Thrashalla Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 [quote name='Archibald Merriweather' post='1695876' date='Feb 22 2009, 14.38']They weren't Augustus-era Legionaries - are you thinking of Jack Whyte? Cornwell's takes place a couple generations after the departure of the Legions, who had dominated the south and east of Britain for four centuries. As such, there are still remnants of Roman culture and pockets where it still survives largely unchanged. I'm not sure that contradicts the historical record at all.[/quote] He could also be referring to the way that Gwent maintained it's military much in the Roman tradition and outfitted its troops in similar kit. Either way, if that is what turned you off of the book it sounds like you were looking for reasons to stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strongboar Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 [quote name='Archibald Merriweather' post='1695876' date='Feb 22 2009, 18.38']They weren't Augustus-era Legionaries - are you thinking of Jack Whyte? Cornwell's takes place a couple generations after the departure of the Legions, who had dominated the south and east of Britain for four centuries. As such, there are still remnants of Roman culture and pockets where it still survives largely unchanged. I'm not sure that contradicts the historical record at all.[/quote] The problem is that the Britons are imitating classical 1st century AD-style legionaries, not the army of the late empire. The difference: [url="http://legionarybooks.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Legionaries3.25583035_std.jpg"]http://legionarybooks.net/yahoo_site_admin...5583035_std.jpg[/url] [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_soldier_175_aC_in_northern_province.jpg"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_so...rn_province.jpg[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archibald Merriweather Posted February 22, 2009 Author Share Posted February 22, 2009 [quote name='strongboar' post='1695919' date='Feb 22 2009, 18.23']The problem is that the Britons are imitating classical 1st century AD-style legionaries, not the army of the late empire. The difference: [url="http://legionarybooks.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Legionaries3.25583035_std.jpg"]http://legionarybooks.net/yahoo_site_admin...5583035_std.jpg[/url] [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_soldier_175_aC_in_northern_province.jpg"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_so...rn_province.jpg[/url][/quote] the later legionary looks less advanced, doesn't he? he looks, to the uninitiated, more like a gaul than a roman - the helmet, mail, breeches, the celt-inspired spatha etc. i know the romans incorporated many of the techniques and equipment of the peoples they conquered or used as auxiliaries. is it possible that the mail was more impregnable than the band armor ([i]lorica segmenta[/i])? i wonder. that being said, you recall from the text that the romano-british were described as the former rather than the latter? if so then you've got a discerning eye, my friend. part of the appeal to me was due to my fascination with sub-roman britain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 [quote name='Stego' post='1695865' date='Feb 22 2009, 17.32']Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome is the best Historical Fiction I've ever read.[/quote] Couldn't agree more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZANNI_1276 Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 [quote name='Ran' post='1695455' date='Feb 22 2009, 01.42']Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond and Niccolo series. George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman series. Those are my main historical fiction tips.[/quote] Agree None better. Period. Both are my favorites and perhaps fav in any genre... "Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such a ruinous defeat. It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganized enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again." - H Flashman... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delete this account pls Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I like a lot of the authors already mentioned, but I wanted to second Arturo Perez-Reverte. Discovered the Alatriste series last year and I fell in love with it. Its a shame that only the first 3 books have been translated into English so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archibald Merriweather Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 [quote name='Brady' post='1695978' date='Feb 22 2009, 20.14']I like a lot of the authors already mentioned, but I wanted to second Arturo Perez-Reverte. Discovered the Alatriste series last year and I fell in love with it. Its a shame that only the first 3 books have been translated into English so far.[/quote] but think of what we've got to look forward to! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archibald Merriweather Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 That other thread reminded me - I loved Gemmel's Troy series. Not sure how accurate the history is but they're rollicking good fun, so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanna vander Poele Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I, uh, actually enjoy Philippa Gregory's historical novels, though they are not all that accurate :P I suppose Thomas Carlyle's biography of Frederick the Great [i]could [/i]be considered historical fiction, the writing of it being so totally unlike any other biography I've ever read (very flowery and adoring, dare I say it - a bit [i]gay[/i] in all senses of the word). There is also the Horatio Hornblower series, and James Clavell's Asian Saga. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_fiction"]This[/url] list is pretty comprehensive, I would say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stego Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 George MacDonald Fraser is boring. The humor gets old. We get it. He likes to pretend to be a badass but really is a coward. He likes to have sex. We get it. Chock this one up under overrated comedians with Carrot Top and Terry Pratchett. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Stego is boring. The humor gets old. We get it. He likes to be a curmudgeon. He likes to pretend to be a badass but really he's just a big ol' softy. We get it. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
needle Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZANNI_1276 Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 [quote name='Stego' post='1696279' date='Feb 23 2009, 04.53']George MacDonald Fraser is boring. The humor gets old. We get it. He likes to pretend to be a badass but really is a coward. He likes to have sex. We get it. Chock this one up under overrated comedians with Carrot Top and Terry Pratchett.[/quote] The humor is repetitive but so what? Still funny/great to read and extremly insightful of not only the Victorian age but the people who lived then and made it great. GMF is a historian by trade... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publius Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Michael Curtis Ford is pretty good. Gods and Legions is one of my favorite historical fictions. Also, Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen have two alternative history series out that I enjoy, the Civil War series and Pacific War series. Since Historical Fiction often leads me to reading History I'll throw out two history books that I really loved. Flags of Our Fathers was a great book that was turned into a crappy movie. The book will send a wide variety of emotions through you, you'll laugh in some places, cry in others, and yet in other places it will scare the hell out of you. A very personal account of the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. The other is D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose, starts off slow the first few chapters because of the technical jargon on how they developed Operation Overlord and how the Higgins boats came to be, but once it gets to the personal accounts, hold on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stego Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Flags of our Fathers is a poor book that sugarcoats the ONLY real story of merit we get out of that stupid fucking photo. (I say this as a Marine.) Ira Hayes and how he dealt with his PTSD. (Ford and the Gingrich/Fortschen partnership are piss poor writers.) ETA: I'm not trying to be a jerk. There are a lot of works of merit here you could and would enjoy a lot more than this crap you've been reading. Read these forums. Take reccs from people with track records for pleasing others with their reccs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annelise Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 A couple recent reads of mine that I recommend: Louis Bayard's [i]The Black Tower[/i] - [url="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Tower-Louis-Bayard/dp/0061173509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235397657&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.com/Black-Tower-Louis-Ba...7657&sr=1-1[/url] Takes place in Restoration France. [i]The Whiskey Rebels[/i] by David Liss - [url="http://www.amazon.com/Whiskey-Rebels-Novel-David-Liss/dp/1400064201"]http://www.amazon.com/Whiskey-Rebels-Novel...s/dp/1400064201[/url] Takes place during Washington's Presidency. Enjoyable stuff. :) Hannah Tinti's [i]The Good Thief[/i] reminds me of a couple ASOIAF secondary characters who got their own book. It's much smaller in historical events than the other two, but a good story. Takes place in colonial New England. [url="http://www.amazon.com/Good-Thief-Hannah-Tinti/dp/0385337450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235397898&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.com/Good-Thief-Hannah-Ti...7898&sr=1-1[/url] [quote]This striking debut novel is an homage to old-fashioned boys-own adventure stories, and unfolds like a Robert Louis Stevenson tale retold amid the hardscrabble squalor of Colonial New England. The sheer strangeness of the story is beguiling: a one-handed boy, tainted by his upbringing in a Catholic orphanage and with little to offer but a head full of lice, is adopted by a con artist, and enters an underworld of ruthless mousetrap-manufacturing barons, feisty chimney-dwelling dwarves, and, perhaps most terrifying of all, black-market dentists. In keeping with the gothic tradition, Tinti writes with an arch, almost camp sensibility. While on a nocturnal grave-digging excursion to procure bodies for a crazy scientist, for instance, the pair encounter an assassin, who tells the twelve-year-old hero that he was made for killing. Will the boy ever discover the truth of his past? Its good fun watching him find out.[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beniowa Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I heartily recommend the Falco series by [url="http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/"]Lindsey Davis[/url]. It's a mystery series set in ancient Rome circa 70s AD. [quote name='Archibald Merriweather' post='1695324' date='Feb 21 2009, 19.18']The [i]Captain Alatriste [/i]series by Arturo Perez-Reverte - I literally cannot imagine any fantasy fan not loving it.[/quote] I read the first book last year. While it wasn't too bad, it had very little plot. Halfway through the author discards the plot almost entirely and the book becomes little more than narration on the political and historical aspects of the period. I have a history degree so I love to read this stuff, but is it too much to ask for a novel to have an actual plot? Still, I was interested enough that I'll pick up the second book sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Just bumping to second Dunnett and Waltari. I've actually been waiting for another historical fiction thread so I could second Galactus' lonely Waltari posts, but now I'm thirding! Imagine my surprise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinuviel Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 [b]I, Elizabeth[/b] by Rosalind Miles is one of my personal favorites. It is written as a fictional autobiography of the Virgin Queen and Miles really manages to creat a voice that is forceful and intimate and historically favloured without being akwardly anachronistic. It is also historically accurate to a very large extent though Miles does add a few of her very own inventions/interpretations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tenalpia Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Haven't read any historical fiction for ages! Not quite sure why as I definitely used to enjoy it. As a teenager I enjoyed Jean Plaidy and Margaret Campbell Black. Later on I read a fair bit of Nigel Tranter's stuff - The Wallace, the MacGregor Trilogy... Also loved the James Clavell novels not so much King Rat and Gai Jin but all the others! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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