Monday, November 26, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman




Terra Nullius is a speculative fiction novel published in 2017 in Australia that was brought this year to the US by Small Beer Press.  Small Beer Press is a small mostly SF/F publisher that publishes what is usually less typical and sometimes more "literary" SF/F works, and I've yet to find a book (this is the 5th book I've theirs I've read) published by SBP that isn't at least rather interesting (and usually tough to review).  In fact "interesting" underrates my opinion of these books, which I've generally reviewed as being either "worth a read" or "must read."  And Terra Nullius is an example of the latter category - this is a must read book.

Note that I said "must read" and not "enjoyable" - Terra Nullius is not a book to be enjoyed and it doesn't want to be.  Coleman is a Wirloman Noongar (Indigenous Australian) woman and it is the experiences of the Indigenous Australian peoples that forms the background for this novel - and as you would imagine if you know what happened to the Native peoples around the world when Europeans came to colonize, the result is incredibly brutal.  But all of this brutality serves a purpose, and when the book pulls the rug out from under the reader with its twist halfway through, it creates a truly shocking and powerful book that really should be read by everyone.

Trigger Warning:  This is a rough book, with physical abuse of both children and adults being present, as one might imagine from the subject matter.  Sexual abuse and rape in its usual form is not present, although forced reproduction is a plot point.  None of this content however is gratuitous (and mostly occurs off screen) and it is all justified by the story.

----------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Jacky is a young Native man who was taken from his family as a little child, sent to a Settler mission for reeducation and then given to a Settler farm to work as a laborer.  When he escapes from the farm, he seeks to find his family and his home, but he no longer knows where it is.  But the story of his escape, and his continued eluding of the Settler forces sent to track him begins to inspire other Natives to start to rise up against their Settler overlords.

But the gap between the Natives and Settlers in firepower and technology is too great to be ignored.  And as Settlers and Natives come into conflict, more and more massacres continue to happen.  The Settlers justify this by claiming the Natives aren't intelligent people, but merely animals.  This is certainly the view of Mission head Sister Bagra, who despises the Natives she is to reeducate and brutally punishes them for any dissent.

Settler soldier Johnny Star participates in one of these slaughters, and sickened by the murder of what are clearly intelligent people and goes outlaw, working with some Natives to terrify the Settler population.

Young Native Woman Esperance, born after the Settlers came and changed everything, works to try and lead her camp of refugee Natives as they flee Settlers and try to do anything to survive.

The only advantage the Natives have is the desert climate that is so utterly inhospitable to the Settlers is just barely bearable for them.  But when it all comes to a head and the Settlers' hand is forced, is there any hope for a future for the Natives at all?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terra Nullius is a brutal brutal book, but incredibly powerful.  Each chapter is began with a quote from a text or letter about the situation from a variety of sources (letters, speeches, publications) and these quotes feel incredibly like they were taken from real sources about the real colonization of Australia, but according to the author, these are all original, just made in the style of real life quotes.  They are incredibly chilling, especially as the book goes on and we learn more of what is really going on.

Otherwise, the book alternates viewpoints within chapters between various characters, with the main one being Jacky, but others, such as Johnny Star, Bagra, Esperance, and a few others also having major perspectives to show off what is happening in this world.  Coleman is excellent ant portraying each of these character's different viewpoints - whether they are what we would consider evil or good - to show the oppression occurring in this book, and the little means of resistance that are available to the Natives.  The result is a book that made it impossible for me to turn away from reading on for long - even when I had a strong feeling about where we were going and was dreading it, I couldn't resist turning the page for too long despite plenty of other things to do on my phone (where I read my ebooks).

I was spoiled about the book's big turn by a prior review, but I'm only going to talk about that spoiler here in ROT13: Gur ovt gjvfg unysjnl guebhtu gur obbx vf fvzcyr ohg tnzrpunatvat: guvf vfa'g n obbx nobhg Uvfgbevpny Nhfgenyvn jvgu gur Frggyref orvat Rhebcrna naq gur Angvirf orvat Vaqvtrabhf Crbcyrf.  Ab, gur Frggyref ner nyvraf naq gur Angvirf ner gur erznvaf bs uhznavgl, jub jrer dhvpxyl qrsrngrq qhr gb grpuabybtvpny vasrevbevgl.  V xarj guvf gjvfg tbvat va, ohg vg fgvyy ynaqrq vaperqvoyl cbjreshyyl, nf vg gheaf gur fgbel ba vgf urnq ol cynpvat nyy bs uhznavgl va gur Angvirf' erny jbeyq cbfvgvba.

Gur fgbel bs Angvir fhowhtngvba cebonoyl fubhyqa'g erdhver fhpu n gjvfg gb or zber eryngr-noyr naq cbjreshy gb fbzrbar abg bs gurve crbcyr, ohg vg fgvyy qbrf znxr vg zber cbjreshy va gung jnl nalubj orpnhfr vg orpbzrf rira zber oryvrinoyr naq greevslvat.  Naq nf gur obbx tbrf ba sebz gur gjvfg, rnpu eriryngvba orpbzrf zber oryvrinoyr qhr gb gur uvfgbevpny cnenyyryf, gb gur cbvag jurer gur ernqre jvyy xabj jurer gur obbx vf tbvat...naq lrg or hanoyr gb ghea njnl.

The result of all this is a powerful depressing tale of oppression and how colonization can be the most destructive force imaginable in terms of erasing peoples and their whole culture.  The title of this book, "Terra Nullius," represents the legal principle (the Latin translates to "No one's Land") by which Australian settlers declared that Australian land was not populated by humans, but by no one who could really make any claim to it, and that anyone they encountered on it must be crushed beneath their heels and used for their own purposes.  Nowadays we look upon this idea with horror as we know the tragedy it caused and this book uses the genre trappings of Science Fiction to show us how this story can still repeat itself.  This is not a tragedy of the past, it is a continuing one and the events of the past can be repeated, as this book aptly demonstrates.

Chilling and so very real, Terra Nullius demands to be read. 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)