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Search found 31 matches

by Steve Anderson
Sun October 9th, 2011, 9:12 pm
Forum: Archives
Topic: What are you reading October 2011?
Replies: 185
Views: 17648

Just finished Blood on the Tracks by Cecelia Holland, a concise history (Kindle Single ebook) about the relatively unknown Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in the US. It's gritty and relevant. Good material for a novel.
by Steve Anderson
Fri September 23rd, 2011, 11:41 pm
Forum: Archives
Topic: What Are You Reading? September 2011
Replies: 145
Views: 14793

It's not historical fiction in the traditional sense, but The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick is making me think about how history can always have turned out much differently. Written in the early 60s, it's a thoughtful alternate history in which the United States lost WW2 and is a weakened...
by Steve Anderson
Sat September 3rd, 2011, 7:46 pm
Forum: Archives
Topic: What Are You Reading? September 2011
Replies: 145
Views: 14793

I just started Lumen by Ben Pastor. In 1939, in Nazi-occupied Poland, a American priest from Chicago and a German army captain investigate a nun's death. It's good so far with well-drawn characters. Reminds me a little of Alan Furst's books, but with more of a mystery/crime plot. [quote=""fljustice"...
by Steve Anderson
Sun August 14th, 2011, 6:37 pm
Forum: By Author's Last Name A-F
Topic: The Quest for Anna Klein by Thomas H. Cook
Replies: 0
Views: 1449

The Quest for Anna Klein by Thomas H. Cook

Thomas Danforth has a lot to get off his chest, and he tells it to Paul Crane. As The Quest for Anna Klein begins, it’s 2001 in New York City — in the aftermath of 9/11. Crane, a young researcher, wants to take harsh vengeance on America’s enemies. The elderly Danforth can relate. He’s spent much of...
by Steve Anderson
Mon July 18th, 2011, 2:09 am
Forum: Archives
Topic: What are you reading? July 2011
Replies: 177
Views: 16395

I'm getting into Die A Little , the first of Megan Abbott's historical crime noir novels with a female POV. The writing's good but it feels more like a literary novel than a crime/mystery story so far, with no real incident to move the plot forward almost a quarter of the way in. I'm a sucker for th...
by Steve Anderson
Sat June 11th, 2011, 7:11 pm
Forum: Archives
Topic: What Are You Reading? June 2011.
Replies: 178
Views: 16187

A Little White Death by John Lawton. It's the third in this historical mystery/espionage series with London detective Frederick Troy. This time outsider Troy tries to solve murders amid postwar political intrigue and a Cold War spy scandal in Britain. It's a jump in time to an older Troy, but I'm e...
by Steve Anderson
Thu June 2nd, 2011, 4:33 am
Forum: Archives
Topic: What Are You Reading? June 2011.
Replies: 178
Views: 16187

The Quest for Anna Klein by Thomas H. Cook. It's an historical espionage thriller about a rookie American attempt to stop WWII by assassinating Hitler, as told by the protagonist Danforth in 2001. It's an ARC; the book's out this month.
by Steve Anderson
Sat May 21st, 2011, 8:19 pm
Forum: Archives
Topic: What are you reading? May 2011
Replies: 216
Views: 18940

Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson. A comically pompous expat in Tuscany and his expat neighbor get mixed up in various hijinks. It's funny and awkward and hard to pull off as a writer, with dueling first persons. It's not historical fiction, but some of you might enjoy it, I thi...
by Steve Anderson
Wed May 18th, 2011, 3:53 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Purpose to historical fiction?
Replies: 29
Views: 5340

[quote=""DianeL""]That puts it well (and more succintly than I did, certainly!) - the point of historical fiction is to leave our immediate world. I've always preferred entertainment that takes me somewhere unfamiliar. Still, a part of that is because I like to learn about worlds I do not know. That...
by Steve Anderson
Sat May 14th, 2011, 6:02 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Purpose to historical fiction?
Replies: 29
Views: 5340

First off, it's entertainment. To be taken away. For me, it's a form of travel. But historical fiction can have a purpose analogous to science fiction, which takes the possibilities made real by hard science and asks "what if?" By the same token, I think historical fiction takes what we know as (mor...

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