next, meet the author, and jim naughtie talks to novelist conn iggulden.e decided to cast away historical setting and get rid of real characters that we might know and gone into fantasy — if it's a word you're happy with. why? i've always loved historicalfiction. i've always read it, and my entire career has been built around it, but i've also always read fantasy, and the big difference, to some extent, is the freedom. in historicalfiction, you have to check every single fact, otherwise somebody will e—mail you — a roman re—enactor, something along those lines. but with fantasy, it felt like i had a slightly... the reins were off. i didn't have too stop in the middle of a scene and think, "did they have sidesaddle in this particular...?" hang on, she's a woman on a horse, would she have been riding sidesaddle? which is my constant experience in historicalfiction. you make it up. well, exactly, you have that freedom. in historicalfiction, you do feel the constraints, because it has to be as accurate as possible, you have to find a story in the real history.

now, on meet the author, jim naughtie talks to conn iggulden — an historical fiction novelist who hasd gone into fantasy — if it's a word you're happy with. why? i've always loved historicalfiction. i've always read it and my entire career has been built around it, but i've also always read fantasy and the big difference, to some extent, is the freedom. in historicalfiction you have to check every single fact, otherwise somebody will e—mail you — a roman re—enactor, something along those lines. but with fantasy it felt like i had a slightly... the reins were off. i didn't have too stop in the middle of a see them think, "did they have sidesaddle in this particular...?" hang on, she's a woman on a horse, would she have been riding sidesaddle? which is my constant experience in historicalfiction. you make it up. well, exactly, you have that freedom. in historicalfiction, you do feel the constraints because it has to be as accurate as possible, you have to find a story in the real history. of course, you've got an army of readers and they've enjoyed ancient rome, the mongol empire, the w