>>6112101>We've got a lot of medieval fantasy it is a genre staple, after all but not so much historical fiction.This is an absolute crime that I intend to rectify, but I think the reason that it doesn't happen very often is because it either requires an extremely autistic level of attention to detail or existing autistic knowledge on specific time periods.
If you go any earlier than the 19th century in most places, things become unrecognizable enough that you have to start studying absolute basics that are shrouded in mystery. Things as basic as what exists during what time period or what the current country is necessitate some kind of online search unless you're very well-versed (or looking to be so inaccurate that it devolves into Turtledove-tier slopfic).
The line between historical and fantasy is often blurry in ye olden times due to the sheer lack of documentation (+ organization of that documentation) and unfamiliarity of daily life to the average modern person, to the point that if you don't do some serious research it starts to just become "medieval fantasy with less dragons and more Charlemagne", at which point you question why the author isn't bothering to add dragons if the entire point of the story is going to be palling around with a famous corpse.
If you want to stick to something more understandable to the modern man, you can go back maybe 150 years maximum... at which point you have to deal either a lot of anachronism or a lot of very specific years of when things were invented (from 1800-1900 is basically unrecognizable; every single decade there are tens of monumental discoveries or inventions that change life forever). Any earlier than that (say, 1950s-1960s) and you start to run into a weird nostalgia barrier where you're either playing off of cultural pastiche (80s is neon 90s is edgy etc) or sticking as autistically close to the time period as you were before... but now with the bonus downside of opening yourself up to scrutiny from people who were alive during those periods.
TL;DR:
>Anything before the late modern period is going to require either a lot of heavy research or so much suspension of disbelief that you may as well just make it fantasy>Anything during the late modern period is going to require all of the above PLUS constant googling of when something was invented to ensure that you aren't putting telephones in your 1850s Wild West quest>Anything after the late modern period is going to open you up to scrutiny from people who lived during that era if you don't do heavy researchboomers don't really browse the board afaik so really anything from 1950-1970 should be the easiest targets at this point (if nothing else you can comfortably rely on that pastiche without getting into arguments about it)
I hope that gets taken advantage of
(thank you for reading my tired ramble on why I think historical fiction is so sparse (even though it shouldn't be (get on that /qst/ (please)])]
