Month: October 2017

March 31, 1905- The Day Europe was Put on Alert

Posted jgfrv7ulPosted in Book Commentary, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized, World War I

Readers of William Whitaker’s Some Damn Fool Thing have been introduced to the events of March 31, 1905 in its first chapters, but from the perspective of over one hundred years it is difficult to appreciate the the basis and extent of the reaction that a speech by Kaiser Wilhelm  elicited that day. The seeds  for the dramatic response provoked by Wilhelm had been first sown some forty years previously […]

On Historic Fiction; Dealing with the force

Posted jgfrv7ulPosted in Book Commentary, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized

Readers surmise that fiction writers start a book with a blank page of limitless options. In reality every writer is constrained by past experience and predilection; nowhere are the limits more severe than in writing fiction based on history. To craft such a narrative, past events not only demand a fixed time setting but also a cast of characters integral to the historic events. More importantly the sum of their […]