Bill's Dunnett Blog | Thoughts about the best historical fiction ever written

Dorothy Dunnett Centenary Conference: Call For Papers

Posted on November 12, 2022 by bill

As part of the Dunnett Centenary Gathering there is a Conference on 20-21 April 2023. The DDS have posted a call for papers on the topic of Understanding diversity in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

What did ‘diversity’ mean five or six hundred years ago? How did 15^th and 16^th century societies across the world deal with difference?

Scholars and specialists in the fields that this topic covers are invited to submit papers of around 15-20 minutes and to submit abstracts (250 words max) and brief biographical notes by 12 Jan 2023.

Fuller details can be found on the DDS website at https://dunnettcentral.org/archives/8681

A 3rd experimental Lymond poll

Posted on October 31, 2022 by bill

Having got a fair number of votes in the first two polls I’m changing tack a bit for this one to see who the favourite supporting characters are. Excluding Francis and Philippa and the various villains, who are your most loved characters? Choose up to 3 of the following.

[democracy id=”4″]

Unfortunately an update to the poll plug-in on 25th March 2024 has broken it, so the results can’t currently be displayed. If we get a further update it may be reinstated or if I get time I’ll check the database to see if I can pull the data out manually.

Thanks for taking part

A 2nd experimental Lymond poll

Posted on October 30, 2022 by bill

Beware – Spoilers ahead! Finish the series before reading

Following up the previous post here is another poll about which character’s death had the most impact on you – but this time including the historical characters as well as the fictional ones.

Once again you can vote for up to 3 characters if they had similar effects on you.

This time I’ve added the option for you to add a character if your choice is not on the list.

[democracy id=”3″]

Thanks for taking part.

A little experimental Lymond poll

Posted on October 30, 2022 by bill

Beware – Spoilers ahead! Finish the series before reading

Earlier today during a Twiiter discussion, and after we’d decided that ranking the books was too difficult, I suggested it might be interesting to see how people rank the impact of the various deaths in the Lymond Chronicles – firstly the fictional characters alone and then later including the historical ones. So I started playing with various polling plug-ins and after rejecting a few I found this one, which so far seems to best fit the sort of questions I’d like to ask.

So in the spirit of experimentation let’s see how it works. In the following list you can select up to 3 of the options. So if one of them affected you much more than the rest then you should probably just select that one. If two or three of them were about equal in impact then select both/all of those. (So far I haven’t found a plug-in that allows you to put them in an order.)

There are various settings within the plug-in that I’ll adjust in subsequent polls to test their effects, so don’t be surprised if things change a bit. As they say in America (jokingly I hope) – Vote Early, Vote Often!

[democracy id=”2″]

Enjoy!