For the budding historical novelist(s) on my flist

[brightly_woven]

This is in no way a smack down from me, but it is an interesting perspective on using real people in historical works of fiction.  It's by one of my favorite authors, Guy Gavriel Kay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/aug/20/novelists-real-life-characters?commentid=a69f47c6-fb98-45ac-9121-b761c4f958fd

EDIT:  Some of the comments and Kay'

Comments

[katharhino]

I don't agree with him about fantasy. It actually really annoys me to read fantasy that's "based on" a real historical character. I'd rather have it be the historical character, straight up, so I know what I'm dealing with. For instance, not knowing much about El Cid, if I read his book which he uses as an example, I might not realize the whole thing is actually fictionalized history. Whereas if I read fictionalized history that didn't pretend to be something else, I'd go look up the real story about El Cid if I was truly interested in the story. Fictionalized history ALWAYS makes me want to learn more about the real history

[brightly_woven]

For me, with Kay at least, the important thing about his novels is not that they are based on real people--but real events, real conflicts between peoples, etc. The Reconquest is such an interesting period--and his book _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ illuminates those concepts, those cultural movements without getting bogged down in too many details, which so often happens in historical fiction. I found myself moved to tears by a culture that had worked on integrating, learning from each other in relative peace for several hundred years (with many of the ideals which we in the US hold--religious tolerance one of them) only to have it torn apart by extremists on both sides.

Interestingly, Kay is a huge fan of Dorothy Dunnett (as am I), and she uses real historical characters as backdrop (and more) characters to her very deeply researched and swashbuckling historical action-romances.