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Terra Nullius
Jacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.
The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.
This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history.
The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.
This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history.
294 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 2017
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October 15, 2017
This deceptively simple novel offers a powerful and damning examination of Australia's colonial history and the price paid by the continent's diverse first peoples. It is also impossible to discuss or review this book without destroying the source of its impact, so I will offer a very short, non-spoiler review followed by a proper one that you should absolutely not read if you intend to read this book. Let's not make the same mistake they made with Never Let Me Go, people!
The title Terra Nullius refers to the British empire's claim upon the continent of Australia, a claim that was justified on the erroneous but useful insistence that it was unclaimed land. 'Terra nullius', a Latin term, is generally translated as 'nobody's land', meaning that the British claimed the continent for themselves, without a treaty, because they argued that it didn't belong to anyone - and certainly not the natives, because they did not appear to farm it or own it as Europeans understand land ownership (Aboriginal peoples did, in fact, have territory, homes, rich and diverse cultural beliefs and traditions, industry and agriculture, it just wasn't recognised by the colonisers). The myth of terra nullius continued long into the 20th century when it was finally, officially nixed by the Australian High Court in 1992 when it ruled, at the culmination of the Mabo case, that the land was owned and occupied by others, before the Europeans.
Coleman's Terra Nullius is instantly recognisable as a colonial narrative written from a post-colonial - and indigenous - perspective. The setting - the hot, arid and vast terrain of Western Australia - is so richly drawn I felt that suffocating heat, the scarcity of water, the desperate need for shade. The characters are divided into two - the Settlers and the Natives - and the ideological and cultural misunderstandings between them, especially on the side of the Settlers, is palpable. The arrogance and over-confidence of the Settlers feels all-too familiar and the destructive cost of colonisation on indigenous culture and individuals is ever-present. So, too, is the desperate need to be reunited with the families and tribes the Natives have been forcibly removed from, their longing and fear and sense of utter powerlessness. All of it strongly conjured British colonisation in my mind, as intended, even though physical descriptions are few and far between. Here, the landscape triumphs as the third party, the unchanging, unconquerable land that one must adapt to, not change to suit. A silent, uncaring witness to conflict, but a vulnerable, fragile one, too. The land will always win, effortlessly. It is an underlying idea that meanders through the narrative, always present but in the background, a truth against which the conflict of colonisation plays out.
That idea, alone, offered a strong and confronting reading in the first 9 chapters of Terra Nullius. For a reader with some knowledge of Australian colonial history, the story - while slow, ponderous even - is confronting in its sense of realism, place and time. But Coleman's only just getting started, and the real story begins in chapter 10.
SPOILERS
Seriously, DO NOT read on unless you have already read the book!
So strong was my understanding that I was reading historical fiction about colonial Australia - about the invasion of the British and the impact on the indigenous peoples - that I honestly did not see the twist coming, not at all. I am not the type of reader who tries to be more clever than a book: I like to read a novel the way it is intended, not try to figure out how it will end. I don't see the point in such an exercise, which seems like one of pure ego. I mentioned Never Let Me Go before - it has a similarly confronting 'twist' several chapters in that I did not see coming, and I was so dismayed to find that, as the book gained popularity - and particularly once the film came out - everyone was so free with the word 'clones'. Possibly reviews in the papers - the Guardian etc. - have done the same thing with Coleman's novel; I didn't check, but in this case the word would be 'aliens'.
That's right: as the book jacket says, "This is not the Australia of our history. This Terra Nullius is something new, but all too familiar." It's an alien invasion. Or, rather, it's several decades later, when 'invasion' has become 'settlement'. And the result is devastating, heartbreaking and even more tragic for knowing that, really, it is history not fiction.
The Settlers are dubbed 'toads' by the Natives (and, as the narrative points out a bit heavy-handedly, the concept of racial difference amongst humans has disappeared entirely thanks to this new invasion - everyone's just 'human). The aliens share some physical similarities but are more amphibian and require a lot of water, even just moisture in the air, to survive. Australia, then, is definitely not a hospital place for them, but that doesn't stop them - they've already taken the rest of the world, they can't stop there. While the parallels between the alien Toads and the British empire are visible, so too are the parallels between the attitudes of the British and those of this new coloniser:
Such sentiments can be found in the writings of colonisers, in the newspapers and diary entries of Settlers in our own history. As Coleman says in her Note at the end, everything in this book is based on things that actually happened, were actually said, during the colonisation of Australia by the British. In that sense, it's not a new story, but the new circumstances puts the old into stark relief. I have read other books this way - John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began, for example, can work easily as an analogy for colonisation from the Aboriginal perspective, whether he intended it or not, but here, Coleman is deliberately making this confronting and often violent representation of our colonial past.
The main characters in the novel are Jacky, a young Native man who escapes from the Settler farm, fleeing on foot to try and find the family he was taken from as a child; Sister Bagra, the 'mother' of the nuns who run a mission for Native children, turning them into useful, obedient servants (that is, slaves); Johnny Star, a trooper who deserted and is taken in by a small gang of Native outlaws; Esperance, a young woman living with one of the few remaining 'free' tribes of humans in the outback; and Sergeant Rohan, a trooper sent to capture Jacky. Other characters whose perspectives we see this new and frightening world from include an inspector from the home world, come to investigate reports of cruelty against Natives at Sister Bagra's mission; and the Devil, the head of the Department for the Protection of Natives.
The story is slow-moving and the first part took me a while to get through, but that exposition is important. The reader plays an integral role in the narrative; just as other texts - like the film Jindabyne - involve the audience in subtle ways, putting them in the position of colluding with a murderer of aborigines, or of unapologetic coloniser, the first nine chapters are vital to both creating the false confidence that I felt in thinking I knew this narrative, understood the players and the history; and to establishing that strong relationship between what has been done in the past and what is done in this hypothetical future. The intent is to challenge the on-going discrimination and low-class (or caste) status experienced by Australian aborigines today. It might seem obvious - too obvious - but I do feel that we are deliberately blind to anything more subtle, in this country.
As speculative fiction goes, this has dystopian elements as well as offering an allegory of British colonisation. This is Coleman's debut novel and, as such, the writing is a little under-developed in places, a little lacking in subtlety at times, and, in places, the punctuation could be clearer for better flow. Characterisation is a bit sparse, limited to boldly-drawn strokes and tropes, and there's not much verisimilitude. However, there are also some really lovely passages and the power of the narrative and its setting cannot be overlooked. Likewise, the success of those early chapters, when I thought I was reading historical fiction, was such that even at the end I experienced the sensation of overlap: that the Toads and the British were layered one on top of the other, a weird hologrammatic effect that ensured the allegorical nature of the aliens was never lost.
My thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book.
The title Terra Nullius refers to the British empire's claim upon the continent of Australia, a claim that was justified on the erroneous but useful insistence that it was unclaimed land. 'Terra nullius', a Latin term, is generally translated as 'nobody's land', meaning that the British claimed the continent for themselves, without a treaty, because they argued that it didn't belong to anyone - and certainly not the natives, because they did not appear to farm it or own it as Europeans understand land ownership (Aboriginal peoples did, in fact, have territory, homes, rich and diverse cultural beliefs and traditions, industry and agriculture, it just wasn't recognised by the colonisers). The myth of terra nullius continued long into the 20th century when it was finally, officially nixed by the Australian High Court in 1992 when it ruled, at the culmination of the Mabo case, that the land was owned and occupied by others, before the Europeans.
Coleman's Terra Nullius is instantly recognisable as a colonial narrative written from a post-colonial - and indigenous - perspective. The setting - the hot, arid and vast terrain of Western Australia - is so richly drawn I felt that suffocating heat, the scarcity of water, the desperate need for shade. The characters are divided into two - the Settlers and the Natives - and the ideological and cultural misunderstandings between them, especially on the side of the Settlers, is palpable. The arrogance and over-confidence of the Settlers feels all-too familiar and the destructive cost of colonisation on indigenous culture and individuals is ever-present. So, too, is the desperate need to be reunited with the families and tribes the Natives have been forcibly removed from, their longing and fear and sense of utter powerlessness. All of it strongly conjured British colonisation in my mind, as intended, even though physical descriptions are few and far between. Here, the landscape triumphs as the third party, the unchanging, unconquerable land that one must adapt to, not change to suit. A silent, uncaring witness to conflict, but a vulnerable, fragile one, too. The land will always win, effortlessly. It is an underlying idea that meanders through the narrative, always present but in the background, a truth against which the conflict of colonisation plays out.
"A sun like that, heat like that - it bleached the entire sky yellow-white, nothing like the blue sky one was used to from home. It was that sky that was a warning, the yellow light a warning that this was not a hospital place. It was the glow of pain, the glow of the end of the world. It was not a friendly colour for a sky to be." (p.39)
"It was a land of bones he walked, a land of death and bones and pain. He had helped make it that way, had added bones to the soil. He was as guilty as any other. He knew now though, that when you plant bones, nothing grows from them. Nothing but pain. As much as his homesickness racked at his soul there was no use thinking about it. This camp in the bush was his home - a series of camps in the bush would be his home until they planted his bones." (p.86)
That idea, alone, offered a strong and confronting reading in the first 9 chapters of Terra Nullius. For a reader with some knowledge of Australian colonial history, the story - while slow, ponderous even - is confronting in its sense of realism, place and time. But Coleman's only just getting started, and the real story begins in chapter 10.
SPOILERS
Seriously, DO NOT read on unless you have already read the book!
So strong was my understanding that I was reading historical fiction about colonial Australia - about the invasion of the British and the impact on the indigenous peoples - that I honestly did not see the twist coming, not at all. I am not the type of reader who tries to be more clever than a book: I like to read a novel the way it is intended, not try to figure out how it will end. I don't see the point in such an exercise, which seems like one of pure ego. I mentioned Never Let Me Go before - it has a similarly confronting 'twist' several chapters in that I did not see coming, and I was so dismayed to find that, as the book gained popularity - and particularly once the film came out - everyone was so free with the word 'clones'. Possibly reviews in the papers - the Guardian etc. - have done the same thing with Coleman's novel; I didn't check, but in this case the word would be 'aliens'.
That's right: as the book jacket says, "This is not the Australia of our history. This Terra Nullius is something new, but all too familiar." It's an alien invasion. Or, rather, it's several decades later, when 'invasion' has become 'settlement'. And the result is devastating, heartbreaking and even more tragic for knowing that, really, it is history not fiction.
The Settlers are dubbed 'toads' by the Natives (and, as the narrative points out a bit heavy-handedly, the concept of racial difference amongst humans has disappeared entirely thanks to this new invasion - everyone's just 'human). The aliens share some physical similarities but are more amphibian and require a lot of water, even just moisture in the air, to survive. Australia, then, is definitely not a hospital place for them, but that doesn't stop them - they've already taken the rest of the world, they can't stop there. While the parallels between the alien Toads and the British empire are visible, so too are the parallels between the attitudes of the British and those of this new coloniser:
"The arrival of the Toads had eliminated all racism and hate within the human species. It was not that with a common enemy the humans had decided to work together - humans never made a decision to no longer fight between themselves. Instead the colonisation by the Settlers simply ended all discrimination within the human race by taking away all the imbalance. There was no caste or class within humans; to the Toads who now owned the planet and everyone on it all humans had the same low status. To the Toads, all humans were nothing more than animals.
With no distinctions between humans, no rights, no countries, the human race was in the process of homogenisation. A slave is a slave is a slave. Humans had in the past sought to assimilate all humans into one group - to breed out colour, destroy other cultures. Where they had failed the Toads had been successful." (p.159)
Such sentiments can be found in the writings of colonisers, in the newspapers and diary entries of Settlers in our own history. As Coleman says in her Note at the end, everything in this book is based on things that actually happened, were actually said, during the colonisation of Australia by the British. In that sense, it's not a new story, but the new circumstances puts the old into stark relief. I have read other books this way - John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began, for example, can work easily as an analogy for colonisation from the Aboriginal perspective, whether he intended it or not, but here, Coleman is deliberately making this confronting and often violent representation of our colonial past.
The main characters in the novel are Jacky, a young Native man who escapes from the Settler farm, fleeing on foot to try and find the family he was taken from as a child; Sister Bagra, the 'mother' of the nuns who run a mission for Native children, turning them into useful, obedient servants (that is, slaves); Johnny Star, a trooper who deserted and is taken in by a small gang of Native outlaws; Esperance, a young woman living with one of the few remaining 'free' tribes of humans in the outback; and Sergeant Rohan, a trooper sent to capture Jacky. Other characters whose perspectives we see this new and frightening world from include an inspector from the home world, come to investigate reports of cruelty against Natives at Sister Bagra's mission; and the Devil, the head of the Department for the Protection of Natives.
The story is slow-moving and the first part took me a while to get through, but that exposition is important. The reader plays an integral role in the narrative; just as other texts - like the film Jindabyne - involve the audience in subtle ways, putting them in the position of colluding with a murderer of aborigines, or of unapologetic coloniser, the first nine chapters are vital to both creating the false confidence that I felt in thinking I knew this narrative, understood the players and the history; and to establishing that strong relationship between what has been done in the past and what is done in this hypothetical future. The intent is to challenge the on-going discrimination and low-class (or caste) status experienced by Australian aborigines today. It might seem obvious - too obvious - but I do feel that we are deliberately blind to anything more subtle, in this country.
As speculative fiction goes, this has dystopian elements as well as offering an allegory of British colonisation. This is Coleman's debut novel and, as such, the writing is a little under-developed in places, a little lacking in subtlety at times, and, in places, the punctuation could be clearer for better flow. Characterisation is a bit sparse, limited to boldly-drawn strokes and tropes, and there's not much verisimilitude. However, there are also some really lovely passages and the power of the narrative and its setting cannot be overlooked. Likewise, the success of those early chapters, when I thought I was reading historical fiction, was such that even at the end I experienced the sensation of overlap: that the Toads and the British were layered one on top of the other, a weird hologrammatic effect that ensured the allegorical nature of the aliens was never lost.
My thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book.
October 1, 2020
3.5★ (rounded up for a promising debut novel)
“The Settlers would be afraid of the bush, of the deep woodland, so different from their Home. That would be the safest place for him in whatever tangled, green and brown, scratchy and dirty, trackless and untidy scrub he could find.”
That’s Jacky, absconded and on the run.
“A sun like that, heat like that – it bleached the entire sky yellowwhite, nothing like the blue sky one was used to from Home. It was that sky that was a warning, the yellow light a warning that this was not a hospitable place. It was the glow of pain, the glow of the end of the world. It was not a friendly colour for a sky to be.”
And that’s Sergeant Rohan, leading the Troopers chasing Jacky.
This is a book in two distinct parts, both with the underlying themes of invasion, colonialism, and dehumanisation of “the other”. It also explores the possible compromise and unification of opposing forces when faced with a third, domineering foreign challenger.
Without giving too much away, although other reviews may have, suffice to say that Coleman has woven a tale around several sets of characters, all in Australia, some at home, some far from home, and all struggling in the current circumstances of change.
Among the Settlers are those representing The Church, with a particularly nasty nun, Sister Barga, who seems to delight in lording it (no pun intended) over her charges, both the younger nuns and the Natives. The Settlers do not allow slavery,
There is a disagreement between two mind-sets in the Settlers, where slavery is forbidden by law. On one hand, Natives are animals, counted as fauna; on the other, there is a view that Natives are sentient beings and therefore, cannot be treated like animals, working only for food and no pay or compensation.
Here is the conflict:
“Natives were not allowed to have money yet they were forced to work. The Natives cannot be slaves, the reports read, because they are not people. Slavery will not be tolerated.”
So while some people are happy to use Natives as they would livestock, others are appalled. Meanwhile, the Settlers have trouble coming to terms with the heat and can’t cope with the climate in Australia as well as the Natives.
About halfway through the book, we are given more insight into the background of the Settlers and the people already living in the country they are attempting to colonise.
It’s an interesting premise, and there are certainly echoes of the refugee experience here, too, with the emphasis on fear and distrust of “the other”, as people remain wary. The following is said with some humour as well as concern.
“‘ . .you did not capture us. We surrendered. We had you out-gunned.
. . .
‘You surrendered but I would feel better if I could see you. Walk along the river, and don’t do anything to make me regret accepting your surrender.
. . .
‘Don’t do anything to make me regret surrendering.’”
When opposing teams try to join forces, there will always be some jostling for position, and Coleman has shown this well.
[As a personal side-note, an experienced farrier and horseman told me years ago that horses will always band together to turn on a newcomer. I suggested then that the best way to have a peaceful mob was to borrow a last horse, to give your own a common enemy. I found that to be true with ours, but as the saying goes, your mileage may differ. The instinct for a pecking order seems to be strong in most species, I think.]
This is an interesting premise and story, longer than it needs to be, but sci-fi fans may enjoy the length. And I think kids will enjoy it, so I'm marking it as suitable for YA readers.
I’ve often said to others that this is the kind of story I’d like to see told, so I’m glad to find the author has tackled it. Now I'm waiting for the next book. For more about Noongar woman Claire G. Coleman, see her website.
http://www.clairegcoleman.com/about.html
Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette for the copy for review from which I’ve quoted.
“The Settlers would be afraid of the bush, of the deep woodland, so different from their Home. That would be the safest place for him in whatever tangled, green and brown, scratchy and dirty, trackless and untidy scrub he could find.”
That’s Jacky, absconded and on the run.
“A sun like that, heat like that – it bleached the entire sky yellowwhite, nothing like the blue sky one was used to from Home. It was that sky that was a warning, the yellow light a warning that this was not a hospitable place. It was the glow of pain, the glow of the end of the world. It was not a friendly colour for a sky to be.”
And that’s Sergeant Rohan, leading the Troopers chasing Jacky.
This is a book in two distinct parts, both with the underlying themes of invasion, colonialism, and dehumanisation of “the other”. It also explores the possible compromise and unification of opposing forces when faced with a third, domineering foreign challenger.
Without giving too much away, although other reviews may have, suffice to say that Coleman has woven a tale around several sets of characters, all in Australia, some at home, some far from home, and all struggling in the current circumstances of change.
Among the Settlers are those representing The Church, with a particularly nasty nun, Sister Barga, who seems to delight in lording it (no pun intended) over her charges, both the younger nuns and the Natives. The Settlers do not allow slavery,
There is a disagreement between two mind-sets in the Settlers, where slavery is forbidden by law. On one hand, Natives are animals, counted as fauna; on the other, there is a view that Natives are sentient beings and therefore, cannot be treated like animals, working only for food and no pay or compensation.
Here is the conflict:
“Natives were not allowed to have money yet they were forced to work. The Natives cannot be slaves, the reports read, because they are not people. Slavery will not be tolerated.”
So while some people are happy to use Natives as they would livestock, others are appalled. Meanwhile, the Settlers have trouble coming to terms with the heat and can’t cope with the climate in Australia as well as the Natives.
About halfway through the book, we are given more insight into the background of the Settlers and the people already living in the country they are attempting to colonise.
It’s an interesting premise, and there are certainly echoes of the refugee experience here, too, with the emphasis on fear and distrust of “the other”, as people remain wary. The following is said with some humour as well as concern.
“‘ . .you did not capture us. We surrendered. We had you out-gunned.
. . .
‘You surrendered but I would feel better if I could see you. Walk along the river, and don’t do anything to make me regret accepting your surrender.
. . .
‘Don’t do anything to make me regret surrendering.’”
When opposing teams try to join forces, there will always be some jostling for position, and Coleman has shown this well.
[As a personal side-note, an experienced farrier and horseman told me years ago that horses will always band together to turn on a newcomer. I suggested then that the best way to have a peaceful mob was to borrow a last horse, to give your own a common enemy. I found that to be true with ours, but as the saying goes, your mileage may differ. The instinct for a pecking order seems to be strong in most species, I think.]
This is an interesting premise and story, longer than it needs to be, but sci-fi fans may enjoy the length. And I think kids will enjoy it, so I'm marking it as suitable for YA readers.
I’ve often said to others that this is the kind of story I’d like to see told, so I’m glad to find the author has tackled it. Now I'm waiting for the next book. For more about Noongar woman Claire G. Coleman, see her website.
http://www.clairegcoleman.com/about.html
Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette for the copy for review from which I’ve quoted.
February 11, 2019
Terra Nullius, Coleman's (an indigenous Australian Noongar writer) debut novel, is impossible to rate, but I'm going with 5/5 because I think this work should become required high school reading, at least in places like Europe, or the US, or Australia (places with a legacy of colonization and extermination/genocide of local cultures and peoples).
At first I picked up this book because it was billed as sci-fi, a tale of the colonization of the Earth by an alien race. Instead, I found myself immersed in a brutal, violent, extremely raw and unflinching tale of seemingly, the colonization of Australia by the British. Terra Nullius, Latin for "nobody's land," was the premise upon which Britain claimed Australia, and survived as a rationale well into the 20th century when, finally, following a grueling 10 year trial, on 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia ruled that terra nullius should not have been applied (Mabo and others v Queensland).
Coleman masterfully weaves several story lines together that put on display the multi-faceted nature of the violence faced by the "Natives" at the hands of the "Settlers" - there is a re-education center, a boarding school run by sadistic nuns, there are plantations on which slaves labor in horrific conditions, there are those few who have not been captured but who live in continual terror that they will be found in addition to their struggles to survive in the arid, unforgiving landscape.
The tone undergirding the novel is one of seething anger and condemnation; nothing is left to the imagination or interpretation of the reader - subtlety is entirely absent. In general, this feature would be a significant detractor for me, however, depicting colonization in its encompassing brutality may be the one scenario for which absolute, uncompromising forthrightness is not only tolerable, but best suited for the task.
An example, re the nun at the school: "Sister Bagra was dedicated to her duty, to bring faith to these people, if they could be called people; to bring religion, to bring education to these savages. An almost completely thankless task, a seemingly pointless, useless task."
The true brilliance and novelty of Terra Nullius occurs about half-way through. Now, what I am about to write is not quite a spoiler, because the book is teased this way and reviewed by many who give away this "twist" but, do not unhide the following if you like surprises and plan on reading this book
This book is not pleasant, and I definitely did not "enjoy it." But I am so very grateful to Coleman for writing it, and I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone interested in learning more, in a truly immersive way, with the lived experience of colonization.
At first I picked up this book because it was billed as sci-fi, a tale of the colonization of the Earth by an alien race. Instead, I found myself immersed in a brutal, violent, extremely raw and unflinching tale of seemingly, the colonization of Australia by the British. Terra Nullius, Latin for "nobody's land," was the premise upon which Britain claimed Australia, and survived as a rationale well into the 20th century when, finally, following a grueling 10 year trial, on 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia ruled that terra nullius should not have been applied (Mabo and others v Queensland).
Coleman masterfully weaves several story lines together that put on display the multi-faceted nature of the violence faced by the "Natives" at the hands of the "Settlers" - there is a re-education center, a boarding school run by sadistic nuns, there are plantations on which slaves labor in horrific conditions, there are those few who have not been captured but who live in continual terror that they will be found in addition to their struggles to survive in the arid, unforgiving landscape.
The tone undergirding the novel is one of seething anger and condemnation; nothing is left to the imagination or interpretation of the reader - subtlety is entirely absent. In general, this feature would be a significant detractor for me, however, depicting colonization in its encompassing brutality may be the one scenario for which absolute, uncompromising forthrightness is not only tolerable, but best suited for the task.
An example, re the nun at the school: "Sister Bagra was dedicated to her duty, to bring faith to these people, if they could be called people; to bring religion, to bring education to these savages. An almost completely thankless task, a seemingly pointless, useless task."
The true brilliance and novelty of Terra Nullius occurs about half-way through. Now, what I am about to write is not quite a spoiler, because the book is teased this way and reviewed by many who give away this "twist" but, do not unhide the following if you like surprises and plan on reading this book
This book is not pleasant, and I definitely did not "enjoy it." But I am so very grateful to Coleman for writing it, and I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone interested in learning more, in a truly immersive way, with the lived experience of colonization.
October 2, 2022
A searing story of colonisation informed by Australia's own colonial past and the subjugation of Aboriginal peoples by European settlers.
The story begins with what modern eyes recognize as the true horror experienced by colonised people who were oppressed and barely acknowledged as people by their colonisers, let alone as having a culture with a long and rich history. However, as the book synopsis indicates, this recognition of history is not the story of Australia's past. It is, instead, the story of humanity's future. Coleman subverts the reader's expectations by taking something they think they understand and subverting it, making it the story of all people, and not just the unfortunate past (and in some cases continuing present) of so many native cultures.
Coleman uses an impressionistic writing style that both gives her book a literary quality and also brings the setting to life. The Australian desert is as much a character as any of the people, playing a significant role in how the story unfolds.
It was a land of bones he walked, a land of death and bones and pain. He had helped make it that way, had added bones to the soil. He was as guilty as any other. He knew now though, that when you plant bones, nothing grows from them. Nothing but pain.
The feelings invoked by Terra Nullius and its story of oppression and power imbalance are reminiscent of Skinner Luce and All Good Children, but imbued with the unique perspective of the writer speaking from her own shared history. Not light or uplifting reading, but definitely memorable and deeply affecting.
The story begins with what modern eyes recognize as the true horror experienced by colonised people who were oppressed and barely acknowledged as people by their colonisers, let alone as having a culture with a long and rich history. However, as the book synopsis indicates, this recognition of history is not the story of Australia's past. It is, instead, the story of humanity's future. Coleman subverts the reader's expectations by taking something they think they understand and subverting it, making it the story of all people, and not just the unfortunate past (and in some cases continuing present) of so many native cultures.
Coleman uses an impressionistic writing style that both gives her book a literary quality and also brings the setting to life. The Australian desert is as much a character as any of the people, playing a significant role in how the story unfolds.
It was a land of bones he walked, a land of death and bones and pain. He had helped make it that way, had added bones to the soil. He was as guilty as any other. He knew now though, that when you plant bones, nothing grows from them. Nothing but pain.
The feelings invoked by Terra Nullius and its story of oppression and power imbalance are reminiscent of Skinner Luce and All Good Children, but imbued with the unique perspective of the writer speaking from her own shared history. Not light or uplifting reading, but definitely memorable and deeply affecting.
February 19, 2018
I had been looking forward to this book since it won the black&write! Fellowship last year, as it sounded like an absolute game changer. Even knowing the twist/spoiler that was coming halfway through, I was really keen to read it.
Unfortunately it just didn't hold up for me. I didn't love the style, didn't connect with any of the characters, and I felt the messaging was much too overt - the book could have been done much more subtly without the chapter-starters explicitly comparing the colonisation to the colonisation of Australia. Give the readers some credit!
Normally I would have given up before p100 for this but having anticipated it for so long I persevered. It was a real struggle. Sadly disappointed.
Unfortunately it just didn't hold up for me. I didn't love the style, didn't connect with any of the characters, and I felt the messaging was much too overt - the book could have been done much more subtly without the chapter-starters explicitly comparing the colonisation to the colonisation of Australia. Give the readers some credit!
Normally I would have given up before p100 for this but having anticipated it for so long I persevered. It was a real struggle. Sadly disappointed.
November 29, 2018
Nope. Even the best twist is just a quirk if there is not enough story coming with it.
And Hachette: how about employing editors who actually, you know, edit?
1.5*
And Hachette: how about employing editors who actually, you know, edit?
1.5*
September 11, 2017
Jacky was terrified but determined not to be caught again. The Settlers were brutal with anyone caught running away – they were brutal anyway. At best, he’d be thrown in jail, and worst, a bullet in the back. But he was so hungry; he could find water, brackish though it might be – but finding food without a weapon was nigh on impossible. Stealing was his only option, but with stealing came immense danger.
Sister Bagra, Mother Superior of the mission, was charged with educating the Native children to become servants. She was a woman who never smiled; fought to control her anger and disciplined at the slightest fault. The children’s fear in her presence was palpable.
Esperance lived in an isolated camp with her mob; her Grandfather one of the elders. Never having enough water – it hadn’t rained in at least two years – and always desperate for food, the humans struggled from one day to the next. But they were always wary of the Settlers and needed to move camp more and more often.
Sergeant Rohan was on the hunt for Jacky – his frustration and anger at Jacky’s constant evasion of Rohan and the troopers had him swearing he would catch him if it was the last thing he did. The Natives were getting restless – if Jacky could escape there was a big chance others would try as well…
Terra Nullius by Aussie author Claire G. Coleman is an intriguing look into Australia’s distant future – a fully fictionalised future – where hope is lost for the Indigenous people after the invasion of the Settlers and their ilk. Set in a stark and desolate Western Australia, the main habitation is located where Perth once was. A completely mind-blowing debut novel from an author who was the Winner of the black&write! Fellowship in 2016. Highly recommended.
With thanks to Hachette Australia for my ARC to read and review.
Sister Bagra, Mother Superior of the mission, was charged with educating the Native children to become servants. She was a woman who never smiled; fought to control her anger and disciplined at the slightest fault. The children’s fear in her presence was palpable.
Esperance lived in an isolated camp with her mob; her Grandfather one of the elders. Never having enough water – it hadn’t rained in at least two years – and always desperate for food, the humans struggled from one day to the next. But they were always wary of the Settlers and needed to move camp more and more often.
Sergeant Rohan was on the hunt for Jacky – his frustration and anger at Jacky’s constant evasion of Rohan and the troopers had him swearing he would catch him if it was the last thing he did. The Natives were getting restless – if Jacky could escape there was a big chance others would try as well…
Terra Nullius by Aussie author Claire G. Coleman is an intriguing look into Australia’s distant future – a fully fictionalised future – where hope is lost for the Indigenous people after the invasion of the Settlers and their ilk. Set in a stark and desolate Western Australia, the main habitation is located where Perth once was. A completely mind-blowing debut novel from an author who was the Winner of the black&write! Fellowship in 2016. Highly recommended.
With thanks to Hachette Australia for my ARC to read and review.
Read
April 19, 2022Striking SF fable set in Australia. We read about the grotesque cruelties inflicted on the indigenous population by colonisers who don't even see them as people, and it takes several chapters for it to emerge that Basically it's playing the whole rotten story out again on a larger scale--the genocide, the self-righteousness of the colonisers, the glimmers of realisation when a few of them start to understand what they've destroyed, the slightly creepy sincerity and wanting to belong of the the invader who switches sides. I'm not sure if I felt like that entirely worked on every level, in that But this is a book about having your world wiped out by contemptuous invaders, and maybe that should be generalised, if only so people can then re-apply that to the specific.
Vividly written and packs a powerful punch, though the dialogue is almost painfully spare.
Vividly written and packs a powerful punch, though the dialogue is almost painfully spare.
December 13, 2020
Addressing a blind spot in my Australian author diet which till now consisted of Jane Harper and Liane Moriarty (huge fan of both btw) Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar Aboriginal, a people who have traditionally occupied the south-west corner of Western Australia long before history started being recorded there.
Terra Nullius is the story of Settler arrogance and their disdain for the Natives. Bending them to their language, their rules, their religion only to offer them a life of enslavement. Jacky manages to escape his Settler captors and makes a run for the bush which sets off a chain of events. I loved the mid-story turn but I feel this would have been better served as a short story or novella. The impact slowly trickles away with each subsequent chapter.
This harkens to the Residential schools of Canada, with a light dusting of Nickel Boys and a heap of the Southern Baptist faithful who interpreted the word of God as still allowing for the ownership of slaves and split with their abolitionist church goers in the north.
It seems colonizer narratives are sadly all too familiar regardless of what country you come from.
Terra Nullius is the story of Settler arrogance and their disdain for the Natives. Bending them to their language, their rules, their religion only to offer them a life of enslavement. Jacky manages to escape his Settler captors and makes a run for the bush which sets off a chain of events. I loved the mid-story turn but I feel this would have been better served as a short story or novella. The impact slowly trickles away with each subsequent chapter.
This harkens to the Residential schools of Canada, with a light dusting of Nickel Boys and a heap of the Southern Baptist faithful who interpreted the word of God as still allowing for the ownership of slaves and split with their abolitionist church goers in the north.
It seems colonizer narratives are sadly all too familiar regardless of what country you come from.
September 18, 2020
The next war will be about resilience and survival, culture and art. When that war begins you will discover you are not well-armed. You have no art, your stories have no power.”
This just didn't work for me. I feel like the entire first half hinges on surprising you with a plot twist which wasn't surprising to me because I realised what was going on early, and it just didn't have a writing style that drew me into the story. That said, I did like the parallels Coleman drew between her story and the colonisation of Australia. I also thought the influence of other media such as The Rabbit-Proof Fence or Benang was obvious, but in a way, I found interesting and enjoyable in its homage.
I don't think this is a bad book, it just didn't work for me. But if you like science-fiction and you're looking to read more books by Aboriginal Australian's (Coleman is Wirlomin-Noongar) than maybe consider this. I definitely think this could be a great book for people who don't know much about the colonisation of Australia or the government treatment and policies toward First Nations Australians
September 3, 2019
I was torn between 4 and 5 stars, because it is written in a rather plain prose. But on the other hand the prose suits the topic.
I went for 5 stars in the end:
- for a newcomer this is a very strong one
- the setup idea of the novel totally convinced me
- I just love the spirit of the Noongar in the narration
- through the palpable description the desert land of the Australian outback felt like a character on its own
The problem with this story is that one cannot say much about it, without ruining the pleasure in finding out what makes it so special. So I just have to keep it at a rather unspecific "I loved it" and a warning to not read any reviews or larger blurbs before starting this book.
And perhaps another warning: it deals realistically with the often inhumane attitude of European settlers towards natives.
I went for 5 stars in the end:
- for a newcomer this is a very strong one
- the setup idea of the novel totally convinced me
- I just love the spirit of the Noongar in the narration
- through the palpable description the desert land of the Australian outback felt like a character on its own
The problem with this story is that one cannot say much about it, without ruining the pleasure in finding out what makes it so special. So I just have to keep it at a rather unspecific "I loved it" and a warning to not read any reviews or larger blurbs before starting this book.
And perhaps another warning: it deals realistically with the often inhumane attitude of European settlers towards natives.
November 29, 2022
Not for me.
September 17, 2021
.
.
**********************
SPOILERS BELOW, I GUESS
**********************
Physicist Stephen Hawking was always cautioning us about contact with extraterrestrial aliens, as far back as the 80s and 90s, but his opinion really exploded into general awareness about a decade ago when he said on one of his TV series, “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America… which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” Because it dramatically closed out the show, the Recency Effect meant that was the chief takeaway most viewers had.
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/mZSD22sa7M0
I suspect that was the impetus for this novel, because Coleman uses that as her exact template, except she substitutes Australia for America. (If Hawking had been on an Australian network, then his comment would have subbed in that, I’m sure. Always make it personal for your audience.)
There’s nothing wrong with this, of course; authors do it all the time. The problem for me is that it’s too on-the-nose, and you can’t even say the aliens in this book are doing things that parallel what European colonizers did to Australia, because it’s exactly the same. It’s what white settlers did in the US, in South America, in Canada, in Africa, in New Zealand, in the Pacific islands… it’s exact. To the point of absurdity, where the amphibious aliens — called Toads by humans — have nuns, controlled by a Mother Superior. You don’t need to puzzle too hard to figure out who Coleman is targeting with that sort of thing.
As such, this comes across more as a polemic than a sci-fi story exploring universal human traits.
There’s no heavy lifting being done by the worldbuilding here. Coleman didn’t come up with a unique or new religion, the way Octavia Butler did, or a new way to present an existing one, as Margaret Atwood did, or come up with a new lifecycle informing culture, as Mary Doria Russell did; she just crossed out “human” and wrote in “alien”, but they were still Catholic nuns.
There are also two of the cliche writing bugaboos I have, where “Jacky let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding” and the priest-inspector moved much faster than his size would indicate. If she’d had someone’s eyebrows knit in consternation, she would’ve hit the trifecta. Which is indicative of the fairly basic writing here. The prose is solid, if unexceptional.
Maybe this will reach someone who had previously dismissed talk about colonizers versus colonized. I certainly hope so. But for me, someone who is already in that camp, this is preaching to the choir, and unfortunately not terribly original preaching at that.
************
EDIT:
(From a discussion in the Sword & Laser book club.)
Gordon wrote: "Unfortunately I think this still needs to be acknowledged and shouted about as it continues to happen. Even in small insidious ways."
Absolutely, a hundred times yes to this.
I think the crux of the problem with a book like this is that it’s difficult to separate the important, necessary message of the book from the art and craft of telling a story.
The message needs to be repeated and repeated until even the dumbest, most obdurate racists get it. For me, who is already fully on board, I’m looking at it from the privileged position of judging the story separately from the message. That’s why I would give this book 5 stars for “Important Message That Bears Repeating” while only giving it 2 stars for the way the message is conveyed.
I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m denying how important works like this are when I say that I wasn’t impressed by the stylistic side of it.
And just to make it all even more complicated, sometimes I can differentiate between the two and sometimes I can’t. I wish I weren’t so inconsistent with that, but I think that’s part of the push-and-pull between one’s emotional reaction to something versus the intellectual reaction to it.
.
**********************
SPOILERS BELOW, I GUESS
**********************
Physicist Stephen Hawking was always cautioning us about contact with extraterrestrial aliens, as far back as the 80s and 90s, but his opinion really exploded into general awareness about a decade ago when he said on one of his TV series, “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America… which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” Because it dramatically closed out the show, the Recency Effect meant that was the chief takeaway most viewers had.
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/mZSD22sa7M0
I suspect that was the impetus for this novel, because Coleman uses that as her exact template, except she substitutes Australia for America. (If Hawking had been on an Australian network, then his comment would have subbed in that, I’m sure. Always make it personal for your audience.)
There’s nothing wrong with this, of course; authors do it all the time. The problem for me is that it’s too on-the-nose, and you can’t even say the aliens in this book are doing things that parallel what European colonizers did to Australia, because it’s exactly the same. It’s what white settlers did in the US, in South America, in Canada, in Africa, in New Zealand, in the Pacific islands… it’s exact. To the point of absurdity, where the amphibious aliens — called Toads by humans — have nuns, controlled by a Mother Superior. You don’t need to puzzle too hard to figure out who Coleman is targeting with that sort of thing.
As such, this comes across more as a polemic than a sci-fi story exploring universal human traits.
There’s no heavy lifting being done by the worldbuilding here. Coleman didn’t come up with a unique or new religion, the way Octavia Butler did, or a new way to present an existing one, as Margaret Atwood did, or come up with a new lifecycle informing culture, as Mary Doria Russell did; she just crossed out “human” and wrote in “alien”, but they were still Catholic nuns.
There are also two of the cliche writing bugaboos I have, where “Jacky let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding” and the priest-inspector moved much faster than his size would indicate. If she’d had someone’s eyebrows knit in consternation, she would’ve hit the trifecta. Which is indicative of the fairly basic writing here. The prose is solid, if unexceptional.
Maybe this will reach someone who had previously dismissed talk about colonizers versus colonized. I certainly hope so. But for me, someone who is already in that camp, this is preaching to the choir, and unfortunately not terribly original preaching at that.
************
EDIT:
(From a discussion in the Sword & Laser book club.)
Gordon wrote: "Unfortunately I think this still needs to be acknowledged and shouted about as it continues to happen. Even in small insidious ways."
Absolutely, a hundred times yes to this.
I think the crux of the problem with a book like this is that it’s difficult to separate the important, necessary message of the book from the art and craft of telling a story.
The message needs to be repeated and repeated until even the dumbest, most obdurate racists get it. For me, who is already fully on board, I’m looking at it from the privileged position of judging the story separately from the message. That’s why I would give this book 5 stars for “Important Message That Bears Repeating” while only giving it 2 stars for the way the message is conveyed.
I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m denying how important works like this are when I say that I wasn’t impressed by the stylistic side of it.
And just to make it all even more complicated, sometimes I can differentiate between the two and sometimes I can’t. I wish I weren’t so inconsistent with that, but I think that’s part of the push-and-pull between one’s emotional reaction to something versus the intellectual reaction to it.
February 12, 2024
Powerful novel about settler colonialism. It begins like an historical novel and I think I enjoyed the letters etc that opened each chapter the best. I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them were historical documents (they aren’t).
June 14, 2019
Loved the themes in this, a very interesting read.
April 4, 2021
“ ‘Stealing something to eat, that is a crime that would get me flung into jail. Stealing everything, that is just good government.’ ”
Ooh ok, I will say that the concepts that were explored here and the connection with colonialism, especially of the Aboriginal Australians by the British were superb, but I wanted the characters to have popped off the page more. So, Terra Nullius is a novel about weird space aliens coming to Earth and conquering and from what I can deduce, it takes place a few decades into our future, where humans were heavily outgunned - like how the Aboriginals were outgunned by the British, and basically the whole world got conquered by these aliens. For those who are unaware, Terra Nullius was a term the British gave Australia, roughly meaning land belonging to no one, which wasn’t true as it was populated by hundreds of thousands of indigenous people, although they weren’t deemed people by the warmongering imperialists. A similar situation occurs here where these alien people ‘toads’ see humans as inferior and therefore not an intelligent species, which I think makes Terra Nullius a very fitting title for this novel.
It took maybe the first 80 to 100 pages for me to properly get into it and become immersed, because it is a whole new world and I had to get used to it and figure out what was going on in this futuristic world. I hardly blame the author that it took me a little bit to get fully engaged as that it often what happens in sci-fi and fantasy novels. I will say that it was really interesting reading all the little bits before the technical start of the chapter. It did get somewhat repetitive in its comparisons to colonialism and imperialism of Australia and the rest of the world by the Europeans, but despite that, the comparisons were fitting, and they help explain the author’s message, especially for readers who aren’t fully aware of inspiration and influence behind this novel, as well as the very real history that the very fictional events it can be compared to.
I appreciate what Coleman did with the plot here. I felt that it wasn’t really the focus, but rather the exploration of ideas, which is fine, but in my view it’s better to have a book that explores amazing ideas, while also having an engaging plot and characters. Now, having said that, the plot wasn’t bad. It took a while to get going, but then there is sort of two separate stories that thread throughout. I found that the two storylines never linked and had no connection with each other, and even at the end, they were two distinct plot lines, which was sort of odd. I liked each one individually, but it didn’t wow me and nothing unexpected happened for me. Even the ending wasn’t overly dramatic and when I was done, I was more like, huh, that’s it, well ok then. The ending was actually somewhat of a letdown as it sort of just... ended and it didn’t feel too conclusive, although the author totally could have been going for that.
The characters as concepts were really interesting and I found that was explored well. However, I wanted more individual voice from each character and for them to stand out more as people, or aliens or whatever. They all sort of fit their role in who they were meant to be, but I wanted for it to go beyond that. I think since so much of the book is centred on exploring this idea, and also considering that it is a fairly short novel for all the things it does explore, so I commend the author for that. For the length of it, the author achieved a lot, but perhaps it actually could have done with a couple dozen more pages just to better flesh out the characters.
Yeah, overall, I thought that this was good, especially the way it fleshed out its ideas, but I would have liked more character work. 6/10
Ooh ok, I will say that the concepts that were explored here and the connection with colonialism, especially of the Aboriginal Australians by the British were superb, but I wanted the characters to have popped off the page more. So, Terra Nullius is a novel about weird space aliens coming to Earth and conquering and from what I can deduce, it takes place a few decades into our future, where humans were heavily outgunned - like how the Aboriginals were outgunned by the British, and basically the whole world got conquered by these aliens. For those who are unaware, Terra Nullius was a term the British gave Australia, roughly meaning land belonging to no one, which wasn’t true as it was populated by hundreds of thousands of indigenous people, although they weren’t deemed people by the warmongering imperialists. A similar situation occurs here where these alien people ‘toads’ see humans as inferior and therefore not an intelligent species, which I think makes Terra Nullius a very fitting title for this novel.
It took maybe the first 80 to 100 pages for me to properly get into it and become immersed, because it is a whole new world and I had to get used to it and figure out what was going on in this futuristic world. I hardly blame the author that it took me a little bit to get fully engaged as that it often what happens in sci-fi and fantasy novels. I will say that it was really interesting reading all the little bits before the technical start of the chapter. It did get somewhat repetitive in its comparisons to colonialism and imperialism of Australia and the rest of the world by the Europeans, but despite that, the comparisons were fitting, and they help explain the author’s message, especially for readers who aren’t fully aware of inspiration and influence behind this novel, as well as the very real history that the very fictional events it can be compared to.
I appreciate what Coleman did with the plot here. I felt that it wasn’t really the focus, but rather the exploration of ideas, which is fine, but in my view it’s better to have a book that explores amazing ideas, while also having an engaging plot and characters. Now, having said that, the plot wasn’t bad. It took a while to get going, but then there is sort of two separate stories that thread throughout. I found that the two storylines never linked and had no connection with each other, and even at the end, they were two distinct plot lines, which was sort of odd. I liked each one individually, but it didn’t wow me and nothing unexpected happened for me. Even the ending wasn’t overly dramatic and when I was done, I was more like, huh, that’s it, well ok then. The ending was actually somewhat of a letdown as it sort of just... ended and it didn’t feel too conclusive, although the author totally could have been going for that.
The characters as concepts were really interesting and I found that was explored well. However, I wanted more individual voice from each character and for them to stand out more as people, or aliens or whatever. They all sort of fit their role in who they were meant to be, but I wanted for it to go beyond that. I think since so much of the book is centred on exploring this idea, and also considering that it is a fairly short novel for all the things it does explore, so I commend the author for that. For the length of it, the author achieved a lot, but perhaps it actually could have done with a couple dozen more pages just to better flesh out the characters.
Yeah, overall, I thought that this was good, especially the way it fleshed out its ideas, but I would have liked more character work. 6/10
June 19, 2018
This book was not what I was expecting at all. While the idea was interesting and message important, the transition in the story was executed poorly - it felt very forced. I also thought there was a lot of ‘telling’ of the characters’ thoughts and feelings rather than ‘showing’ and that is not an engaging writing style for me.
February 6, 2022
An under-realised haunting aspect of Terra Nullius is the fact that no one is coming to save us. In that respect, it’s not only a metaphor for invasion – it’s climate change, it’s capitalism, it’s even a global pandemic. I think it might have worked better had the metaphor been explicit from the beginning, but I still respect its haunting premise.
My full review of Terra Nullius can be found on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
My full review of Terra Nullius can be found on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
December 15, 2019
Trigger warnings: death, violence, colonisation, genocide, child abuse.
I strongly suggest that you go into this book knowing literally nothing but the title and the fact that it's EXCELLENT. Coleman's writing is spectacular and it's an incredible story from start to finish. It's a tense and atmospheric story and I strongly recommend that every Australian read it.
I strongly suggest that you go into this book knowing literally nothing but the title and the fact that it's EXCELLENT. Coleman's writing is spectacular and it's an incredible story from start to finish. It's a tense and atmospheric story and I strongly recommend that every Australian read it.
October 1, 2022
3.5 stars, rounded down
March 17, 2023
so-called Australia, so-called plot twist
3.5
3.5
March 18, 2019
A unsettling tale of an invasion and colonization of Australia by Settlers. Natives are imprisoned, reeducated, abused and killed. The narrative could take place in any part of the world where an indigenous population was targeted and gradually eradicated, and if that was all it was, this would still be a difficult narrative to read. Claire Coleman takes the story further, giving it an interesting twist, informing her protagonists' experiences and sentiments with those of her own ancestors, while also giving us the rationalizations and beliefs of the colonizers. She's crafted a scathing indictment of colonization narratives and our love of romanticizing these in the speculative fiction genre. This is a powerful story.
January 28, 2018
I am rather numb now.
A speculative colonisation story that is more than the reader initially imagines.
Set in the near future and we see another wave of colonisation.
I cannot say anything else without spoilers.
The writing was so taut. So compelling.
I was torn between devouring the book in two sittings and being terrified of where the story was heading.
I will definitely pick up anything else Ms Coleman writes.
A speculative colonisation story that is more than the reader initially imagines.
Set in the near future and we see another wave of colonisation.
I cannot say anything else without spoilers.
The writing was so taut. So compelling.
I was torn between devouring the book in two sittings and being terrified of where the story was heading.
I will definitely pick up anything else Ms Coleman writes.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
October 27, 2021Picked this up for the September Sword and Laser but
Read
October 31, 2022SciFi and Fantasy Book Club Discussions:
First impressions (no spoilers)
Final thoughts (spoilers)
First impressions (no spoilers)
Final thoughts (spoilers)
January 22, 2023
Surprising and unforgettable is what Publishers Weekly says on the cover and they are not wrong. Original, yes, moving, yes, unflinching, yes, all of those.
It took me a lot longer to read the barely three hundred pages than I would normally take, under any circumstances: the reason was a sudden dislocation in the narrative, a shift into a different genre, time frame, but then no? Not a different time frame because we are still with the same characters even though suddenly there is some technology that disrupts the reader's sense of when we are, if not where. I had to go back, read again, pay attention, what IS going on here? A sort of H.G. Wells tale, the War of the Worlds?
Brilliant.
Claire G. Coleman pulls away all your smug certainty; there you were thinking ah yes.
But she says no.
Listen.
You know nothing but YOUR version of history.
Listen.
It took me a lot longer to read the barely three hundred pages than I would normally take, under any circumstances: the reason was a sudden dislocation in the narrative, a shift into a different genre, time frame, but then no? Not a different time frame because we are still with the same characters even though suddenly there is some technology that disrupts the reader's sense of when we are, if not where. I had to go back, read again, pay attention, what IS going on here? A sort of H.G. Wells tale, the War of the Worlds?
Brilliant.
Claire G. Coleman pulls away all your smug certainty; there you were thinking ah yes.
But she says no.
Listen.
You know nothing but YOUR version of history.
Listen.
September 26, 2021
A book that has a message but one that might get lost to many people. It's a SF book for sure, but it takes a lot of time getting there. I could see a lot of readers giving up before they get to the interesting twist in the story and the actual science fiction part.
Depending on what part of the world you live in the historical background may be unfamiliar but everyone should be able to relate to the message here. It's a great story, but unfortunately, for me, the author did not do a very good job of presenting it. The e-book version had no delineation of where one POV ended and another began. Multiple times I had to back track a sentence or two to see where the change occurred. This might be just a fault in the formatting of the e-book version but I found it seriously annoying. The book could probably have used a once over by a different editor to smooth out the rough spots and questionable punctuation.
Depending on what part of the world you live in the historical background may be unfamiliar but everyone should be able to relate to the message here. It's a great story, but unfortunately, for me, the author did not do a very good job of presenting it. The e-book version had no delineation of where one POV ended and another began. Multiple times I had to back track a sentence or two to see where the change occurred. This might be just a fault in the formatting of the e-book version but I found it seriously annoying. The book could probably have used a once over by a different editor to smooth out the rough spots and questionable punctuation.
October 7, 2018
This. Book. One of the best things I’ve read all year.
August 12, 2023
An Australian 'Cloud Atlas'. Claire Coleman has written a new classic, set in Australia's colonial past, and a future when alien 'toads' have colonised the Earth.
Fortunately for the reader, the past and future characters bare the same names.
Set in Western Australia, the colony is already well established. Sister Bagra runs a school for 'native' children, with hatred and cruelty for the inferior species. Jacky Jerramungup had been a student there, then a slave, and now, he was a runaway. Sister Mel helped him find his camp, and his direction, 'east', and becomes another victim of the superior nun.
Johnny Star is an outlaw, he'd been a trouper, and through his eyes, we see the massacres of the 'natives'. He leaves his own murderous kind, and teams up with Jacky and a small band of native outlaws, who survive in the West Australian desert.
A group of refugees from Perth also flee the colonists into the desert, led by a group of Elders and Esperance, a hunter and warrior woman.
Their stories, past and future, come together in this tightly plotted, brilliant and controversial story. I could not put this book down.
Fortunately for the reader, the past and future characters bare the same names.
Set in Western Australia, the colony is already well established. Sister Bagra runs a school for 'native' children, with hatred and cruelty for the inferior species. Jacky Jerramungup had been a student there, then a slave, and now, he was a runaway. Sister Mel helped him find his camp, and his direction, 'east', and becomes another victim of the superior nun.
Johnny Star is an outlaw, he'd been a trouper, and through his eyes, we see the massacres of the 'natives'. He leaves his own murderous kind, and teams up with Jacky and a small band of native outlaws, who survive in the West Australian desert.
A group of refugees from Perth also flee the colonists into the desert, led by a group of Elders and Esperance, a hunter and warrior woman.
Their stories, past and future, come together in this tightly plotted, brilliant and controversial story. I could not put this book down.
September 21, 2017
Research has shown that reading novels improves empathy. Terra Nullius certainly does just that. If you want to understand – on an emotional level – the history and current plight of modern-day Australian aboriginals, this is a good place to start.
The first half of Claire G Coleman’s award-winning debut novel is written in such a way that you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a story of the 1788 British invasion of Australia.
Except it’s not the past. And the British are not the invaders.
Through tiny details drip-fed throughout the first hundred-odd pages we come to understand that the time is now. The displaced people of Australia – both white and black – stand equally broken under the oppression of the colonisers.
Of course – the settlers don’t mean to be cruel, you must understand. They simply don’t consider the inhabitants of Australia to be particularly intelligent… or making good use of the land. The well-intentioned colonisers figure they can simply educate the natives so they can be useful. You know, like servants. Except that it’s so much easier to educate and civilise them if the natives join a mission school from a younger age. And of course, they must cut off all contact with their parents.
Any of this sounding familiar yet?
WHAT I THOUGHT OF IT
Terra Nullius is disturbing and confronting. It is, however, utter compelling. Coleman’s characters absolutely leap off the page at you.
THE COLONISERS
Sister Bagra runs a mission for native children. She’s an utter sociopath – in one scene she’s just thrown terrified small children into solitary lockups barely the size of dog kennels. And yet she’s primarily concerned with HER ability to withstand ‘this terrible place’.
And then there’s the so-titled ‘Protector’ of the natives, nicknamed the ‘Devil‘ who truly appears to believe that he’s helping natives by stealing their children and enslaving them:
"There was nothing to like about the job except the satisfaction he received from helping the Natives to help themselves. Natives raising their own children to the primitive ways they lived before he came, that is unacceptable, they would have to be elevated. The school would help elevate the Natives."
THE COLONISED
Jacky is a runaway native who becomes an icon to his oppressed fellow Australians. All through his hellish life – first on a mission, then in virtual slavery – he’s told himself:
"I am Jacky, he thought, I belong somewhere, I had a family once, I have a family who misses me. This litany played over and over in his head. I have a family, I have a family, I am Jacky."
Esperance and her starving group of fleeing refugees are desperate to escape being enslaved. Her experience echoes that of modern refugee camps. This is the rarely told story of the colonised rather than the colonisers:
"Everybody there had come from somewhere else, thrust together, unintentionally, by the Settlers who had merely pushed them away from their homes, expanding to cover more country. Others had arrived there running in terror, barely escaping the violence that had killed everybody they knew.
"Over the years the camp had grown to over a hundred refugees, all malnourished, all dirty, destitute and homeless. Among them there was likely not one, not even a child, that did not relish a thought of returning ‘home’ one day, returning to wherever they had come from. Every child knew they did not belong there, on that dry riverbank although every child had been born right there in camp."
The stories of attempted escapes from slavery reminded me of the The Floating Theatre – a story of pre-Civil War America – except that these slaves have nowhere to run to. There will be no sympathetic reception on the other side of the Mississippi.
BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN HISTORY AND FUTURE
The scene which causes Johnny Star – a settler – to abandon his military post and join the natives’ cause is horrific. It draws from established accounts of genocide, where the attackers do not consider their victims to be truly human:
"He saw a woman shot, bent over her child to protect it, then a man shot bending over her to wail for her life. He saw death: death walking and death running, even death dancing. He saw death in the blades and death in fire and smoke."
Terra Nullius demonstrates the power of fiction to tell uncomfortable truths. Mixing narratives from the past and present, it projects the blend into a speculative future. The result is a novel which distances the reader from modern Australian politics while immersing the reader in the ongoing stark reality of the physical and psychological effects of being one of a dispossessed and oppressed people.
These lines, from Johnny Star, truly sent shivers down my spine in recognition of modern day Australia:
"He had learned, through his friends, that the bent, broken drugged and drunk state of those surviving near the Settlements was not the habitual state of Natives. The truth was, it was a sort of depression brought on by what they had lost, brought on by being dominated and controlled by another people. Who could not be depressed, being treated like animals in a land that had once been theirs alone."
It’s not an easy read, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
The first half of Claire G Coleman’s award-winning debut novel is written in such a way that you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is a story of the 1788 British invasion of Australia.
Except it’s not the past. And the British are not the invaders.
Through tiny details drip-fed throughout the first hundred-odd pages we come to understand that the time is now. The displaced people of Australia – both white and black – stand equally broken under the oppression of the colonisers.
Of course – the settlers don’t mean to be cruel, you must understand. They simply don’t consider the inhabitants of Australia to be particularly intelligent… or making good use of the land. The well-intentioned colonisers figure they can simply educate the natives so they can be useful. You know, like servants. Except that it’s so much easier to educate and civilise them if the natives join a mission school from a younger age. And of course, they must cut off all contact with their parents.
Any of this sounding familiar yet?
WHAT I THOUGHT OF IT
Terra Nullius is disturbing and confronting. It is, however, utter compelling. Coleman’s characters absolutely leap off the page at you.
THE COLONISERS
Sister Bagra runs a mission for native children. She’s an utter sociopath – in one scene she’s just thrown terrified small children into solitary lockups barely the size of dog kennels. And yet she’s primarily concerned with HER ability to withstand ‘this terrible place’.
And then there’s the so-titled ‘Protector’ of the natives, nicknamed the ‘Devil‘ who truly appears to believe that he’s helping natives by stealing their children and enslaving them:
"There was nothing to like about the job except the satisfaction he received from helping the Natives to help themselves. Natives raising their own children to the primitive ways they lived before he came, that is unacceptable, they would have to be elevated. The school would help elevate the Natives."
THE COLONISED
Jacky is a runaway native who becomes an icon to his oppressed fellow Australians. All through his hellish life – first on a mission, then in virtual slavery – he’s told himself:
"I am Jacky, he thought, I belong somewhere, I had a family once, I have a family who misses me. This litany played over and over in his head. I have a family, I have a family, I am Jacky."
Esperance and her starving group of fleeing refugees are desperate to escape being enslaved. Her experience echoes that of modern refugee camps. This is the rarely told story of the colonised rather than the colonisers:
"Everybody there had come from somewhere else, thrust together, unintentionally, by the Settlers who had merely pushed them away from their homes, expanding to cover more country. Others had arrived there running in terror, barely escaping the violence that had killed everybody they knew.
"Over the years the camp had grown to over a hundred refugees, all malnourished, all dirty, destitute and homeless. Among them there was likely not one, not even a child, that did not relish a thought of returning ‘home’ one day, returning to wherever they had come from. Every child knew they did not belong there, on that dry riverbank although every child had been born right there in camp."
The stories of attempted escapes from slavery reminded me of the The Floating Theatre – a story of pre-Civil War America – except that these slaves have nowhere to run to. There will be no sympathetic reception on the other side of the Mississippi.
BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN HISTORY AND FUTURE
The scene which causes Johnny Star – a settler – to abandon his military post and join the natives’ cause is horrific. It draws from established accounts of genocide, where the attackers do not consider their victims to be truly human:
"He saw a woman shot, bent over her child to protect it, then a man shot bending over her to wail for her life. He saw death: death walking and death running, even death dancing. He saw death in the blades and death in fire and smoke."
Terra Nullius demonstrates the power of fiction to tell uncomfortable truths. Mixing narratives from the past and present, it projects the blend into a speculative future. The result is a novel which distances the reader from modern Australian politics while immersing the reader in the ongoing stark reality of the physical and psychological effects of being one of a dispossessed and oppressed people.
These lines, from Johnny Star, truly sent shivers down my spine in recognition of modern day Australia:
"He had learned, through his friends, that the bent, broken drugged and drunk state of those surviving near the Settlements was not the habitual state of Natives. The truth was, it was a sort of depression brought on by what they had lost, brought on by being dominated and controlled by another people. Who could not be depressed, being treated like animals in a land that had once been theirs alone."
It’s not an easy read, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
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