Dorothy Dunnett

[Margaret]

It seems people either love Dorothy Dunnett's novels or can't get through them. I read King Hereafter, her novel about Macbeth, some years ago and found parts of it stupendously good (every scene in which Macbeth's wife Gruach appears - not sure I'm spelling that the same way Dunnett did), and other parts too complex to follow. This complexity seems to be a hallmark of Dunnett's style.

I just finished reading Niccolo Rising, the first in Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, and now I understand both why her fans are so hooked on her series novels, and why some people just can't get into her books. The characters were bafflingly numerous, the plot incredibly complex, and Dunnett makes little or no attempt to simplify the history of the period by omitting references to events elsewhere that have a bearing, however small, on her setting, the fifteenth century cloth manufacturing town of Bruges in Flanders. Everything just gets woven into the many-stranded plot. For the first half of the novel, I struggled. If I hadn't been planning to review it, I might not have persisted. Then, around chapter 19 or 20, I got hooked. From there out, I missed sleep because I had such a hard time putting the book down. I've posted a review at http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Niccolo-Rising.html. I will be reading the rest of this series.

Has anyone read both the House of Niccolo series and her other series, The Lymond Chronicles? Which did you like better?

[hanna52]

Oh I am so glad to read your posting. I love the Niccolo books and have read that entire series through at least 3 times. I know many other readers like the Lymond books and character more, but having read Race of Scorpions first, I am hooked on the apprentice! I think I picked up that first book at a clearance bookstore and didn't even realize it was part of series till I had begun to read it and by then it was much too late.

[Misfit]

I've read the Lymond Chronicles and just loved them. Dunnett's so similar in style to Dumas (another author I enjoy) that I fell into them without the trouble some have had getting into them. For some reason the Nicollo books aren't catching my interest (at least for now), but I do plan on reading King Hereafter later this year (it's on a preorder with another book that doesn't come out till December).

[Margaret]

I read King Hereafter years ago - it was my introduction to Dorothy Dunnett. There are a lot of scenes I can still recall vividly. Her rather startling premise in this novel is that Macbeth and the Viking leader in the Orkneys, Thorfinn, were one and the same person. I doubt it, but was quite willing to entertain the premise for the novel, especially since Dunnett's knowledge of the time period was so intimate. Unlike Niccolo Rising, both the scenes that excited me and the scenes that I found hard to follow and tedious were scattered throughout the novel, which made it a little easier to keep reading - I always knew there was something good waiting for me around the bend.

[Julianne Douglas]

I absolutely adore Dunnett, having read the Niccolo series and been through almost the entire Lymond series twice. I agree on the complexity--there are things I'm sure I missed in Lymond even the second time through, and I know a lot about sixteenth-century history! I wish I had time to reread Niccolo again. I haven't yet read King Hereafter. I'll be looking forward to your reviews.

[EC2]

It took me 3 attempts to get into Dunnett but on the 3rd one, and in similar wise to Margaret, it was as if a key turned in a lock and suddenly I 'got' it.
And once you get Dunnett, you realise she is in a league of her own.
Having said that, I have still occasionally struggled. I haven't finished Niccolo because I burned out due to reading too many at once (part of a group read) and I fell by the wayside around book 5. I also found the 3rd book in the series (I think it's the third book) a novel where Dunnett got too clever for her own good and I just wound up irritated and bamboozled. However the one after that - Scales of Gold? Set partly in Africa, I thought was back on track.
It still sticks in my mind that one reader complained re Queensplay and the Cheetah hunt in the Lymond books, that she had her cheetah with retracting claws - which cheetah's don't have. The reader said she wouldn't read Dunnett again because she was inaccurate. I was astounded at such a take, but I guess whatever presses your buttons presses your buttons. I also made very sure that when I put a cheetah in one of my novels, it's claws stayed put - LOL! But the cheetah incident must be one of the rarities where DD got caught out...

[MLE]

It still sticks in my mind that one reader complained re Queensplay and the Cheetah hunt in the Lymond books, that she had her cheetah with retracting claws - which cheetah's don't have. The reader said she wouldn't read Dunnett again because she was inaccurate. I was astounded at such a take, but I guess whatever presses your buttons presses your buttons. I also made very sure that when I put a cheetah in one of my novels, it's claws stayed put - LOL! But the cheetah incident must be one of the rarities where DD got caught out...

Are you sure that it was the Lymond books, EC? I was watching for that all the way through the series, and never ran into it. Of course, there are a lot of details in DD, but since I was looking --

Actually, DD had loads of anachronisms if you want to be picky -- I remember Lymond quoting something about 'Krishna and the milkmaids' which might have been a familiar reference in post-imperial Britain but was hardly likely to surface in renaissance times! -- and after reading the Pope's Elephant I can assure you that there was not even one elephant in France's menagerie at the time, let alone four! Still, on average she did animals better than most modern-day writers, who tend to ignore that very large part of the pre-industrial landscape entirely. I think your friend was just annoyed by some plot device and was picking on that one.

Dunnett has me in awe of her historical accuracy and mastery of words while at the same time making me furious with her inconsistencies in character and their constantly shifting morality. I can take anything, but don't, for heaven's sake, have them waffle back and forth without so much as an explanation!

She also gets way too clever to endure, sometimes stretching believability beyond Shakespeare. The plot-line of Lymond's sister comes to mind. Still, once you get 'into' her books, they are a cracking good read. At least the Lymond ones. Being more sensitized to 'permissive pedophilia' than your average reader, I couldn't get past the second Niccolo novel.

[EC2]

Are you sure that it was the Lymond books, EC? I was watching for that all the way through the series, and never ran into it. Of course, there are a lot of details in DD, but since I was looking --



Actually, DD had loads of anachronisms if you want to be picky -- I remember Lymond quoting something about 'Krishna and the milkmaids' which might have been a familiar reference in post-imperial Britain but was hardly likely to surface in renaissance times! -- and after reading the Pope's Elephant I can assure you that there was not even one elephant in France's menagerie at the time, let alone four! Still, on average she did animals better than most modern-day writers, who tend to ignore that very large part of the pre-industrial landscape entirely. I think your friend was just annoyed by some plot device and was picking on that one.


The person wasn't my friend, just a poster on another e-list with whom I didn't have that much ado, but yes, I'm certain that's what she said and it was about Queensplay. Hmmm..have to get my copy of the novel out and go and look. Perhaps it was in an earlier version, remarked upon and removed?
I suppose where I especially like Dunnett is her use of language. That vivid ability to create paintings in words. All that grace and richness and texture. I am not surprised that she used to paint murals too.
I always skimmed over Lymond's 'cornflower blue' eyes, because unless he was wearing contact lenses, he was a very unique chappy indeed. I look at cornflowers in the garden, then growing wild and think ummmm.....no. :)

[donroc]

I have read both series and preferred Niccolo.

I want to add that for those who have difficulty reading her, Elspeth Morrison has written two volumes explaining her characters, locales, and translating what is not in her books.


It seems people either love Dorothy Dunnett's novels or can't get through them. I read King Hereafter, her novel about Macbeth, some years ago and found parts of it stupendously good (every scene in which Macbeth's wife Gruach appears - not sure I'm spelling that the same way Dunnett did), and other parts too complex to follow. This complexity seems to be a hallmark of Dunnett's style.

I just finished reading Niccolo Rising, the first in Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, and now I understand both why her fans are so hooked on her series novels, and why some people just can't get into her books. The characters were bafflingly numerous, the plot incredibly complex, and Dunnett makes little or no attempt to simplify the history of the period by omitting references to events elsewhere that have a bearing, however small, on her setting, the fifteenth century cloth manufacturing town of Bruges in Flanders. Everything just gets woven into the many-stranded plot. For the first half of the novel, I struggled. If I hadn't been planning to review it, I might not have persisted. Then, around chapter 19 or 20, I got hooked. From there out, I missed sleep because I had such a hard time putting the book down. I've posted a review at http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Niccolo-Rising.html. I will be reading the rest of this series.

Has anyone read both the House of Niccolo series and her other series, The Lymond Chronicles? Which did you like better?

[EC2]

Been to look in my copy of Queen's Play. It says:
'The soft body fell and its great paws, needle-sharp and fatal sank into the great cords and vessels of Luadhas's neck and spine......after a while the whimpering stopped....and the cheetah withdrew its claws.'
And then later over the page 'saw the sun spark on the claws.'
So it's suggestive rather than blatant, but definitely suggestive to me that DD thought she was dealing with feline retractors.

As far Dunnett's use of language goes, there's an example just as the hunt is setting out: 'Taut, merry, nervous, expertly mounted, exquisitely clothed, haughty in their bright youth, the chevaliers of France poured from the dishevilled clearing. Sunlit all that morning, they spanned the glittering woods: diamond on diamond, grey on grey, riches on riches; bough and limb indistinguishable; skirts and meadows sewn in the same silks; skulls in antique fantasy knotted with rhizome and leafy with fern frond. Webs, manes, beards, spun the same smoke-like filament; rime flashed; jewels sparked, red and fat on rosebush and ring. Earth and animals wore the same livery. Jazerained in its berries, the oak tree matched their pearls, and paired their brilliant-sewn housing with low mosses underfoot, freshets winking half-ice in the pile.' I just love her use of unexpected words and her creative way with non-verbs to turn them into verbs.'Jazerained in its berries.' Fabulous!

[Margaret]

LOL about the cheetah's claws, EC - with the masses of excellent research Dunnett did on the historical background for her novels, it's really a low blow to come down so hard on her about this one little detail.

Donroc, thanks for mentioning Elspeth Morrison's guides. I don't think I've ever read a guide like this - too busy reading novels! But with the incredible amount of detail in Dunnett's novels, a guide could be very useful. I've added information about them to my Niccolo Rising review.

[Ludmilla]

I read King Hereafter years ago - it was my introduction to Dorothy Dunnett. There are a lot of scenes I can still recall vividly. Her rather startling premise in this novel is that Macbeth and the Viking leader in the Orkneys, Thorfinn, were one and the same person. I doubt it, but was quite willing to entertain the premise for the novel, especially since Dunnett's knowledge of the time period was so intimate. Unlike Niccolo Rising, both the scenes that excited me and the scenes that I found hard to follow and tedious were scattered throughout the novel, which made it a little easier to keep reading - I always knew there was something good waiting for me around the bend.

My intro to Dunnett was the Lymond Chronicles, which I adore. I also read King Hereafter, and loved it just as much. I felt, in particular, Dunnett did a marvelous job of capturing the spirit of the sagas in some of her characters (esp foster parent, Thorkel), and I have a fascination with the lcelandic sagas so KH would probably naturally appeal to me anyway. I've been afraid to try the recent novel by Susan Fraser King about Macbeth's wife, because I loved how Dunnett portrayed Groa in KH. Dunnett's version of Groa would be hard for any author to live up to, IMO. Eventually, I plan to read her Niccolo series, but I'm saving that for when I can afford to buy all eight books and gobble them down at once, because I've learned with Dunnett, once you start, you can't just stop.

[Margaret]

I enjoyed King's Lady Macbeth, but I don't feel her portrayal of Groah lived up to Dunnett's portrayal in King Hereafter. Dunnett's Groah was a mature woman, whereas King's portrayal stresses the character's younger years, with several opening chapters devoted to her childhood and teenage years. King's Lady Macbeth might be called "spunky," Dunnett's Groah definitely not! On the other hand, Lady Macbeth is a much shorter novel that presents Lady Macbeth's viewpoint exclusively, so might be a more satisfactory read for people who less interested in the wider political context of the times.

[Vanessa]

I've just finished Niccolo Rising and have to say I thought it was excellent. Like others, I found the writing style difficult and quite confusing at first, but once I'd got used to it, I was hooked! The characters are numerous and also confusing due to their similar sounding names - I photocopied the list from the front of the book and used it as a bookmark for easy reference purposes, which helped me enormously! There are some great characters, however, especially Claes (!) and there are a couple of twists at the end which left me thinking and wondering! All in all a great adventure story, wonderfully written and plotted, and I'm looking forward to book no:2, Spring of the Ram.

I have been busy trying to find the rest of the series which is out of print in the UK. I've successfully found five of them so far.

[Misfit]

I have been busy trying to find the rest of the series which is out of print in the UK. I've successfully found five of them so far.

Why are those and the Lymond books so hard to find in the UK when they're so readily available in the US?

[Margaret]

The characters are numerous and also confusing due to their similar sounding names - I photocopied the list from the front of the book and used it as a bookmark for easy reference purposes, which helped me enormously!

What a great idea! I'll have to remember this. It would have been a great help when I read Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace, too, which was a wonderful novel in every other way, but likewise had a huge cast of characters.

[Vanessa]

Yes, it saves a lot of flicking backwards and forwards!:)

[nona]

I have not read Dorothy Dunnett as of yet but i plan on changing that since I read EC's top 20 on her blog to read. I've looked over several titles and they all seem rather interesting, I'm going to start with the Lymond Chronicles the first is The Game of Kings I believe.

[Celia Hayes]

You'll love it - all six novels will keep you enthralled for days ... weeks, or months. Depending on how fast you read!:D

[Mello]

First let me say that I read the Lymond Chronicles about 15 or more years ago and while I loved them, I was always confounded by Dunnett's many characters and whether they were Scottish, English, sitting on the fence or straddling it. So when I heard about Elspeth Morrison's Companion about a year ago I bought it and re-read Game of Kings. I’m not sure it helped at all, but I loved Lymond even more! I thought at the time I wouldn’t re-read any more as I’ve so many books TBR, but have just picked up Queens[/I[I]] Play – the gorgeous man on the cover is beckoning.

[Misfit]

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255112135l/2285987.jpg

Just found this cover and had to share :)

[Diiarts]

I'd always read "withdrew its claws" as "removed its claws from Luadhas's neck". It doesn't necessarily imply that the claws were retractable. [Edited to say that this is in response to the early posts on this thread about 'Queens' Play'.]

DD remains, for me, the absolute gold standard of historical fiction.

[Michy]

I've never read anything by Dorothy Dunnett, but after hearing about her on this forum I want to give her a try and have added one of her books to my library list. Although, given the various comments people have made, I'm not expecting her to be easy to read, or necessarily even my cup of tea. But I have to at least give her a shot!

[Eigon]

I've just finished Queen's Play. Poor Robin Stewart - he couldn't do anything right, could he?
I'm moving on to the Disorderly Knights - and since I read Pawn in Frankincense way before either of these, I hope I'll finally understand what on earth was going on!

[M.M. Bennetts]

I first encountered Dunnett's Lymond sequence when I was at university at St. Andrews and skiving. I was meant to be in the library; in fact, I was upstairs at Innes, sitting in a corner of that delightful shop, reading the opening of Game of Kings. And I was hooked. Because as a mediaevalist, specialising in the Renaissance, she brought everything I had been studying for several years to brilliant life, and shewed how interconnected events and countries were even back then.

Whether I would have appreciated her work so much had I not already studied comparative mediaeval societies--Byzantium, Christendom and Islam--I cannot say.

Latterly, as a book critic I was given the first of the Niccolo sequence to review and I noted that in the intervening years, Dunnett's style had clarified and grown less opaque--and this I felt was a good thing. I loved the first book, loved the second. Met and interviewed her and wished I might have been adopted by her, although we did become good friends. And I think it must have been the sixth book in that sequence that I didn't like--and had to review and say so publicly--not my favourite hour. But I did feel that she brought the whole thing round beautifully by the end of the sequence. And it was a huge loss when she died suddenly of pancreatic cancer not long afterward.

As for the large cast of characters--yes, but then so has Dickens, Tolstoy...and like them she always has a list at the back or the front of the book.

[annis]

I first came across Dorothy Dunnett when I was about 14. I picked up a copy of Queen's Play at the local library and was blown away by it. To a rather romantically inclined teenager, Lymond was the ultimate dashing hero, intelligent and sensitive to boot, and of course I've always been obsessed by historical settings of any sort.

I enjoyed the Niccolo series, but thought things got unnecessarily complicated just for the sake of complication near the end - actually possibly around Book 6. Part of the joy of Dunnett is enjoying the literary allusions and untangling the various threads of the plot, but that one just felt rather overdone.

My all-time favourite Dunnett remains King Hereafter, though, regardless of whether Macbeth was in fact Thorfinn :)

[SGM]

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=22&pictureid=87

This is the cover of my copy of Game of Kings, 1972 edition. All my others in this series are from a rather later edition.

I hope I've done this correctly -- Gosh I got it right!

[M.M. Bennetts]

Funnily enough, I happen to know she hated those covers. Positively loathed them and couldn't see what they had to do with her books--however, she was as courteously cheerful about them as with everything. She thought the covers for the Niccolo sequence much much better.

[Misfit]

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=22&pictureid=87

This is the cover of my copy of Game of Kings, 1972 edition. All my others in this series are from a rather later edition.

I hope I've done this correctly -- Gosh I got it right!

You did it! Always scary doing one's first image posting.

Is that supposed to be Philippa? I'm sure she's still just a young'in in the first book. As for the beehive, oh my.

[EC2]

I had several attempts at getting into Dorothy Dunnett, partly caused by reading the Lymonds out of sequence - which you can't do. Then I had another go with The Game of Kings and suddenly I got it, and it was like turning a key into another world. The only one of the Lymonds I didn't like was Pawn in Frankincense because I felt it crossed the line and went over the top. I know many readers cite it as a masterpiece, but it's just too much for me. On the whole, though, her writing blows me away.
With Niccolo I struggled with book 3 - too clever for its own good again, but I enjoyed 4 and 5. I haven't read the last one yet because I burned out while doing a group read. I should have known better and interspersed them with other books.

[SGM]

Ha -- I lied, I have two more older versions and here they are.

For some reason I have not read these before but I acquired the whole Lymond series a few months ago and am now getting caught up in it -- I really wish I had read them before. For me reading fiction is all about plot otherwise I feel I am better off reading non-fiction but the Lymond Chronicles really fit the bill and are the type of historical fiction I have been looking for for a long time

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=22&pictureid=88

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=22&pictureid=89

[Misfit]

I love them! Although they really don't fit the books well, but when has that ever stopped a publisher. I had put off reading these for the longest time as I knew they'd be thinkers. I finally dived in and I think the similarity in style and pacing to Dumas (who I've read a lot of) was what made it easier for me.

[MLE]

The only one of the Lymonds I didn't like was Pawn in Frankincense because I felt it crossed the line and went over the top. I know many readers cite it as a masterpiece, but it's just too much for me.

I can think of several points in that one which might have been your issue, EC, but I'm not sure which one it was. Enlighten me?

[SGM]

I finally dived in and I think the similarity in style and pacing to Dumas (who I've read a lot of) was what made it easier for me.

I read Dumas so long ago -- thanks largely to the fact that when I was a kid, the BBC did a "children's classic" production every Sunday afternoon at 5pm (apparently they can't afford to do them that way anymore). They encouraged me to read many of the classics at an age when I was still reading Lorna Hill and the Chalet School books, ie P&P, the Man in the Iron Mask etc. I have read The Three Musketeers, the Man in the Iron Mask and Count of Monte Christo but have not got round to reading the ones in-between yet but did see them on TV. I will get round to them at some stage but after such a long gap, I am probably best to re-read Museketeers again first after I have finished DD.

They also did a lot of Walter Scott's novels which make really really good TV but unfortunately I didn't get into reading those until I had to read Heart of Midlohian for A level which then, as ever with books you have studied, put me off. However, in defence of studying literature at school, I would never had read Paradise Lost if it wasn't on the exam course -- and I loved it. That's probably why I enjoyed Pullman's triology so much.

[EC2]

I can think of several points in that one which might have been your issue, EC, but I'm not sure which one it was. Enlighten me?

It's ages since I've read it now so I couldn't cite you specifics apart from that chess game which was the most extreme moment and where I felt that although the writing was very powerful, I wasn't believing the scenario. It was like a vivid nightmare or an atmospheric play in a dark theatre. You are there, you are caught up in all the horrible drama, but at the same time you know it's not real. Artificial even. Mostly with Dunnett I am in there with the characters, living and breathing with them, but this time I couldn't do it. Dunnett takes the reader to extremes and you're always on the edge of that line with her set pieces, but IMO in PIF, she crossed that line. My favourite novel in the Lymond Series is the second one, Queen's Play, and the scene that remains with me from that one, is the chase across the snow-topped roofs. It's magical.

[M.M. Bennetts]

I might have felt the same about Pawn in Frankincense had I not just been studying about the Siege of Cyprus, and been reading the first hand accounts of the sadistic cruelty which was the norm in the Ottoman Empire at that time.

(I'm not suggesting that the Christians were much better--just less skilled at exquisite long-term pain...)

If anything, Dunnett went easy on the modern reader. Though at the time, I recall being absolutely gutted and stunned. Because it's always one thing to read about a thing generically and historically; it's quite another for an author to manage to make the whole thing very personal, very intimate, so that it's not some fellow 400 years ago, but a close friend to whom these things happen.

And that, of course, is Dunnett's great strength. Her characters become such close friends that history becomes a personal experience without the cushioning benefit of centuries' distance.

[EC2]

I was au fait with the history, but I still felt she went OTT and I actually felt more detached rather than up close personal and gutted when I read PIF. It was as if I could see the cogs workings behind the prose rather than being involved in it. As I say, it's my foible, and everyone else seems to find that novel particularly intense in the series, but if I had to miss one out (not that you could because it all inter-connects), then PIF would be the one.

[Misfit]

My favourite novel in the Lymond Series is the second one, Queen's Play, and the scene that remains with me from that one, is the chase across the snow-topped roofs. It's magical.

That was a wow scene. There's another *chase* in either book five or six very much on par with this one.

[MLE]

My biggest problem with Pawn was the initial premise: that Lymond would go chasing all over the middle east to find one illegitimate child of his. He apparently was quite active sexually, so if he was reasonably fertile he must have left a string of bastards in his wake. So why did this one become so all-important suddenly?

And the second half of that premise, that the bad guy would be able, from a distance, to manipulate all that trouble for Lymond. If he just wanted the guy's head, slow or fast, there were much more certain ways to get it.

I always have a problem with DD's characters and their inconsistent motives, sometimes doing an about-face for no good reason except the needs of the plot. She's a good enough writer that she has me with her in the moment, but afterwards I look back at the pieces and am irritated that she so completely hooked me with something so patently wrong.

[Diiarts]

My biggest problem with Pawn was the initial premise: that Lymond would go chasing all over the middle east to find one illegitimate child of his. He apparently was quite active sexually, so if he was reasonably fertile he must have left a string of bastards in his wake. So why did this one become so all-important suddenly?

And the second half of that premise, that the bad guy would be able, from a distance, to manipulate all that trouble for Lymond. If he just wanted the guy's head, slow or fast, there were much more certain ways to get it.

I always have a problem with DD's characters and their inconsistent motives, sometimes doing an about-face for no good reason except the needs of the plot. She's a good enough writer that she has me with her in the moment, but afterwards I look back at the pieces and am irritated that she so completely hooked me with something so patently wrong.

Sorry, MLE, I can't let that one pass without saying something... specifically, that I disagree with just about everything you've said here! DD's characters are only implausible and inconsistent if one looks at them through a C20th lens. For me at least, one of her great achievements is to show the political and global repercussions of individual actions. Gabriel didn't want Lymond's head on a plate - he wanted to destroy the credibility of the King of France's Envoy to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent, and by so doing, bring down an alliance or even an empire. It is her understanding of these complexities, coupled with the sheer brilliance of her writing, that makes her a truly great writer.

I shall, if you wish, rant briefly about the significance of Kuzum and Khaireddin, and Lymond's search for them, but that will have to be on another occasion.

If she pushes the boundaries of our comfort zone - and, EC2 and others, I completely understand your discomfort with the chess game - so be it. I find her characters and their motivation far more plausible than anything in, say, Philippa Gregory (about whom I know you also have reservations, MLE); and as a stylist, well, there's simply no comparison.

[Diiarts]

That was a wow scene. There's another *chase* in either book five or six very much on par with this one.

It's early in book 6 (Checkmate).

[Ludmilla]

That was a wow scene. There's another *chase* in either book five or six very much on par with this one.

There are a lot of chase scenes in the series, but the one that I'm thinking of happens in (I think) the next to last book, where they prevent Lymond from going back to Russia. It was such a powerful and poignant ending.

EC said: My favourite novel in the Lymond Series is the second one, Queen's Play, and the scene that remains with me from that one, is the chase across the snow-topped roofs. It's magical.


Queen's Play was one that I appreciated more in retrospect than while reading it. Lymond was just so frustrating at times in that one. My favorite scene is when Margaret reprimands him with a wonderful speech toward the end.

[annis]

As mentioned earlier, Queen's Play was the first Dunnett novel I read, and I loved that harum-scarum rooftop chase sequence. Many years later I reread the Lymond series (i introduced it to one of my sons and took the chance to reread it myself). Shortly afterwards I read a sci-fantasy series called the Sunfall Trilogy, and blow me down! there was Lymond's rooftop chase sequence pretty much word-for-word repeated there in a different setting. I was gobsmacked. The author nabbed whole sections from the Lymond books and inserted them throughout his series. I know that Dunnett's books were OP at the time, but what was the author thinking? Didn't he realise that readers who love HF also often enjoy fantasy?

[Elizabeth]

The books being out of print does not mean they are out of copyright. Whoever this author is should be reported to his publisher and Dunnett's publisher and sued vigorously for plagiarism.

[annis]

Given the amount of time that's gone by (this was back in the early 1990s) I should think that the fantasy books themselves are OP now. I must admit that at the time I assumed someone else in the industry would have noticed (after all I was only an insignificant reader from Down Under) and mentioned it to his publisher, but don't know if that happened or not.

[Elizabeth]

A little research has turned up the fact that the author of the Sunfall Trilogy also helped himself to considerable amounts of Cecelia Holland's Until the Sun Falls, The Earl, and Great Maria. Holland did pursue the matter. The December 1994 issue of the Ansible newsletter commented:

"Cecelia Holland's long-standing complaints of being plagiarized in the William James Sunfall trilogy (published by Orbit) have finally taken effect. 'Orbit has capitulated; they gave James until November 1 to respond to the charges, which he has not done, so they are recalling everything, ceasing distribution, and trying to call the matter closed. I am in no mood to consider it closed..."

Holland notes that she herself also recognized bits of plagiarized Dunnett.

So at least the books were recalled. Go, Cecelia Holland! If you want to read more, go to the Ansible website (http://news.ansible.co.uk/) and search the term 'Sunfall.'

[MLE]

DD's characters are only implausible and inconsistent if one looks at them through a C20th lens.

Are you kidding me? she had Lymond be an alcoholic when it suited her, and then able to handle it just fine when it didn't. I have spent years working with homeless, addicted, abused, sexually exploited and similar human circumstances, and DD's lack of understanding of them drives me absolutely up a wall. Her pseudo-psychology and arch handling of problems with which I am intimately familiar -- as much in a third-world, pre-twentieth-century setting as here in the industrialized world-- drove me to fling down the Niccolo books half-way through the second one, the handling of the twelve-year-old's sexual development being more than I could finally stand.

[annis]

Posted by Elizabeth
So at least the books were recalled. Go, Cecelia Holland! If you want to read more, go to the Ansible website and search the term 'Sunfall.'

Thanks for this info, Elizabeth. Glad to know that this author's plagiarism was noted. I hadn't read Cecelia Holland's work at the time, so didn't pick up on that, but as I was contemporaneously re-reading the Lymond books I certainly noticed the use of Dunnett's work!

[SGM]

Thanks for this info, Elizabeth. Glad to know that this author's plagiarism was noted.

There was at least one very noticeable piece of Defoe's Moll Flanders in Forever Amber. It irritated the heck out of me when I read it but as Defoe had been dead for a couple of hundred years I suppose he was considered fair game.

[annis]

Has anyone else ever had the probably heretical thought, "Why didn't on earth didn't Francis just talk to his mother"? Mind you, if he had, then we would have missed out on all those fabulous stories--

[Diiarts]

Has anyone else ever had the probably heretical thought, "Why didn't on earth didn't Francis just talk to his mother"? Mind you, if he had, then we would have missed out on all those fabulous stories--

There's never a "like" button around when you need one...

[SGM]

Has anyone else ever had the probably heretical thought, "Why didn't on earth didn't Francis just talk to his mother"? Mind you, if he had, then we would have missed out on all those fabulous stories--

There you go, now I have to read all six books to find out what you mean. I can see very little else happening in my life until this is done.

[Eigon]

I did notice in the sixth book that Dorothy Dunnett made it very hard for Francis just to drop everything and head back to Midculter to ask Sybilla what she knew. I've just finished Checkmate, by the way - and what an emotional rollercoaster! I found myself shouting at Phillippa and Francis several times (lucky I read alone!).
Can Dorothy Dunnett possibly have mapped the whole six volumes out from the very beginning? The story wrapped up very satisfactorily, tidying up all manner of loose ends - so was the Dame de Doubtance always meant to have such a guiding hand over events, or was she introduced as a colourful character and later given the extra significance?

[Eigon]

I've had another thought overnight (I'm allowed one a day).
Dorothy Dunnett stopped at the accession of Elizabeth I, or thereabouts - but what would have happened to the Lymond line after that?
I can see someone young, blond and incredibly gifted in military strategy leading a company of mercenaries through the Thirty Years War, and another descendant getting involved with the '45 Rebellion (and probably escaping over the heather by the skin of his teeth back to Sevigny), or embroiled in the French Revolution (again escaping by the skin of his teeth).
Does anyone have any other ideas?

[SGM]

How about the Lymond family during the Act of Union. I can only think of one novel dealing with that and that is from the perspective of Daniel Defoe --The English Spy.

[Misfit]

Here's a cover of Game of Kings on the edition I nabbed at Sunday's book haul.

[EC2]

Here's a cover of Game of Kings on the edition I nabbed at Sunday's book haul.

OMG - One of the sexiest men in history is made to look a total plonker!

[Misfit]

OMG - One of the sexiest men in history is made to look a total plonker!

;):o:p

I saw that and I just couldn't resist. Now I have to find a home for it, as I already own the series in the newer editions.

[donroc]

Here's a cover of Game of Kings on the edition I nabbed at Sunday's book haul.

I can imagine what N.C. Wyeth could have done with all the Dunnett book covers.

[Michy]

OMG - One of the sexiest men in history is made to look a total plonker!

I haven't read any of Dunnett's books, although she is only list to try. So of course I don't know who this book is about. But now my interest is WAY piqued! :D WHO is one of the sexiest men in history?!

[donroc]

For a start:

Lord Byron?
Augustus the Strong of Saxony? Said to have sired 365 bastards? :eek:

[annis]

In this case Francis Crawford of Lymond, hero of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond series and ultimate Renaissance man - "polyglot scholar, soldier, poet, musician, nobleman". He's charismatic, daring, handsome, intelligent, sensitive and tormented - irresistible :)


Posted by Donroc
Augustus the Strong of Saxony? Said to have sired 365 bastards?
He must indeed have had plenty of -er- strength!

[Michy]

In this case Francis Crawford of Lymond, hero of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond series and ultimate Renaissance man - "polyglot scholar, soldier, poet, musician, nobleman". He's charismatic, daring, handsome, intelligent, sensitive and tormented - irresistible :)


Does indeed sound irresistible. Dunnett's books just got bumped up on my TBR list. ;)

[Mello]

I wish I could find somewhere in cyber the cover of my copy of Queens Play to post. Lymond is staring out to sea, calm on the the outside. He has the cat-like quality about him that Dunnett describes a lot. I always have this picture in my mind when I think of Lymond.

[Misfit]

I wish I could find somewhere in cyber the cover of my copy of Queens Play to post. Lymond is staring out to sea, calm on the the outside. He has the cat-like quality about him that Dunnett describes a lot. I always have this picture in my mind when I think of Lymond.

Did you try ebay? If not, can you scan it for us here?

[Ludmilla]

Mello,

is it this one?

http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/78/76/78766e839e2ba995935786554674141414c3441.jpg

[Mello]

Mello,

is it this one?

http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/78/76/78766e839e2ba995935786554674141414c3441.jpg

Yes, that's it! I guess I didn't look hard enough.

Can't explain why, but I feel very attached to that cover.

[Misfit]

Just spotted this one.

http://cb.pbsstatic.com/l/43/2943/9780446312943.jpg

[annis]

Blimey! Where do you find these covers, Misfit? Who the devil is that riding Pegasus? It looks a bit like a woman. Can't be Lymond, as everyone knows he's blond.... Can't be Suleiman the Magnificent as everyone knows he never goes out without a turban the size of a pumpkin...

[Michy]

The dress reminds me of that famous shot of Marilyn Monroe standing over the ventilation grate.

Other than that, the cover has a very 1970s LSD feel to it.......

[Margaret]

Those silvery blue disks make it look like Sci-Fi to me. Wonder what they're meant to be ....

[JaneRob]

Dorothy Dunnett, my favorite author and l have the whole Nicolo and Lymond sets, and am busy making my way through King Hereafter.

The Lymond Chronicles are my favorite, started with the second book Queen's play and worked my way through the series from there. It was years before I managed to get a copy of the first book. Queen's Play is probably my favorite book. I am afraid every author from there on gets compared to Dorothy D.

Other favorite historical novelists are MM Kaye (ie Shadow of the Moon my fav.) and Isabel Allende. I have come on to this site to find out some more author's as yet unknown to me, l do have trouble working out who are the better ones.

I first cam across Dorothy Dunnett back in the early 1980's, have read the Lymond series twice and have started the Nicolo series again recently. Lymond is my favorite obviously.

I started my Daughter on the Lymond series when she was about 15 yo. I knew it would be hard fer her at that age, but in regards to literature, she can read anything now. She loves historical, but likes fantasy the best.

I also do some volunteer proofing and formatting for DP and the Gutenburg project. Looking forward to discovering more great literature.

Cheers

Jane

[SGM]

Dorothy Dunnett, my favorite author and l have the whole Nicolo and Lymond sets, and am busy making my way through King Hereafter.

The Lymond Chronicles are my favorite, started with the second book Queen's play and worked my way through the series from there. It was years before I managed to get a copy of the first book. Queen's Play is probably my favorite book. I am afraid every author from there on gets compared to Dorothy D.

I have just finished the Lymond sextet. Well done, getting into it from QP. I started from GoK and worked my way through in order. But I have to admit that it took me a long time getting into QP -- page 300 of 600 (when Richard Crawford turned up.)

I understant the DD's favourite authors were Georgette Heyer, Baroness Orczy and Rafael Sabatini which as a Gutenberg proof-reader you will know are mostly available online. I read the obvious ones of these in my teens (ie the ones they had made films out of) but am now delving into some of the others. I have just acquired Fortune's Fool because it is set in the Restoration and Sussex - two of my particular interests.

I read all the Baroness Orczy ones I could get my hands on as a kid (which means not all of them) but for some reason haven't been able to get into them again recently. However, I will try again soon.

[annis]

There'a also a Sabatini called The Tavern Knight which covers the Battle of Worcester and the escape of Charles II. However, it has to be said that not all Sabatini novels are equal, though they do cover interesting historical events.

There's a useful chronology of events represented in Sabatini's novels here:
http://denenberg.com/sabatini/timeline.html

[JaneRob]

Hi Annis,

I get a bit spoiled for choice at Gutenburg, have yet to finish a book but do I a lot of formatting when online. I am waiting for some of the books l have worked on to be completed, but this may take a few years. I will check out some of your suggestions.

Cheers

Jane

[SGM]

There'a also a Sabatini called The Tavern Knight which covers the Battle of Worcester and the escape of Charles II. However, it has to be said that not all Sabatini novels are equal, though they do cover interesting historical events.

There's a useful chronology of events represented in Sabatini's novels here:
http://denenberg.com/sabatini/timeline.html

Yes I have a full list (my Dad was a huge fan in my earliest years) but unfortunately not all are available on Gutenberg and I find the pdfs from Archive.net restrict me to the computer as I do not have an e-book reader yet. So I have to get hold of them second hand which is not cheap in all cases. I know they are not all "classics" like Captain Blood and Scaramouche but I am trying to dig up novels covering a period during which few novels were written (and preferably not about royalty). I have a copy of the Jonathan Neld Guide which helps a lot.

[Ludmilla]

I understant the DD's favourite authors were Georgette Heyer, Baroness Orczy and Rafael Sabatini which as a Gutenberg proof-reader you will know are mostly available online. I read the obvious ones of these in my teens (ie the ones they had made films out of) but am now delving into some of the others. I have just acquired Fortune's Fool because it is set in the Restoration and Sussex - two of my particular interests.



Given Dunnett's fondness for Sabatini, I've always thought that a certain scene in Game of Kings that involved Lymond masquerading as a certain Spaniard was just a little bit influenced by a scene in The Sea Hawk. The narrative sleight of hand in how the scenes were written reminded me of one another.

[JaneRob]

Yes I have a full list (my Dad was a huge fan in my earliest years) but unfortunately not all are available on Gutenberg and I find the pdfs from Archive.net restrict me to the computer as I do not have an e-book reader yet. So I have to get hold of them second hand which is not cheap in all cases. I know they are not all "classics" like Captain Blood and Scaramouche but I am trying to dig up novels covering a period during which few novels were written (and preferably not about royalty). I have a copy of the Jonathan Neld Guide which helps a lot.
Do you have Firefox? There is an add on to the Firefox browser you can get called 'e-pub' which is a free reader. You can download the files from Gutenberg in the e-pub format and bookmark the page, very useful.

Jane

[Michy]

I just started my first Dorothy Dunnett last night, Game of Kings. (had never even heard of Dorothy Dunnett until joining this forum! :eek::eek::eek:)

I am only about 30 pages in, so it is way too early for me bring in a verdict, but I can see what people mean about her writing not being all that easy to fall into. Someone in this thread described her style as "opaque" -- that seems an apt description. Also, at times her dialogue is not easy for me to follow -- I feel like it's going over my head.

At any rate, at this point I am not even close to giving up on it........

[Ludmilla]

Michy, keep in mind that in the first half of that book, Dunnett deliberately keeps her readers in the dark about a number of things that are going on. During the 2nd half you'll experience several aha! so that's what was happening moments! It's really very thrilling by the end if you don't get too frustrated with the subterfuge in the first half.

[Michy]

Ok, that's good to know. Thanks.

[Mello]

I just started my first Dorothy Dunnett last night, Game of Kings. (had never even heard of Dorothy Dunnett until joining this forum! :eek::eek::eek:)

I am only about 30 pages in, so it is way too early for me bring in a verdict, but I can see what people mean about her writing not being all that easy to fall into. Someone in this thread described her style as "opaque" -- that seems an apt description. Also, at times her dialogue is not easy for me to follow -- I feel like it's going over my head.

At any rate, at this point I am not even close to giving up on it........

I daresay that the first half of Game of Kings is the hardest to get into than all the others. Some 15 years after reading it, I came across The Dorothy Dunnett Companion Book by Elspeth Morrison. It translates and explains a lot! I don’t like reading what I can’t understand so for me it was helpful, but for what its worth I would advise to gloss over all the difficult bits and appreciate that Lymond is a master linguist!

[Michy]

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll just keep at it without the companion book, since that would probably bog me down too much and make the book feel like work rather than pleasure. However, it's comforting to know they've produced a companion guide, because that tells me that at least one other person has had difficulty "getting" Dunnett, and that I'm not just a big dummy! :D

[Misfit]

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll just keep at it without the companion book, since that would probably bog me down too much and make the book feel like work rather than pleasure. However, it's comforting to know they've produced a companion guide, because that tells me that at least one other person has had difficulty "getting" Dunnett, and that I'm not just a big dummy! :D

No, not at all and the advice is sound. Don't sweat every little detail that you feel you aren't picking up on. If it's important it will be revealed later, but if it's one of her little private jokes or something you need translated to understand you won't miss anything story wise by skipping past it. I expected a tough haul with these, but her style and pacing was so similar to Dumas I fell in quicker than I expected.

[laktor]

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm also interested in giving Dunnett a try, but I would have to invest in purchasing from amazon because her books are mostly unavailable in the big book chains such as Chapters and they are also scarce in my local libraries.

[annis]

How about asking your local library to inter-loan them for you? Quite often there is no charge, or else a minimal one

[laktor]

How about asking your local library to inter-loan them for you? Quite often there is no charge, or else a minimal one

Do you mean from another city? I live in Toronto and there are very few copies of any of her books in any of our libraries.:(

[Misfit]

Do you mean from another city? I live in Toronto and there are very few copies of any of her books in any of our libraries.:(

Not sure how it works in Canada, but in the US there is quite a network of libraries who participate in the ILL program. My library has an online request form (check with them), and I bang it out and wait to see if I get it, and rarely do they come back and say no, we can't.

Half the fun is seeing where the book came from, and all over the country. College libraries and even one from the library of a Benedictine Abbey.

[Michy]

I got my Dunnett through online book-swap. If I really, really love her writing to the point that I think she would be a keeper, then I will probably buy her other books new. If I like her less than that, then I'll get her other books through the library or book-swap.

[Sintra]

I've just finished reading Scales of Gold and i really enjoyed it.

Dunnett is of course one of a kind. For me her novels are truly brilliant, but i think of them as mostly adventure, not as historical fiction. They are all high-class adventures, but, let's face it, her books are filled with really improbable scenarios.

And sometimes her characters are just driving me insane. For example, i'm having trouble liking any of the female characters in the Niccolo Series. Katelina and Gelis are so hateful and revenge-driven it's appaling, Charetty girls are simply annoying (especially the younger one, i just wanted to hit her with something in Spring of the Ram). I liked Marian and Margot, but they are hardly in it at all.

In some parts Dunnett is just too complicated for her own good with her labyrinthine plots and smart people. Let's face it, people are mostly not that smart and they don't talk in subtleties all the time.
That doesn't change the fact that Francis is my favourite hero ever. I forgive him everything!

Anyway i really love her books, heartbreaking as they are. But i have to say that my favourites are probably The Game of Kings and The Disorderly Knights.

[MLE]

You nailed my feelings exactly, Sintra! I loved Dunnet while I was in the midst of them (the Lymond series, anyway, couldn't gag the Niccolo one) but afterwards, I found myself wondering why all those people would CARE so much to keep Francis from consummating his marriage. Or why he would go through so many convolutions for one child he never met, by a woman he had only the briefest acquaintance with.

But I do thank DD for a good ride while it lasted.

[Sintra]

You nailed my feelings exactly, Sintra! I loved Dunnet while I was in the midst of them (the Lymond series, anyway, couldn't gag the Niccolo one) but afterwards, I found myself wondering why all those people would CARE so much to keep Francis from consummating his marriage. Or why he would go through so many convolutions for one child he never met, by a woman he had only the briefest acquaintance with.

But I do thank DD for a good ride while it lasted.

Yes, it's really strange that in both Lymond and Niccolo series there were a lot of secondary characters who tried to control the main heroes. Francis and Nicholas are grown men, they don't exactly need excessive supervision.

As for the child... I thought that the child was not as important (at first) to Francis as Gabriel was. I think it was stated somewhere that he went to catch Mallett in the first place, and he meant to do it through finding that child.
Maybe he wanted to win that game. I mean, he created the whole Scotland gang plot only to lure Graham Mallet, so that chase was another round of their wicked competition. And Francis strated to care about the boy himself only when they had met in Istanbul.

I was more bothered by the whole Grand Master plot. Knights of St. John were a religious order of course, but politics meant a lot to these people. Gabriel had to know that Grand Masters were not elected for thier piety and that the title itself was more like a constitutional monarch.
He wanted power but he chose a really strange and complicated way to get it.

[Head_Unit]

Hi from a newbie-I'll try this question here and see if anyone is still looking at this thread.

I've gotten into a new habit at my local library of just randomly stopping at a shelf and scanning it in detail. They do segregate out science fiction, fantasy, mystery and so forth which is great-I can grab some SF really quick-but they have a lot of other good things on the shelf.

And so, I stumbled on Dorothy Dunnett's Scales Of Gold. A fascinating book both for the scope and the style. By style I mean a couple of things. One, her writing really lets me mentally pictures those long-ago scenes: camel caravans, medieval Venice, etc. But two, ya kinda never know exactly what the heck is going on. I've read this as a criticism of Dorothy Dunnett, but it seems to me it's strength as well. That "what the heck is going on here!?!?!?" factor is what led me through Dune at around age six. Yes, six years old.

But one thing at the end of Scales really stumped me. I just don't understand why Gelis becomes pregnant by Simon and how "that's the best revenge for Katherine." I missed something along the way, I guess, and it's bugging me. I reread that part, but still didn't get it. Maybe because I haven't read the earlier books? Who is it revenge against? Nicholas? (seems not, since she asks him what he wants to do with the baby). Simon? If so, how.

:confused:

[Sintra]

But one thing at the end of Scales really stumped me. I just don't understand why Gelis becomes pregnant by Simon and how "that's the best revenge for Katherine." I missed something along the way, I guess, and it's bugging me. I reread that part, but still didn't get it. Maybe because I haven't read the earlier books? Who is it revenge against? Nicholas? (seems not, since she asks him what he wants to do with the baby). Simon? If so, how.

:confused:

SPOILER

Yes, that part is explained in previous books. Nicholas got Gelis' older sister Katelina pregnant in the first book and she had to marry that same Simon and pass the child as his.
Everyone thought that Nicholas did it to get back at Simon (because of the whole "Luke, i'm your father issue") but he actually didn't. It just sort of happened.
So Gelis thought that the best way to avenge her sister was to marry Nicholas and later announce that Simon got her pregnant.

Gelis is just complicated that way :)

[Misfit]

Just spotted this cover on my feeds at Goodreads. http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317766436l/6594149.jpg

[annis]

Got to love those old covers- this looks like a '60s/'70s version. Hey, at least they got to keep their clothes on :)

[Misfit]

Got to love those old covers- this looks like a '60s/'70s version. Hey, at least they got to keep their clothes on :)

I know. I've got a couple of friends who pick up boxed lots at Goodreads and you never know what's going to show up next in your feeds. Love it.

[EC2]

But what ARE they wearing? They must surely be time travellers!

[Manda Scott]

Coming late to this... I grew up devouring Lymond (I lived in Scotland - I can't tell you how amazing it was as an adolescent to find that we had our own heroes who weren't Bruce or Wallace - it was only years later that I discovered my contemporaries were in love with Francis Crawford while I wanted to be him... quite telling, really)

but for me, the outstanding, best, most amazing book Dunnett wrote, and easily her best was KING HEREAFTER, her take on the true history behind MacBeth. There, she was able to let rip with her quite outstanding language - passages in there are so beautiful they still leave me breathless - and her sense of period detail, of danger and passion. It's the one I look back to when I'm stuck in writing and want to remember how a good story flows. That and Mary Renault's 'FIRE FROM HEAVEN' tho' WOLF HALL has rather supplanted all of these - it's the one that sits on my desk now.

m

[annis]

Posted by Manda

Coming late to this... I grew up devouring Lymond (I lived in Scotland - I can't tell you how amazing it was as an adolescent to find that we had our own heroes who weren't Bruce or Wallace - it was only years later that I discovered my contemporaries were in love with Francis Crawford while I wanted to be him... quite telling, really)

but for me, the outstanding, best, most amazing book Dunnett wrote, and easily her best was KING HEREAFTER, her take on the true history behind MacBeth. There, she was able to let rip with her quite outstanding language - passages in there are so beautiful they still leave me breathless - and her sense of period detail, of danger and passion. It's the one I look back to when I'm stuck in writing and want to remember how a good story flows. That and Mary Renault's 'FIRE FROM HEAVEN' tho' WOLF HALL has rather supplanted all of these - it's the one that sits on my desk now.


King Hereafter is definitely my favourite Dunnett, too, Manda, though I do have a soft spot for Francis Crawford of Lymond. Funnily enough, I’ve just finished re-reading Fire From Heaven, some 30 years after I originally read it. Although I was happily re-captivated by Mary Renault’s wonderfully vivid picture of the young Alexander the Great’s life and times, I was initially taken aback when I started Fire From Heaven by just how uncritically my romantically-inclined younger self had accepted Renault’s portrayal of Alexander, which I now see clearly reflects a serious case of hero-worship. The other thing that struck me was that Renault’s Alexander could very easily be Lymond in a chiton. Both have that glamour, almost a shining aura- they have the same golden-haired good looks, an idealized masculine beauty, and are multi-talented, charismatic, daring, fiercely intelligent, sensitive and tormented. Both also have a strong sense of responsibility for others, a powerful awareness of noblesse oblige. I’ve always thought that Dunnett was at least a bit in love with her Lymond. I suspect that Mary Renault rather envied Hephaistion :)

[Manda Scott]

I"m sure you're right about both of them - and certainly Renault, who was in a lifelong relationship with a woman, was oddly and repeatedly disparaging about women both in her books and her interviews...

I think all of us who write have to be a little in love with our characters, the question is how much we can ground them in anything approaching reality.

And - I had almost the same experience as you did with The Fire from Heaven when I recently re-read Rosemary Sutcliff's 'The Eagle of the XIIth' - I adored that as a child. It's pretty safe to say that everything I write today grows either from wanting to touch the places that book touched or (more often) to explore through the gateways she opened, but never went down (what happened in the boys' - and the girls' rites of passage? Who were the followers of the horned god with the new moon horns on their brows?). Re-reading it, I was appalled at the Imperialism and fundamental misogyny throughout. We can make allowances for Sutcliff - she was born i the 20s and this is how her world was. That I didn't notice any of the obvious defects as a child, is what's most disturbing...

m

[annis]

I think that when we're young our critical faculties are undeveloped, but we are always ready to be enthralled by the glamour of a great story. It's only later that we think, well, yes, that was a great story, but... We can never again experience those wonderful tales in such a state of unthinking, undiscriminating innocence. It's a bit sad, in a way. I've revisited a few favourites from my early teenage years recently and rather wish I'd left them in the warm, fuzzy past.

Rosemary Sutcliff was heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling, whom I think she saw as her literary mentor, so her sensibility was firmly grounded even further back in the 19th century British Empire. Kipling drew clear parallels between the British Imperial experience and the Roman Empire which RS followed. It's easy to see Lantern Bearers as much as an elegy for the British Emoire as for the end of Roman rule in Britain. But yes, writing styles reflect a lot about the times they were written in, and that is also something we respond to when we re-read a book many years later. Having just read the debate thread (http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=92510#post92510) below, it's sobering to think that youngsters currently reading novels might revisit them in 30 years time and find today's attitudes and opinions equally distasteful :)

[Brenna]

Ok I'm reading the Game of Kings and I'm super confused. I get that we are in Scotland and some of the characters are trying to protect the Scottish Princess Mary and some of the characters seem to be trying to kidnap her and give her to England. Am I on the right track? What is the storyline exactly?

[MLE]

Keep at it, Brenna -- in the beginning of Game of Kings, Dunnett was so busy being clever she clearly didn't feel the need to accommodate her readers. A bad mistake, and one writers today would never get away with.

So just to keep you turning the pages, here is my little run-up of the story's beginning. I hope none of the factoids would be considered spoilers, because all of this comes out in the first part of the book.

Francis Crawford (of Lymond, his portion of the hereditary lands) has returned to Scotland. He is a wanted man, because it is thought he betrayed his country when he was a hostage in England some years back. His goal is to find the man who can prove him innocent. There are three possibilities, and he is going to hunt them down one by one.

But while following his leads, with his band of not-so-merry men, he has to not get caught.

He is a Scottish patriot and makes things very difficult for the English, but the Scots, including his brother Richard, aren't convinced that he isn't a traitor.

Now if Dunnet had let you know this in the first ten pages instead of twiddling around for the first hundred, I for one would have found it easier to get through them. But I finished it on the good recommendation of a friend, and I'm glad I did.

[SGM]

Ok I'm reading the Game of Kings and I'm super confused. I get that we are in Scotland and some of the characters are trying to protect the Scottish Princess Mary and some of the characters seem to be trying to kidnap her and give her to England. Am I on the right track? What is the storyline exactly?

This might contain spoilers

Dunnett likes to raise issues or questions that do not get answered, possibly, until a few novels later but if you keep your wits about you, the answer usually turns up. But I found it was the puzzles that kept me reading.

For example, as Francis and Richard’s relationship begins to develop (I will not give away the circumstances of this), they discuss Will Scott and Richard asks Francis “Does he know how old you are?” This puzzled me for quite some time.

In Caprice and Rondo Acciajuoli says to Nicholas:

“You are concerned for the next generation. But all six children have been born who are to take care of your line in the future”. (Caprice and Rondo p 451 – at least in my copy).

I am still not sure that I have worked out all of these.

Are there any ideas out there?

[Brenna]

MLE-that was helpful.

SGM-I'm not that far along yet. I'm only 250 pages in and it's getting a little easier to read. I at least have figured out who is who and who they represent.

[SGM]

MLE-that was helpful.

SGM-I'm not that far along yet. I'm only 250 pages in and it's getting a little easier to read. I at least have figured out who is who and who they represent.

Stick with it, it really is worth it. But the plot is complex (I sort of compare it to the plot of Tinker Tailor) and don't worry if at some points you have absolutely no idea where it is going, it will become clearer.

There is a cast of thousands with is quite difficult to keep track of but only a few are absolutely essential and I am sure you have got those.

Dunnett didn't set out to write a book that was easy to read and I, for one, am glad because I was getting desparate to read a novel with a decent plot. I confess to being an inveterate reader of the last page long before I get to it and in this case it did me absolutely no good which serves me right.

Some periods of Scottish history can be very confusing, particularly the ones where everyone appears to be called Stewart.

[Brenna]

Ok so I am about 20 pages from the end and I think I've figured out most things. Now though, I want to go back and reread the book to see if I can figure out the "mysteries" Lymond explains during his trial. And I was really disappointed by the death of a very sweet character. Oh well..

[SGM]

Ok so I am about 20 pages from the end and I think I've figured out most things. Now though, I want to go back and reread the book to see if I can figure out the "mysteries" Lymond explains during his trial. And I was really disappointed by the death of a very sweet character. Oh well..



Are you up for the next five in the series. They are well worth it.

Yes, they do need a second reading -- or, at least I needed a second chance. However, in this instance I discovered that one of my libraries had these as downloadable e-audiobooks and because I was not very good with audiobooks I decided to try something I had already read and these were perfect to as a trial. I am now absolutely hooked. The Lymond Chronicles work wonderfully well. The only problem was that the library had made a mistake and they were not licensed for these Dunnett books and they disappeared before I got through them all (most of them are about 30 hours of listening). So I then had to search all sorts of libraries to get them in CD or even cassette so that I could listen to them all.

They are delightful.

Unfortunately, I did the same thing with the Niccolo books after I had finished reading them and didn't find that they worked quite as well, or not all of them -- some did, some didn't. They were also a lot harder to find.

[TiciaRoma]

Ok so I am about 20 pages from the end and I think I've figured out most things. Now though, I want to go back and reread the book to see if I can figure out the "mysteries" Lymond explains during his trial. And I was really disappointed by the death of a very sweet character. Oh well..

I just finished it tonight. I think you're right and that a re-read may help clear things up. I do know I'm not ready to plunge ahead qith the next 5 books. I need a breather.

[Brenna]

I'm not sure I'm going to "plunge" ahead with 4 other books. I have the second one that I will likely read soon, but we'll see if I'll buy the other 3 or just get them from the library...

[SGM]

I'm not sure I'm going to "plunge" ahead with 4 other books. I have the second one that I will likely read soon, but we'll see if I'll buy the other 3 or just get them from the library...

I hope you get on OK with this one because it caused me problems until about half way through. You might find it goes OK for you but if it does not, stick with it, it will grab you too in the end.

[Brenna]

It's interesting you say that because the 2nd book got mixed reviews it seems. Some people said once you get through the first book, the rest are wonderful. Others said the 2nd book was their least favorite. Others want to chime in?

[The Czar]

I couldn't agree with the OP more. I tried three times to get into Niccolo Rising, and finally got through. For the first half of the book, I was thinking to myself, "this isn't very well written, not very good" then all of a sudden, it clicked, I was hooked, and I stayed up till 4am to finish it.

It was interesting how the first half of the book, a bunch of seemingly random events keep happening around the seemingly hapless, oafish Claes, then boom, all of a sudden, you realize that there is more to Claes than meets the eye. Then gradually, you realize the intricate, machivellian plot that he has wrought.

One of the more interesting protagonists I've seen. I've gotten tired of the formulaic "So and so is a noble, he trains and becomes a baddie" format that seems to becoming standard in historical fiction. This was a refreshing change, and I am already into Spring of the Ram.

Although, I would like to gripe about Miss Dunnett's publisher... $16 for a paperback, and one printed in microprint at that! I read the first one on my kindle, but the tiny print in the print version is going to kill me.

[SGM]

I really enjoyed the first four HoN novels but less so the next three. I thought Caprice and Rondo was one book too many although the Robin part at the end was needed, the whole Anna plot was unnecessary particularly as it was sort of replicated in Gemini -- which I did enjoy.

I saw a review by someone somewhere who pointed out that the LCs were constructed very tightly but the same could not be said of HoN especially after novel 4 and I tend to agree -- with reservations about Disorderly Knights. I never quite understood why DD decided to split parts of the novel before and after QP unless to set the scene for Francis's relationship with his family.

I really liked Nicholas's character and his sense of humour which reminded me more of Philippa than of Francis.

[The Czar]

Yes, it's really strange that in both Lymond and Niccolo series there were a lot of secondary characters who tried to control the main heroes. Francis and Nicholas are grown men, they don't exactly need excessive supervision.

Indeed! I am about halfway through Race of Scorpions, and Tobie, in particular, is beginning to irritate me. Either shut up and do what Nicholas says, or go away and run your own damn life. But this constant suspicion is annoying.

I really enjoyed Niccolo Rising and Spring of the Ram, but Race of Scorpions is definately not as good as those two. The plot strikes me as rather silly with the constant introductions, and the fact that the same 8 people always seem to bump into each other be it in Italy, Flanders, or the Levant. Hell, I live in a smallish town, and I don't bump into acquantances as often as Niccolas bumps into Simon all over Europe.

Great reads though. I got the next three from the library and am going to plow straight through Niccolo. I may have to take a Dunnett break before I start Lymond though.

[The Czar]

Ok, I just finished Scales of Gold and I hope something REALLY terrible happens to Gellis Van Borslen in The Unicorn Hunt.

:mad:

[annis]

Hear, hear! Gelis is one seriously disturbed personality, and the overly convoluted plots surrounding her desire for revenge were the reason why I never took to the Niccolo series the way I did to the Lymond Chronicles.

[SGM]

I really enjoyed four or maybe five of HoN and I really liked Nicholas -- much less tortured than Lymond. Not that I didn't enjoy the Lymond Chronicles but I did spend a lot of time wanting to kick him. Unfortunately, HoN could not produce another Philippa.