Steven, Pressfield. This is my new favorite author, ladies and gentlemen. His choice of genre? You get three guesses.
No.
No.
You suck at this - why don't I just tell you? He writes historical fiction, which, if not the most geeky of my pleasures, certainly ranks among the top five. Truly, I'll enjoy this type of novel even if it seems to pretend to detail historically based tidbits about the ancient world. Oh man, and if it is about the Romans and/or the Greeks? Whoa baby, don't get me started about the Romans and the Greeks. Purrr.
Anyways, if historical fiction is my kryptonite then Steven Pressfield is simply Krypton itself. So compellingly does Pressfield construct his stories that sometimes I suspect the man actually IS from the ancient worlds his books describe, and, having mastered the mysteries of time travel, he has decided to settle in this day and age. This would make him something of a cheat and a liar, as this means he doesn't write historical fiction at all, but instead just relates events as he remembers them.
For those who don't know, historical fictions are books that take a historical figure, event, or thing and then add some fictional story that would be conceivable in the context of the period. Thus, Pressfield's Gates of Fire is about the battle at Thermopylae, but takes you through it from the perspective of a single, fictional soldier. I consider this book a must read - especially if you intend to see 300 next month.
So, if even the smallest corner of the dustiest space in your mind finds itself stimulated by such writing, you HAVE to go buy one of his books immediately.
If you read this post and mentally translated every word to "blah blah blah, geek geek geek," then I simply ask that you don't throw things at me or call me names.
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3 comments:
cool. did you see the movie "mother night" based on a kurt vonnegut book about hitler being an american spy? Historical fiction, nein?
Or for that matter, "Slaughterhouse Five." That wasn't really fiction, though. For some reason, I have a mental block against nonfiction, but maybe if I tried historical fiction more often I could ease into it.
Mother night? Well, yes, that does sound like historical fiction, but at the same time maybe not. If I wrote a book about George Bush being an alien, that wouldn't be historical fiction just because it contained George Bush.
Do it! Read Pressfield, lacey! You'll will also get to sound really, really smart to all your friends as you casually cite facts about the ancient greek world.
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