Just finished with Lymond Chronicles - how do I move on :)

[lovinbeingmum]

Any Dunnett fans out there.......?

As the title says, I just finished with Checkmate last night. I will go back to Game of Kings and start all over again....can't help myself.

But how do you exorcise the ghost of Lymond? Any recommendations on what I should read next...don't want to start the Niccolo series straight away.

Yep, I went and started again from the beginning as well

Couldn't get into Niccolo - dragged myself through 2 1/2 books then gave up and reread Lymond again

Apparently they're about to be reissued in print, so I might finally be able to get a copy of Ringed Castle...

But sorry, there is no next step.

You could try Dorothy L Sayers Peter Whimsy books if you haven't tried then yet though. 1930s murder detective, but a lot of similarities in his way with Lymond.

Thanks Allington. Finding myself just as engrossed on the second read too :)

Haven't read any whimsy books. They should have me sorted.

I'm just on my 15th (I think) reread (spread over many years). Hadn't read them for ages and it seemed time so I've been immersed. They do spoil you for other historical fiction though, don't they?

I don't mind the Niccolo books - but I'm not going to throw myself into them when I finish Lymond. They aren't 'comfort' books like Lymond is. The one I really can't read again is King Hereafter.

You don't move on! Nothing is ever quite as good.

You can tell from my username I'm a big fan!

I posted this very same question on an old Dunnett forum after finishing the LC aged 19. Only a bit more dramatic because teenager and all that "Reading is ruined for me forever - nothing will ever be as good!!!"

To some extent that is true, but I have enjoyed reading them again, and all her other books, many times over the years.

YY to Dorothy L sayers Peter Wimsey books. But even more so to Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" books. To be upfront - they have spaceships on the front (as @LadyPeterWimsey pointed out sceptically when I recced them to her!) and look like pulpy sci-fi! But Miles Vorkosigan is similar to Lymond and they're such fun. A lighter read, though. Start with Cordelia's Honour.
For other great historical fiction, I like Jude Morgan and Patrick O'Brien and Mary Renault and Colleen McCulloch.

Allington I pick up copies of DD books anytime I see one in a charity shop so I have a cupboard full of multiple spares. PM me if you want a copy of Ringed castle.

I agree, you don't move on from Lymond.

But yes, do give Peter Wimsey a go. And if possible try to read the series, or at least the books featuring Harriet Vane, in order. There are no big plot revelations, but Peter's character does develop over time, as Sayers developed as a writer.

If you're anything like me, you need to reread Lymond just to understand what the hell was going on. As recommended by Somerville , DD was my big literary discovery of 2016. It took me three attempts to finish Game of Kings, and then a week on holiday to read the other five (I may not have talked to my family very much and I definitely skimmed the Russian stuff) so there is loads I missed out. This year I am going to read them at a more leisurely pace and look up the stuff in foreign and the bits I don't understand.

And, yes, Somerville made me read a book with a spaceship on the front, which is not at all my thing and I loved it! So do try Miles Vorkosigan.

My first love will always be, of course, Wimsey. The Sayers reading order I always recommend is to start with The Nine Tailors, which does not have Harriet Vane in, but shows Wimsey at his best, unlike some of the earlier ones. Clouds of Witness and Unnatural Death are also good pre-Vane novels. Only then should you start Strong Poison, followed by Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. How I envy you having them all ahead of you!

You will spot the Lymond parallels but Sayers wrote the character first. Wimsey is fundamentally a kinder man than Lymond and there are few moments of high drama, but lots of humour and in Gaudy Night at least a deft exploration of the choices women face which has contemporary resonance. Read this article and give Sayers a go.

Yes, Nine Tai!ors was my first Wimsey. I was given it for Christmas when I was about fourteen. Unlike some of the other Wimseys, it doesn't have a lot of stuff in foreign, and it has Hilary Thorpe, so it's quite a good one to give to a teenage girl.

I re-read Gaudy Night regularly, and nearly always find something new in it.

I think I've said before that I like to think Wimsey is descended from the Crawfords on his mother's side.

I tried Vorkosigan once, but couldn't get into it. Keep thinking I should try again. Maybe one day.

Ha! I love the responses....so I'm not the only one :)

Thanks all! That's a lot of lovely books to read when I'm finally ready to let Lymond go.

At the moment, I must say, the second read is even better. I'm still sobbing at the chess game and laughing uncontrollably at the post Calais dinner antics.....among others.....

And DH is finding it hilarious that I seem to start blushing whenever I try to describe Francis Crawford to him (I thought I had lost the ability to blush decades ago)

In the BBC's obit of Lord Snowdon, who's just died, they've got his portrait of Bowie as a young man: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38611497

Is that Lymond?

There's a read through starting soon on Goodreads, I might join in... anyone else?

www.goodreads.com/group/show/202000-dorothy-dunnet-book-club

Thanks...I might do. I know the books are fiction :) (obviously!) but now when I read about Mary (Q of S) or Elizabeth's court after the books have ended it feels like I could almost fit Lymond in there :)

Who else could have thought of the Chaseabout raid :)

Or how he must have moved to England during the Darnley years and started the trade moves between the Muslim world and Elizabeth's court.

And finally died peacefully in his bed when James became the king of England and Scotland.

I need to get my life back :) :)

Aren't they wonderful? Read them as they were first published when I was a teenager. And I like her detective novels about Johnson, the portrait painter, too but they are long vanished except from second shops.

Robin Hobb and her creation Fitz have filled the gap for me. Also Neal Stephenson has written some epic books. I loved Cryptonomicon and the System of the World series.

Nothing ever quite fills the gap!

You might like Guy Gabriel Kay - (who wrote a good tribute to DD when she died) He writes historical fantasy but is good at creating worlds and characters. Robin Hobbs and Fitz are very good. And for characters you believe carry on living after you finish the books you can't beat the Poldark series, much better than the TV series. Which brings me to another worry about the proposed Lymond drama on TV....

Who could play Francis Crawford on TV? Who could dramatise the sheer epic scale? I want to see it, and I cringe at the inevitable disaster. If the proposed series is for real, I shan't be able to resist watching but I fear it will be something to watch with a pillow to bury my face in close at hard.

I regularly have a dream where I find a Peter Wimsey book I've never read. The excitement! I sit down with it, open the first page and... wake up. Cue a day where I can't quite work out why I am slightly woeful.

You don't move on, ever. I have read them through ten times over the last 30 or so years, due a re read about now. I love the House of Niccolo books equally too and when you see how the characters are tied to each other, well, my mind was truly blown!

This was fun

I'm starting from the beginning.

Game of Kings 99p in Kindle autumn sale

There will other books. There will even be other good books (Niccolo, Wimsey, Fitz etc) but there will never be anything quite as good as the first read of Lymond.

I discovered them in 1984 and read them whilst breastfeeding my first child. There was no internet and I had no-one to discuss them with for years. Still reread every few years but nothing compares to the first time.

Based on this thread I've just blown 99p on the kindle version of the first book. I've never read these, pretty certain I tried the Niccolo books many years ago but couldn't get on with them.