Issue 3: Review of a bad historical novel

Welcome to the third issue of Scuttlebook, and the first to be paywalled. This is an experiment so we’ll see how it goes.

Why are so many of our historical novels so mediocre?

I’ve been reviewing books professionally now for a dozen years. When I was looking over my spreadsheet to choose content for Scuttlebook I spotted some trends in the ways I pass judgements. One is that I often think pretty poorly of local historical fiction. A lot of it is written by white people reinforcing the story that, although colonisation had its pain points, overall it was for the best. (I disagree.) On a more technical level, there are very few authors in this country who have both the informed historical imagination and the creative writing skills necessary to write good historical novels. The book I'm reviewing here is a particularly egregious example.