I'm American, and my husband is British, so I thought your version of America was hilarious, and totally reasonable. My thought is also that St. Mary's is very very (veddy veddy) British, and that's the charm of it. By closing America off in the beginning, there aren't any American-fan-pleasing excursions into America, other than that one time with the Vikings.
To be honest, I thought you might have planned it that way, and it's one of the things I love about the books. I've only been able to go to England a few times to visit my husbands very dear and darling relatives, and listening to Zara Ramm read to me lets me feel like I am there and could just see my in-laws around the next corner. ☺
Forgive you? Goodness, your portrayal is fairly prescient! Making some of us think that maybe, just maybe, there really is a St.Mary's analogue, and that you are part of it!
I think most good fiction authors consciously or unconsciously build on the many potential outcomes of today's realities. Very interesting thought.
To be honest, I assumed the St Mary's books were set at the end of this century and the beginning of the next. This could partly be due to me misinterpreting which events in Sarajevo fell outside the hundred years rule. To my mind, that left plenty of time for US politics to become ...more interesting.
Well, a lot of it is personal interest - stuff I've read over the years. Sometimes I'm reading something which sets me off on an afternoon down the rabbit hole. A whole warren, sometimes. Or I hear something on the TV. My main interest is ancient history - hence Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Carthage, Greece, Anatolia, Kush, and so on. I'm quite interested in medieval and Tudor times, but, like Max, I find it hard to get out of bed for anything after 1485.
I'm American, and my husband is British, so I thought your version of America was hilarious, and totally reasonable. My thought is also that St. Mary's is very very (veddy veddy) British, and that's the charm of it. By closing America off in the beginning, there aren't any American-fan-pleasing excursions into America, other than that one time with the Vikings.
To be honest, I thought you might have planned it that way, and it's one of the things I love about the books. I've only been able to go to England a few times to visit my husbands very dear and darling relatives, and listening to Zara Ramm read to me lets me feel like I am there and could just see my in-laws around the next corner. ☺
Forgive you? Goodness, your portrayal is fairly prescient! Making some of us think that maybe, just maybe, there really is a St.Mary's analogue, and that you are part of it!
I think most good fiction authors consciously or unconsciously build on the many potential outcomes of today's realities. Very interesting thought.
To be honest, I assumed the St Mary's books were set at the end of this century and the beginning of the next. This could partly be due to me misinterpreting which events in Sarajevo fell outside the hundred years rule. To my mind, that left plenty of time for US politics to become ...more interesting.
How fo you chose the time periods you write about? From where do you get the nuggets on which you hang a story?
Well, a lot of it is personal interest - stuff I've read over the years. Sometimes I'm reading something which sets me off on an afternoon down the rabbit hole. A whole warren, sometimes. Or I hear something on the TV. My main interest is ancient history - hence Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Carthage, Greece, Anatolia, Kush, and so on. I'm quite interested in medieval and Tudor times, but, like Max, I find it hard to get out of bed for anything after 1485.