# Help suggest a novel...or something.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 12, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630 "2010-02-12T00:41:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630/21 "2010-02-15T18:43:18Z")

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Also early Americas: [_Aztec,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_(book)) by Gary Jennings. (If you have a strong stomach. It is a **very** bloody book.)

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630/22 "2010-02-15T18:46:48Z")

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Neal Stephenson’s [Baroque Cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_cycle) covers 17th-Century Europe, America, India – much of the world, actually. And it’s more-or-less straight historical fiction with just a couple of fantasy elements thrown in. (And Sir Isaac Newton really **was** an alchemist, among other things, FWIW.) But, be warned, these three novels are really, really **heavy,** with ideas and details.

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630/23 "2010-02-15T21:41:15Z")

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There’s the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser.

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-suggest-a-novel-or-something/528630/24 "2010-02-17T18:12:13Z")

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> [@RandMcnally](#):
>
> I mostly do early American but I will read anything that has to do with European or the Americas.

European . . . Try [_Raptor,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(book)) also by Gary Jennings. Set in Europe in the Fifth Century, just at the fall of Rome. (Only novel I’ve ever read with a hermaphrodite protagonist.)

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