# Linking Your Favority Fictional History Series **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 10, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105 "2004-11-10T23:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/1 "2004-11-10T23:46:49Z")
So I was in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5479917#post5479917) about the Masters of Rome Series, when I realized something: I have read books that provide a continuing set of snapshots through history. Gates of Fire - by Pressfield(?) - Ancient Greece (what? 300BC or so?) - the battle of Thermopylae (didn’t like Tides of War, his telling of the Peloponnesian Wars). Masters of Rome - by McCullough - Ancient Rome (about 70BC through about 30BC) - transition from Republic to Empire I, Claudius, Claudius the King - by Graves - about 70AD or so; Fall of Caligula and rise of Claudius; insight into Roman aristocracy Camulod Chronicles - by Whyte - about 400AD or so; Arthurian legend (not nearly as fact-based as the others, but fun…) you get the idea. What novels/series would you string together to cover a key period of time/geography/etc…? ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/2 "2004-11-11T00:19:22Z")
'Tad above my reading level, but I’ll give this a bump for curiosity. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/3 "2004-11-11T03:48:28Z")
I read O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels to cover the naval life of the Napoleonic wars and Cornwell’s Sharpe series to cover the land war. I suppose you could also include Jane Austen’s books to cover non-military life at the time, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/4 "2004-11-11T08:29:16Z")
A big round of applause for the one and only Flashman! {Everything you ever neeed to know about the 19th century, with added rogering, skulking, back-stabbing, and all-round caddishness. Horsemanship and applied linguistics also included} ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/5 "2004-11-11T16:37:08Z")
Mary Renault wrote some good historical novels set in ancient, classical, and Hellenistic Greece. Hellenistic Greece Harry Turteltaub (aka Turtledove) has Over the Wind-Dark Sea/the Gryphon’s skull/the Sacred land about some Greek merchant sailors from Rhodes visiting various lands. Mary Renault Rome: In addition to the First Man in Rome series, I like the several mystery series set in Rome - Steven Saylors’ novels set in the dying days of the Republic and Lindsay Davis Falco novels set in Flavian imperial Rome. Post Roman Britain - I liked Bernard Cornwall’s Winter King trilogy Trying to remember some author’s titles for middle ages Europe. For tenth century Scotland Dorothy Dunnett’s King Hereafter (basically a different account of Macbeth) (don’t much care for her other stuff though) Bernard Cornwall, again, with his archer’s tale and sequels set in the Hundred Years war For the French and Indian Wars and American Revolution in North America, Kenneth Roberts’ various novels (Arundel, et al). ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/6 "2004-11-12T13:41:46Z")
Gore Vidal’s American Series. It starts with **Burr** and follows the story of a group of characters all the way through 1930s Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/7 "2004-11-12T14:25:28Z")
> [@plnnr](#): > > Gore Vidal’s American Series. > > It starts with **Burr** and follows the story of a group of characters all the way through 1930s Hollywood. And beyond: _Burr Lincoln 1876 Empire Hollywood The Golden Age Washington, D.C._ ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/8 "2004-11-12T14:48:39Z")
> [@Middlecase](#): > > A big round of applause for the one and only Flashman! {Everything you ever neeed to know about the 19th century, with added rogering, skulking, back-stabbing, and all-round caddishness. Horsemanship and applied linguistics also included} Jolly good. 😃 Flashman is the best … check out his other books as well; they are all good. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linking-your-favority-fictional-history-series/274105/9 "2004-11-12T15:38:34Z")
Thanks for the catch. I had forgotten about the other two Vidal novels.