Lust on a Horseback...

[fajrdrako]

This was amusing to see on NPR's site:

The Game of Kings

By Dorothy Dunnett, paperback, 543 pages, Vintage Books, list price: $17
There is meticulous historical research and a graduate degree's worth of French, Latin and Greek poetry to thank for the fact that Scottish writer Dorothy Dunnett's heart-pounding, six-volume Lymond Chronicles is shelved with the literature and not with the bodice rippers.

But let's be honest: Dunnett's 16th-century mercenary hero Francis Crawford of Lymond is, for anyone reading with a pulse, Lust on Horseback. Built like a god with an intellect to match, Crawford moves across Europe, navigating intrigues with equal parts charm and swordsmanship, reciting poetry, rescuing maidens and outwitting the schemes of villains and queens. He also slays them with his lute playing. Next to this guy, James Bond is the 40-year-old virgin.

Even so, this is a romantic epic that can be read with intellectual pride intact, beginning with The Game of Kings, where we are introduced to Crawford, whom we will crawl after, panting and weak-kneed for the next 3,000 pages. Because it's history.

I would agree with all of that!