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General Reading: Historical Fiction

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorDeborah
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2011 edited
     

    So what is your favorite period to read about? Any specific books that you like in this genre?
    Mine would be Ivanhoe and The Eagle of the Ninth.

  2.  

    I love the Tudor period. Philippa Gregory’d be the way to go here, if I didn’t mind a bunch of sex fests. Which I do.

    I have a thing for books as social commentary that were written and set in the early twentieth century, so they’re not exactly historical fiction—more a product of their time.

  3.  

    I used to really like Ann Rinaldi in middle school.

    Funnily enough, I don’t really read all that much historical fiction anymore, even though I love history and incorporating it into my writing. I guess I prefer reading straight fiction written at the time or nonfiction about the time period. It just seems like I can get more out of the time period that way. That, and I haven’t found any historical fiction books that really grabbed my interest lately.

    When I was heavy into historical fiction I read about basically any era with an interesting-looking plot, but now I think I’m much, much more interested in the Industrial Revolution, Victorian England, and revolutionary America and France for WIP-related reasons. I’m also really looking forward to getting my hands on Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins Of Political Order...which is nonfiction history.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2011 edited
     

    After reading Louis L’amour’s Walking Drum (yeah, I know the guy is an acquired taste, but his historical knowledge is impressive), I’ve become slightly obsessed with the Moorish Empire, but I can’t find much historical fiction for that period. Or, for that matter, nonfiction on the subject. Everything’s about medieval Europe instead.

    Mostly, I like any historical fiction that focuses on a period I’m unfamiliar with. American history is mostly old hat to me, same for English history, I want some stuff from other places instead!

    • CommentAuthorDeborah
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2011 edited
     

    I also liked Lloyd C. Douglas’ ‘The Robe’, which is set in ancient Rome. It’s technically Christian fiction, but done better than most.

  6.  
    Bernard Cornwell

    Arthur, Alfred the Great, The American Revolution, The Napolonic Wars, he's got stuff from the Civil War. . . Yeah he's good.

    Alternate history is fun too. The 1632 series is good.
  7.  

    My favorite historical fiction is Peter Chimaera book of hsitorical faFfiction, by Peter Chimaera, the renowned author of such classics as DIGIMON SAVEZ THE WROLD!!1111 and DOOM: Repercussions of Evil. You can get it here, should you be so inclined.

    • CommentAuthorSum Mortis
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2011
     
    I also really like Bernard Cornwell's series on England in the time of Alfred the Great. It just seems to bring that period into life, which is what good historical fiction does.

    The name of the series is the "Saxon Tales" and it is five books long with a sixth coming out early next year I believe.
  9.  
    Louis L'amour's always a favorite. And anything by Wilbur Smith (who's an amazing author) is an excellent read.

    Cornwell's early stuff was pretty good but around book nine he kind of jumped the shark so I prefer to skip over those books and continue from Waterloo to the Sharpe's Devil. And his Saxon Tales had a lot going for it but I could never get over how much I hated the main character.
  10.  

    Oh, I do like Regency/Victorian Era romances.
    Yeah, shut up :)

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeAug 17th 2011
     

    Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels was truly epic. I liked the first couple of Jeff Shaara’s books, but then they started getting – dare I say it? – tedious.

    And since I’m a huge fan of Roman history, Rosemary Sutcliff is a particular favorite of mine. The Lantern Bearers is really good and I am seconding Deborah on the coolness that is The Eagle of the Ninth.

    And since I’m also a fan of the history of the Crusades, I gotta admit I like H. Rider Haggard’s The Brethren. Sure, it’s fanciful, but it’s still a great book.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeAug 17th 2011
     

    (Very) Early middle ages and Bronze age! I just wish there was more of it. I can’t really any proper examples except possibly Way of the Wyrd, but that’s less of a novel and more of a thesis on pre-Christian British magic traditions.

    •  
      CommentAuthorMiel
    • CommentTimeAug 17th 2011 edited
     

    Very late Victorian/into the Edwardian era for me, though that applies more to period dramas than historical fiction. I love Victorian drama, but hate Victorian romance. I enjoy theme of progress and social change that dominates that particular.

    I loved historical fiction and historical fantasy when I was younger; my favourite books were the Arthur series by Kevin Crossley-Holland (_The Seeing Stone_, At The Crossing-Places, and King of the Middle March).

  14.  

    I enjoy theme of progress and social change that dominates that particular.

    Oh, yes.

  15.  

    (Very) Early middle ages and Bronze age! I just wish there was more of it. I can’t really any proper examples except possibly Way of the Wyrd, but that’s less of a novel and more of a thesis on pre-Christian British magic traditions.

    Oooh, I’ve read something ages ago, that might fit the bill. Try Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. It crosses between slightly-into-the-future Rome and back in the day Rome-dominated Britain (which I can’t remember when that happened). And thematically it’s science fiction.

    So this may or may not be the kind of thing you’re looking for. Probably not, but give it a go, right?

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeAug 18th 2011
     

    Thanks Steph, I’ll keep an eye out for it!

    • CommentAuthorDeborah
    • CommentTimeAug 18th 2011
     

    Right now I’m reading Sutcliff’s ‘The Mark of the Horse Lord’, which is set among Picts and Scots in Roman-era Britain. It’s good so far, but SPOILER

    When I go home, I might read ‘The Lantern Bearers’ (which is the only one we have, aside from ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’) If I can talk my sister into lending me her Kindle, I might be able to read ‘The Silver Branch’

    •  
      CommentAuthorNorthmark
    • CommentTimeAug 18th 2011
     

    I really don’t have a preference for a specific period of historical fiction, but I am so sick of Holocaust books. It’s not even anything against the time period of World War 2, but so many of them are either generic or unrealistic that I really have to force myself to look at one. (unless it’s something definitively original, like Maus)

  19.  

    Ugh, Holocaust books… everyone’s written one. And I love that time period, but, yeah, unless it’s really original and people have said so, I will not read anything set in World War 2.

  20.  

    Maus

    I heard about it from the literacy non-profit I’m working with…on my list.

    Night and The Book Thief

    GOOD BOOKS. Also, I had a fondness for Number the Stars, but I was really young when I read it. Maybe now I would hate it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2011
     

    @Deborah – It’s definitely worth continuing reading The Mark of the Horse Lord.

    @SWQ – Maus is amazing. It was one of the saddest books I have read, but it is powerful and poignant.

  22.  

    I heard about it from the literacy non-profit I’m working with…on my list.

    Ah, the famous list. ha ha, the way you said that it was like… in my pants.

    Ahem. I’m so mature. Carry one.

    •  
      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2011
     
    Napoleonic Wars- CS Forester, Bernard Cornwall
    Middle East- Rome (Pontius Pilate- Paul L Maier) Medes-Persian (Cyrus the Great)
    Anything by Stephen R Lawhead Pendragon Cycle (Arthurian), Celtic Crusades (Crusades), Byzantium
    Palestine/Israel era- Zion Chronicles, Exodus
    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2011
     

    Napoleonic? OMIGOD, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

    Fangasm? No sir, this is a fanorgy.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2011 edited
     

    Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS—(insert S hitting infinity here)—SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeAug 19th 2011 edited
     

    Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell is the penultimate argument in favour of years of painstaking research and micro-detailed worldbuilding. It’s like LOTR but more awesome (because it has to align at least superficially with historical events and attitudes in order to blend in, and yet include this whole thing about British magic through the ages, and it all fits so seamlessly that I truly found myself believing that magic is a real thing, and that there really were groups of pompous old gentlemen who write books about (the theory and history of) magic (as opposed to books of magic, of course).

    Ratcatcher by James McGee is also a good historical fiction. Crime/thriller set in Victorian London. Very intense, mostly historically accurate, but also very ‘airport novel’ pulpy. This also belnds a whole bunch of historically accurate events and attitudes and slots the main character into them as though he were a real historical figure (and in fact is based loosely on several).

    I think that’s the thing I like most in historical fiction: not massive big changes like “what if Hitler won”, where events after a certain point are completely made up and divergent, but little things that slot into the flow of history without causing any major ripples, so that even if it had been a real event, the world would still end up basically the same. Napoleon loses at Waterloo, only it’s because of magically-created roads and bridges. The very first functional submarine fail at its mission of sinking a warship in the Thames, but only because of the intrepid policeman-detective who foiled the plot using his forensic investigative techniques, logic and manly musclepower.

    The amount of worldbuilding and subtlety it takes to write a historical fantasy that doesn’t make massive changes to the present/future is on a completely different level to merely building a fantasy world from scratch.

  27.  

    I find it more interesting, too, because you can change history in so many areas and so many ways.

    I’ll have to look up Ratcatcher; that wasn’t on my radar.

    • CommentAuthorDeborah
    • CommentTimeAug 21st 2011
     

    With historical fiction, I think an important thing to do is not to wallow in how bad the past was. In order to be realistic, you have to show the good and the bad. For example, a novel set in the Middle Ages that focused EXCLUSIVELY on how bad everything was would be kind of depressing.
    I also agree about it being more interesting if it’s places and times that haven’t been overdone, like WWII, the Civil War, the American Revolution, ect. Of course, if it brings a new perspective to an often-written genre, it would be better.

    And I am continuing with The Mark of the Horse Lord.

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