The Astonishing Life of Octavian...Nothing?

We've tried to like historical fiction in the past. We really have. Maybe there's something about being forced to read Johnny Tremain and My Brother Sam is Dead when we widgets and ball bearings were just a twinkle in our eyes, but frankly, we're a little burnt out on it. That's why The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing; Volume 1: The Pox Party, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Exist In A Storyline Concurrent With The Revolution (okay, we added that last part) really didn't do much for us as readers or literary critics.

TALoON;V1:TPP is the story of young Octavian, the son of an African princess, growing up in colonial New England in the so called "College of Lucidity" filled with philosophers and scientists. We will attempt to !SPOIL! as little as possible here, but we must DIVULGE A LITTLE. Octavian grows to learn in his early years that he lives with the philosophers and scientists that they may study him and determine the worth of Africans versus Europeans.NO MORE SPOIL!

This is all well and good. The book's author has an interesting problem, which may indeed lead to a good story. Unfortunately, M.T. Anderson (said author) kills it. In a bad way. We've seen the vernacular used to good affect. While there have been doubts about the vernacular in Huck Finn, most would say it adds to the story. This can not be said for the vernacular in TALoON;V1:TPP. Anderson's attempt at using period dialog and narration. It gets in the way of the story. We got about thirty pages in and had certainly had our fill of thees and thous.

We don't know if we'll give Anderson's next book (which we can only imagine has an even longer acronym) a chance. We'd like to find out what happens in the plot, but we prefer to read a book, not trudge through it.