inky_skin said:
- The Captain Alatriste Series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Seconded. Anything Senor Perez-Reverte has written is worth picking up, but these are definitely quality. For those of you who haven't read them, you can think of it like a Spanish version of
The Three Musketeers. Originally published in Spain over a decade (?) ago, they're finally being released here. The newest,
Pirates of the Levant, will be published this September. This should be plenty of time to finish the first novel,
Captain Alatriste.
*Our European friends might be pleased to know of a movie version of the series featuring Viggo Mortenson as the eponymous Alatriste. Having never seen it, I can't recommend it. However, Viggo does the entire thing in Spanish. That alone makes it worth picking up.
Somebody mentioned Michael Chabon earlier in this thread, and I've been meaning to mention:
Gentlemen of the Road. It's a rather slim novel compared to his other works, but it's a classic tale of adventure that recreates 10th-century Khazaria, the fabled kingdom of wild red-haired Jews on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, in this sprightly historical adventure. Zelikman and Amram, respectively a gawky Frank and a gigantic Abyssinian, make their living by means of confidence tricks, doctoring, bodyguarding and the occasional bit of skullduggery along the Silk Road. The unlikely duo find themselves caught up in larger events when they befriend Filaq, the headstrong and unlikable heir to the recently deposed war king of the Khazars. Their attempts to restore Filaq to the throne make for a terrifically entertaining modern pulp adventure replete with marauding armies, drunken Vikings, beautiful prostitutes, rampaging elephants and mildly telegraphed plot points that aren't as they seem. Chabon has a wonderful time writing intentionally purple prose and playing with conventions that were most popular in the days of Rudyard Kipling and Talbot Mundy.
I also wanted to recommend that everybody find a copy of Norman Sherry's
Conrad's Eastern World &
Conrad's Western World. By themselves they're a testament to the largesse of Conrad's imagination. They equally shine as pieces of literary detective work. Sherry exhaustively researches Conrad's life, and how the "active years" as a British merchant seaman contributed to his fiction.