Not really fantastic

Something that... well, not really annoys me, but that I notice more and more often, is that sometimes fantasy authors make especially the simple things too easy for themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I know that there's a lot of research that goes into a book, and that goes for every genre. If it doesn't, it's imply not a good book. Fantasy takes a lot of its clues from history, so there's one area of research. Then there's usually the animals, how they behave, their characteristics, or how to tend for them. Do you know how many different ways there are to harness a horse or the types of bridles, saddles and so on? I don't. There are battle tactics to be studied, as well as how an army would behave and be provided for during a campaign, and so on...

There are surely some cases in which the research took longer than the actual writing of the book. And then again...

I'm currently reading Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb, which plays in a completely new world. Believe me when I say that alone the making of that world in the literal sense - as in drawing the map - is difficult enough. I've done it once. Then there are cities to name, as well as the characters, giving it a history, all the details that a reader probably won't necessarily think about. And after all that is done, all those big things taken care of, it's the small things that sometimes shake the impression for me.

In Shaman's Crossing there are not only hours, days, weeks, months and years, but they also apparently use laudanum to numb injured soldiers. Why? This is a completely new world, who says that our rules have to apply there? Why are the hours sixty minutes long? Why do the weeks have seven days? Why are they even called hours, weeks, months, etc? I'm not even expecting that the author makes up a whole new calendar (though given that three of her other trilogies take place in the same world, at least Robin Hobb only would've had to do it once for nine books), but how about at least thinking up different names?

I'm sure there are more examples for this, and as I said, they are small things. But still something worth thinking about.