sologdin Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 RSB has a good rundown of one of the crusades--yaknow, the one that was interrupted by rape aliens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I've just finished Clavell's "shogun" and was astounded by the level of detail in the book. The scary thing is I have no idea how much of it is real which is far more dangerous than sloppy "history" where it's easy to sniff out the BS, The key difference here though is that Clavell is so convincing in his world building it feels real irrespecitve of whether it is or not.I'd like to think a lot of it is true with regards to the culture and things like portuguese/spanish involvement. The meat of the story eg the battle for Shogun iand the english sailor who became samurai is based on fact but I think the author wisely chose to change names to allow him some creative freedom and to avoid too many people accusing him of inaccuracies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I've just finished Clavell's "shogun" and was astounded by the level of detail in the book. The scary thing is I have no idea how much of it is real which is far more dangerous than sloppy "history" where it's easy to sniff out the BS, The key difference here though is that Clavell is so convincing in his world building it feels real irrespecitve of whether it is or not.I'd like to think a lot of it is true with regards to the culture and things like portuguese/spanish involvement. The meat of the story eg the battle for Shogun iand the english sailor who became samurai is based on fact but I think the author wisely chose to change names to allow him some creative freedom and to avoid too many people accusing him of inaccuracies.That book is superb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgambino Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Yes see, it is fiction, but its HISTORICAL fiction. It's called that for a reason, for fucks sake. My opinion on Conn Igulden is pretty well known, but the short version: He sucks ass. Ceaser and Brutus grow up on a farm and have zany adventures? What the fuck? That's alt history/sci fi right there. I'm also not a fan of Conn Igulden, to put it mildly, but I actually always assumed he was considered alt history, not historical fiction. If anything of Igulden's is considered historical fiction, Christopher Moore's Lamb could be considered historical fiction too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 everything lady narcissa said pretty much Yeah Igulden is considered historical fiction. Drives me insane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 It's when an author allows her / his personal concerns to change historical facts. I was so disappointed with Gore Vidal (though not surprised, because he could be vicious -- and petty! -- as heck) to see him telling lies about events concerning President Grant in 1876. Henry Adams did the same thing with Grant (though he wasn't named) in his novel, Democracy -- though for Adams his novel was contemporary, not historical fiction. This is the sort of thing that affects what people think they know about history, and it is wrong, as well as perpetuating the negative effects that come out of believing lies are truth. Adams did it because Grant didn't give his good family friend, Charles Sumner, an appointment he wanted -- moreover an appointment that Sumner's ill health (he never completely recovered from the caning Preston Brooks gave him back in 1851) would have prevented him from fulfilling reasonably. Vidal did it because he fancied himself in the tradition of Adams, so followed him in this -- as well as having bought into the endless lies circulated by former CSA sorts, as part of the revisionism of slavery, secession and the Civil War. For example, the HBO historical series, Rome, was historically wretched in terms of the characters, what they did, when they did it and who they were. Which in Iggulden (mentioned above) ruined the books. But since the whole feel of what Rome was like at the time felt so right, didn't bothered me at all. I loved that series! The thing is, when it comes to the Plantagenets or the Caesars, it doesn't matter to our current politics, our social and cultural lives, if it's not historically accurate. But it still does matter greatly in our national political, social and cultural lives if we perpetuate a phony picture of figures and actions of the nineteenth century -- and even still, our history around Independence. That's where my boundaries are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I've no objection at all to Alternative History novels. I object to Alternative History being presented as actual history. Hence, Caesar and Brutus being brought up together is beyond the pale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinterKing Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I've no objection at all to Alternative History novels. I object to Alternative History being presented as actual history. Hence, Caesar and Brutus being brought up together is beyond the pale.And Aurelia being crazy, Marius ending that way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 So we are agreed, Igulden is a mosnter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I've no objection at all to Alternative History novels. I object to Alternative History being presented as actual history. Hence, Caesar and Brutus being brought up together is beyond the pale.And as I recall Brutus was some Demi-god with a sword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Winter Rose Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I was reading The Other Sister Boleyn and I wasn't bothered by historical (non-)accuracy as much as I was bothered by her description of Anne Boleyn as power hungry and lustfull woman, and she might be neither. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 That book is superb. It certainly is a classic and has pulled off that unfortunate trick of making the new book I'm reading seem rubbish by comparison. And I don't think "prince of fools" is going to be rubbish - it's just that "shogun" was that good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I really need to get around to reading that. Been sitting on my shelf for weeks :(After Renaults Alexander trilogy I'm making Shogun a priority Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I really need to get around to reading that. Been sitting on my shelf for weeks :(After Renaults Alexander trilogy I'm making Shogun a priorityFuneral Games, the third of the trilogy, is the most gripping, and depressing, book I've read. I can only bring myself to read it, every ten years or so. Let's just say, nobody, however sympathetic, is safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Funeral Games, the third of the trilogy, is the most gripping, and depressing, book I've read. I can only bring myself to read it, every ten years or so. Let's just say, nobody, however sympathetic, is safe. Gods okay I'm starting the trilogy tonight :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Everyone should read Waltari. He's not exactly up-to-date with modern scholarship (then again, neither is Graves) but he was considered fairly good at the time. I never quite got what was so great about Shogun though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 It certainly is a classic and has pulled off that unfortunate trick of making the new book I'm reading seem rubbish by comparison. And I don't think "prince of fools" is going to be rubbish - it's just that "shogun" was that good.It's great. And then Tai-Pan's pretty good, though there are similarities. And then Gai-Jin's okay, but by now you kind of know where he's going to go with everything. I couldn't get past the opening chapter of the one set in the middle-east. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch-MaesterPhilip Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 I've read books about Frederick Townsend Ward, Cardigan, Josiah Harlan, The White Rajah and Mrs. Duberly after reading the Flashman Papers. If not for Fraser I never would have read about any of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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