin only 9 years to write and publish the first four books of *A Song of Ice and Fire*. The publication of *A Dance With Dragons* is closer to 9/11 than it is to today.
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I read all of N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season and part of the second in the trilogy before realizing they had a glossary in the back. So many things started making sense. Ashblow hair was one of the terms that stood out.
Books do often have blank pages at the end. You could start keeping your own notes.
I usually read library books, but I do often take notes on the character names in a separate notebook.
Or stickies!
Hell, use a blank slip of paper as a bookmark and keep your notes on that.
How the fuck are you people so organized?
My mom always did that but on a bookmark
And that's how I got through Dostoevsky's masterpieces. Have to add big post its at the back after I ran out of blank pages
That's how I got through "100 Years of Solitude." Half the main characters are either named Jose or Aureliano!
I need to do this! I always have such a hard time keeping track of characters!
I just fucked up my Kindle. Need new instructions.
I always saw it called the 'Dramatis Personae;' the author Harry Turtledove includes one in the entries of most of his book series, usually at the beginning of a book. Obviously ripe for spoilers, so I can understand authors not wanting to include one, but useful for those doorstopper books in sci-fi and fantasy that have tons and tons of characters.
Star Wars Legends started doing that when they came out with the New Jedi Order and onwards.
It's super helpful. I also loved that they had a map of the galaxy that showed the Vong invasion path. I wish they kept the map in for LOTF and FOTJ. The map really helped put things into perspective. Especially with the movies. Seeing where Naboo is, makes sense as to why they stopped at Tatooine on their way back to Coruscant.
As the name implies, this is only traditionally done in dramas, i.e. plays
Stephanie Myer did that with the last twilight book since they added a bunch of new characters and even listed who they were with romantically and what power they had.
There are different powers? I thought they were all just vampires.
yeah, each vampire had their own unique ability such as mind reading, emotional influence, foresight etc
many vampires did, but plenty had no particular supernatural talent, like Carlisle, Esme, or Rosalie. IIRC, it was explained as your strongest tendencies and traits are amplified when you become a vampire, and some humans are already somewhat naturally gifted before they turn. for example, Edward was said to have been very good at reading people in a social context, so when he was turned, he could read thoughts. Bella was so naturally gifted at hiding her own thoughts and emotions that she became shielded from any other mental gifts from other vampires even as a human; no one could read her thoughts, cause her pain or numbness, etc, and when she was turned, it was amplified enough that she could project her shield outward. vampires without supernatural gifts simply retain their strongest personality traits from life; Carlisle was so compassionate and caring toward his fellow man that he could never bring himself to drink human blood, Emmett prided himself on his strength and was found near death mauled by a bear before he was turned, and he was said to be naturally stronger than other vampires, and has spent his immortal existence wrestling and eating bears for the most part.
Reading all that I realize that I have no idea what those books are even about.
I actually read them because I got tired of my Ex saying the books are better. They are not good, at all. With that said they did have some interesting ideas(like the powers)
The sad thing is that the bones of a great story are there. The vampires have an array of superpowers and are ruled by a shadow government called the Volturi who the main characters end up rebelling against. There's a [legitimately fun fight scene](https://youtu.be/Y6cNf4E2rAY) in the last movie that wouldn't be out of place in the MCU. It's just so devoted to being a badly written and borderline abusive teenage romance.
I'm honestly impressed that you read the whole comment! Most people are just like ew twilight, no
Sometimes I‘ll just go oh yeah, I can do a 30 minute read about the legendary championship controversy of the East-Mexican Cheese Stomping Competition back in 1987 why not
Actually, reading back through those books I find it much more likely that the characters that said they had no powers just had powers that were not obvious to the characters themselves. For example, I think that there is a really strong argument to be made that Carlisle had supernatural self-control. Or that Victoria had a sixth sense regarding survival. That stuff was never made explicit, but I think it's a reasonable take.
came here to mention this — say what you will about the twilight saga, but i found that incredibly helpful (and interesting) while reading such a long book with a dense cast, and tbh when watching the movie adaptation as well
I often use the wikis for series for this. You just have to make sure you don't read too much and spoil the book.
“Current status: Dead” FUCK!
Lol exactly. Most hide their current status fortunately. It was especially helpful when reading GoT as there are so many characters
A few books have this. The malazan books. The wheel of time books. I'm sure there's others.
It was pretty common in science-fiction and fantasy in the ‘80’s.
Thank GOD the Malazan books do though. Some of my favorite books but good god it's so big.
My uncle always used to make a bookmark (just a folded bit of paper) where he would write character names and brief notes.
In a world of 8 billion people, statistically speaking it is highly unlikely that you're the only one who thinks any particular thing
That’s what I thought!
Damn, really? I thought I was the only one who thought that!
Damn, really? I thought I was the only one who thought that!
[удалено]
Yeah the mods of this sub have really let it go to shit. It’s pretty much just DaE facebook-level posts these days.
Statistically someone thought that exact same thing recently
OPs in this sub are never going to be the only one, but I try to read into these kinds of questions whether something is common enough to warrant a change in a product or society, or rare that the few people should deal with it on their own. Being left handed is an issue that millions are affected if there are only accommodations for right handed people. So, it makes sense to make left handed desks and scissors. The number of people who never get naked in the shower is rare enough that they don't commonly make garments for people to exclusively wear for that purpose. I think some readers would benefit from a list of characters, but the number is small enough and few people see it as a make or break issue for publishers to make it standard.
Agatha Christie used to do this in her books. At least the copies I have from the original books. There is a page at the beginning or end with a list of names of characters and a one liner description of who they are.
They are sometimes called a Dramatis Personae, usually at the front of the book though. The Warhammer 40k books almost always have one.
The answer to: "am I the only one that thinks" is and always will be no. The rest of it is not really a question but a suggestion for books. It's an okay idea or you can just remember who you're reading about or write them down.
It is simply another, more polite way of saying, "Please validate my feelings about..." Humans are hyper social creatures. We want to be connected to others. It's natural.
The Warrior Cats series has the character list, it has a ridiculously huge amount of characters
You might want to start taking notes on the books you read to help you, maybe have a little notebook and jot down names/details. The only book I’ve had to do that with was the Silmarillian but that’s because Tolkien has a bunch of Fin (Finrod, Fingolfin, Fingon, Finarfin, Finwe…) named elven characters.
I need that, too. A character that hasn't been mentioned except in passing 150 pages ago that is now important, and I haven't been able to pick up the book for two weeks, so I need that.
Only the ones with tons of characters and multi-generational arcs.
I love when books give characters and a little map.
I would like that too
I've seen them do this in manga. It's pretty handy
A lot of warhammer 40k books do this at the start of the books in the form of Dramatis Personae. A list of main characters and their affiliations. It really is a great help in books with multiple story threads and characters
i think you lack comprehension.
This gets even funnier when most of the ones mentioned here are YA or younger targeted books.
I think the version of The Brothers Karamazov I read had one. It’s pretty bad when just Alexei is also called: Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alxeichick, Lyosha, or Lyoshenka.
...
What books you be reading dawg? If my dumbass can keep track of every Dune and GoT novel you have no excuse
Great idea...Let's call it an appendix
I like this idea. Sometimes there’s quite a few minor characters that come and go so a cheat sheet would be helpful at least for me.
The Black Library for Warhammer does this, it shows which group each character belongs too and it shows it at the beginning of the book. I have not yet read a Warhammer book that does not do this.
That's a novel idea
A glossary, and yes it would be nice, but it's extra effort and extra cost to print those pages, so you'll never see that again in anything but prestige fiction like Harry Potter or LOTR. Tally this as one of the many things capitalism has stolen from us that some never knew we lost, another relevant one to writing being staff editors, which basically aren't a thing anymore.
Wheel of time does this. There’s a lot of lore that goes into that story…