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…
I’m still figuring out what to do in a post Game of Thrones world, so this week I’m resurrecting a post from the summer of 2013. Hope you enjoy it. For the third year in a row, I plan to spend my summer vacation in the Bahamas. It’s hard not to like the Caribbean with…
This week, I’m featuring my review of Pope Joan, the highly acclaimed novel by Donna Woolfolk Cross. I read it before my trip to Rome last year, but only now got around to putting my thoughts to the page. Better late than never, I suppose. Pope Joan is a fictional account based on the legend…
On the heels of my review of The Empty Throne, I’m offering my review of the next novel in Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series, Warriors of the Storm. The novel is another excellent installment in Cornwell’s ongoing saga about the Saxons and the Vikings in early ninth-century England. Reading Warriors of the Storm, I could…
Earlier this year, I finished The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell, the eighth installment in his newly renamed Last Kingdom series about England’s struggles against the Vikings in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Here’s my review after this image of the book’s cover. When I saw the book’s title, I had assumed the…
After this season’s first episode, I wrote that “On Black Sails, the Seeds of Treasure Island are Beginning to Grow.” Having watched the season finale twice, I think my initial observation was quite accurate. Above all things, this season was about the transformation of Long John Silver into the notorious pirate of Robert Louis Stevenson’s…
I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t see last week’s ending on Black Sails coming. Not at all. The queen of Nassau? I had no idea what to expect when Eleanor encountered Charles Vane in Nassau’s dungeon, and I wasn’t too surprised by her initial reaction. But by the end of the episode…
Saint Patrick’s Day is one of my all-time favorite holidays, so today I’m re-posting an article about Stephen R. Lawhead’s Patrick: Son of Ireland. I had little appreciation for the story of Saint Patrick until I began my research for Enoch’s Device. That novel begins in Derry and tells the story of two Irish monks who try to prevent…