robinturner | Don John of Austria is going to the war

I am approaching the end of Ottoman, a book by Alan Savage (not his real name) in the spirit of earlier blockbusters like Moghul. It's a dynastic novel following the fortunes of the Hawkwood family, who go to Constantinople to defend it from the Turks, but run foul of Byzantine intrigues and end up serving the Ottoman Empire for several generations, thus allowing the author to include everyone from Mehmet the Conqueror to Selim the Sot, with bit-parts for Barbarossa and the Borgias. It's all good clean fun, replete with battles, court politics and feisty European wenches forced to submit to the lusts of the Turk, or at least to the Turkified Englishman. However, after 600 pages, all this is starting to get a little repetitive, and I'm starting to think "Hahah, you're never going to take Vienna, and the Battle of Lepanto is just round the corner!"