Review: Terra Nullius

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There's an old adage: If you have to explain a joke, then it isn't funny. The same is true for allegories in books. If you make long winded explanations of your allegories, then it isn't a good one. That's basically this entire book. It's one big allegory but goes out of its way to explain itself. It's also badly paced and underrealized. But I'll get to that in a minute.

I think this novel's biggest problem is that it begins and ends at the wrong points. The first nine chapters are completely bogus and it just fumbles around with itself because the author thought it would be clever to hide the true aspect of the actual plot. It wasn't. I've heard people refer to what happens in chapter 10 (about halfway into the novel) as a 'twist', but it's not. It's just where the book gets started. Because it's so committed to this subversion, the plot of the first half of the novel has to remain razor thin. It might seem clever when you look at it from an overview kind of way, but from a chapter by chapter reading, it's just boring.

My biggest issue with the reveal is that, in chapter 12, it gives a rather long explanation of its entire allegory. There's a settler/exploited native dynamic going on that ties in with our own history but feels the need to spell it out for you. Yeah, I understood what you were going for. It's obvious. Yet, the book seems to want to repeat the explanation over and over and over again. What comes closest to a main character even repeats this sentiment several times as if it's their sole attribute. Either the author thinks their idea was so clever that it needs to be explained, or they think we're too ignorant to understand it. Either way, it's a knock against them.

Prose-wise, the book is alright. Lines can range from extremely literal to insanely metaphorical, but I understood what was going on at all times. So it's at least competently written. There's just not a great deal to attach yourself to beyond the premise. So, when things happen in what seems like slow motion, I found it difficult to care.

The world-building is well conveyed but underrealized. What I mean is that you only know what is important, but what is important is also convenient to the plot. To say something is completely alien but also say it can speak and act like a human, contradicts your own world-building. Everything explained about the world just feels like a convenience so the story in the author's head can be told. It's also not that creative, but I think my review already conveys my opinion of that aspect.

And while the book begins in the wrong spot, it also ends before anything is truly resolved. I was starting to like the book by the end, but it wants to so badly conclude on a sour note that it left me unfulfilled. The ending feels more like a middle act plot turner and the rest of the book would deal with the aftermath. Sadly, it ends there. I don't know if the author just wants to introduce everything to write a whole series, but the pacing is so bad that I would find it hard pressed to pick up a second novel.

Ray Bradbury said that a good story with a bad ending is a bad story, and a bad story with a good ending is a good story. Yes, I'm paraphrasing but that doesn't exclude the point. The latter half of the book is certainly better than the former, but the ending doesn't feel like an ending. So I'm conflicted. Somewhat liking the last few chapters doesn't make me forget all the thumbing around and condescending explanations. But it doesn't give me a strange compulsion to read it again. Not to enjoy it of course, but it only further dissect it. Like a toad.

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