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Morgan's Run
: I made it through about the first two-thirds of the book. I really did feel suspense about whether they would EVER make it to Australian. I felt like I was on that transport ship, it took so long. Once Morgan was in Australian my interest rapidly waned. I think it was because he was such a cold fish. There seemed to be no driving force in his life, no romance, no burning desire to do anything. At best, he came across as an able manager. Yawn.
 I should have known when I picked up this book that Ms. McCullough would have me crying by it's end. What an amazing combination of excellent prose, insightful historical interpretation, and spellbinding affection for the main character. As the descendant of a first-fleet convict who was transported on the Scarborough, I feel that I now have a much better understanding of how people became convicts--as well as what they did to survive. This book will please romantics, scholars, and history buffs alike. I cannot wait for the sequel!
 .... you'll have a splendid time learning about life in England and New South Wales during the 1780's. McCullough is a teacher with a gift for writing and I had a great time with the story. Not as scholarly as the Masters of Rome Series, but I'm guessing her publisher insisted upon her producing something that appeals to a wider market. I have a new appreciation for the Australian's and was shocked to learn about the unfairness of the English court system during those times. This will be a great follow-up to the summer Olympics ... get a glimpse of that beautiful harbor as it was 220 years ago and let the spirit of Richard Morgan inspire you in the same way that some of your favorite athletes have!
This was a dark but enlightening read as to life in parts of Britain in the 1700s, and also the journey to the first penal colony in Australia. Characters are well-developed, Richard Morgan can be a hero for us all. Had tried to read Robert Hugh's Fatal Shore but quit half way through. Will go back and try it again. Great book for history buffs.
Colleen McCullough is Australian, and established herself as a writer with The Thorn Birds, a novel of Australia. In the last few years she has been writing stories of ancient Rome, but in Morgan's Run returns to her native Australia. This novel is about the initial colonization of Australia with the Botany Bay penal colony and its offshoot on Norfolk Island, a thousand miles away. The story begins in Bristol, England, as the American Revolution is starting. Richard Morgan is middle class, unassuming, and devoted to his wife and son-unusually so for the time. Prospering until after the American war is lost, Morgan Job-like loses his fortune and family, and runs afoul of aristocratic shenanigans, ending up a convicted felon sentenced to be transported. But with the American colonies gone, England has no place to send her gaol-filling convicts. Barely discovered, much less explored, Australia is picked as the ideal dumping ground. After all, it is two oceans away, and the problem will definitely be out of sight. And by sending only convicts and their keepers, there is not likely to be another of those pesky revolutions. McCullogh captures the soul of long-suffering, long-enduring Richard Morgan as he copes with horrific prison conditions, convict labor, a transport ship little better than a slaver (which it was before being contracted as a convict transport), and a totally disorganized and corrupt expedition. A reader cannot but help to understand why the newly independent Americans insisted on the Bill of Rights as part of its written Constitution. Inept bureaucrats and corruption have been harder to overcome. This is not an action-adventure. It is a well-told tale of a man with deep inner strength, a man who perseveres through adversity. A Job. In her afterword, McCullough promises more about Richard Morgan and his family. Perhaps we will not have to wait too long.
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