books by 'romulus hillborough'

I've recently come across this: http://www.ridgebackpress.com/
does anyone have any info on the author and / or the quality of his
work? If you check the link, you'll see he has written a biography
of sakamoto ryoma, as well as a collection of bio's of edo-era
samurai. I have never heard of this author before - just curious if
anyone else has and may have any comments.

c.

Hi Christopher -

I've got a copy of 'Ryoma', and I'm afraid I don't rate it much. It
falls between trying to be a biography, a history, and a novel, and
thereby (IMHO) doesn't achieve any of them.

I am not familiar with the period, but would say the author has done
his homework, however I just didn't get a 'feeling' for the
characters, they just didn't catch me. A shame, really. And by a
third of the way in if another character 'snickered' one more time,
I was ready to rip the thing in half.

Sorry

Thomas

I have both books and I am reading Samurai sketches at the moment, his facts
are correct and his subject interesting, will let you know what kind of
writer I think he is after I finish both books.
BTW he will be doing a book signing at the Northern California Japanese
Sword Club Annual taikai in August.
Tom

I have read both books and had the same feeling as the other replies, good
history but not such a great novel. In some respects the Ryoma book was
easier to read than Jansens book. Instead of writing a 'novel' he should
have just wrote a straight history. I would have been more pleased with
that. Same for the Samurai Sketches. All in all anybody who likes samurai
would like these books. Yes he did overuse the word snicker. Guess he
couldn't afford a decent thesaurus.

Along the lines of samurai historical fiction have you read the new
translation of Shiba Ryotaros Drunk as a Lord. Now there is a true author. I
highly recommend that one. Too bad more of his books aren't available in
English.

----- Original Message -----
From: Christopher West <kitsuno@...>
To: <samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 2:10 AM
Subject: [samuraihistory] books by 'romulus hillborough'


> I've recently come across this: http://www.ridgebackpress.com/
> does anyone have any info on the author and / or the quality of his
> work? If you check the link, you'll see he has written a biography
> of sakamoto ryoma, as well as a collection of bio's of edo-era
> samurai. I have never heard of this author before - just curious if
> anyone else has and may have any comments.
>
> c.
>
>
> Samurai Archives: http://www.hn.org/samurai-archives/index.html
> ---
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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>
>

greetings all

Wow, A wide divergence of opinion on this book, I found it to be a very
enjoyable read, in fact I am on my second go around.

good luck

Kurt


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