On a totally different subject (no new books for me! not until I clear some out! really! well, except ...)

I was reading a book and gave up on it because it hit one of my peeves. It was set in the early 1920s, obviously well researched, well written enough ... but the author kept pulling in famous real people. This is one of those things that just sets my (metaphorical) teeth on edge. It's as though someone were writing something set in colonial America and the main character is friends with Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, etc. Bringing in one or two famous people I can understand ... but let's face it - most of the people at any one time are going to be unknown (except, perhaps, to someone doing extensive research on the period). It's like reincarnation - you know how it seems people are always Cleopatra or Queen Elizabeth I or something.

Does this annoy anyone else? or is it just me?

Does this annoy anyone else? or is it just me?

Makes me crazy. I will say, however, that the further back in time you go, depending on the location, circumstances, etc., it's more plausible. Like in John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles, I think in the first couple of books, he had some famous folks, but since the character had emigrated to Boston and it was the eve of the Revolutionary War, it seemed far more likely.

But I think the further forward you come, the harder it is to pull off, and then, only if the author is careful with it and doesn't overwhelm the narrative with the All Star Cameos.

Does this annoy anyone else? or is it just me?

Not just you. That's what really lost me on Ahab's Wife. It's a retelling of Moby Dick from the point of view of, as you probably guessed, Ahab's wife. The lead character meets every contemporary philosophical and literary figure remotely available. The author even has her run into a 5 year old Henry James, who speaks in sentences as long and complex as the paragraphs in The Ambassadors. Which was a lovely book, but James was about 5, and I'd like to think he grew a bit over 50+ years. After a point I stopped paying attention to the book's plot and started playing, "guess who'll be the next 19th century American celebrity to show up," although I didn't get around to turning it into a drinking game. And I'm pretty weak in 18th c. American lit. and history, so if it's obvious to me, you know it's rife in the book.

Does this annoy anyone else? or is it just me?

Not just you. I love well-done historical stuff, but way too many authors cross the line between good novel that plays with a historical setting and "look how awfully clever I am!"

Caleb Carr did that in The Alienist and its sequel. The first time around, it wasn't so bad. Second time, when he tossed in Clarence Darrow and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it got more annoying.

One exception, and it fits your rule of "further back is easier" is Gore Vidal's Creation. The whole point if the novel is the main character gets to meet prominent religious figures and philosophers. He is a Persian, grandson of Zoraster, and friend of Xerxes (not Alexander as I previously said). As a Persian ambassador, he meets the Buddha and the early Jains in India, Confucius and leading Taoists in China. He lives long enough to meet Socrates in Greece. Vidal has to make him live very long and travel very widely to meet all these people. And he meets famous kings and generals and so on associated with all the same figures. But Vidal is,among other things making a point - that all these religious and philosophical revolutions were in historical terms happening at the same time. They were happening in almost a single human lifetime. Vidal spends a lot of time making his main character a real person who would plausibly be interested in such travel and seek out leading religious figures, and setting up plot twists and turns to let it happen. It helps that it is made clear from the beginning that this will be picturesque tale in which the main character will accomplish little but meet and reflect on fascinating people and historical circumstances.

ARGH-- I lost half the list somehow!

ARGH!

Typo, doing it to make a point is one thing. It just irks me when an author feels compelled to drag in just about every prominent person in that time/place and not only have them appear in the story, but be a prominent part of the story. (Historical fiction about famous people is an exception for me, but that's me.) Give me the same kind of feeling I get with Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake. Mary Sue'd to the max.

I just finished Kurt Anderson's Heyday, and it has a fair amount of "Oh, look who we ran into!" But the novel's basically constructed to be a encyclopedia of 1848, so the plot is thin and built on unlikely coincidences. I think it was kind of like the Vidal book -- if it was meant to be realistic, the cameos would be the least of its problems.

The only bit that really bugged me was when they were in Illinois and start talking about a politician/lawyer, and it's obviously Lincoln but they don't say his name for most of the conversation, and it's too cute by half. Lincoln himself doesn't "appear" though.

Vidal is a novelist, not just an explorer of ideas. The main character is genuinely interesting if not always pleasant. He survives truly dangerous situations - both through luck, and through occasional exercise of intelligence. He is in danger from his (literal) witch of a mother, from the Harem and the court Eunuchs in Persia. He survives dangerous journeys, and deadly wars (civil and not) and intrigue in India, China, and in Greece as well.