Planning on writing historical fiction?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Then Erastes has some links for you, including gems like this one.

Comments

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Number 8 applies to novels about Stalin's Russia. Anyone accused of anti-Stalinism and sent to the gulags invariably is. They are never a falsely accused loyal Stalinist.

(One of my great-uncles was sent to the gulags for jotting schoolwork down on the back of a portrait of Stalin when stores ran out of paper once. *grumble grumble grumble*)

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

And, of course, the Tzar had no secret police. He never sent anyone to Siberia. Magical fairies built the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Pauline Laws did not exist, so Anastasia would have become Empress and decreed free trade and enterprise upon the land.