Thanks to everyone for your feedback. Yes, Sam, I have read Robyn Young's brethren series, and I enjoyed it very much. Shirley, thanks for persevering and making it all the way to the bottom shelf! And finally, Ilhan, thank you for your detailed feedback. The points you raise are all true, but with one exception, I was aware of them when I wrote the book and intentionally diverged from the historic record for dramatic purposes. Yes, Murad led the Ottoman army at Kosovo, but I wanted to establish Mehmed's character and capture the (historically accurate) tensions between Mehmed and Murad, without going into too much back story. Putting Mehmed in Kosovo and leaving Murad in Edirne is how I accomplished this. I don't believe I stated that Halil Pasha started the devshirme system, but only that he took briefly part in rounding up children (although that, too, is a bit of a stretch). Naturally, Mehmed did not kill Ladislas himself, but it makes for a very nice dramatic moment. I could add many other "inaccuracies" to your (thankfully) short list. There are many schools of thought regarding the need for absolute historical accuracy in historical fiction. For my opinion, take a look at my blog entry, "History or Fiction?" I am myself a professional historian, and perhaps paradoxically, this has led me to be more liberal than some when it comes to adjusting history for dramatic purposes. I do, however, endeavor to faithfully reconstruct the important events and the texture of the past. In SIEGE, the basic chronology of the siege, the characters involved, and even some of the more spectacular events (the ships overland or tunnels under the wall) are based in fact. That said, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that yes, Mehmed could not have been declared sultan in the Eyub Sultan Mosque, which, as you rightly point out, is in Istanbul. This ceremony would most likely have taken place in the Eski Cami or the Üç Serefeli Mosque. Alas, even historians sometimes make mistakes.