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I wonder if the new 50 shades movie will live up to expectations and make this list?  But whether or not it does, I think it's going to do very well at the box office. 

Personally I'm not planning to see it.  Maybe one day when it's on dvd and there's nothing else left to take home.  But I'm definitely going to read the comments and reviews of the movie on the interweb ....  I know it's bad, but I don't think a real guy in the flesh would ever be good enough to live up to the expectations set by the books, so it's going to get really interesting soon!  hehehe

I like this idea.  I hope Sol comes around and find a way to do this.  But from what I've seen, he's pretty adamant to keep the forums as is.

Tom, I've heard of some of those movies  *blushes*.  Haven't seen Love Actually or Outsourced - it's now on my list! 

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time!    LOL

ps - ok, I'll start a historical novel group

* copied the reply in the romance group to here - and I finally understand the issue (I think) *

Rebecca, how's your gaelic?

Ri benn - king of a single tribe (lesser king)
Ri buiden - king of many tribes (middle king)
Ri ruirech - king of kings (great king)

Personally, I like rhi, brenin etc., but I like great/middle/lesser king more as it keeps new and strange words to the minimum and to be honest, it's still a story that's being told, not a history lesson.  AND you'd anyways have to explain that Brenin is a great king and Rhi a middle king etc. whereas great-middle-lower is pretty much self explanatory.  AND you'd stick to English!

It's not the king, lord or chieftain that is the problem, but that all their wives are referred to as queens and you don't normally expect to refer to the wife of a chieftain or a lord as a queen.  I've looked, but I can't find any terms that differentiated the wives.  I'm not surprised, they'd be differentiated by association to their husbands and not on their own.  To be honest, their wives are not mentioned at all.  Welcome to the 8th century!  LOL

Unless you or someone else can come up with a brilliant fix like come up with plausible equivalent titles for their wives as not to create confusion, I don't see how you can work your way around it but to go the Great King, Middle King or Lesser King route to avoid the confusion why all their wives are queens. 

To work around the cumbersomeness of always referring to them as great, middle or lesser, as I've mentioned before, you could only refer to the additional tags when you introduce them in each scene and then call them simply King from then on - their social status could also be worked in/the use of tags avoided by showing their actions in relation to other kings when there are more than one king present and in dialogue.  Not all, but some readers will also quickly be able to associate each king with his "level" with or without the tags.

Personally, if this were me, I'd go the great-middle-lower route even though it's going to be massively painful (then again, changing to Brenin, Rhi and something else is not an easy fix either).  It's bloody unique - as much as I understand and don't mind king, lord and chieftain, when you mentioned great-middle-lower kings, I was impressed - I have never seen it before and I had no idea until now that lords and chieftains were also kings albeit lesser kings (although this probably says more about me and my reviewing skills and it's not good!  LOL). 

As I've said before, this could also avoid confusion in that lord is normally a form of address and not a title as such.  And it would be technically correct, so even readers that's up to date with their history knowledge would not be able to find fault.

Thumbs and big-toes crossed that you can come up with a simpler solution.  I'll still keep this in the back of my mind - giving up is not an option! 

JR

If someone doesn't understand why Lord Cadell is now King Cadell after he was made King of Powys or Lady Anna is Queen Anna after marrying a king, I'd say they're probably not well suited to read historical novels .....

edit - K excluded, it's meant in general and not at all to what K's been saying or doing!!!!!!!!!  This is just to answer your question.  I think K's problem is consistency rather than complexity but K is better suited to be the judge on what he means ... 

Then again, how important is it to know the "level" of each king (or queen) at ALL TIMES?  I'd suggest only to differentiate between the levels when it's crucial e.g. when you introduce them.  The example you're giving - the important bit is not what level of king said what to what level of king, but WHO said or didn't say something to WHO.

therefore:

"But why was that not told to King Gurgust?” Drech asked.
“It is King Tedig who said fever,” the princess said.

should therefore be more than fine.

But say King Tedig walks into a room where King Gurgust is.  Then it would be important i.e.

Middle King Tedig bowed (or whatever they do) to Great King Gurgust.

One could argue by his action alone it should also be clear which king is on a higher "level" than the other, so even this should work and not be confusing (especially if the Great, Middle, Low concept has already been introduced - you would need to do this!):

King Tedig bowed when he entered the room.  "Great King Gurgust, I have been waiting for you."

ps - no probs with the ladies/princess issue!  Makes sense, and it would seem like that's the least of your problem! 

I hope I'm not making this worse!  But this is something I've never heard of (and maybe it's just me), and brings such a different level to the table, that I just love it!  But it's all up to you, as always! 

xx

Hey jp, we all do things differently! Some will, some won't. Not something to be too worried about imo! xx

You need someone like this!  I wouldn't pick it up otherwise since I sometimes get lost in the stories and forget I'm supposed to be reviewing! 

And here I thought my titles were tricky to get right.  Anyways, here my opinion goes.

Historical novels need to be accurate, but then again, it can't be.  There are so many conflicting works and research it's not even funny.  My personal approach is, be consistent i.e. I don't switch between two sources because it suits me all of a sudden, so I've selected the ones I'm using (and that agree with each other) and I'm using them and only them (it's still recognised resources though!).  I doubt a general reader would be too concerned what you use though and the ones that's done some research and disagree, at least you can point them to your resources.  Honestly, I think they would much rather prefer it's not complicated to follow.  So I guess what I'm saying is, no need to change titles as long as it is based on some accurate source/origin and not overly complex.

Also, if you call the sons prince, the daughters should in all likelihood be princesses.  I'm avoiding royalty like the plague in my books and haven't met the Queen yet, so I can't advise how to address royalty correctly.  (It's a good thing I haven't met the Queen, because the conversation would go something like this:  Nice to meet you, Queen.  Say, I'm writing a book and really would like to use the correct forms of address.  Do you have a spare hour to help me out with this?  Thanks mate!" - because of course she's going to agree and jump up and down from excitement, I'll even thank her on the front page.)

I disagree.  This is so unique!  A work-around your issue that it seems too long might be to introduce X, Y and Z as great, middle and lesser king at the start of each major scene and simply call them king from then on.  It shouldn't be a problem and based on what I know from titles, it won't be too far off to what probably happened in reality.  Most research is done on the written words left behind from those good old days, and there are massive differences even today between how you would address a titled person in writing vs. in speech.  Have to love it, otherwise you'd go nuts!

To give you an example - Duke is "Your Grace", Marquess/Earl/Viscount/Baron are all "My lord" even though a marquess is higher ranked than an earl, an earl than viscount and viscount a baron, and Baronets/Knights are "Sir".  So I see some parallels here with the "lords" where a great king, middle king or lesser king could all be addressed simply as "king".  It's not too much of a stretch because I guess the titles I use have been founded and based on the titles you are using?!

But having said this, you still need to be consistent otherwise some readers would pick it up.

If you're changing "lord" to "rhi", you'd also have to change "king" (all of them) and "chieftain" to Welsh to keep it consistent in my opinion.  This might make it really hard to read and keep up, as much as I love the concept.  The unusual names are already a steep learning curve for me and I have British blood in me!  And as Janet TP sometimes say, and it's true, readers don't have a long concentration span anymore, so it could be too hard (complex) to keep up with Welsh words/titles in between.

Not sure this helps, but let me know what you think and we can talk about it a bit more!
JR

Or maybe you're just really really old, njc!  Inflation does that over time I've been told!