A book of two parts, interwoven. One is a traditionally written historical novel set in the late 1700s which is a third person viewpoint of a man, William Dawes, who is apparently an actual historical person. He served in the Royal Marines and was employed as a surveyor and overseer of convicts working in a British colony in Australia which eventually became the city of Sydney, but his real passion was astronomy. He is dissatisfied with his position, forced to obey orders of the capricious governor who presides over the gradual extermination of the native population of the area by a combination of smallpox - which William is unable to prove was deliberately spread among them and to which the Europeans were immune thanks to immunisation - and the destruction of habitat and overfishing, which wiped out their foodsupply. Any attempt he makes to stand out against these orders on the basis of conscience is condemned even by the clergyman as being due to the sin of pride: of thinking himself better than anyone else. He is tormented by guilt over sexuality, as he is attracted to one of the women convicts, and troubled by friendship with another marine who he discovers is homosexual which in those days would be a hanging offence.

The other part of the story is made up of the interwoven first person narratives of a woman called Olla who originates from somewhere in eastern Europe in the (present day at the time of publication) 1980s and the man she has married, Stephen. They have a total disassociation of viewpoints. Olla has known a lot of hardship, including an abusive home with a drunken father and a brother with breathing problems who she had to try to protect. Stephen is from a privileged middle class background but has become what was known at the time as a 'lefty' with Marxist views etc, which eventually lead him to disaster when he and another man try to run a school along egalitarian lines. The marriage undergoes total breakdown when they have a son who to everyone else is disabled but who Olla believes is a latent genius and messiah.

The historical part of the book was interesting but the 'present day' narrative didn't appeal and seemed a bit too self-consciously literary and a way of avoiding writing a true historical, which at the time of publication was a genre mostly out of favour and only rehabilitated by combining it with mysteries as in the Cadfael novels. The author wrote a much better true historical novel, 'Mr Wroe's Virgins', so I had expected better and really can only award this a 2 star 'OK' rating and that on the basis of the 18th century component. ( )