About a year ago, I wrote that Eleanor Guthrie was making “Cersei-like decisions” on Black Sails. Such is the nature of tragedies. I’m speaking in the classic sense of the term: a drama in which the character is brought to ruin by his or her tragic flaw. In Eleanor’s case, the flaw was a short-sightedness…
We knew it had to happen, the ultimate rift between Billy Bones and Long John Silver. And last Sunday it did. Last week’s episode of Black Sails was packed with drama. Woodes Rogers discovered, much to his displeasure, that Eleanor sold Nassau to Flint in exchange for the cache of gems, all that remains of the Urca…
While I’ve been writing about Black Sails, a prequel to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, today I’m posting a review of Robert Masello’s The Jekyll Revelation, a story based on another of Stevenson’s famous tales. The Jekyll Revelation is a clever play on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr….
Well, the events of last week’s episode of Black Sails were unexpected. Yet maybe they shouldn’t have been. Black Sails is not only wrapping up the prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, but also its historical retelling of story of the Pirate Republic of Nassau. Already, Black Sails has tackled the fate of real…
I’ve been traveling the past seven days, so I just caught up on the latest episode of Black Sails. I’ll admit, a grin spread across my face when I realized who had captured Long John Silver. Silver is the craftiest character on Black Sails, and once again his “silver” tongue saves his bacon after he’s…
With only two episodes left in the second part of Season 4 of Vikings, I’m not a hundred percent sure where the show is going now that Ragnar’s death has been avenged. But I suspect the show will alter history yet again. The past few episodes of Vikings have embraced some of the more significant…
I’ll be the first to admit that part 2 of Season 4 of Vikings on History snuck up on me. But when I started catching up with the new half-season, I did not realize that Vikings was becoming a prequel to Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom. In fact, it seems, we can credit Ragnar Lothbrok…
One of my favorite shows of the past few years has been Black Sails on Starz. It’s an amazing prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and has been, in my view, one of the best shows on television. A rival, perhaps, to even Game of Thrones. The final season premiers on September 29, and…
Isn’t this Throwback Thursday? In honor of this fairly recent tradition, I’m re-posting my 2012 review of one of the greatest works of epic fiction I’ve read in a long, long time . . . For several years now, I’ve been interested in medieval Spain, and about a quarter of my first novel takes place in…
I’m reaching into the archives once again while slogging through the summer doldrums. But this one reminded me how much I loved HBO’s Rome . . . My wife and I recently finished HBO’s Rome in advance of a trip to Italy we’ll be taking this summer (which, thankfully, will allow for some on-site research for the sequel…
Every once in a while I’ll reread one of my favorite novels for inspiration, and this summer that read was The Archer’s Tale by Bernard Cornwell. It reminded me how much I loved his Grail Quest series, and how pieces of it helped inspire my first novel, Enoch’s Device. I consider The Archer’s Tale to be a…