To get out of the Celtic-Roman-Viking rut a bit (and now for something completely different)....
Blood and Sand is one of Sutcliff's adult novels, set in the 19th century Ottoman Empire. It's based on the true story of Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier who converted to Islam and fought for the Ottomans. Here's the summary:
The Ottoman Empire (that "Sick Old Man of Europe"), is the setting of an aptly titled novel that examines the loyalty between men that helps makes warfare bearable. Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier during the Napoleonic wars, is captured in 1807 in the Nile delta by Turkish forces under the Egyptian viceroy. With no reason to rejoin the English forces, he is persuaded to become an officer in the viceroy's army. Training for desert warfare, and witnessing the fellowship and piety of the Bedouin troops, he converts to Islam. During a long but unsuccessful campaign to free the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from forces hostile to the Turks, Thomas commands a troop of cavalry, marries a girl he has rescued and serves as amir (governor) of Medina, making a close friend of Tussun Bey, the viceroy's son. Loyalty and friendship are the strong thread on which Sutcliffe strings her stirring narrative--most of it based on historical fact. In this veteran British author's hands, what might have become merely a harsh tale of violence in the deserts of Arabia becomes a memorable, sensitively rendered story.
It is not exactly a happy book (based on true story, and so far I've yet to read a Sutcliff novel based on a true story that wasn't a tragedy), but it is ridiculously, almost over-the-top homoerotic. I originally bought this because of the superficial similarities to Lawrence of Arabia, my fandom at the time, and having read it, they're very superficial--Thomas isn't at all like Lawrence, and Tussun Bey is nothing like Ali--but it's just about as homoerotic. For example, right after they go naked swimming:
He was aware of an abrupt movement beside him and when he looked round the boy had come up to his elbow and was looking with concerned interest at the entry scar of the musket ball just below his, Thomas's, hip. It would fade and turn silvery by and by, but now it was still purplish and had the indefinable look of being tight and sore.
"That was at El Hamed?" Tussun said.
"Yes."
"Ssss," the boy sucked in his breath between his teeth. "It must have been a sharp hurt in its time."
"Sharp enough," Thomas agreed. "But I had a good surgeon. In a year it will be small enough--almost--to cover with the ball of my thumb."
Tussun put out a slim brown hand, and with the unselfconscious ease of old friendship [NOTE: THEY MET YESTERDAY], set his own thumb lightly over the puckered and livid place. "In a year, maybe," he said judicially, "assuredly there is a way to go yet."
Also, because this is an adult novel, everyone knows what sex is. Sometimes they even have it. There is a graphic description of circumcision which uh, kind of surprised me. And Thomas does eventually marry (his relationship with his wife is pretty interesting!). There are aspects of it regarding women and especially women's sexuality that kind of bothered me, but other aspects that didn't.
There are actually two stories in this fandom on AO3, which I think probably puts it #3? or at least tied? for most-written Sutcliff fandoms.
Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand is one of Sutcliff's adult novels, set in the 19th century Ottoman Empire. It's based on the true story of Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier who converted to Islam and fought for the Ottomans. Here's the summary:
The Ottoman Empire (that "Sick Old Man of Europe"), is the setting of an aptly titled novel that examines the loyalty between men that helps makes warfare bearable. Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier during the Napoleonic wars, is captured in 1807 in the Nile delta by Turkish forces under the Egyptian viceroy. With no reason to rejoin the English forces, he is persuaded to become an officer in the viceroy's army. Training for desert warfare, and witnessing the fellowship and piety of the Bedouin troops, he converts to Islam. During a long but unsuccessful campaign to free the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from forces hostile to the Turks, Thomas commands a troop of cavalry, marries a girl he has rescued and serves as amir (governor) of Medina, making a close friend of Tussun Bey, the viceroy's son. Loyalty and friendship are the strong thread on which Sutcliffe strings her stirring narrative--most of it based on historical fact. In this veteran British author's hands, what might have become merely a harsh tale of violence in the deserts of Arabia becomes a memorable, sensitively rendered story.
It is not exactly a happy book (based on true story, and so far I've yet to read a Sutcliff novel based on a true story that wasn't a tragedy), but it is ridiculously, almost over-the-top homoerotic. I originally bought this because of the superficial similarities to Lawrence of Arabia, my fandom at the time, and having read it, they're very superficial--Thomas isn't at all like Lawrence, and Tussun Bey is nothing like Ali--but it's just about as homoerotic. For example, right after they go naked swimming:
More ridiculously homoerotic bits at my journal; includes a brief neutral mention by a character of pederasty.
Also, because this is an adult novel, everyone knows what sex is. Sometimes they even have it. There is a graphic description of circumcision which uh, kind of surprised me. And Thomas does eventually marry (his relationship with his wife is pretty interesting!). There are aspects of it regarding women and especially women's sexuality that kind of bothered me, but other aspects that didn't.
There are actually two stories in this fandom on AO3, which I think probably puts it #3? or at least tied? for most-written Sutcliff fandoms.