A Taste of Freedom... or a Taste of Poison?
Maybe it's the near-total absence of any modern technology, or perhaps it's nothing more than the simple yearning for something totally different (the "grass is always greener" syndrome)... but whatever the reason, there's this special sort of magic that I often feel when reading something set in the long-ago past--especially if it's a past full of horses and castles. (No, I never once actually wished for a pony as a child... although I wouldn't have minded living in my very own castle for awhile. Of course, the lack of electricity and questionable indoor "plumbing" would have made the whole castle dream fall apart pretty quickly, so... yeah, it's probably for the best that particular wish was never fulfilled.) A lot of people like to read about yesteryear because they think it evokes a more "innocent" time, but I disagree. After all, there's certainly no shortage of "bad stuff" going on in most historical books; for...