James Michener's long and earnest novels … have not been found worthy of even the most casual mention in serious studies of contemporary American fiction, and neither do they appear on college-literature reading lists. None of this has made a particle of difference to his readers….

Michener's panoramic chronicles are a very different breed of fiction from the classic schlock … that ordinarily hogs the best-seller list, for Michener's novels are short on sex and long on facts. Though he enlivens and simplifies the dusty record of the past by means of invented characters, incidents, and dialogue, and has a canny respect for the allure of romance and melodrama, his plots are braced with a solid rigging of expert knowledge about the history, archeology, religion, language, geology, wildlife, agriculture, and specialized social and economic lore of the particular region … that he stakes out for exploration and proceeds to conquer.

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