"Favorite Ancients Novel (Round 1N)" Topic

Why no Conan (or any REH) on these lists?

(1) history; (2) novel. His historical pieces are sometimes very good, but they're short stories. And there aren't many of them, because as he pointed out, no one was paying him enough to compensate for the research that went into "Shadow of the Vulture" or "The Gray God Passes." Howard's only novels are The Hour of the Dragon and Almuric. Almuric he may have left unfinished, and in any event, that's one fantasy and one sword and planet SF. A total of zero historical novels of any period for anyone to nominate. And if you're not historical, you can't be ancients.

Errr, yes. I don't consider Game of Thrones historical.

You realize, John, that then I had to go back through the Interminable Poll to make sure no one had slipped in either Martin or Tolkien? We appear to be safe so far. I'm trying to think who else might be a possibility. C. J. Cherryh, I suppose. Poul Anderson and Avram Davidson both did fantasy novels in ancient historical settings, which might actually be arguable. I think Lois McMaster Bujold's excellent The Spirit Ring falls just outside of the expanded dates. John Ford's The Dragon Waiting breaks pretty much all the rules, but breaks them very well.

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp would fit in the time period, but it's a time travel novel with drastic departures from history because of it. Fun read though, and my introduction to Belisarius decades ago.

I'd forgotten de Camp! But then I usually find de Camp pretty forgettable. You're right, though: like Davidson's "Peregrine" and Anderson's "The Merman's Children" you could make a case for it.