s1m0n wrote:
So, anyone want to talk about suspension of disbelief? Or hay bales in pseudo-medieval settings? How about "feigning reality in low-tech settings"?
Despite your benighted view of Mr. Tom Petty,

I am right there with you on the duty of authors to make a credible attempt at suspending my disbelief. It's a large factor in my enjoyment of books of that or any similar genre.
Your previous quote sums it up pretty well for me:
s1m0n wrote:
Good fantasy worldbuilding fosters the illusion that there's an entire breathing world that cradles the narrative. That you could turn your back on the action, walk in some other direction, and find other lives & other stories to follow. Bad fantasy worldbuilding screams that you're standing in a set, and that from any other camera angle what you'd see is cardboard, stretched canvas, and painted plywood.
Howlers like anachronistic hay bales, then, destroy the suspension of disbelief.
Earlier this year, I read the book
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Part autobiography and part how-to, it was well written, entertaining and informative. Having previously read very little of Mr. King's fiction, I decided I would read more, to appreciate it and the lessons learned from
On Writing. I chose to read
The Stand, as it was one of his biggest sellers, and it was available cheaply at a nearby used book store.
I realize it was one of his earlier works, and not his favorite either, but it was full of gaffs that pretty much ruined the story for me. Not a pure work of fantasy
per se, but it does have elements of both fantasy and science fiction, being set in a near-future earth and U.S.A. It wasn't anachronistic howlers then, but mostly just poor research that did it in for me.
Example: the very few survivors of a global pandemic ride motorcycles and drive cars and trucks everywhere, crossing the continental United States, always able to get unlimited petrol without question - despite the fact there is no electricity to run the petrol pumps, and no way to siphon petrol from underground storage tanks in any petrol filling station. Completely unbelievable! If you're going to write a story set in a post-apocalyptic world, where travel figures largely into the story, I would think details like that should be the first thing a writer would want to research, but not in this case. Nor did his editor(s) catch it either.
The point being, that the writer's lack of research and attention to detail failed to suspend my disbelief and ruined what could have fairly easily otherwise have been a good story.
I have other criticisms of the book, but this example serves to illustrate my point of failure to suspend disbelief.