The Cartographers

I picked this up from the Science Fiction and Fantasy section of the bookshop, and for the first half I thought it had been mis-shelved. Not that I minded that, but once the second half of the story got going and things got weird it turned into a much more engaging book. As a result it’s definitely one of those books that I don’t want to say too much about, I feel like I might have already but then so does the book cover.

I very much liked how integral the maps were to the plot, it’s not just a random object that could have been replaced by any other precious or antique thing but very much part of the plot. Funnily enough it was the actual setting of the book that didn’t really gel for me, I didn’t get much of a sense of New York in the parts that were set there. And it seemed like the character count was a bit excessive for the length of the story. The author did a decent job of differentiating most of them but I found myself not quite remembering the significance of some of them from time to time, and “who are you again?” always pulls me out of the story.

That sounds like a lot of criticism to me but mostly because it was a very enjoyable read and I just wanted it to be that bit better. It flowed better once it got going, and I’ll be looking out other books by Shepherd in future.