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The Map of All Things
Terra Incognita – Book II

By Kevin J Anderson

        Since the burning of the sacred city of Ishalem those Tierrans and Urabans have been at it hammer and tongs.  One side commits atrocities, then the other side follows in retaliation.  Ishalem has fallen into the hands of the Urabans, thanks to their leader the Soldan-Shah Omra, and workers have found an ancient map in an underground chamber.  This is surely the map that shows the way to the fabled lost lands and the Key of Creation; a ship must be sent out immediately.  Omra sends his adopted son, Saan, on a voyage of discovery, while on the other side of the continent, the Tierrans have waved off the Discovera with Criston Vora as captain…
 
There is a lot in this large book, and the parallels with the religious wars raging in our own world are obvious and make the tale seem more immediate.  Mr Anderson has created a big, sprawling epic in the best fantasy tradition with at least a dozen different viewpoints as all the various sets of characters scheme, plot and plan.  The problem with this is that we are never with each group for very long; some chapters consist of little more than a couple of pages before the reader is whisked away and shown something else.  At times this makes a story that is not so much hard to follow – this is actually not a problem – but hard to grab hold of, rather like one of the slippery sea serpents the three ships keep encountering.  This has the added fault of making it hard to care for the characters and can seem more like flicking through a magazine than reading a novel.  This aside, Mr Anderson has created an entertaining tale that keeps the pages turning late into the night and makes the reader pause at times when events hold up a distorting mirror into the way our own conflicts arose and continue to rise.

The Book

Orbit (Little, Brown)
10 June 2010
Trade Paperback
1841496596 / 9781841496597
Fantasy
More at Amazon US || UK
Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Rachel Hyde
Reviewed 2010
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