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In the pub last night, a friend told me about "London" by Edward Rutherford. It sounds an absolute treat:

"London has perhaps the most remarkable history of any city in the world. Now, its story has a unique voice. In this epic novel, Edward Rutherfurd takes the reader on a magnificent journey across sixteen centuries from the days of the Romans to the Victorian engineers of Tower Bridge and the era of Dockland development today. Through the lives and adventures of his colourful cast of characters, he brings all the richness of London's past unforgettably to life." http://tinyurl.com/lb7zgt

Thanks, Tomo; that book sounds amazing. I dread to think how long it would have taken to research, let alone write an epic like that.

Mandrake wrote:Great novel involving mucky monks, lusty wenches, starving peasants, self centred and power mad figures in authority. The description of the bitterly cold weather and the (literally) lousy conditions bring the whole thing to life very well indeed. Well recommend - I bought mine at The Works on their 3 books for a fiver promotion.

I'm going to have to get this one, thanks Mandrake. I love this period in history as there was so much going on. We have The Works near us, so I'll pop across at weekend

I read Edward Rutherford's Sarum, and I did not like it - a sweeping saga telling the history of a region from the stone age to the present. There was not enough character development and not enough dramatic tension to sustain interest.
I, Claudius by Robert Graves is as good as historic fiction gets.

Replicant wrote:Hey, that's three consecutive posts by different mods. Must be some kind of record.

nickj wrote:If you liked The Wolf of the Planes I assume that you will be reading the rest of the series, and I can heartily recommend his Caesar books too.

I'm halfway through the second book, Lords of the Bow, and it just keeps getting better. I have no idea how historically accurate these novels are (probably not very) but they're a cracking good read. A colleague of mine was raving about the Caesar books yesterday so they're going on the list, too. It seems I will have a lot of reading to get through.

They were deep and insightful posts at that!

I think that Iggulden's books are pretty accurate; he encourages you to read further from his bibliography and sticks a historical note in explaining what changes he made, so I'm prepared to believe a lot of it.

I'm a big fan of Philip Pullman and I think you'll be hard pressed to beat his "Sally Lockhart" series of books. These were written before His Dark Materials, and are set in Victorian London. As a Victorian fan boy, these books are a real treat.

They are: Ruby in the Smoke, Shadow in the North, Tiger in the Well and the Tin Princess. Tiger in the Well is the real classic, but you really need to have read the previous two to fully appreciate it.

"A heart stopping story of London and it's lies!"