Historical and/or Fantasy novels with a 17th century background

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In the 1970s and early 80s, the German edition of Mickey Mouse magazine often contained craft inserts to cut out and glue together – buildings, cars, planes, games, etc., all Disney, of course, many of them very high quality. One of the highlights of this series of kits was the Cinderella castle as it stands in Disney World, Florida, which came for Yule 1978, in 6 parts.

Having recently rediscovered this gem, I hit upon the idea of giving Cinderella her own army to go with the castle, using 1/72 scale plastic figures, approximately the right scale (and weight…) for this paper model. Since the most well-known version of the story – and the one the Disney movie is based on –  was written in the 17th century by Frenchman Charles Perrault, I decided to hunt down some Swedish and Imperial 30Year War troops from Revell, to which I also added ECW from A Call to Arms (both Royalist as well as Parliament, they’re all friends now), Zvezda Austrian Musketeers and Pikemen and MM Vatican Swiss Guard (those are going to be a nightmare to paint). Cinderella is pretty, so is the castle, so her troops needed to be pretty as well, which meant Mars 30 Year War figures were out, although their Swedish Dragoons and Cuirassiers are just re-issues of the Revell Swedish cav set.

For additional inspiration, I went looking for books and movies having a 17th century background and discovered there isn’t much.

I have Cyrano de Bergerac, Alatriste, Wallenstein and Gustaf Adolf’s Page on DVD, 3 of those also in book form, currently reading Pierre Pevel’s Cardinal’s Blades series, which is actually surprisingly good, even if he does employ the deus ex machina rescue at the last second ploy way too often.

Searching for novels with a 17th century background yields much in the way of ‘historical romance’ à la Harlequin (‘Savage Surrender’, ‘Seduced by a Billionaire’, that sort of thing…) and and a few witch persecution tales written from a 20th/21st century perspective, plus the info that the fantasy variety goes by the name ‘Flintlock Fantasy’. However, when you search for ‘Flintlock Fantasy’ specifically, you get mostly tricornes & lace (18th century) or Napoleonics (19th century) or even Victorian, which is already a li’l late for flintlocks….

Any suggestions ?

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Giles Kristian has written a pair of books set in the ECW, first one is called The Bleeding Land.

There’s obviously the Musketeer novels by Dumas. I’ve been recommended a more recent translation by Lawrence Ellsworth that retains a lot of character from the original French text that has been omitted from a lot of the English translations.

With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz might be worth a look. It’s the first part of a trilogy based in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There’s a wargame by the same name too.

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Try the Gentlemen Bastard Sequence of novels by Scott Lynch.

[Wolfie65 1252xp 0]

Thanks for the tips, how could I forget Dumas !

I also forgot to mention Grimmelshausen’s Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, probably THE 30-Year War novel, a little difficult to read today, but essential.

 

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Seconding Sienkiewicz’s trilogy! The other two books are The Deluge and Colonel Wolodyjowski.

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Rebels and  traitors by Lindsey Davies isn’t bad and set in ECW

The hangman’s daughter series by Oliver Potzsch set in Bavaria around the Thirty Years War. I enjoyed them

Check out,Nathaniels Nutmeg and Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Miton both are 16th/17th and non fiction but a riveting read about the period

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