Giveaway & Guest Post: Ben Kane, Author of Spartacus the Gladiator

Spartacus the Gladiator is currently on tour and receiving excellent reviews. Here’s your chance to not only win a copy for yourself, but find out about the research that Ben Kane did to write it. Please welcome Ben Kane to So Many Precious Books.

Research is an intimate part of writing historical fiction. It’s the foundation upon which each good story rests, and as such, it needs to be robust and well-laid. In my opinion, without a good basis in reality or fact, historical fiction becomes either historical fantasy or alternate history. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those genres ― I’m fond of them myself, especially the latter ― but they fall into a different classification to the books I write.

Some textbooks can be very dry, full of details that tell us much about the structure, politics and  customs of ancient society but which reveal precious little about the real people who lived so long ago. Nonetheless, there’s great enjoyment to be had ― for me at least! ― in soaking up some of the huge quantity of information to be found inside the covers of textbooks. At times, the knowledge doesn’t always seem relevant, but it often becomes useful at a later time.  There is also a guilty pleasure in spending a few days in a café, reading texts and making notes. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like real work, although of course it is!

Museums have been places of great interest to me since I was a child. Back then, I could easily spend an entire day in places such as the Imperial War Museum. I can still do the same now, but I am usually searching for a specific item or exhibition. It can also be tremendously useful to spend time in the historical sites where men such as Julius Caesar may have stood. I’ve been to Rome three times, and on each occasion, I have never failed to find large number of facts/details to use in my books. In October 2011, I was lucky enough to make a one week trip to Italy, during which I retraced the route taken by Spartacus in his epic struggle against Rome.

And so despite the fact that nothing physical  ― buildings,  writings, clothes or weapons ― remains of men such as Spartacus, their memory lives on in certain places. I think it will do so forever.

While working in Northumberland in 2001/2, his love of ancient history was fuelled by visits to Hadrian’s Wall. He naïvely decided to write bestselling Roman novels, a plan which came to fruition after several years of working full time at two jobs – being a vet and writing. Retrospectively, this was an unsurprising development, because since his childhood, Ben has been fascinated by Rome, and particularly, its armies. He now lives in North Somerset with his wife and family, where he has sensibly given up veterinary medicine to write full time.

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