Quite unexpected too.
It?s called This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson.
It?s my book group book and I sighed when I saw it, it?s huge and looked like a real ?boy? book ? it?s about the voyage of the Beagle by Fitzroy and Darwin (I knew almost nothing about this).
But actually it?s excellent, I am racing through it and really enjoying it. There are a lot of characters to take in and some of the conversations are done with an eye to what is later discovered (lots of debates about Noah?s flood etc) and thus seem a bit unlikely, like people in the 1950s discussing how there will never be very small computers, but overall I am loving it.
Sadly the author died just after writing this, his only novel. It?s a wonderful achievement though.