Reviews and Comments

Inventive, beautiful, brutal. Not my cup of tea right now.

Companion to "The Dawn of Everything?" Heck yeah!

At the beginning of the audiobook, there's an announcement that you can view the maps mentioned in the text by going to the author's page at the Harper Collins website, but the download doesn't seem to be working: www.harpercollins.com/pages/thecartographers

Fortunately, there's an e-book sample that let me view at least a small version of the NYS map.

Still, it would be cool to get a better look at it. Maybe I should email them.

Manning Marable's biography of Malcolm X was excellent. So when I heard about this, I knew I had to read it.

SCIENCE!!!!

Well, typical Robinson: 17 million different characters and plenty of exposition. I don't mind, I like exposition. Especially when it's waxing rhapsodical about New York City.

That certainly was informative!

So far I'm intrigued. The daughter of the NY Public Library's map division's head cartographer (a cartographer herself) finds out her father has suddenly died, and discovers in his effects an old, seemingly worthless map that was the cause of a life-ruining argument between them seven years prior. Suddenly there are break-ins and murders and it's starting to seem as if the map wasn't so worthless after all--but why would anyone be willing to kill for a 1930 foldable gas station map of New York State?

Full disclosure: the author is an old friend of mine.

It was fun and sweet, hilarious at times, believably scary baddies, a nice resolution. The only thing I wish it had was more. More adventures in the multiverse.

love it!

This book is about love and friendship. It's really sweet that way. Two kickass women luck into finding each other when they both really need it, and then support each other through a series of adventures. One has a girlfriend, the other is married to a man.

Unfortunately, while the emotional states and connections of the characters are resonant and believable, the action and the plot are less so. Both heroine and villain suffer from overly revealing monologue syndrome, and some action-packed sequences contain elements that are simply impossible - for instance, the idea that someone could yell your name, slide you a gun, and you could pick it up and shoot it in less time than it takes for a person with an axe in their hand, already raised, to lower the axe to the ground.

Good fun, but a little incoherent.

It's weird when I feel like the character an author invented would, if she were real, have a clearer moral vision of the world than the author does.

I have not read any Adrian Tchaikovsky novels yet.

Even MORE wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff! I feel like this is a thing. Well, we're all feeling the effects of weird time dilation due to living through unprecedented times I guess.