Following the release of Death of Kings, I started re-reading some of the earlier novels in Bernard Cornwell’s fantastic series, The Saxon Tales. (You can read my review of The Last Kingdom, the first novel, here.) The books are set in England during the reign of Alfred the Great, who defended the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms against…
The trailer for Season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which will air in April 2012, was released this week (you can watch it here). Season 1 was fantastic and, from the trailer, Season 2 looks equally promising – as it should be since it depicts A Clash of Kings, the wonderful second novel in…
Holidays are tough on writers. Even when you think you’ll have time to write, something gets in the way. Agent Rachelle Gardner recently suggested that writers should plan out how much time they think they’ll have to write during the holidays – and then divide that in half. This year, I should’ve divided that number…
I’m still immersed in my research on Vikings, which leads me to another of my favorite Viking-related novels, Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn. Lion of Ireland tells the story of Brian Boru, perhaps the greatest Irish king who ever lived. He ruled at the end of the Tenth Century, during a time when Norse…
Today I’m taking a break from my focus on historical and fantasy fiction (at least of the medieval variety) to mention a new novel by one of my author friends, E. Kendrick Smith, titled Defeating Operation Hydra. It’s available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, among other booksellers, in e-book, paperback and hard copy. Here’s my…
Because I was traveling for the past five weeks, I had little time to conduct research on Vikings for my next novel. But I did have enough time to re-read another of my favorite stories about Vikings, Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead. The book is short (about 175 pages), and it has probably been…
Happy Saint Crispin’s Day! And happy Saint Crispinian’s Day too! Nearly 600 years ago today, on the feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian, the French and the English fought the famous Battle of Agincourt – the inspiration for at least two great works of fiction and the topic of today’s post. The English won the Battle…
Continuing my musings on Viking-related fiction, I thought I’d talk about a not-so-obvious Viking tale, Stephen R. Lawhead’s Byzantium. When I picked up this novel at my local Borders, the last thing I thought this book would be about is Vikings. Set in the Ninth Century, the novel tells the story of Aidan, an Irish…
With the latest draft of my novel put to bed, I’ve started researching my next work. This one involves Vikings, so for the foreseeable future, I’ll be immersing myself in a world of dragon-prowed longships, Norse gods, fierce warriors, beer, and plunder! All of which calls to mind my favorite novels about Vikings. While I’ve…
I recently returned from the Caribbean, which made me think of my favorite historical novel about pirates, Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes (okay, it’s the only historical novel about pirates I’ve read other than Treasure Island; in fact, I’m not even aware of other pirate novels, although I’m sure there are plenty). The novel was discovered…
My post from a few weeks ago about Puzzle-like Plots made me think of one of my favorite books in that vein, Thomas Wheeler’s The Arcanum. While I prefer historical-based fiction set earlier in history (especially the Middle Ages), The Arcanum (which is set in 1919) concerns the Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish text…