Just noticed that Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is available as a set for Kindle, for just £15:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GW5GLKA/?tag=brite-21
It's only the first four books, though - it doesn't appear to include October Horse, which concludes the main canon, or Cleopatra, which is more of an appendix to the Masters series - still good, but all the characters we're used to have pretty much gone by then.
However, I can heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in anything Roman - or who has the patience to read what I think is the greatest epic fantasy ever written.
The first book can seem a little long-winded at times, but this series really hits it's stride with the second book, when we see Marius and Sulla dominate the story proper.
I know some people will protest that historical fiction isn't fantasy, but I would strongly disagree - IMO there's little difference between low-magic fantasy and low-magic historical fiction, other than the former claims occur in a secondary world, while the latter occurs in ours.
Don't think that because we know anything of history that this makes it easy to write good historical fiction - Colleen McCullough's characterisations are extraordinary. Marius, Sulla, Piglet, Ceasar, Cato, Cicero, Pompey, Crassus - truly she give these figures life like no one else ever has, and more than anything I've seen in most spec fiction.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GW5GLKA/?tag=brite-21
It's only the first four books, though - it doesn't appear to include October Horse, which concludes the main canon, or Cleopatra, which is more of an appendix to the Masters series - still good, but all the characters we're used to have pretty much gone by then.
However, I can heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in anything Roman - or who has the patience to read what I think is the greatest epic fantasy ever written.
The first book can seem a little long-winded at times, but this series really hits it's stride with the second book, when we see Marius and Sulla dominate the story proper.
I know some people will protest that historical fiction isn't fantasy, but I would strongly disagree - IMO there's little difference between low-magic fantasy and low-magic historical fiction, other than the former claims occur in a secondary world, while the latter occurs in ours.
Don't think that because we know anything of history that this makes it easy to write good historical fiction - Colleen McCullough's characterisations are extraordinary. Marius, Sulla, Piglet, Ceasar, Cato, Cicero, Pompey, Crassus - truly she give these figures life like no one else ever has, and more than anything I've seen in most spec fiction.
