The Writers' Lounge

All groups of people have different attitudes about most anything. Hell, different city states in Greece had radically different views of women, even within the same time period. (As did different groups of people throughout the classical world, which encompasses a huge amount of territory and stretches out over a rather long length of time. Arguably, the Celts were part of that, too, and I suspect that their customs shifted depending on the exact tribe and time.)

Either way, though, none of these groups were either peace loving or matriarchal. (In fact, the few existing matriarchal societies we know of were not particularly peace loving. Certainly the Iriquois managed to be feared despite being a matriarchy.)

It would be nice to find historical fiction, though, that actually used history. (Esp. in less common eras. I think I have enough Enlightenment stuff to last me for the rest of my life. Yes, yes, the Tudors were like a soap opera, but there are so many other fascinating eras!)

I agree that at a certain point, a writer has to extrapolate. We honestly have no idea how a Gallic tribe in 1,000 BCE differed from a Romanian tribe. (I'd guess that probably your best basis would be the Myceneans, who were ethnically fairly similar and we have some archaeological and oral records of.) But you really do hit a point where you don't know and can't find out (or could but it would take forever). And that's fine, really. I just wish that people who wrote things in these times opened a few books on the period once in a while and read them. *sigh*

I agree, too, that research based fantasy tends to be a lot better than "I just want to throw stuff in here" fantasy. But I have a higher tolerance for crap there as it can be handwaved away. (How does a queen who spins with a drop spindle have 400 dresses? MAGIC!)

I suspect you are right regarding people not caring much, seeing as how much stuff that fails wildly on that is published. It still doesn't mean that I can't care, though. ;)