Terra Nullius

Conceptually I really enjoyed this book. Anti-colonial sci-fi is very much my jam, and I can't think of another speculative book offhand told with an aboriginal Australian lens. That said, I think I might have enjoyed it more without the twist which I keyed into from the very beginning. The reveal was a long time coming which made some of the gymnastics done to avoid the reveal a little forced. The cover compares Coleman to LeGuin which I think is particularly apt in that a lot of LeGuin's novels were really narrative thought experiments, more concerned with concept than character, and I think that's true for Coleman as well. It's a very cool idea but the idea supercedes much of my bonding with any characters or their stories. Still, a very interesting book and a genuine, occasionally viscerally painful look at the colonial powers that founded Australia, the US, and too many other countries. Not enough of this book is fiction.