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Spring of the Ram (House of Niccolo) "Get Me on the Next Flight to Trabzond " was my reaction after reading this sequel to Niccolo Rising (House of Niccolo) . Dunnett's blend of intricate plotting and historical depth is amazing. Here she concentrates on the little known period immediately after the conquest of Constantinople, when the Byzantine empire struggled to survive in a corner of the Black Sea. Their allies are possibly more dangerous than their enemies, making a perfect setting for Niccolo's games. In 1999, we visited Trabzond as part of a 5 week trip to Turkey, and while the modern town is rather dreary, Dunnett's descriptions of past glories were still fresh in my mind. |
The struggle for Cyprus in the 15th century. Again, her evocation of these times were one of the reasons we visited Cyprus, and walking the ruins of Famagusta recalled many incidents from the siege described in her book. | |
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To
Lie With Lions : The House of Niccolo
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| Caprice and Rondo | Gemini |
| The Lymond Chronicles -- an earlier multi volume historical fiction series that prefigures the Niccolo masterworks -- first published in the 1960's but still worth reading on its own. set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, the action begins along the Scottish borders but expands to the entire Mediterranean basin. | ||
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The Game of Kings
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Queen's Play
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The Disorderly Knights
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The Pawn in Frankincense
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Checkmate
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King Hereafter - Dunnett's unique retelling of the
Macbeth story -- actually, most resemblance to
Shakespeare's 'Scottish Play' is purely incidental. Like the
revisioning of the Arthur tales by Cornwell,
Stewart and many others, the barebones of what we think we know of the story
become mere background whispers - to the extent that in Dunnett's version, the
death of Duncan occurs is a minor tremor in the story. Instead,
we're dropped into the tightly wound world of medieval politics, trade and
family feuding so familiar from Dunnett's Niccolo and Lymond books. Once
again, her hero is an underestimated young man, bright and adept in both trade
and politics. This time the setting is the northern portion of Great
Britain, the Orkneys and Scandinavia -- the height of the Viking successor
empires, as they squabble to control Denmark and England culminating, after this
narrative, in 1066 and all that. Tight, intricate plotting is her
trademark, and once more, allegiances and kingdoms bloom, thrive and then are
shattered in the course of a paragraph. And there are the expected
setpieces - races along the oars of speeding Viking longships, and ice skate
races in the wintry Orkneys. The only downside is that
this is a standalone tale, with no sequels. Never light reading, Dunnett
is at the top of my list of historical novelists. Among the other ideas she incorporates are the concepts of the pre-capitalist, pre-mercantilist kingdoms [in Bobbitt's terms, Princely states rather than Kingly states] where the 'monarch' might actually hold little land, and whose power relied on holding together an amalgam of territories that had no natural borders. Instead ties of tribal nature still held, while the mechanism was held together by new economic concepts like cash money: Himself, Archbishop Luhel did not underestimate the Queen Mother either. Everyone dealing with trade and with money in Bruges and Arras and Rouen, in Mont St Michel and Tours, in Chaourse Flanders or Cahors Aquitaine, to the Count of which Emma sent, every year, some expensive trifle-everyone knew about Emma, widow of two Kings of England. And now, with Norman mercenaries becoming Norman dukes in Italy, everyone had a cousin or two where it mattered in Lombardy, and the network was becoming complete. Nowadays, money was something all men had need of. The church required it, to pay armies to push the Saracens back in the Mediterranean; to fight off the heathenish tribes of the Baltic; to establish churches and send her missions abroad. Kings required it, to bribe their enemies and to pay their friends for services rendered where land was wanting or inappropriate; to hire fleets with, and foreign fighting-men; to buy the luxuries that their status demanded. And since not every country could make money or, having made it, could protect the place where it was kept, a trade in money was always there: money that did not go rotten or stink or require great ships to carry it backwards and forwards, or fail altogether if the weather was bad or some tribe of ignorant savages wiped out the seed and the growers. Money which grew of its own accord: in Exeter, in Alston, in the Hertz mountains where the Emperor Henry had made his new'palace. Money, which was power, which was the wheel upon which ran Emma the Queen Mother's heart. ' Ten years ago, hiring himself and his ships, Thorfinn of Orkney had wanted adventure perhaps as much as money, if not more. He had his household to pay, and those men who, building his ships, had to raise their crops and herd their beasts using serf-labour. Now, as Macbeth of Alba, it would seem that riches lay to his hand within his new provinces and he had no call to look further to England or further south over the sea.
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Send a Fax From the Kasbah
Typical Dunnett Byzantine plot, yet set in modern
Morocco. It's amazing how
intricate her webs become, with only a half dozen major characters, yet each of
them appears to have multiple connections and motivations. The story runs
from Marrakech to seaside Esssaouria, then back to the Atlas mountains. Her
descriptions of Morocco give vivid reality to the otherwise fantastic storyline. The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare : Renaissance to Revolution, 1492-1792 |
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