History is never simple, finite, without contradiction, or even perfectly knowable. It is never completely objective. It is constantly changing. Those who write historical fiction are equally products of history. But the writer of historical fiction has a different task than the historian.
Historical fiction uses the past so as to better understand the present.
To pretend otherwise is silly, as silly as to suggest that history is simply objective fact. I do not wish to do that. It is my desire to use the past to write about today. In short, there is a vital distinction to be made between the historian and the writer of historical fiction. They who write history get to alter the past.