It doesn’t make sense, but (horse) Show Jumping is one of the world’s youngest professional sports. Organized jumping is barely 100 years old. It was not known that horses could jump large fences until the 18th Century, when fox hunting was threatened by the Enclosure Laws that fenced previously open land.
A century ago we seemed [...]
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The following is an archived review from Bob Spear of Heartland Reviews. Mr. Spear is no longer offering his standard review service, which is a loss to the industry. In his words: “My health and time constraints preclude me from offering free book reviews any more. If the mainstream reviewers such as Kirkus, Foreword Magazine, [...]
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For Immediate Release
Contact: Robert Hall | Micron Press 617-301-2901
History at a Gallop: “Eclipsed by Shadow” wins 2009 Reader Views Literary Award
BOSTON – The critically acclaimed first volume of a bold new trilogy about the history of horsemanship has won in the Fantasy category of the 2008 Reader Views Literary Awards. Veteran horseman John Royce has [...]
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This post begins a timeline to discuss the various eras traveled in “Eclipsed by Shadow,” and the rest of “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy. The first era is Pre-History.
Man’s long, colorful relationship with the horse is revealed in one of humanity’s oldest creative impulses: Art. The equine image has adorned virtually every medium [...]
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One thing you notice when researching historical fiction like “Eclipsed by Shadow” is how much human history is owed to the horse. Civilization advanced through adapting to the horse’s outlook.
Horsemanship is a civilized encounter with an alien mind. Horses are a “prey” species whose code is: “he who quickly runs away, lives to run another [...]
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In researching Eclipsed by Shadow and the other books of the Great Horse trilogy, it became clear there is a universal equestrian literary tradition. From the ancient Greek General Xenophon’s Anabasis, one of the earliest surviving works of journalism, through chivalric literature to Romantic novels to pulp westerns and up through today, horses have been [...]
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