Rebels and Traitors: An Epic Novel of the English Civil War

[smolders]

I think Invisible is saying (well I am that allthough the costumes/settings/plot etc are period based the authors give the characters/protagonists too much in the way of a modern thinking brain - and therefore they are just too caricurtured (sic).
...and that's what puts me off a lot of 'historical fiction' - modern ways of thinking in an older world setting.

It's just an opinion and I share it but I respect your right to think differently.

Understood, and agreed. A simple way of illustrating this very concept is pointing out that health ledger flim A Knights Tale, period-ish looking with modern concepts and music. I still "gawfah" at it when it comes on.....Interstign little thread this one BTW.

[Invisible officer]

I think Invisible is saying (well I am that allthough the costumes/settings/plot etc are period based the authors give the characters/protagonists too much in the way of a modern thinking brain - and therefore they are just too caricurtured (sic).
...and that's what puts me off a lot of 'historical fiction' - modern ways of thinking in an older world setting.

It's just an opinion and I share it but I respect your right to think differently.

Exactly.


The problem with the modern behaviour of the characters.
Years ago my girl friend forced me into a group of peoples that wrote interacting computer stories, settled between 1800 and 1820. Mostly ladies....... .
She asked me to write the background information. How to behave in a ballroom, currency, clubs, mail system, dress, travelling and so on and on.
Some of the ladies got shocked that some things they wrote caused a ballroom scandal.

That's why I dislike O'Brien, his persons behave like modern men. And his fight of a frigate chebeque shows that he never looked at the ships plan, claiming it to have a high freeboard and its gun firing over the heroes vessel. (Only one of many mistakes) Cornwell, hmm, nice reading but some funny ideas. The 1796 sword carried by a man on foot who also has a rifle. Guess he never tried the weight.
The movies, hmmm, rifles with colours, red clad artillery, not the authors fault. But Harper's Volley gun nicely done by Peter Dyson.

[Cubster]

That's why I dislike O'Brien, his persons behave like modern men. And his fight of a frigate chebeque shows that he never looked at the ships plan, claiming it to have a high freeboard and its gun firing over the heroes vessel. (Only one of many mistakes).

Actually Aubrey is based very closely on Cochrane and the major actions mirror the events almost exactly. He is fighting a frigate xebec from a sloop and points out that low though the xebec's guns are, the sloop's were lower still. You can't say this is an error because there is no way you could say how low in the water either would be.

[paulsmodellingworkshop]

Understood, and agreed. A simple way of illustrating this very concept is pointing out that health ledger flim A Knights Tale, period-ish looking with modern concepts and music. I still "gawfah" at it when it comes on.....Interstign little thread this one BTW.

[/quote]

Don't tell anyone but I do quite like the idea of the modern/period piece juxtaposition (sic) stuff - say, like Sir Ian Mckellen's Richard III

[Correus]

There obviously needs to be a balance between attracting a 21st century reader with language and maybe even values that they can identify with and putting your characters in an authentic historical setting. Of course it's a subjective choice from consumer to consumer and no-one's preferences will match exactly with anyone else's.

I don't like the Simon Scarrow books, for example, because they seem over-simplified for my taste. The Patrick O'Brien books, in contrast, I find superb and I think they have an authentic contemporary flavour. But I do understand that some people find them hard to get into because the language, the motivation, the terminology is all geared towards life at the beginning of the 19th century aboard a British naval warship. That's not an easy genre to break into cold!

Plus of course our literary tastes will change over time as well. There was a time when I thought Wilbur Smith and Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books were the last word in realism and historical accuracy!

Hear hear!!! Well said Cubster!

I've tried to get into Lindsey Davis' Roman books but they just seemed too much like a Mickey Spillane novel with names and dates changed to match the Roman world.

On the other hand you have the 'Roma Sub Rosa' series written by Steven Saylor. I might be a bit biased (having worked with him on a project), but Steven does a ton of research to insure authenticity, yet he does throw in a hefty amount of 'fiction' to give it an appeal to those with no background in Roman history. The guy even has a degree in Classical studies.

I've been thinking about starting the Scarrow novels, but thanks to WG they are now tainted!!! The Macro and Cato figures, specifically, are to blame; the Cato mini just looks too much like a sniffling idiot to me! Because of this I don't think his character, in the book, would ever be able to be taken seriously by me.

For me, however, the fictional series I find to be the absolute best in Roman military novels is The Centurions trilogy by Damion Hunter. To be honest though I'm a bit biased because these were some of the first Roman military fiction novels I ever read - so I have a soft spot for them. I've always thought they would do well as series TV, along the lines of Sharpe.

And the whole Sharpe series sort of rounds this out. They are not the most historically accurate but, by god, they are a fun read!!

[Invisible officer]

That's why I dislike O'Brien, his persons behave like modern men. And his fight of a frigate chebeque shows that he never looked at the ships plan, claiming it to have a high freeboard and its gun firing over the heroes vessel. (Only one of many mistakes).

Actually Aubrey is based very closely on Cochrane and the major actions mirror the events almost exactly. He is fighting a frigate xebec from a sloop and points out that low though the xebec's guns are, the sloop's were lower still. You can't say this is an error because there is no way you could say how low in the water either would be.

Well, Cochrane was a Gentleman and Audley (a General's son!) behaves like a street ruffian without eduction in social behaviour.

The often repeated story of the low sloop Speedy and the El Gamo is nice but the famous painting by Stanfield (initiated by Chochrane!) shows a ship that does not resemble the real ships plan in Spain. The real ship was much smaller.
The description by Chochrane in his memoirs differs from the Prize courts findings and his own description in London Gazette 1 Aug 1801 . Most of El Gamo's gun not being fired at all. He closed under US colours and surprised the Spaniards. It was sold as merchant to the Alegerians, even they did not use that weak warship as privateer.

[Cubster]

None of which dubious quasi-historical reasoning supports your point or explains how you know the Speedy's guns weren't lower than the El Gamo's. Please explain how you know this.

[grant]

I have counted your rivets and found them wanting.

[Correus]

I have counted your rivets and found them wanting.

Perhaps there is a screw loose amongst them as well.

[Invisible officer]

The plans of El Gamo and similar ships are still in Spain.
Just have a look at a typical Spanish polacre and a French Chebeque fregatte. It was the typical combination of a very high stern with a very low gundeck.


Well, they are a little smaller than El Gamo but not significant. You see the RN Cutter being higher.

Cochrane was a man that can not be trusted in his writings decades later. St. Vincent's description of Cochrane : "money getting and not truth telling" might be a good description. Just compare the court martial acts about the loss of Speedy with his "Autobiography of a Seaman". He claimed to be far away from the point named in the court martial, known to be correct due to Linnois. He was ordered to give protection to merchant shipping and went away to find some prizes. He had a high opinion of his own abilities, when told to guard Britain's vital Greenland Whaling Fleet in Arab he went away , and also left the Packet alone that he was ordered to escort. A man without strong family protection would have get some "pour encourager les autres" treatment.

The autobiography could be even rated as a novel, a big part written post his death by a ghostwriter.