You know, the more research I do on the last years of the Western Roman Empire the more I want to tweak the Roman stories I'm working on. There's another book that I think I have to get about the Barbarians of the time which posits that they weren't all that barbaric and they didn't really cause Rome to fall more than they just happened to be standing nearby when it dropped dead of a massive coronary infarction brought on by years of eating cheeseburgers and watching American Idol. (Or something like that.)
Semi-luckily for me, the adventures of Apollo Valerius Delphinius don't really depend on marauding Visigoths for their story arcs. I'm taking the position that the Empire fell mostly in part to internal weight that just couldn't keep up with a changing reality around them. Of course, in one story I've got a German with a bad attitude as villain but that is offset by an uber-patriot antagonist in the next. The plot for the third story is still a bit too fluid for me to assign bad guy duties yet. Needs more research, I guess.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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6 comments:
Thank you for visiting my blog and giving me a view of Cicely and/or Roslyn. I know it is corny, but someday I want to go there.
Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) made a programme about the Barbarians (viz.Celts and Huns etc) and offered a convincing argument backed up by some solid evidence that, in contradiction to the viewpoint offered by Roman historians, they were far more civilised than we give them credit for. Trouble is these peoples didn't see the need for writing, so having little evidence of their mindset, they become an intriguing mystery and a wonderful resource for aspiring historical novelists.
The one section of street still looks essentially the same but everything else is expanding as commuters move further and further from Seattle.
Seren- That's the book I was talking about. I thought it must be that Terry Jones.
Yeah, he's (TJ) a bit of a history whiz. He did a series about the Crusades too. Very entertaining, though he wasn't too complimentary about Christian motives or the conduct of their armies. Seemed to think it was all a bit of a put-up job by the Pope and various kings to keep some of their more bellicose, land-grabbing aristocratic followers occupied.
Enjoyed this post very much. Thanks for sharing.
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