M.T. Anderson - The Kingdom on the Waves

V.
THE THEATER OF WAR

VI.
The KINGDOM ON THE WAVES

VII.
MOTHERLAND

VIII.
THE HOUSE OF THE STRONG

IX.
THE REASONING ENGINE

X.
TABULA RASA

M. T. A NDERSON is the author of Feed, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as the National Book Award-winning first volume of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, which also received a Michael L. Printz Honor and a Boston GlobeHorn Book Award and was a New York Times bestseller. Growing up in the Boston area, he was surrounded by early American history. I got my hair cut in the town that sent the first detachment of militiamen against the British, he says. My orthodontist worked in the town where Paul Revere was captured by the Redcoats. On the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Old North Bridge, after watching several reenactments, he started wondering, What would it be like to be standing there untrained facing the British with a gun I usually used to shoot turkeys? What would it be like to be standing there, not knowing that we would win? I decided to write a book from the point of view of someone who wouldnt know the outcome of the war and who had to make a hard choice between sides. M. T. Anderson lives in Massachusetts.

THE BOY OCTAVIAN IS RAISED IN A GAUNT HOUSE by men engaged in mysterious pursuits. It is revealed that the men of the house are philosophers pursuing subtle knowledge of the arts and sciences, calling themselves The Novanglian College of Lucidity: Novanglian, for the house is located in the New England Colonies, in the town of Boston; Lucidity, for it is an age when Enlightenment illumines every corner of the unknown. The eccentricities of that College are many; the boy Octavians mother will not tell him of why he must live there, or why she is constrained as often she is. The reader is made acquainted with two of Octavians friends, a slave named Pro Bono and Octavians tutor, Dr. Trefusis. Through hints by these savant gentlemen and examination of his circumstances, Octavian realizes the nature of his situation: He is the subject of a great experiment, in which the scholars of the College of Lucidity seek to determine whether the capacities of the African are equal to those of the European. Accordingly, Octavian has received instruction in all of the gentle arts, in the deepest sciences, and is an excellent Latinist. The College of Lucidity having suffered some financial embarrassment, Pro Bono is given to a potential investor as a gift. As the Colonies resist taxation by the Crown, the tumults of war press themselves upon the College. Adding to the distresses of the age, the smallpox threatens the beleaguered city. Fearing disease, a revolt by the slaves, and a myriad of other destructive eventualities, the scholars of the College flee Boston and establish quarantine in the countryside, where they inoculate all of their party against the pox. Something goes amiss with the inoculation, and several members of the party suffer the full agonies of the disease. The disease proves fatal to Octavians mother. Dumbfounded by the scene of horror he discovers when he seeks to pay his last respects to her, Octavian flees the College of Lucidity. He takes refuge with the rebels, aiding in the fortification of the countryside as Boston, now a fastness for the Kings Army, is besieged by the Patriots. One of the Patriots, without knowledge, betrays our hero to an agent of the College of Lucidity, and the boy is again captured.