History in Books

[Zorral]

As many of us are so interested in history and associated historical fiction in whatever genre, such a crime and mysteries, mayhap we should have a thread for same?

You all likely knew this already, that Adrian Goldsworthy. author of many books about Romans and Roman history, is now writing historical military fiction.  Unsurprisingly, about the Romans.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/08/19/the-big-idea-adrian-goldsworthy/

He's written a lot of historical fiction, I just now learned.

Quote

 

Napoleonic Wars Series

True Soldier Gentlemen (2011), (George Weidenfeld & Nicolson) ISBN 0-297-86035-6; his first novel

Beat the Drums Slowly (2011)

Send Me Safely Back Again (2012)

All in Scarlet Uniform (2013)

Run Them Ashore (2014)

Whose Business is to Die (2015)

Roman Britain Series

Vindolanda (Head of Zeus, 2017) ISBN 9781784974701

The Encircling Sea (Head of Zeus, 2018) ISBN 9781784978167

Brigantia (Head of Zeus, 2019) ISBN 9781784978198

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Zorral

[SeanF]

My favourite authors of stories set in Ancient Rome are the late Colleen McCullogh and Harry Sidebottom.  I really enjoy both the Masters of Rome and Throne of the Caesars series.

[maarsen]

Well I must say I do love good historical fiction. I, Claudius is still up there as one of my favorites. Arthur Conan Doyle was pretty hit and miss as I liked The White Company, but later efforts were meh to awful. 

The Flashman series makes any list along with Aubrey and Maturin, and Hornblower. 

Any other recommendations besides the usual suspects would be appreciated.

[Zorral]

I liked Doyle's prequel, Sir Nigel, more than the more famous White Company.

Among series we may not be all the familiar with is David Gilman's Master of War series, set in the 100 Years War has a great deal to offer -- the same era as Doyle's two books mentioned above.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/master-of-war/

The latest volume , #7 (2021), Shadow of the Hawk, is set in the war Edward III ordered the Black Prince to conduct a war to take back the vile king of Castile's throne to him.  In history, among the notables who accompanied that campaign was Geoffrey Chaucer.  In the aftermath the Black Prince acquired an illness from which he never really recovered, leaving then, the throne of England to his very young son.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55456125-shadow-of-the-hawk

A good resource for publication notification of new historical fiction, as well as in the past >ah-hem< is the Historical Novel Society Review:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Zorral

[IFR]

I'm pleased to give the obligatory anything by Bernard Cornwell mention. I particularly liked his Arthurian trilogy. Amazing author.

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. Fascinating work about Westinghouse vs Thomas Edison.

[Zorral]

I'll throw out three other high quality series, that I've much enjoyed.

P. F. Chisholm's Sir Robert Carey novels, set in borderland Scotland and England in the time of Queen Elizabeth, based on an historical figure, who was indeed quite an adventurer swordsman and related to the Queen:

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/p-f-chisholm/

Robert Merle's 13 novel series, Fortunes of France. The series is about 16th and 17th century France through the eyes of a fictitious Huguenot doctor-turned-spy Pierre de Siorac:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_de_France

Another French author, Christian Jacq, wrote a series set in Ancient Egypt, during a fraught time between the Pharaoh Ramses and the Assyrians:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Jacq

 

[Wilbur]

Greek history, anyone?  Harry Turtledove's PhD thesis focused on the later Byzantine empire, and he wrote four "Hellenic Trader" novels under the pen name H.N. Turteltaub.  These are excellent, focusing on the lives of two Rhodian cousins who ply the Eastern Mediterranean.

• Over the Wine Dark Sea (2001)
• The Gryphon's Skull (2002)
• The Sacred Land (2003)
• Owls to Athens (2004)
• Salamis (2020)

[LongRider]

I’m new to the historical fiction genre as I got hooked after reading Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell well. 
I read this thread a few months ago about the passing of Sharon Kay Penman and read several of her books which I enjoyed. 
Anyway, my phone isn’t working too well on the site right now so I’ll just close with’Yay’ a historical thread.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Mika Waltari. Best known for The Egyptian, but I personally prefer Dark Angel, his fictionalised version of the 1453 Fall of Constantinople. 

[Which Tyler]

15 hours ago, IFR said:

I'm pleased to give the obligatory anything by Bernard Cornwell mention. I particularly liked his Arthurian trilogy. Amazing author.

Absolutely compulsory, and you'd probably get as close to unanimity as possible in putting the Arthurian Trilogy first.

 

I'm surprised it's got this far without mention of Wolf Hall as well - usually mentioned in the first half-dozen posts on historical fiction.

[LongRider]

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Mika Waltari. Best known for The Egyptian, but I personally prefer Dark Angel, his fictionalised version of the 1453 Fall of Constantinople. 

I read The Egyptian, will have to put Dark Angel on the list.  Thanks!

[Zorral]

A new novel, alternate history, to published in the US next month, by award winner, Laurent Binet

"How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History
Laurent Binet’s latest book, “Civilizations,” imagines what might have been if the Incas invaded Europe in the 16th century.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/books/laurent-binet-civilizations.html

 

Quote

 

There is a scene in Laurent Binet’s latest novel, “Civilizations,” where a meeting between conqueror and conquered is brought to life in the vivid description of a tableau by the Renaissance painter Titian.

It’s an imaginary scenario — of the Incas of Peru invading 16th-century Europe, not the other way around, which is what happened in 1532 — that haunted and inspired Binet.

“There’s something melancholic in my book,” he said in an interview at his home last month, “because it offers the conquered a revenge that they never really had.” . . . .

. . . .Binet, 49, has made his name writing historical novels that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. His debut “HHhH,” which was translated into 34 languages (including English in 2012), melded history, fiction and autobiography to explore the events surrounding the assassination of the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich. He followed it up in 2015 with “The Seventh Function of Language,” a murder mystery set in the 1980s that poked fun at the posturing of Parisian intellectuals. The French magazine L’Express called it “the most insolent novel of the year.”

“Civilizations,” published by Grasset in France in 2019, will be published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on Sept. 14. It won the Grand Prix du Roman, an annual literary prize awarded by the Académie Française, in 2019, and is being developed as a multi-language television series to be shot in South America and Europe. It is being co-produced by Anonymous Content in the United States and Païva Studio in France. . . . 

 

 

[maarsen]

On 8/20/2021 at 11:57 AM, Zorral said:

I liked Doyle's prequel, Sir Nigel, more than the more famous White Company.

Among series we may not be all the familiar with is David Gilman's Master of War series, set in the 100 Years War has a great deal to offer -- the same era as Doyle's two books mentioned above.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/master-of-war/

The latest volume , #7 (2021), Shadow of the Hawk, is set in the war Edward III ordered the Black Prince to conduct a war to take back the vile king of Castile's throne to him.  In history, among the notables who accompanied that campaign was Geoffrey Chaucer.  In the aftermath the Black Prince acquired an illness from which he never really recovered, leaving then, the throne of England to his very young son.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55456125-shadow-of-the-hawk

A good resource for publication notification of new historical fiction, as well as in the past >ah-hem< is the Historical Novel Society Review:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/

 

Thanks for the recommendations. I will look out for Sir Nigel.

[Wilbur]

Harry Harrison and Tom Shippey, the noted Tolkien scholar writing as "John Holm", collaborated to write three historical fiction > edging into alternate fiction > glancing coyly at science fiction books that I recommend to anyone interested in 9th Century English and Continental history.

The Hammer and the Cross

One King's Way

King and Emperor

These books have a strong protagonist and antagonist, cover interesting aspects of the Pagan/Christian conflict during the Viking invasions, include an aspect of the Pagan Gods incarnate matched thematically with a Grail Quest, and follow a plotline with enough twists and turns to maintain the reader's interest.  I would put this in the "realistic history" rather than the "high fantasy" pile, as Harry Harrison drives the details of description and circumstance in the story, although the input of Tom Shippey is clear in how certain aspects of The Hero are handled.

Published from 1993 to 1996, these are the crossover between Harry Turtledove and JRR Tolkien you never knew you needed.  Clearly written and printed as a trilogy, apparently nobody told the cover illustrators, as all three books have unique artistic styles, and my own copies are not even the same size.

[Astromech]

I've been looking for Robert Merle's Fortunes of France, in either the original French or an eventual English translation. Not sure how far along that translation is.

Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles are very good, but the reading is very dense with tons of historical references. I would suggest getting the Dorothy Dunnett Companion to assist with all of those references.

 

 

[Zorral]

45 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I've been looking for Robert Merle's Fortunes of France, in either the original French or an eventual English translation. Not sure how far along that translation is.

 

 

 

As of 2015 the first four titles were translated into English. I have no idea if any others have been done, considering the utter insanity all of us, Europe, UK and here, have been living since 2016.  But my sense is that the first four are probably the most interesting, as we get a France that has moved on from the disasters of the Hundred Years War, which our protag/narrator's father, uncles had so much to do with, and which seems to have allowed them to remain relatively unscathed in later Renaissance France, despite remaining staunch Huguenots. I found this particularly interesting, as Partner's ancestors who were  Huguenots, did not fare so well, which is how they ended up in Virginia about 15 years prior to the War of Independence.  But then, I don't think they were members of the wealthy landed class like Protag's.

The full 13 titles are probably difficult to find in France, in French too, since 

Quote

The first novel, Fortune de France, was published by Plon in 1977 when Merle was nearly 70, and the last was released in 2003 when he was 95.^[2][4] Merle wrote the first installment as a one-off, but continued the series as "readers clamoured for more".^[5] The author died in 2004.^[2][4][5]

Siorac's son Pierre narrates the first six novels, and Pierre's own son Pierre-Emmanuel narrates the remaining seven volumes. The men meet many notable people and witness various historical events, including the marriage of Henry, King of Navarre to Margaret of France, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and the assassination of Henry III of France.

We know what happens to books and series once the author's left the building.  Sigh.

[Astromech]

It is really a fascinating period. Which reminds me I'm due for a rewatch of Queen Margot.

[Clueless Northman]

Since this is a ASOIAF forum, mandatory mention of Maurice Druon's Accursed Kings

And since we're dealing with French authors of historical fiction, are we limited to post-WWII writers? If not, then obvious mandatory mention of Dumas and his numerous writings.

[Zorral]

I thought we were mostly looking at works by authors that aren't as well known as Scott, the father of historical fiction, and Dumas, the godfather of historical fiction, or Dunnett or any of these others we all know, such as McCullough, and Penman or even Druon.  These authors come up here all the time.  So well, maybe they should be brought up again, in their own thread?    Besides, I for one would love to read from the commentators here what they particularly admire about these books, as individual readers!

I particularly liked Druon's series (far more than Dunnett whom I personally find nearly unreadable, and whose Lymond I heartily wish had gotten speared like boar in the hunt in the first book  ) for it including the 100 Hundred Years War.  Among the content that I most liked was the portrait of how early banking was emerging.  There was a bit I particularly relished, which was during a French invasion of Italy, an aristo's army got sidelined by weather.  He started reading parts of Dante's Inferno to his fellow lords, laughing so hard at some of the parts -- they knew so well who all those people were Dante put into hell, even though it was so much later, so much did they relish their fates.  I wish I had been able to see the French televised adaptation of the series. Evidently while the first adaptation in the early '70s ran it was in France like it was in England when The Jewel in The Crown was first televised by the BBC in the mid-80s.  Nobody on the streets, everybody glued to the screen.

For that matter, Paul Scott's Raj Quartet is terrific historical fiction, as is Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga -- which also kept people inside when running on the BBC the first time in the 1960s. Here in the US too, I hear, from older viewers.  When it first ran on PBS people commuting home from work would try to leave a leeetle early to be sure they were back home in time to catch that week's episode.  The same with the first Poldark series in the 1970's. adapted from Winston Graham's long series of novels.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Zorral

[Ormond]

If one is looking for older historical fiction, two novels which were assigned to me in English class way back in high school which I still remember as being very good are The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade and The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett. The first has as its main characters two young people who turn out to be the parents of the famous philosopher Erasmus. The second focuses on two English sisters between about 1840 and 1905, one of whom leads a conventional life and the other who elopes with a cad to Paris, though when they are elderly they end up living together again. 

I also remember reading Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth Roberts, which is rather remarkable as a book by an American author set in the American Revolution whose title character is a Tory, portrayed as a very admirable person.