25. Gloriana's Torch by Patricia Finney If ever there were a title and cover calculated to catch my eye, this was it. A close-up variation on the Armada Portrait and the title in a large font jumped out at me from the shelves of the library in the small town where I'm staying. As it turns out, this is the third book of a series set in Elizabethan England, a series breaking the genre barrier between mainstream historical fiction and the alternative history that's generally classed with SFF. Finney's protagonists, David Becket and Simon Ames/Anriques, spies for Walsingham, and Merula, an African woman who I believe appears first in this novel, are fictional. I think fictional protagonists are one of the more successful strategies for grounding a novel in a historical period, and Finney uses it to advantage. She also portrays historical figures like Walsingham, Burghley, Leicester, Raleigh, Robert Cecil, and Elizabeth I. However, it is the unique viewpoint of her fictional...
Life, Books, and SFF