Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Maybe there should be a separate "Historical Nearly Non-Fiction" subgenre for clarity?  |
Why do you think we have a different standard for other genres? I hold historical fiction to the same standards as other fiction I read: the bits not intended as fiction should match reality as closely as possible, and characters should react according to the personality and background, and not just like the author.
It is true that breaking that standard is rather more obvious with historical fiction. But I'm perfectly happy with the fictional parts of Hornblower or Poldark. I'd be happy with the time-travel in Outlander, as that's clearly a fictional device required for the story. It was the glaring historical errors that ruined it for me.
It might be possible to save it if it turned out that she was not actually visiting the past, but some fantasy realm conjured up from the heroine's ideas about Scotland's history. But I don't think the author intended that, nor afaik has that be retconned into the series. If the author is too lazy to get the non-fictional bits right, I find myself unable to appreciate the fiction at all. C.f. that space opera by Jack Campbell where physics was ignored so the spaceships behaved like sea ships.