For the most part, the second season of “Marco Polo” focuses on characters we already know from season 1, with a few interlopers here and there like Pope Gregory X and some new Mongol khans. Season 2 ...

The Crusades had been raging for over a century, and Christian forces were exhausted, with morale at an all-time low. Byzantine Emperor Kemnenos was at his wits' end, facing deteriorating relations ...

We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 7,093,3841-part monthly series, Wiki Wormhole. This week’s entry: Prester John What it’s about: A legendary medieval king, who ruled over an opulent land ...

Catherynne M. Valente, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-59780-199-7 In 1165, a letter ostensibly written by the distant Christian king Prester John ...

Somewhere in the skirts of the fabled land of Prester John, late in the 12th century, Baudolino, the protagonist of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, encounters a pygmy. He discovers that ‘the greeting to ...

(Spoilers ahead for large chunks season 2 of the Netflix original series “Marco Polo,” including the season finale. And a disclaimer: Yes, we know “Marco Polo” is a fictionalized dramatization of ...