Dean Hamilton's Blog, page 9
December 14, 2015
Elizabethans at the Movies, Part 2
Here’s Part II of my Elizabethan's at the Movies series taking a quick look at the most recent crop of modern Elizabethan-era films. Today, only one entry:
Anonymous (2011)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Stars: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis, Rafe Spall
I’ll start with the blunt and brutal assessment that the plotline and claims of the film are a steaming crock of shit. It’s hard to look at anything else contained in this film without the nonsensical plotline obscuring the elements that w...
December 13, 2015
Elizabethans at the Movies
The Tudor and Elizabethan era has always been fodder for film-making, although it has dropped off considerably in recent years. The 1930’s saw Errol Flynn swashbuckling his way through the era in The Sea Hawk while Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s blaring trumpets set the tone. Flynn reappeared in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, while Charles Laughton gave the world an indelible portrait of Henry VIII eating a chicken.Here’s a quick look at the most recent crop of modern Elizabethan-era fi...
December 8, 2015
Review: The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro
"The year 1606 would turn out to be a good one for Shakespeare and an awful one for England. That was no coincidence."
1606 was a particularly tumultuous year. Queen Elizabeth had died childless and unmarried in 1603, succeeded on the throne by the young King of Scotland James I, son of her executed rival Mary, Queen of Scots. The shift in tone, approach and power after the long reign of Elizabeth was dramatic, and the subsequent failed attempt by a small group of Catholic conspirators i...
1606 was a particularly tumultuous year. Queen Elizabeth had died childless and unmarried in 1603, succeeded on the throne by the young King of Scotland James I, son of her executed rival Mary, Queen of Scots. The shift in tone, approach and power after the long reign of Elizabeth was dramatic, and the subsequent failed attempt by a small group of Catholic conspirators i...
December 7, 2015
Black Dog FREE!
Looking for a good holiday read? BLACK DOG, my novella, is FREE on Amazon Kindle from December 10 - 14th, 2015!
Grab a copy at amzn.to/1Tr9hM5 and #FearTheDog!
November 6, 2015
Gifing it up
By way of an experiment, I pulled together some gifs from the Gorongosa wildcam project I mentioned previously.
I think they came out rather good.
I think they came out rather good.
November 4, 2015
Shiny!
Alongside the HNS Editor`s Choice logo, I get to add another shiny logo to THE JESUIT LETTER, courtesy the Historical Novel Society reviewing & liking my book!
Here they both are!
Here they both are!
November 2, 2015
Editor's Choice
Great news to make even a dreary Monday shine!
The Historic Novel Society has reviewed The Jesuit Letter
and selected it as an Editor's Choice!
Read the review!
In addition to the snazzy logo, this makes The Jesuit Letter eligible on the long-list for the 2016 HNS Indie Award!
I know, way too many exclamation points for a Monday morning...but how often does this happen with a debut novel!
Thank you HNS!
The Historic Novel Society has reviewed The Jesuit Letter
and selected it as an Editor's Choice!Read the review!
In addition to the snazzy logo, this makes The Jesuit Letter eligible on the long-list for the 2016 HNS Indie Award!
I know, way too many exclamation points for a Monday morning...but how often does this happen with a debut novel!
Thank you HNS!
October 26, 2015
“By plain tooth and nail”: Bear-baiting in Elizabethan London
This a copy of an article I wrote for English Historical Fiction Authors, a blog with an absolute fabulous collection of articles on just about any era you can contemplate. I am appending a copy here, but I urge you to drop by EHFA Blog and check out their tremendous collection of articles!
If you glance at the famous Visscher's Panorama of London from 1616, you will see, tucked into the foreground of the picture, on the south bank of the Thames to the left of London Bridge, a pair of o...
If you glance at the famous Visscher's Panorama of London from 1616, you will see, tucked into the foreground of the picture, on the south bank of the Thames to the left of London Bridge, a pair of o...
October 8, 2015
Second!
Second Place!As mentioned in earlier posts, my novella BLACK DOG was entered into Inkitt's "Reclaim Time" story competition.
I found out this morning via email that it has placed SECOND in Inkitt's historical fiction competition, a fact that fills me with excitement as I always have a difficult time judging and assessing my own work.
Thank you editors of Inkitt and a special thank you to everyone who took the time to read, vote and review my novella.
If you enjoy Elizabethan-era back-alley skuld...
September 29, 2015
Dark and Kind of Stormy, but in a good way...
For the darkest & stormiest of nights...As bad openings for a novel go, this one was epic.
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
Out of this breathless torrent of immortal words, sprang the Bulwer-Lytton...
