A recent Thunderbolt novel managed to omit the year 1865 from its fictional account of Thunderbolt’s life, despite this being the most important year in the real Thunderbolt’s bushranging career. Chapter 13 of Thunderbolt: Scourge of the Ranges related events occurring in January 1865 then ended: “The first Thunderbolt gang was in business.” Chapter 14 began: “In early March of 1866 …”. The remainder of the novel included no further references to Thunderbolt’s first gang – or indeed to his second gang, which formed later in 1865 and disbanded in January 1866. That a second gang also existed was intimated by the use of the word “first”, so any reader paying close attention must have wondered what was going on – as I did.
When I came across this strange omission, I flipped back through the pages and checked the chapter numbering to see if the printers had accidentally omitted the chapters relating to Thunderbolt’s two gangs (some authors send their manuscripts through as separate computer files for each chapter). The consecutive chapter numbering indicated that this omission was deliberate. Yet the abruptness suggested that the authors had written the chapters then dumped them for some reason – perhaps because the events of that year showed Thunderbolt shooting at the police, which would seriously undermine one of the major themes of the novel.
So in this post, I am directing readers to two of the Timelines for the year 1865 so they can see for themselves the truth about the activities of the real Thunderbolt.
Timeline – 1865: First gang
Timeline – 1865: Second gang
By preparing annotated timelines like these, I was able to document absolutely everything I found for Thunderbolt and Mary Ann and their families and also for Fred's accomplices. Most published historical works include text annotations that merely source-reference the information contained in the book. In writing any book, however, it is necessary to omit information that has taken much time and hard work to find because of space limitations – and also, in this instance, because readers would get bored with too many cries of "bail up"! By publishing these timelines I have provided more exhaustive documentation than any previous Thunderbolt publication – probably more exhaustive documentation than any other book that has ever been published, in fact! In so doing, I am delighted to be able to the body of knowledge about these important historical figures.
When I came across this strange omission, I flipped back through the pages and checked the chapter numbering to see if the printers had accidentally omitted the chapters relating to Thunderbolt’s two gangs (some authors send their manuscripts through as separate computer files for each chapter). The consecutive chapter numbering indicated that this omission was deliberate. Yet the abruptness suggested that the authors had written the chapters then dumped them for some reason – perhaps because the events of that year showed Thunderbolt shooting at the police, which would seriously undermine one of the major themes of the novel.
So in this post, I am directing readers to two of the Timelines for the year 1865 so they can see for themselves the truth about the activities of the real Thunderbolt.
Timeline – 1865: First gang
Timeline – 1865: Second gang
By preparing annotated timelines like these, I was able to document absolutely everything I found for Thunderbolt and Mary Ann and their families and also for Fred's accomplices. Most published historical works include text annotations that merely source-reference the information contained in the book. In writing any book, however, it is necessary to omit information that has taken much time and hard work to find because of space limitations – and also, in this instance, because readers would get bored with too many cries of "bail up"! By publishing these timelines I have provided more exhaustive documentation than any previous Thunderbolt publication – probably more exhaustive documentation than any other book that has ever been published, in fact! In so doing, I am delighted to be able to the body of knowledge about these important historical figures.
RSS Feed