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Over the last few months the articles have descended in length in quality with only the rare exception. It’s my intent to get back into more substantial articles. It’s a never-ending process of measuring time and other projects against a desire to make this website at least moderately worth maintaing and, hopefully, reading.

My tastes in reading tend to take me in obscure directions. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was a modern fantasy novel of its own peculiar, pedantic bent. George RR Martin furfills my historical fantasy wishes. Neuromancer and Snowcrash would likely fall under science-fiction, cyberpunk, things like that. In fiction, I rotate between histories, cookbooks, biographies, a never ending line of words and stories.

My most recent labor has been The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. This epic tome (6 volumes, each many hundreds of thousands of words) from the 18th century remains a respected general history of Rome and the template from which most modern histories are derived. As a work of writing it maintains an intimate, though sarcastic, tone that reveals the author more than one would expect. It dabbles with personal narratives, often finding fault and merit in the various personages that drove the history of Rome, and explors the curiosities of history with an eye for their greater affect and analysis. The story is pushed along even more fully by a rigorous exploration of the religious, military, and economics circumstances affecting the most important provinces and people of the realm. It is, quite simply, a very complete history of Rome from its pinnacle age under the early Emperors to its ignominious collapse and then, in the second half, through the crusades and beyond.

It is an incredibly impressive achievement. It remains a respected work in the field, which attests to the scholarship, the prodigious footnotes validate the years of research that went into the book, and the scope, the life of an empire, is unmatched. Nevertheless, I would have hard time recommending this great achievement. The prose is outdated and simply tough to read. It is a literary and academic masterpiece, but its length and obtuseness to the modern tongue makes more modern histories of Rome far more accessible.

In lieu of a recommendation, I would prefer to say that, for me, it has been an immensely beneficial book to read. My own story is, in a way, a sort of general history. A fictional futuristic history, but a history nonetheless. I find, quite often, that many stories lack a world. They have a dramatic scenario and characters to furfill to the obligations of the plot, but there is no anchor and no setting. The events transcend any particular culture and thus lose so much of their effect. The best stories work within and win a greater historical narrative. The Sharpe and Flashman Series provide easy examples, but historical fiction is hardly the only field this is true. Lord of the Rings created a world history almost as epic as that of Gibbon. Don Quixote only makes sense in a world where chivalry is on the cusp of irrelevancy. Jurassic Park requires a world that is freely dabbling with the consequences of genetic manipulation. Tom Clancy’s works are predicated on the tensions of a post cold-war world. Every story requires a history to provide context and verisimilitude to the drama.

Reading Gibbon has provided a great deal of inspiration to flesh out the world in my own, hopefully nearing completion, novel. I need to touch more fully on the political establishment, the mindset of the people, the economics, the military, the religious and spiritual inclinations. My futuristic world needs a setting that expands beyond the immediate locale to a world that is, like all worlds and all settings, twisting with a number of idealistic conflicts. Gibbon provides an example of a real empire suffering an extended drama that would make for the greatest fiction work of all, if it wasn’t so true, so tragic, and so complete.

As an update, I am proceeding along with my work. I’m quite a bit behind where I should like to be, but that is always the case with schedules. I’ll have more to say as soon as I have more done!