A long time ago I read the six, very long, volumes of the fantasy series "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant". Recently the author, Stephen Donaldson, has added two more volumes in the form of a sequel. They are entertaining enough, though they have serious flaws. One flaw is the constant references to the other six books. The characters can't walk from one room to another without an internal monologue recalling previous rooms they have left and entered.
Another flaw though, and one it shares (in my view) with the over-hyped Captain Corelli , is that Donaldson does like to show off his erudition by using long words. Today, on my journey to and from work I read around forty pages. All of the following words (not all of which I know) appeared in them.

cerements
percipience
viridian
aliment
viands
malefic
argence
chrism

The problem is compounded by the author's tendency to invent his own words (the glossary of made up words for this volume alone runs to 22 pages!).
I have no idea why authors do this, making words up seems to be a particular failing of fantasy authors, but I wish they would show some restraint. Aliment? Viands? What's wrong with food, a word that I haven't come across anywhere in the book.

Well "viands" I understood quickly enough, but am embarrassed to say I had only heard of two others: "viridian" and "chrism."

Here is where you would appreciate a Kindle, Bob. It has a built-in dictionary, so the looking-up of unknown words is extremely convenient. Just roll the cursor to the line containing the word, press, and up pops a list of probable unknown words in that line and their definitions. Occasionally the word I want isn't in the Kindle's dictionary, and then I have to get up, go to the computer or an actual book on the shelf.

Wordmatic

I'm reasonably certain he also made up "argence". It's not in any dictionary I own and not in One-Look, but its also not in that ridiculous glossary so maybe it really is just a real, but very obscure, word.

argence

I've not heard of it or seen it, but I've also never heard tell of Mr Stephen Donaldson or his multi-tomed novels. I would assume, if I ran across it in a novel, that it had something to do with 'silver' or 'white'. There was a Marquis d'Argence with whom Voltaire corresponded.

So would I. The confusing thing is that it seems to be related not to silver but to white gold. Of course if you are making words up you get to choose the meaning.

Interestingly, just today (before I read this thread) my daughter made a reservation for my birthday dinner at a restaurant in Chicago called Viand. I had to look the word up. You're ahead of me, WM!