Bernard,
I’m sure you get messages like this all the time but I would feel guilty if I didn’t let you know how much I appreciate what you do.
I discovered you in the early/mid eighties (in the library, seeing the spine of the book and excitedly saying to myself, “That’s a 95th Rifleman!” before pulling the 3 or 4 Sharpe originals off the shelf) and have eagerly devoured everything you have done since then! After a quick check on Wiki you are on 57 books to date. A little bit of maths here. 57 books, let’s call it 300 pages per book, let’s call that 5 hours reading per book. I confess I have probably read and re-read your books an average of 6 times. That’s 57x5x6=1710 hours of pure pleasure. Thank you!
You really have taken historical fiction to a new level of excellence. Other authors in the genre make basic errors that make me want to cry. You? Never. (or hardly ever, the only one I remember offhand is the “Voltigeurs have red epaulettes”). As a lifelong student of military history I reckon you are the only author of historical fiction who seems to understand the art/tragedy/reality etc of historical battles. Be it Saxon, 100YW, Napoleonic, ACW or anything else. Your interpretations of the strategy and tactics behind Peninsula battles (with a little bit of dramatic licence to put Sharpy in the right place) is masterful. Equally, casting Uhtred (my favourite of your characters btw) as a Saxon general displaying Napoleonic strategic brilliance.
And regards Uhtred’s generalship – the way you do it is believable. It is obvious to readers of the original sources that you have read the same original sources as we have – and you understand shieldwall. When you deviate or invent from these, you explain yourself. As a historical novelist that is almost unique (I have to qualify my comment with ‘almost’ because I cannot claim to have researched it fully!). Most authors of historical fiction (or similar time period fantasy) have real problems with the lack of communication in ancient times and usually resort to sorcery/dreams/time travel/carrier pigeon………… well I don’t need to tell you about the failings of your contemporaries.
Dale
PS Just to square things, I thought the recent Shakespeare novel was terrible!