As an Australian who has read and loved the Riley books, I find it a bit of a shame that the characters have been written so as not to alienate anyone. In saying that, I would be unimpressed with a whole lot of Steve Irwin-isms (God rest his gorgeous soul) or characters greeting each other with g’day mate on every other page… But I do think removing specific terminology or colloquialisms (sp?) can sometimes mean selling your story short.

I can’t see why an American reader would avoid an obvious Australian character or setting, anymore than they wouldn’t read a story because it was set in England or Egypt.

Besides I think we’re pretty damn loveable down here! :-)

Initially ImaJinn had rejected Dancing with the Devil because there was “too much Aussie slang.â€Â?

Too much homogenization and it defeats the whole purpose of setting a book elsewhere. Isn’t part of the charm of reading a British Regency for example in the language people use? In a book I just finished, set in Britain, the main character used quite a few words in ways that were new to me. But they could be figured out by context for the most part, and gave the book a very British feel that would have been lost in “Americanized” language. I suppose some Americans would be put off by the British way of speech if they couldn’t follow it, but I enjoyed it.

To be honest I used to roll my eyes at any homogenization (like in the Potter books), but I understand it better now after reading a manga where the translator turned everything one character said into a US street dialect I just couldn’t follow. So I do think there has to be a limit.

I just wonder where most publishers/editors are drawing the line. I hope it’s somewhere beyond making a French character say “Cherie” every other sentence (and somewhere before Authentic Frontier Gibberish).