Books shelved under “Historical Fiction”

Damn it, Mary Doria Russell made me cry again!

Culture class is once again the culprit, although this time it's Nazi anti-Semitism versus the Italian resistance instead of Jesuits and scientists versus aliens on Alpha Centauri. A Thread of Grace begins with Italy's surrender to the Allies, and from the Jewish perspective of the book, this is one of history's great ironies. It's a relief that Italy has surrendered; to be sure, this is…

This may not be evident, but I tend to avoid historical fiction set during World War II. I'm not sure why: it's an obvious (perhaps too obvious) source of material for exploring the human condition. I'm not squeamish about the details of the Holocaust. Maybe it's just that a lot of World War II fiction focuses on the battles, the military strategy and tactics, and it's military fiction that I'm avoiding. In the last month,…

My first experience with Alice Munro was with "The View from Castle Rock" in excerpted form in The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories. Even shortened, something about the ocean journey of this immigrant family intrigued me. On the surface, the story is rather bland. A Scottish family is making the crossing to Canada. The characters, however, are engrossing. Their relationships are unromantic. The father once inspired his son with talk of going to…

Jane Austen and I have had a rocky relationship. I respect her as a writer and believe she deserves a place in the canon of great English authors, but I sometimes wonder if she is overhyped. When it comes to Sense and Sensibility, it has a lot of Austen's trademark wit, but as a first novel it also has the immaturity and inexperience of a writer learning the craft. So with Sense and Sensibility…

Last month I reviewed Galileo's Dream, in which I waxed philosophical about the attraction of certain historical individuals. Like Galileo, Christopher Columbus is another giant who captures our imaginations. Although he did not "discover" North America, Columbus did spearhead expeditions that brought the utility of North America to the attention of European powers. And the rest is, as they say, history. Columbus helped to change the world, but what we know about Columbus the…

The character of time is an open question in physics and philosophy. Entropy and the laws of thermodynamics seem to indicate that there is an "arrow of time," that time goes only in one "direction." Despite our best efforts, however, we still just don't know. It is, however, a well-known fact that humans, or at least most of us, experience time in an aggressively linear fashion. Whatever the objective nature of time, for humanity time…

Sometimes the best twist is not a surprise. Jeffrey Eugenides could have concealed the nature of Cal Stephanides' condition, could have saved it for a big reveal and dropped only tantalizing hints throughout the narrative. Instead, he announces that Cal is an intersex man upfront, and then proceeds to tease us for the rest of the story. Eugenides makes the reader into a participant in Cal's indulgent memoir instead of an audience; we're in on…

I have a confession (my reviews often start with confessions because reviews are as much about the reviewer as they are about the book): I don't much like monster movies. Unlike many film buffs, I do not revel in the campiness of 1940s and 1950s costuming; I do not drool over stop-motion animation or long for the good-old days when the monster was some guy in a suit, not a tennis ball married to a…

I love Regency and Victorian fiction. In those halcyon days of a declining empire, men and women of rank fused scientific exploration with military daring. The blank spaces on the map were shrinking every day, and as such, this age of exploration and adventure was also an age of introspection. Strict notions of propriety and visible class barriers contributed to meditations on what makes one human, on the roles of birth and upbringing in the…

There is a theory that views all of history as the result of actions by individuals at pivotal moments. These "Great Men" (or, let's be fair, "Great People") are the movers and shakers of historical periods. Leaders like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Elizabeth II, and Napoleon Bonaparte shaped society. Scientists like Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and yes, Galileo Galilei shaped our perception of the world. These are the people whose mark…

I won this in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway, because I did not read the description closely enough to realize it is historical romance rather than mere historical fiction. I tend not to read romance, but as far as my experience with them goes, Tempted by a Warrior is not that bad. The story (if not the characters or the romance) held my interest, and the historical in "historical romance" helps a lot. Nevertheless, there…

It is a widely accepted fact that our passions and interests are not evenly distributed among the eras of human history. Some prefer tales of neolithic courage; others are interested in ancient Greece, Ilium, Rome. I have a soft spot for medieval and Tudor England; even Victorian England has its allure. Late 19th-century America, not so much. I do not avoid books set in that time, nor do I go out of my way to…

Halfway through World Without End, I gave this summary: "sex and architecture in the English countryside, 1337." This is not entirely accurate; World Without End is not entirely composed of sex and architecture—just mostly.

I have plenty of complaints about this book. The characters are diverse but flat; the themes are of dubious worth; the conclusion is far from satisfying. Like I said, plenty of complaints. But let me start with something I…

I have long had a somewhat unhealthy admiration of British humour, which is somehow superior to most other forms of humour in its unique blend of intelligence and absurdity. And no institution, as it is portrayed in fiction, epitomizes British humour better than that of the British butler. Think of Blackadder (in Blackadder the Third) or Batman's Alfred. These unflappable, infallible men serve their employers with a grace that almost defies description. Even in…

Dawn of Empire delivers on its promise of an action-filled battle for survival against barbarians from the steppes. The strategy that goes into designing defences for Orak, from its crucial wall to the ditch in front and the archers behind, is impressive. Also impressive is the inherent conflict in the ideologies of the steppes people and the villagers. Sam Barone gives us a wonderful sense of the stark contrast between these two societies, and why…

Cherie Priest comes highly recommended to me from many people whom I respect; Boneshaker has been lauded most of all of her books. I couldn't fathom Fathom, and that made me apprehensive about my next Priest experience. Boneshaker had two difficult tasks: it had to live up to the expectations heaped upon it by so many others, and it had to be better than Fathom. In both respects, it succeeded, and I have…

Second review: November 2017

Gosh, has it really been 7 years—nearly 8?—since I read this? Feels like no time at all.

Anyway, after not enjoying Who Fears Death, I was struck with a sudden … craving (?) for this book. Just an urge to re-read it. I can’t explain why. I just knew it would help.

And it definitely did. I have little to add about the book itself in this second review—my first…

This is my first book of the year, and it took me quite some time to get into it.

Few things annoy me more than when an author decides to ignore such a useful stylistic conventions as using quotation marks to offset dialogue! I like quotation marks. It makes the book easier to parse and gives me a clear idea of who is saying what. I discarded Blindness for similar reasons. Had I not been…

Some books you can describe with a single sentence. This is one of them: "Vampires kicking Nazi ass." I mean really, how can that possibly go wrong?

That's a rhetorical question. It can't. Still, actual execution can range from mediocre to eye-gougingly awesome. While Sarah Jane Stratford's The Midnight Guardian slides fluidly along this continuum, it's closer to the latter than the former, if only because of it's breathtaking characters (that's a pun). As far…

I'm not sure what attracted me to The Sealed Letter. It's a book that exists in that intersection among historical fiction, fiction "based on a true story," and relationship drama fuelled by larger issues of gender and individualism, the sort of book that can appeal to so many people yet go unnoticed because it looks "too historical" or "too much non-fiction" or "too romantic." When I started reading The Sealed Letter, I hoped…