The ‘Settlers of Catan’ Novel is WAY More Unhinged Than You’d Ever Expect
How did the Settlers of Catan novel take trading sheep for wheat and get religious persecution, murder, child marriage, slavery, and worse?
It’s not super common for board games to get their universe extended with books, movies, TV shows, and the like. Clue is probably the most notable exception. But, when a game is as popular as Settlers of Catan, you should expect some additional material out there. That said, I don’t think anyone expected the official Settlers of Catan novel to be this similar to something like Game of Thrones.
Settlers of Catan Novel Overview
The Settlers of Catan novel is 650 pages. Considering the source material, it’s surprising that the author, Rebecca Gable, found anything to talk about. Granted, once you read the plot summary, it becomes clear this is just a historical fiction novel with the Catan label fairly haphazardly placed on top.
The year is 850. In the seas of northern Europe, the small coastal village of Elasund falls prey to marauding neighbors. Their food stores pillaged, women and children stolen, livestock destroyed, the villagers are left to barely survive the harsh winter — and contemplate a drastic solution to their recurring hardships: leaving the only village they have ever known.
Foster brothers Candamir and Osmund lead their people on an epic quest to a mythic island home, but without knowledge of exactly where the island is, they must trust the gods to deliver them safely. Lost at sea and set adrift, an extraordinarily violent storm washes them ashore the island famed in pagan lore: Catan.
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Things Start To Get Little Strange
Okay, seems simple enough. Maybe a little YA mixed in there, but nothing too off the rails. Plus, seems like it’s setting up a good plotline for settling on this new island. So far, makes a lot of sense. But then what happens?
They quickly set about building a new society but old grudges, animosities, and social orders lead to fraternal strife. As the ideals of Candamir’s Christian slave spread throughout the village and conflict with pagan law, the two belief systems clash. When both Osmund and Candamir fall in love with Siglind, the mysterious queen of the Cold Islands, things come to a head.
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Oh. Hmm. What was that bit in the middle there? “Christian slave”? What’s this book about again?
Yup, turns out this novel has all sorts of themes you really wouldn’t expect from a game about trading wheat for wood. Turns out the book is filled with religious themes, which on it’s own would be fine. But this is a book about Settlers of Catan!
Oh, but it gets so much worse.
I’m Sorry, What?
Later on in the story, Candamir’s 14 year old brother, Hacon, loses his virginity to one of Candamir’s slaves. But when Hacon wakes up, he finds out his sheep have been eaten by wolves, so he’s punished with 60 lashes and is whipped nearly to death. Thankfully, Candamir steps in to take half the lashings for his brother.
If you’re first reaction is “wtf?!”, good news! You’re probably a pretty normal person. And the story only gets more bizarre and unhinged. There’s moments of non-consensual sex, murder, brutal executions, and suicide. Again, in some other novel, that could, theoretically be fine. It’s not for me, but whatever. Though putting it all into a novel with the Settlers of Catan label is just irresponsible. There’s no way anyone would expect this sort of story from a Settlers of Catan novel.
If you flip through the German side of the Catan website, you find designer, Klaus Teuber’s thoughts on the novel.
In 1995, the game “The Settlers of Catan” (now: “Catan the Game”) was published by Kosmos Verlag. The CATAN world grew steadily and in 2003, Rebecca Gable – my favorite author of historical novels – based on my sketches, wrote the story of the settlers in the book “The Settlers of Catan”. We agreed on a trilogy, but for various, understandable reasons, Ms. Gable ended her story with the first volume, leaving the story of Catan unfortunately unfinished. An unsatisfactory state of affairs, especially since representatives of the film industry were increasingly expressing interest in a film adaptation. So, in 2019, I decided to take up the pen myself.
Interview translated from Google
If you’re interested in reading this novel for yourself, don’t let me stop you. Just know what you’re getting into. I can only hope your time exploring Catan goes a lot better than Candamir’s does.
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