historical

9 posts

Light in the Darkness: A Noblebright Fantasy Boxed Set (second set of mini reviews)

As promised, here is my second set of mini reviews of the books in Light in the Darkness: A Noblebright Fantasy Boxed Set. You can find the first set of mini reviews here. If this is the first you’ve seen of noblebright fantasy, you can find an overview here on my site and on Noblebright.org. In that overview post, I promised reviews of the books in this first noblebright fantasy boxed set, along with content notes and caveats as appropriate. The books are in alphabetical order by author’s last name in the set, but that’s not the order in which I’m reading them, so […]

Guest Post: What Vikings can teach you about blogging and promoting your own creative writing

This guest post was written by A H Gray, the author of The Northumbrian Saga. What Vikings can teach you about blogging and promoting your own creative writing The main thing I have learnt from watching the History Channel’s Vikings series is that people are still interested in history. Many have argued over the show’s accuracy in portraying the Viking period, that it values entertainment over accuracy. If you are an author of historical fiction then you will know this debate very well. Yet from my own experience I have discovered that viewers are as interested in learning the history behind […]

Guest Post: How Do They Feast? Portraying Food in Fantasy and Historical Fiction

I’m hosting guest authors through most of April and May, as I am swamped with Awesome Con DC and welcoming Baby Boy Brightley into the world. This guest post was written by Christine Frost, the author of The Veiled Mirror: The Story of Prince Vlad Dracula’s Lost Love and Dark Lady of Doona. How Do They Feast? Portraying Food in Fantasy and Historical Fiction As someone who loves to study world history, I’m a stickler for details. When compiling research for historical fiction, I don’t limit myself to studying the major historical milestones or cultural elements for the time and place […]

Guest Post: World-Building and Authenticity

I’m hosting guest authors through most of April and May, as I am swamped with Awesome Con DC and welcoming Baby Boy Brightley into the world. This guest post was written by Ben Blake, the author of Blood and Gold (Songs of Sorrow), The Gate of Angels (Songs of Sorrow), The Risen King, and A Brand of Fire (TROY). World-Building and Authenticity There’s an old quote about building characters, which Stephen King attributes to Thomas Hardy. I don’t know myself, but it goes; “Compared to the dullest human being walking on the earth, the most brilliantly drawn character in any novel […]

Guest Post: How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators

This guest post is part of the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and was written by Sharon Bayliss. Her most recent publication is The Charge. How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators Manipulating historical events, either for an alternate history novel or to deceive the masses, takes a lot of research. Personally, my experience in re-writing history comes from writing my alternate history fantasy, The Charge (not from being a ruthless overlord). In The Charge, the state of Texas never joins the United States and instead becomes an independent nation. I’ve complied a set a tips for how to […]

Characters I Love – Sidney Carton

Sidney Carton was one of the first characters I really loved (after Winnie the Pooh and other childhood favorites), and the one who set me on a multi-year Dickens-and-other-classics phase that lasted through middle school and high school. Charles Dickens isn’t known for his rollicking adventures or his page-turning plots. Even in the most-obsessed time of my classics phase, I struggled to get through every word of Bleak House and David Copperfield without skimming, looking for the good parts. Generally I believe the book is better than the movie, and that’s probably true in this case as well. However, sometimes […]

World-Building for Fantasy Authors

Caveat: I don’t believe in rules for writing. This post isn’t meant to be a list of things you must do, or must not do. Fantasy can be as realistic, or as unrealistic, as you wish. Neither is necessarily better; they’re just different. This post is meant only to serve as a brainstorming exercise. It is meant to raise questions that might help you as you think about your story and your world. You are more than welcome to throw any or all of it out for any given story. As a fantasy writer, it can sometimes be tempting to […]

Characters I Love – Jean Valjean

Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. I first read the book in high school and immediately had to watch the movie – the first version I saw was the 1998 version with Liam Neeson playing Jean Valjean. I haven’t seen the 2012 version with Hugh Jackman yet, but I’ve heard it’s good. Les Miserables is a hard book to get through. If you’ve read Victor Hugo before, you know what you’re getting into. I read the unabridged version, and it is a slog. But much like one of my other favorite books, Charles Dickens’ A Tale […]

Characters I Love – Sir Percival Blakeney

I admit it. I’m a Scarlet Pimpernel fan and have been since high school. I first saw the 1982 movie (link to IMDB) (link to Amazon) starring Anthony Andrews as Sir Percy (absolutely brilliant!), Jane Seymour as Marguerite, and Ian McKellan as Chauvelin. I was hooked, and hunted down all the books I could find. The movie condenses a number of the novels, so if you read The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, you may be a little… surprised? In any case, you don’t get the same final conclusion at the end of the novel as you do at […]