Review: The Musketeers First Season

The Musketeers is a BBC series based on the characters of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but taking the story to new directions and re-imagining the characters and history itself with relatively free hand. But, what could have been a confused mess and as uncomfortable to watch as the similarly envisioned Young Blades from ten years ago, actually turns out to be rather a decent adventure series. For a history enthusiast, it has quite a few problems, of course, but - then again - every film and TV series set in historical era usually does.

Pérez-Reverte's Pirates of the Levant

The sixth book in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Alatriste series continues the adventures of the "Spanish musketeers". After having found themselves in a position at the end of the previous installment of the series where they deem it best to stay away from Spain for a while, Alatriste and his companions travel to Naples and take part in some very exciting sea adventures.

Review of The Three Musketeers (1948)

Having read several people praising the 1948 version of The Three Musketeers as the best film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel, I decided to dig it up and watch it for myself. I think I've seen it before once, but that was when I was still in my single digits and the memory was mixed with all other swashbuckling films that I saw at that age. Thus, I decided that I needed to refresh my memory to make my own judgement of the film adaptations of the Dumas' novel.

The Three Musketeers in an Alternate Universe

The Three Musketeers (2011) is a film that really should not be viewed as historical fiction. Rather, it is an example of historical fantasy, where realistic historical aspects are mixed with fantastical creations in the style of airships and biker leather jackets. In short, if you go in the theatre with an open mind, not expecting the movie to have much to do with Alexandre Dumas' classic story or actual history, you might well expect to be entertained. Unfortunately, the movie has other shortcomings that detract from the experience even when one's expectations are as low as that.

The Sword of Gustavus Adolphus

(Updated in 2014 with a photo, in 2017 with information about The Girl King film)

In my previous entry, I took a look at the rapier of Gustavus Vasa, who was the king of Sweden in the 16th century. The topic of this short info piece is the sword of Gustavus Adolphus (or Gustav II Adolf), who ruled Sweden in the early 17th century and modernised the country from a backwards state into one of the greatest powers of the era, rivalling those of France, Spain, England and The Holy Roman Empire.

The Sword of Gustavus Vasa

Because of my interest in swords in general and in the early 17th century specifically, I've always had a certain fondness for rapiers. The title image of this blog entry depicts one of the rapiers of Gustavus Vasa, who was the king of Sweden in the 16th century and pretty much created Sweden by uniting the country under his rule and ridding it of Danish influence.