Review of Dunnett’s Scales of Gold

Scales of Gold is the fourth of Dorothy Dunnett’s wonderful House of Niccolo series, which extends to seven books in all. It is, therefore, the centre of the series and may be expected to see some changes in the development of the principal characters and their relationships with each other – those that have not succumbed to one of the myriad causes of early death in the fifteenth century. This takes place against the background of Africa, where Nicholas and his companions trek to Timbuktu to search for gold and to try to deal with the slave trade.

Read the full review here.

Review of Dunnett’s The Spring of the Ram

Back to the middle of the fifteenth century and Niccolo and his band of not always merry men face a new set of challenges: the merchants of the great Italian city states are seeking to extend their control over the East and to protect what they have against the invasion of the dreaded Turks.

Read the full review here.

Review of Dunnett’s Niccolo Rising

In her extraordinary series of Francis Lymond novels, Dorothy Dunnett portrayed a man capable of taking full advantage of the glories of western Europe in one of its most vigorous and self-confident periods. To follow that series, she then began on the House of Niccolo, of which Niccolo Rising is the first, and set it some century prior to the time of Lymond as a means of exploring how that vigorous Europe came about and who were the men (and women) who shaped it.

Read the full review here.

Review of Severin’s Corsair

The greatest pleasure in reading works of historical fiction, in my opinion, is to enter into the consciousness of the characters involved, enjoying the ways in which the world described has affected the way that person thinks, speaks and acts. In the greatest works, in which I include the novels of Dorothy Dunnett and Mary Renault, the possible ranges of action of the characters are circumscribed by their limited knowledge of the world and their mode of expression is characterized by the popular and sacred song and verse of the day.

Read the full review here.

Review of Dunnett’s Pawn in Frankincense

From Scotland to France and back, then to Malta and now all the way around the Mediterranean, the tale of Francis Crawford of Lymond continues to unwind in delightfully unpredictable ways. Crawford, gentleman, adventurer and spy among many other roles, is newly emerged from the unpleasantness among the Knights of Malta (as related in The Disorderly Knights, the third of the six book series.

Read the full review here.

Review of Ursula K Le Guin’s Lavinia

In the Aeneid, that great pagan Vergil, saved by Dante from the Inferno, places the focus on his eponymous hero and shows how he creates the noble Roman state with humility and respect for the gods despite all of the difficulties he, his family, and his people faced. Not only was there the disaster of Troy and the victory of the Greeks but the seemingly endless maritime voyages also ground down the spirits. Ultimately, it appeared that Carthage would prove to be a safe haven and Aeneus established a relationship with its queen, Dido, with a view to symbolizing that union.

Read the full review here.