#historical fiction bestseller

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: AOH

Synopsis: From the opulent palaces of Babylon to the manipulative courts of ancient Egypt, Aoh’s journey of survival and love unveils a world of luxury, danger, and shifting loyalties.“The incredible imagery the author utilized in their writing allowed the vast deserts and grand palaces of Babylon and Egypt to come to life so beautifully on the page.” — Author Anthony Avina’s BlogUpon fleeing…

[hsmagazine254]

Unveiling Ancient Secrets: A Thrilling Journey Through "The Eight" By Katherine Neville

H&S Magazine’s Recommended Book Of The Week Katherine Neville Genre: Adventure, Historical Fiction The Eight, Kindle Edition Prepare to be captivated by a tale of ancient mysteries, hidden treasures, and a race against time. In “The Eight” by Katherine Neville, readers embark on an exhilarating adventure that spans centuries and continents. Blending historical fiction with thrilling suspense,…

[litthinks]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee : An Analysis of Race, Justice, and Compassion

Join us on a journey through the deep south with Harper Lee's classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird". From the innocence of childhood to the harsh realities of racial inequality, we'll explore the powerful themes that continue to resonate with readers today. Share your own thoughts and insights in the comments and let's spark a conversation about justice, compassion, and the human experience.

[terapsina]

Ask Game for us Self-proclaimed BOOK WORMS 📖🐛

Name the best book you've read so far this year.

Favorite fantasy book(s).

Favorite fantasy sub-genre(s). (high fantasy, urban fantasy, portal fantasy etc.)

Favorite science fiction book(s).

Favorite science fiction sub-genre(s). (dystopian, superhero, aliens etc.)

Favorite romance novel(s).

What kind of common romance tropes do you enjoy and what kind do you dislike?

Favorite queer fiction book(s).

Favorite detective novel(s).

Favorite classical literature.

Favorite historical fiction.

Favorite horror book(s).

Favorite thriller(s).

Favorite humor and satire book(s).

Which genre(s) are your favorite?

Favorite trilogy.

Favorite finished book series.

Favorite unfinished book series.

Do you read new and less known books or only the big bestsellers?

Where and how do you find new books to read?

The book(s) on your school reading list you actually enjoyed.

Favorite example of a Chosen One trope in a book.

Favorite heist story book(s).

Favorite Young Adult book(s).

Favorite Middle Grade book(s).

Favorite novella(s).

What was the first book you remember reading as a kid?

Goodreads or StoryGraph (or something else)?

How many books do you have on your 'to-be-read' list?

How many books do you have on your 'currently-reading' list?

Do you mostly read through e-reader; reading app on phone; on your laptop; a physical copy; or by audiobook?

Name your favorite author(s).

How often do you read by listening to audiobooks?

Favorite book narration voice actor(s).

Least favorite trope in your most favorite book genre.

Your absolute most favorite character(s) from any book you've ever read.

The only example of your least favorite trope being written in such a way that you enjoyed it.

How many books have you read this year?

Do you read reviews before picking up a book?

Did you ever want to be a writer?

When you get ready for a week long trip to somewhere how many books do you download/pack inside the suitcase?

Do you buy hardcover book copies for previously purchased paperbacks and library books you enjoyed reading?

Title of a book you own that's in the worst physical condition you have. Explain what happened to it. Post a picture if you want.

The book(s) whose stories have become part of your very makeup.

What book(s) would you sell your soul to get a TV or movie adaptation of?

I like _____, recommend me a book to read, please (insert a book, or trope, or character, or... anything you like before asking for this one).

What are the last three books you read?

Do you leave reviews for the books you've read? How often?

Do you prefer hopeful, humorous, very emotional or darker books?

What kind of book have you never read but always hope to find at some point in the future?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[copperbadge]

So the Chicago Public Library does "One Book, One Chicago" every year where they encourage everyone to read the same book and discuss it, and I've been invited to the next title reveal. In the invite and on the RSVP page, this is the logo/marketing they're going with and it's...very specific.

[ID: The email I received for One Book One Chicago, which includes "You're Invited" done in pixels with the O as a heart, on a background of pastel colors that fade from red to yellow to green; below that it reads "Enter into the Unveiling Experience" and some of the text includes the statement that "The announcement and press event will be an immersive and surprise-filled unveiling of the book's title."]

It's giving Ready Player One, it's giving Polybius, it's screaming "Someone really bought into the metaverse briefly". I'm planning to go to the unveiling, I'm excited and intrigued, but also a little wary. It makes me want to start some kind of pool on what the book will be.

It can't be Phillip K. Dick, we just did Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep like five years ago. It's tough to get a measure based on the list of past books, because it covers a number of genres both fiction and non, and sometimes they seem really relevant to the historical moment but sometimes not so much. Maybe How The Internet Happened? But that seems slightly too niche. Then again, so did The Sixth Extinction.

The CPL has been going hard on gaming and tech for teens lately (in a good way, but there's been a noticeable bend in the way they market teen programs), so when a colleague said "Maybe a YA novel?" I did a little search. One book came up in both "books about the internet and the 80s" and "YA books about the internet", which is "Fake" by Ele Fountain, so that's a contender.

What do we think? I don't read much cyberpunk, I rarely am in the know on bestsellers and usually we're doing something that's relatively popular but a few years old. Interested to see what people would speculate it could be.

Also I'm somewhat curious about what algo got me on the mailing list for this -- I've never participated in One Book before and while I am a regular library user and live local to the HWLC, so do like a billion other people. Would love to talk to the person who composed their mailing list. (I am somehow categorized as "Press" in a number of databases belonging to Chicago politicians and for-profit consulting firms, I'm not sure how that happened, so it could be they think I'm a journo.)

[chocolatepot]

Saw a post about how you need to read original fiction and not just fic to write books, and I had some thoughts but they're not so much a direct response so I figured I'd make my own post ...

You do need to be conversant with original fiction to write it, but also - that doesn't mean that your fiction diet as you write needs to be primarily original fiction. If you want to write a book, you've probably spent a lot of your life reading original fiction even if you're in fandom now. That all counts. (Assuming what you want to write bears at least some resemblance to what you've read.)

Fanfiction really doesn't teach you to develop characters and settings on your own, it's true. It particularly lets you be lazy about not describing them physically, and not having to do any work for walk-on characters who exist in canon. You also can get used to writing romantic short stories that would be completely unmarketable if they were not fic.

However, fanfiction still can teach you a lot of transferable skills, if you want it to. You can write novels to stretch your ability to plot a longform story and follow through on 60k+ words. You can consciously work to improve your prose, your pacing, and/or your physical/emotional descriptions no matter what your subject matter. You can write a story that focuses on how a character changes and develops, and you can focus on a minor character from canon and do the work to make them three-dimensional. If you're into AUs, you can also work on worldbuilding or writing a believable historical setting. Literally the only thing you don't really have the opportunity to do is create your own main characters from scratch.

And I feel like that's actually the easiest part of writing. Sitting down and writing a story that lasts over 80k words or so, is compelling all the way through, has defined character arcs, etc. is way harder than making up the initial concept. If you're in fandom, you clearly Do Stories whether they're on the paper or onscreen, and so you probably have a lot of character types in your head already to start messing around with.

There was also a point in the post about how if you don't read you're not going to understand where your story fits genre-wise, and you're probably going to think that it's new and genre-breaking when it isn't - and that leads me to two thoughts. One is that not feeling able to place your own story if it crosses genres might be more common to writers than you think: it just came up in a Bestseller Experiment podcast ep I listened to the other day as a normal thing due to the writer being too close to their story. I have good comps for my novel (there's a T. Kingfisher that is incredibly similar in concept and key characters) and I still feel like "oooh ... is it more fantasy or more historical ..."

The other is that fic makes it so you're more likely to actually write something that genuinely doesn't quite fit in the boxes. That's something I've been thinking about since Winter's Orbit. That book, if you don't know, was originally written on fail_fandomanon's spinoff writing meme and posted on AO3. It was always original fiction, but it has a fic-like sensibility: there's a strong political intrigue plot alongside a strong queer romance plot between a playboy who's not really a playboy and a smol bean with trauma. If you read the GoodReads reviews from when it was published, you can find many sf fans complaining that the romance takes up too much space and romance fans complaining that there's too much plot outside the romance. I think now with the rise of "romantasy" there's more tolerance for that, but that label feels like it's getting less useful as it broadens to mean "fiction written by a woman that includes a romance" (and it feels very m/f to me but we don't have time for that now). Because so much of ficwriting fandom focuses on stories that heavily foreground romance but don't hit the traditional romance beats and also writing the characters figuring out who's committing industrial espionage or whatever. In a romance novel, the romance is absolutely the A plot and the whatever is very much B plot (if not somehow C). In sf/f and thrillers, the whatever is the A plot and the romance is around the edges. Fic teaches us to do them both equally, because the point of the story is to see the characters getting together (often not like canon, when it comes to m/m and f/f) while having a plot to deal with (like they have in canon). Also, in a lot of cases of genre-mixing, determining which one it "counts as" is really determining which one it will sell better under, and that's not something a person outside of the industry can generally tell, regardless of what they're reading on their own.

[deadpanwalking]

you may have addressed this in the past, but i am pretty sure i'm too dumb to read james joyce. how do you improve your reading comprehension? i'd like to move beyond the nyt bestseller list, but going from stephen king to faulkner seems like a steep jump.

Nobody is too dumb to read a book, but plenty of people have been conditioned into perpetual incuriosity.  The only way to improve reading comprehension is by reading outside of your comfort zone, which necessarily means letting go of the notion that the relationship between an artist and their audience is adversarial, and that a challenging work of art is booby-trapped with mean tricks designed to make you feel bad.

What do you do when you run into a word or concept that you don't immediately understand in the wild? You don't (I fervently hope) drop what you're reading like a hot potato—you keep reading to see if there’s clarification, and if there's none, you find a reliable source that gives you the definition, context, and examples, then circle back. What do you do when you're watching a movie you haven't seen before and the camera lingers on a random detail, or a character makes an inexplicable choice? Unless you are my dad, you give the story a chance to play out before asking what the deuce is going on. 

Faulkner and Joyce aren't cyphers, which is why their short fiction is a standard in the public high school English curriculum, and As I Lay Dying and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are frequently assigned to juniors and seniors in AP classes—but even their denser writing is more accessible now than it's ever been. Over the past century, so many people have loved them enough to devote their lives to studying their work—and they’ve passed the savings down to you. They’ve written annotations that explain literary, historical, and biographical context and that's aligned with the pagination of the books, they’ve integrated hyperlinks into the hypertext.

There's exactly one (1) acceptable excuse not to read Faulkner or Joyce: not wanting to read Faulkner or Joyce.  You don't even need to give them a chance—millions of people (among them, many prolific and intelligent readers) have and will continue to live rich, meaningful lives after deciding that a particular book or author is simply not a priority, even if the author is famous and the book highly recommended by several friends who wear glasses.

If you can parse this passage from Pet Sematary, you can parse just about anything Joyce throws at you:

[teatitty]

Kakashi, Kurenai and Iruka being a little bookclub, eagerly swapping recommendations and meeting up every fortnight to discuss the Group Book, doing reads together, they have a whole rating system devised and leave reviews for every book

Kakashi with his romance novels, Kurenai who gravitates to drama and Iruka's love for historical fiction. Computers exist in this world so they def have a book blog together which is a great blog to check out if you want to see lesser known recommendations bc these three are the book snobs who never pick up what is currently popular in fact they are outright scoffing at the bestsellers section of the bookstore and library

[horriblehistorieslandfill]

youve gotten me interested in horrible histories, could we get a lil rundown of it all? what is the idea behind it? :D

GLADLY !! I’m feel so honored that I was able to get you interested in this wonderful show :-) !! I’m assuming you’re only asking about the show BUTT you’re also gonna get an explanation about the books, Horrible Histories: Gory Games show AND the animated Horrible History characters too hehe

HORRIBLE HISTORIES 2009 SERIES:

Horrible Histories, a British sketch comedy and educational television series, first aired its 2009 season on CBBC. The show, primarily aimed at children, uses humor and parody to teach viewers about various historical events and figures. Each episode focuses on specific periods, cultures, or historical topics, presenting the information in a fun and engaging manner.

The series is based on the bestselling children's books of the same name by Terry Deary. It uses a combination of live-action sketches, animations, and musical numbers to make history more accessible and entertaining for its audience. The show's cast (Season 1 to 5), which includes Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, and Ben Willbond portrays a range of historical characters, often in a comedic or exaggerated manner.

Today’s Horrible Histories (Season 6 to 10) isn’t as much as loved compared to the older Seasons, and I see why. The main reasons as to why the recent Horrible History seasons aren’t as loved is because of some controversial topics and some rewrites of history (So I recommend maybe just watching the earlier seasons).

(Just a quick note that I do not support nor condone any of the controversial topics that were written in the recent seasons, the only reason why I visit the recent episodes are to fast forward to the parts to where they show the animated clips.)

Back to the older seasons, Season 1-5 shows a great way of explaining and presenting historical topics in a fun, harmless and amusing way to its audience. There are also a bunch of British references and subtle jokes that will get a laugh out of you. The songs are quite catchy too :-D

If you are interested in watching Horrible Histories, you could always go to the BBC Horrible Histories Iplayer website or use this google drive I found on Reddit to all the episodes of Season 1-5 !!

Pros of watching Horrible Histories:

COOL FUNFACTS THAT YOU CAN FLEX TO YOUR FRIENDS THAT DON’T KNOW JACK ABOUT HISTORY !!!!!

FUN CAST I ABSOLUTELYLOVE THE SIX IDIOTS GO CHECK OUT THEIR OTHER PROJECTS

FUNNY SIDE CHARACTERS LIKE DEATH, RATTUS, SAM, CLIFF WHITELEY AND MORE !!!!!

someone kissed a priest idk

THE SONGS ??? THEY’RE THE BEST I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THEM

Cons of watching Horrible Histories:

getting the Monarchs song stuck in your head for months

sad song ending :-(

there will never be another season of horrible histories with the original cast (six idiots)

Summary: silly history show that is hosted by a talking rat with a variety of fun signs and fun other characters like Death and a historical news report guy with ADHD. also uhm a lot of people really like Matt Baynton dick turnip for some reason

HORRIBLE HISTORIES BOOK FRANCHISE:

Horrible Histories is a series of non-fiction children's books written by Terry Deary. The books, published by Scholastic, delve into different periods of history, presenting facts in a humorous and often gory manner. The series aims to make history fun and engaging for readers by focusing on the unusual, terrible, and gruesome aspects of the past.

Each book in the series covers a specific historical era, such as the Awful Egyptians, the Measly Middle Ages, or the Terrible Tudors. The stories are told through amusing anecdotes, illustrations by Martin Brown, and timelines, often featuring shocking facts, jokes, and quirky characters. Some books also include activities, such as puzzles and quizzes, to further engage the reader.

The first titles in the series, “Terrible Tudors” and “Awesome Egyptians”, was published in 1993, and since then, the series has expanded to include more than 30 titles, covering various historical time periods and regions, like the Rotten Romans, the Vile Victorians, the Cut-Throat Celts and even gruesome guides to places you may know such as the USA, France, London and more !

The books have been translated into multiple languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. By presenting history in this unique and irreverent manner, Horrible Histories has played a significant role in making history more appealing to readers, helping to inspire their interest and encourage further exploration.

Martin Brown is an illustrator best known for his work with Terry Deary on the popular children's book franchise, Horrible Histories. He started off with illustrating greeting cards and now writes his own projects and draws illustrations for the recent Horrible History books such as “Up in the air”, “Right on Track”, Paws, Claws and Jaws”, and the upcoming new Horrible History book “The Truly Terrible History of the Toilet”.

Martin Brown’s illustrations play a significant role in the franchises' success, as they bring the gruesome and humorous aspects of history to life. His unique style combines a cartoonish aesthetic with realistic detail, creating a vivid and engaging visual experience for readers.

Besides reading the books, you could also play some Gruesome (not really, I just added that word for fun) Games like the Horrible Histories: The Board Game, Horrible Histories jigsaw puzzles, Horrible Histories Battle cards, Horrible Histories: Gruesome Game-A-Thons and many more !

Pros of reading Horrible History books:

FRIGHTENING FACTS !!!!!

MORE ILLUSTRATIONS !! PICTURE BOOKS 🔛🔝 !!!

dude the books are genuinely so fun theres pop up books, sicker activity books, coloring books, journals, puzzles and MORE ?????? also horrible history themed stationary stuff ANDD horrible history figurines which is like ,, well wicked.

Cons of reading horrible history books:

I haven’t ran into any cons yet so THATS A WIN FOR THE BOOKS !

Summary: READ THE BOOKS DAMN YOUR EYES !!!! god I absolutely love the books so much they’re so fun to read when ur bored and the illustrations were the reason why I even got into Horrible Histories so let’s all say “Thank you Martin Brown” I’ve learned so much from reading these books ANDDDD I spend less time on my devices woohoo !

HORRIBLE HISTORIES: GORY GAMES:

(I don’t know much about Gory Games because uhm I haven’t watched them yet I’m too busy watching Horrible Histories and the Beatles Saturday morning cartoons archived on youtube)

"Horrible Histories: Gory Games," a spin-off of the well-known BBC historical comedy sketch series, “Horrible Histories," is a children's game show that premiered in 2011. Created by the same team behind the original series, it's aired on CBBC. It also has a companion app for iOS and Android.

Hosted by Dave Lamb and Rattus Rattus, the show focuses on obscure historical facts. Three young contestants, known as "Horrible Historians," compete to collect "Year Spheres." These spheres represent years, either A.D. or B.C. Scoring A.D. years adds to their point total, while B.C. subtracts. The winner is determined by the contestant with the highest score after three rounds of historically-themed challenges or quizzes.

Pros of watching Horrible Histories: Gory Games:

THE ANIMATED CHARACTERS ARE THERE WHATT !! AMAZING RIGHT

You get to see Ben Willbond is a georgian costume

WATCH THE SHOW FOR YOURSELF I HAVEN’T WATCHED IT YET

Summary: if you wanna watch kids answer historical trivias then watch Horrible Histories: Gory Games (episodes can be found on youtube !!)

ANIMATED HORRIBLE HISTORY CHARACTERS:

(prepare for a long long LONGG explanation)

Canon/Official Information:

The reoccurring animated characters you may remember seeing in a normal Horrible Histories episode are probably the Rotten Romans soldier, Gorgeous Georgian lady, Frightful First World War british soldier or the Measly Middle Ages peasant. But do they have any background other than being a character from that era ?

[DING, DING, DING !]

These lovable but forgettable cartoon characters you’ve probably seen before make appearances in Horrible Histories: Gory Games, Horrible History book covers, Horrible History merchandise and even in the Horrible History games.

The animated/cartoon characters are used for the animated sketches or era headings in the 2009 Horrible Histories show. They also made multiple appearances in the Horrible Histories: Gory Games show, usually introducing the era topic, questions and answers. While most of the characters are recognized from the shows, almost all of them originated from the Horrible Histories book covers.

You may be surprised to hear that some characters have official names like this Victorian Gentleman, did you know his name was Howard ? Now you do.

How about this Tudor lady from an animated Terrible Tudors sketch ? Her name is Alice.

The Roundhead chief ? Oh yeah, his name is Victory.

We don’t get much information/background about these little shits, but when we do it’s usually shown in a subtle or way that wouldn’t be mentioned again. So what do I do ? LIST DOWN EVERY SINGLE FACT ABOUT THEM. (Probably not every single thing about them, but a lot of facts that you may not know !)

Since my discussion about the animated characters might be a bit too long, i’ll be breaking some of the subjects I’ll be talking about into 3 topics:

Canon facts

Fanon information (Things I made up about them)

Crabby Clash (Fanon once again !)

CANON/OFFICIAL ANIMATED CHARACTER FACTS:

The animated characters can interact with non-animated characters.

The mummy giggles alot

The Vicious Viking has a daughter (Fanon name: Eirunn)

The caveman is a father of 2 boys.

The Measly Middle Ages peasant’s family business is pig farming.

The Terrible Tudors headsman (Book cover character) does doodling

The (other) Measly Middle Ages peasant is a pilgrim.

The miner minor’s (Wales book cover character) father is shown in “When I grow up”

The Viles Victorian gentleman has a wife (Name unknown).

⬆️ He also sells cakes at science fairs !

The FWWI soldier has a trench mate (Shown in HH: Gruesome Game-A-Thons)

The Terrible Tudors Headsman has an official voice claim, voice actor unknown

There’s an animated HHTV News reporter named “Simon Skirmish” (Shown in “Protesting with Pankhurst” S9 EP3)

Animated Simon Cowell is canon in the animated Horrible Histories dimension

The Vile Victorian gentleman was ran over twice

I would name abunch of other facts I know, but I don’t want to make this post longer than it already is.

FANON INFORMATION:

(Note: This is just MY personal fanon opinions, other people have their own views, names and headcanons for these characters :-D)

Since BBC won’t give us more background about the animated characters, we’ll settle this the old way like any other fandom would; MAKE HEADCANONS !!!

Me and a few other HH fans gave most of the characters their own backgrounds and who they are, I’m truly taken back with what their creative minds came up with. You can check some of the names I’ve given the characters with the help of a friend in this post !!

I really don’t know where to start since there are so much fanon topics I could discuss right now, but here are a 2 topics I chose to discuss for now :-)

RELATIONSHIPS:

Headcanons:

(You may want to read the fanon names before reading my headcanons)

Ma-Nefer is blind (due to the fact that his pet falcon that Senouphis trained to rip his brother’s eyes out so he could become Pharaoh), his artificial eyes serve no purpose.

While Ma-Nefer was stuck at his burial, his only companion was a mummified cat he named “Geb”.

Senouphis gets a reoccurring nightmare where Ma-Nefer comes back from the dead and takes his revenge, of course that would never happen ,, yeah right.

Wycliff used to have a pet parrot, unfortunately he still hasn’t gotten over his parrot’s death.

They all hate Rattus (except for Médard aka the frenchie)

If Madeleine was ever to die during a bombing, Madeleine’s daughter would think of her doll as her mother and treat the doll as how Madeleine treated her.

Ma-Nefer is willing to forgive Senouphis.

Egbert is unaware that he’s related to the other medieval peasant.

Archie is the troublemaker, Toby is the problem solver.

Eirunn wants to be a vicious Viking just like her father, Ragnar supports her decisions but thinks that she shouldn’t be adventuring at her age.

Chopsalot loves plum pies he would devour one in SECONDS.

Rip Chopsalot you would’ve loved raisin muffins.

Ronnie likes to write poems and record his life in the trenches.

Lady Jane despises Egbert (peasants), she will not survive 5 seconds standing near him.

Benjamin is BALDING.

My mind has gone blank at the moment, so I don’t really know what else to say but I post a lot of animated HH character stuff so if you’re willing to listen to me ramble, then make sure to stay tuned :-)

CRABBY CLASH:

“What is ‘Crabby Clash’ anyways ?”

It’s an HHAC (Horrible Histories Animated Characters) AU where all historical periods/eras go to war against eachother, some eras/periods will have alliances while some will be on their own.

As of right now, I stil haven't figured out the alliances yet, but the whole story is completely up to you! Who wins in the Crabby Clash? Yes, that's the name of the AU (corny I know :-( ).

FUN FACTS about the Crabby Clash/HHAC:

The non-animated HH characters (Bob hale, Charles the II, Mike Peabody, Sue, Death, etc ..) are canon in the universe too.

A little conflict between 2 eras was the reason for the war (just like any other world war).

Women from some eras are able to go to war (because I SAY SO IT’S MY AU).

there will be yuri angst and brotherly angst so you should totally be interested in my au

The AU is still in the making, if you’d ever like to suggest something for my AU that would be heavily appreciated <3

And that’s about it I suppose :-) thank you for coming to my ted Jimb talk and see you next Friday night folks ! walks off stage and gets swallowed by an ottoman

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Manhunt

Tobias Menzies -Emmy Award Winner in the ‧ Conspiracy Fiction Manhunt - 2024

The 2024 Winter Television Critics Association press tour, Apple TV+ revealed the trailer for “Manhunt,” the upcoming seven-part, true crime limited series starring Emmy Award-winning actor Tobias Menzies (“The Crown,” “Game of Thrones”), and created by Emmy nominee Monica Beletsky (“Fargo,” “The Leftovers,” “Friday Night Lights”), who also serves as showrunner and executive producer. “Manhunt” makes its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, March 15, 2024, and new episodes will debut Fridays, culminating in the finale on April 19, 2024.

Based on the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning nonfiction book from author James L. Swanson, “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer “ is a conspiracy thriller about one of the best-known but least understood crimes in history, the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

Part historical fiction, part conspiracy thriller, Edwin Stanton delves into the aftermath of the first American presidential assassination-and the fight to preserve and protect the ideals that were the foundation of Lincoln's Reconstruction plans.

Starring alongside Menzies are Anthony Boyle (“Masters of the Air,” “Tetris”), Lovie Simone (“Greenleaf”), Will Harrison (“Daisy Jones & The Six”), Brandon Flynn (“13 Reasons Why”), Damian O’Hare (“Hatfields & McCoys”), Glenn Morshower (“The Resident”), Patton Oswalt (“A.P. Bio”), Matt Walsh (“Veep”) and Hamish Linklater (“The Big Short”).

Manhunt” is produced by Apple Studios and coproduced by Lionsgate Television, in association with POV Entertainment, Walden Media, 3 Arts Entertainment, Dovetale Productions and Monarch Pictures. Beletsky, Emmy nominee Carl Franklin, Layne Eskridge and Kate Barry executive produce. Swanson, author of “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer,” also serves as executive producer alongside Michael Rotenberg, Richard Abate, Frank Smith and Naia Cucukov. Franklin (“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” “One False Move,” and “Devil in a Blue Dress”) also directed the first two episodes.

“Manhunt” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 15.

Tobias Menzies great actor. I’m determined to watch the series 🍿

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: An Honorable Deception

Synopsis: As the leader of elite private investigative firm the Imposters, Lord Yates Fairfax has made an art of concealing his identity. But when his newest client, the beautiful Lady Alethia Barremore, is shot while leaving their meeting, he throws caution to the wind and rushes to her aid. Though Lady Alethia thought she was only looking for her missing former nanny, she has clearly stumbled…

[archduchessofnowhere]

Me attempting to write historical fiction: *spending hours looking for 19th century maps of Munich and Bavaria to try to figure out which would've been the roads the Wittelsbachs would've taken to travel in carriage*

New York Times Bestseller Historical Fiction Author Allison Pataki: it took Sisi weeks to travel from Possenhofen to Ischl :)

[litthinks]

Exploring the Enigmatic World of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Enter the glitzy world of the roaring 20s with F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, "The Great Gatsby". From the dazzling parties to the tragic love story, we'll explore every facet of this iconic novel. Share your own thoughts and impressions in the comments and let's discuss the enduring themes of the American Dream and the corruption of wealth.

[writingtips-resources]

How Book Genres and Target Audience Could be a Reason for Your KDP Success as an author

As a self-published author, I’ve always been thinking about "how some authors manage to connect so deeply with their readers that ultimately turn into lifelong fans for them". After analyzing the publishing industry carefully, I came to the point that

"The secret often lies in niche publishing".

If you already read my previous article "The future of publishing trends and insights in 2025" you can now understand that "The publishing market will change in the coming years". The old “one-size-fits-all” method just isn’t cutting it anymore. so it's time to think about-what exactly we should publish to get success in the world of book publishing especially Amazon KDP?

The answer might be to focus on niche markets. No matter if you’re a newcomer or have a few books under your belt, finding highly targeted audiences could be one of the smartest strategies to build lasting connections with readers and thrive in today’s competitive publishing world.

But Yes!

it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that writing for the most popular genres—like romance, thrillers, or fantasy—will guarantee success. After all, these genres dominate bestseller lists.

However, you know,

the bigger the genre, the more crowded the competition.

It’s like shouting in a room full of people all saying the same thing. Standing out is tough, and the odds of getting noticed can feel slim. That’s where niche publishing comes in. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, you focus on a specific, passionate group of readers who are already searching for exactly what you’re writing. Whether it’s LGBTQ+ romance, climate fiction, or historical non-fiction about a specific time period, these niche markets are often underserved.

And when readers in these markets find a book that resonates with them, they become fiercely loyal. In fact, research shows that 70% of readers prefer niche genres over the mainstream ones.

The more I looked into it, the clearer it became:

Niche or genre publishing isn’t just a strategy; it’s a game-changer.

You can stand out in crowded markets, build a loyal fan base, and create a sustainable career as an author. Let me break down everything I’ve learned about this approach so you can apply it to your own writing journey.

Before we get into the how, let’s talk about what is niche publishing and why it is so effective.

What Exactly is Niche Publishing?

A niche is a specific category or focus that readers are actively looking for. So, niche publishing involves creating content specifically designed for a targeted audience or focused subject area.

In non-fiction, niches might include areas like minimalist lifestyles, plant-based diets, or productivity tips for introverts. In fiction, they often appear as subgenres such as cozy mysteries, dystopian adventures, or historical romances. But do you know there is a difference between niche and genre.

Genre refers to the broader category or type of story, such as romance, fantasy, thriller, or non-fiction categories like biography or self-help. It defines the overall style, structure, and themes of a work.

Niche is more specific. It refers to a focused area or subcategory within a genre. For example:

In the romance genre, a niche might be historical romance or clean billionaire romance.

In non-fiction, a niche might be productivity for freelancers or vegan meal prep guides.

Think of it this way: a genre is like a neighborhood, and a niche is a specific street within that neighborhood. While genres attract broader audiences, niches attracts smaller, more targeted groups with highly specific interests.

Here are a few tips for succeeding in niche publishing:......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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