Keith Leonard Dansey

I now write under the pen-name Len Dansey and, after the twenty years I have been writing with serious intent, I have finally settled into the historical fiction genre. ‘Quest-Hunger’ was my first satisfactory attempt although now I might retitle it ‘When We Came Near to Camelot’ for the resonance that name has for the modern reader. Then I wrote ‘The Double Seal’ in which the Byzantine emperor Justinian comes close to reconstituting the lost Roman Empire. My most recent publication is ‘The Emperor Who Wanted to Be a Saint’ in which Charlemagne, King of the Franks, achieved much the same thing as Justinian, only for him to fail in the end even more miserably than Justinian had done. A common theme has emerged over these three novels. All three concern an exceptional ruler with, to them, a vision of a better world whether it be a united, Celtic Britain, a Roman, or a Christian empire. So why did all three fail? All three books attempt to depict historical forces beyond the control of the individual. Logically, chronologically, if one were to pursue this theme, it must be through either the Vikings, or Islam. What vision of a better world were they pursuing when they beset a struggling Europe from north and south? Those who have an answer might contribute to my blog on www.lendansey.co.uk