Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety, about the French Revolution and the lives of some historical revolutionaries, is lovely. Some of it is pretty iffy (like the portrayal of some of the female characters) but on the whole it's a very solidly researched (she got the reason for Montané's arrest right! no one does that, not even non-fiction writers) and incredibly broad book with lots of stuff lifted right out of primary sources. In fact, the main artistic criticism of it seems to be that she uses way too many historical facts, and it seems like she's showing off.

ETA: To answer the first question, I will jump on anything that looks even remotely decent if its about the French Revolution.

Well, I try not to get too upset about inaccuracy as long as there's a point to it -- I'll happily allow poetic license to make an interesting story or develop characters. I am ESPECIALLY willing to do so when the author is open about the changes they've decided to make. Favourites of mine set in classical history include McCullough's First Man in Rome series (not actually that much bad history here so much as assumptions to fill in blank spaces), Davis's Falco mysteries (please don't try to learn history from these, and they get tired later in the series, but nevertheless fun), Pressfield's various military HF's. Things that immediately strike me things I did not enjoy reading were Saylor's books on Rome (I can't explain why, but he never clicked with me), Iggulden's Rome books (I liked his Mongol books much better, but it may because I know less about that subject), Michael Curtis Ford's various Rome-era HF (I think I honestly like Mithridates less after reading the simpering mess that was "The Last King"), but I have to say that my crown for "what is going on in this mess" has to go to the absolutely painful metaphorical eye-gouging that is Napier's recent attempt at a trilogy on Attila.

I'm not an expert or anything, but the Master and Commander series by Patrick O'brian goes into great detail about navy life in the royal navy in the Napoleonic era. I've been led to believe that it has many historical accuracies (would love to know if that is not the case though). Of course, there is plenty of poetic license.

hi! not discouraging anyone from providing their recommendations, but FYI, we've got a collection of posts archived in the FAQ* - check it out for previous suggestions/reviews

Historical fiction (novels)

*see the link on the sidebar or the wiki tab

I'm not sure if this is allowed as I'm a history buff that was inspired by historical fiction, but I'll take my chances... C S Forester's Hornblower series and Bernard Cornwelll's Sharpe series for the Napoleonic Wars,; James Cavel's Shogun etc. for far eastern history; and Bernard Cornwell again for Saxon England...some of my favorite authors. All are great reads that try to be true to history.

For the Middle Ages, a few stand out

(1) Sir Walter Scott

(2) Umberto Eco

(3) Alfred Duggan

All three researched extensively before writing, though Scott's language may sound a little archaic since he died in 1832.

I have an additional question: How accurate is War and Peace since it has almost an entire volume dedicated to warfare with maps and all?

Yes, The Narrenturm trilogy by Andrzej Sapkowski is definitely worth reading. Its about the Hussite Wars. Good books quite interesting. Some awesome characters. The setting is quite close to reality.

Alfred Duggan's books are terrific.

I can't really say the topics are my expertise but I know Bernard Cornwell writes really good historical fiction mostly set in England. My favorite series is the Saxon Series. It intertwines the invasion of England by the Danes with his own twist. A lot of the characters were real and they all play a part int he story.

Murusaki Shikibu.

While Genji Monogatari is fiction, it is one of the best looks into the Heian era that we have. No fiction from the time would be Shonagon's The Pollow Book.

I would war the causal reader that the Genji is not exactly.... Light....

More like 1200 pages...

Edit because I now understand that your are talking about modern fiction of the time, rather than fiction written during our periods...

There is some Manga about it, but it's all pretty much magic or soft pornography... So... No... Not really.

I quite enjoyed Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories. They are not necessarily the most accurate; the author himself acknowledges that some of the characterizations were down for poetic license and unfair to the actual people involved, but at least he recognizes it.

So I can't believe no one has said this man, but Eric Larson's texts are great. The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts are wonderful fiction/nonfiction type novels. In Garden, the quotations Larson attributes to his characters (the family of American ambassador to Nazi Germany) all come from extensive primary source research, including utilization of Ambassador William Dodd's well preserved notes. When I asked eminent Nazi Germany scholar Dr. Richard Breitman about Larson's work, he replied that he knew of the piece (he was included in Larson's bibliography) and understood that while Larson would push a much more influential role to Dodd's actual role, the author would present an accurate portrayal of life as an American in Nazi Germany.

David Liss "The Coffee Trader". He actually lists his sources in the end- I nearly cried with academic joy. It's early modern Europe. He has several other books about the period as well.