In a word: no.

[selenak]

It's weird what breaks one's suspension of disbelief. Here I was, starting a novel with a premise that's, well, extremely unlikely, but which I was prepared to accept for the fun of it, to wit, Roger Ascham taking his most famous student, 13 years old Elizabeth Tudor, abroad for a few months, and not only abroad but to the greatest chess tournament

Comments

[frenchani]

*face palm*

See, there's a reason I never read historical novels unless they are written by historians like Paul C. Doherty, or by Umberto Eco.

[selenak]

Oh, historians sometimes make abysmal novelists. (Factual knowledge doesn't guarantee good prose.) I love a great many historical novels written by non-historians who nonetheless manage convey great period knowledge but also can bring characters to life. But I do have my antikinks. An easily avoidable mistake such as this one being a case in point.

...isn't Umberto Eco a linguist rather than a historian?

[frenchani]

Eco is a semiologist, that's why I wrote by historians OR by Umberto Eco.

Historians are not necessarily good novelists indeed, but Doherty is both a historian and a rather good storyteller and a decent writer. I used to love his Canterbury series, which he penned under the name C. L Grace.

There are not many historical novels that didn't make me cringe though, either because they were filled with inaccuracies or poorly written. I mentioned dit before on LJ but Augustus by John Williams is one of the few exceptions to the rule.

BTW I never asked but could you explain what you do exactly for a living? I have never been quite sure...

[selenak]

re: job, not on lj, but if you give me an email address I'll mail you.

[kathyh]

I quite like the idea of Roger Ascham as a detective with Elizabeth Tudor as his sidekick (a position that I'm sure she would reverse extremely quickly) but what I couldn't understand with this one is why on earth they needed to go to a chess tournament in Constantinople. I'm sure the court of Edward VI would have been rife with things that needed investigating. A fun idea ruined.

[selenak]

It's set during the last year or so of Henry's reign, and I think it's Constantinople mainly for the crack historical crossover possibilties and because the author wanted young Elizabeth to meet the likes of old Michelangelo, teenage Ivan the Terrible (who tells her he'll model herself on her Dad, at which pont you can almost hear her thinking she'll never accept his proposal once they're both grown up) and Ignatius of Loyala, and for the exoticism of the local setting. If this were a Yuletide story marked as a crack crossover, it would be adorable and I wouldln't mind all the gaffes , but it's not.

Ah well. I'm otherwise rereading the excellent Shardlake series. Now there are fantastic Tudor era mysteries with a true sense of atmosphere!

[asia27]

What a way to ruin a good book...this is why I stay away from so much of the crap attempting to pass for "historical truth."

[amenirdis]

Oh dear. Yes, I fear that would do it for me too.

Worst historical novel full of anachronisms ever? A Murder in Macedon It's actually laugh out loud funny, entirely inadvertently. It's like watching people you know very well in an inexplicable pantomime.

[selenak]

I hadn't heard about that one before, but following your link tells me it was written under a pseudonym by the same Paul Doherty reccomended to me as a historian by frenchani in a comment above. :) (Probably not his period.)

[amenirdis]

Oh dear. I didn't realize Anna Apostolou was a psudonym. I can't even begin to imagine how it was written by a historian. There are such large and glaring errors of fact!

[selenak]

Provide me with some juicy details?

[zahrawithaz]

I love dissecting errors in historical fiction, because it's often where the authors show their psyche and biases most clearly; people generally make mistakes on things they are so certain of that they never bother to look them up. (As a medievalist, I have a long list of errors I've seen, most of which are very revealing about the author's assumptions about religion.)

But this is just dumb. You can discern the underlying problem -- not knowing anything about the Roman Empire, except that Livy is one of the Big Roman Historians, and assuming that he therefore covered everything -- but there's just not much to say about it except Did Not Do the Research.

And I completely agree on being able to swallow a ridiculous premise for the sake of a good story, but having a small error push you out of the story.