[USMA:37450] Re: Lary Niven's naivete

[Martin Vlietstra]

I don't have a problem with leagues or miles being used in books if they are appropriate to the context - John Grisham certainly used kilometres in "The Broker" which was set in Italy (but still used Fahrenheit for temperature).  On the other hand, Wilbur Smith got totally confused about how far a league was when writing about Southern Africa in a story set in the early 1700's.  He certainly knew the distances in kilometres - after all he lived there, but to write in leagues and get his unit out by a factor of ten - well ....  ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Millet To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2006 5:01 PM Subject: [USMA:37449] Re: Lary Niven's naivete ... snip Fantasy novels are still mostly in miles though, at least the ones I've read. Or even worse, leagues.  Still, the huge popularity of the scifi genre should help increas famliarity with metric measures. Mike