# The knight-in-shining armor factor...



## Konrad (Feb 14, 2013)

This may be an odd bias--and I guess it's not really a complete bias--but as I've gotten older I tend to prefer a certain kind of traditional fantasy, which is partly based on my favorite image of the "knights in shining armor" of the Middle Ages. 

I don't mean chain mail knights or the kinds of French foot soldiers you see in early drawings, and nope, I don't mean renaissance figures. I mean knights of the kind that we see in Game of Thrones... Maybe it's childish, but I have to admit that this is one of the reasons I have been hooked on the series. The armor, the weapons, the pre-gun powder era where in fact the most complex weapon would likely have been a crossbow. 

I believe I'm talking about the High Middle Ages/just before the Crusades (although I know gun powder was used early on in Britain). 

This may be a distinctively American attachment to certain themes (or really an attachment to what my conception of British "modern" Middle Age imagery happens to be--think movie armor takes on King Arthur). This is probably not historically correct at all, but I think that since I was a child the very imagery of knights in armor took hold in a certain, possibly predictable form. 

At any rate, I find myself drawn to such novels and films based partly on fantasy (or history) set in a very specific time frame. The exception to this would be novels such as "Q" or "In the Name of the Rose," which are set in different time frames, but again these are not fantasy, but historical novels. 

Which beings me, rather belatedly, to my point: which fantasy novels would you recommend that you believe fall into this "High Middle Ages" backdrop? (I mean image-wise, of course, not necessarily the actual time period.) 

I can think of a few, but then again they may just be me forcing my favorite costumes and settings on a story I happen to be addicted to... After all, denial can be a wonderful thing.

K


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## Steerpike (Feb 14, 2013)

Try Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, or A Song For Arbonne (the latter of which is described as being based on the troubadour culture that rose in Provence during the High Middle Ages).


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## ThinkerX (Feb 14, 2013)

You might try Kurtz's 'Dernyi' series - lots of knights and intrigue, a boy-king having to learn politics in a hurry, and a lot of high ranking church officials seeking to eradicate the Dernyi (heriditary mages).  As the boy-king is a deryni...things get complicated...he's both morally good and politically ruthless.


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## CupofJoe (Feb 15, 2013)

Just about anything by David & Leigh Eddings is in this "high" style, especially the Elenium [The Diamond Throne (1989), The Ruby Knight (1990), The Sapphire Rose (1991)] and Tamuli [Domes of Fire (1992), The Shining Ones (1993), The Hidden City (1994)] series [the one's with Sparhawk as an main character...]


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## Konrad (Feb 16, 2013)

Cool suggestions...

Thanks!

K


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