Historical Fiction

[Krokodil Overdose]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is historical fiction, but there's also lots of magic in there so idk

If you have a good translation to recommend pass it along; I read the Penguin abridged one and it was fine but unsatisfying.

Seconding Flashman, though I have to nominate Flash for Freedom (the one with the slaver) as the best book.

For my own recommendation, I'd like to throw the SPQR mysteries. It's basically a low-tier Roman Senator solving murders around the time of the First Triumvirate. Very cozy reads, though I do have to warn you that the mysteries themselves tend to be pretty shallow, to the point where even I could pick up on a lot of the twists ahead of time. However, the author is amazing at evoking character and place, so if you read the books more as slice-of-life dramedy (with lots of actual slicing, because Rome) with murder mystery topping you won't be disappointed.

 

[soy_king]

If you have a good translation to recommend pass it along; I read the Penguin abridged one and it was fine but unsatisfying.

Seconding Flashman, though I have to nominate Flash for Freedom (the one with the slaver) as the best book.

For my own recommendation, I'd like to throw the SPQR mysteries. It's basically a low-tier Roman Senator solving murders around the time of the First Triumvirate. Very cozy reads, though I do have to warn you that the mysteries themselves tend to be pretty shallow, to the point where even I could pick up on a lot of the twists ahead of time. However, the author is amazing at evoking character and place, so if you read the books more as slice-of-life dramedy (with lots of actual slicing, because Rome) with murder mystery topping you won't be disappointed.

no, mines not even the Penguin version, it's some shitty recent ccp edition. it's still a great read, even if it feels like a lot is lost in the translation.

 

[lindabancher]

A couple historical fiction books I've enjoyed are:

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Time travel is used by Oxford historians to study events in the past. The main character is sent back to the 1300s to study Medieval village life, but is trapped by a disease outbreak in Oxford. Authentic-seeming Medieval setting and good writing.

The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Something like 3000 total pages, covers roughly 1650 to 1720, epic in scope, major themes are the replacement of alchemy by natural philosophy (what we now call science), the replacement of feudalism with mercantilism and the invention of modem monetary systems, the invention of calculus, and counterfeiting. Historical characters include Isaac Newton and Leibniz, Robert Hooke, Louis XIV, Princess Caroline, and too many others to name.