I’ve enjoyed the board game Settlers of Catan for years, so when I saw that there was now a novel based on it—the first in a series, no less—I was eager to read it. When I saw that the book was nearly six hundred pages long, I wondered how a game could lead to the creation of such an epic.
The great length comes from the fact that the book begins well before any settlers reach Catan, in Scandinavia. The people who eventually sail to the island are exiled Norsemen, accompanied by enslaved people from Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. They face not only the difficulty of settling a new land but also the dangers of the sea and the perils of conflict among the many disparate people which make up their group.
Catan presents an intriguing story, but one which suffers not so much from its length as from the dryness of its prose and the simplicity of its characters. I was bored before Catan was even reached. People who enjoy Viking sagas and tales of settlement may enjoy it, but otherwise, I would recommend simply playing the game again.
