Follow a renegade sorcerer off the edge of the map, in a thrilling adventure perfect for fans of Scott Lynch, Brandon Sanderson and Sebastien de Castell . . .
Dashryn Cowl has run out of places to hide. The erstwhile sorcerer of the Imperial College fled the Bolgravian Empire when his high-flying family fell from grace, but the tyrannical empire is still hunting for him.
So when he gets his hands on a map showing a place outside the known lands rich in istariol, the mineral that fuels sorcery, he sees a way back to power. There’s only one problem: it means masquerading as an Imperial Cartomancer (an instant death sentence) and finding some dupes to help him mine the istariol in secret, no questions asked.
But somehow, amid the dangers of the road (floods and avalanches, beasts, barbarians and monsters), a strange thing begins to happen: Dashryn starts to care about his ragtag followers and their strange odyssey into the ruins of an ancient forgotten civilisation.
But his past won’t let him be: the implacable Imperial Bloodhound Toran Zorne has caught his scent, and Zorne has never yet failed to bring his quarry to ground.
At the edge of the map, there’s no going forward and no going back . . .
When I see a blurb like the above for Map’s Edge, one that gives a tonne of information to the reader and has some big-name authorial comparisons, I tend to think that it could go one of two ways. It could be awesome. There could be so much to enjoy that it’s impossible to write it all down. Or it could be a case of over-hyping a book that’s only gonna let me down in the end.
I picked up Map’s Edge because it seemed like a pretty “standard” noughties-style epic fantasy. The kind of story that builds on a lot of pre-established tropes but with some original flourishes. And that’s what I got. kind of?
The premise here is that we’ve got Dash Cowley: a guy with a mysterious past, a daughter, and a desire to get the hell away from the Bolgravian Empire (who are pretty much your standard epic fantasy evil empire, but with Russian accents). Early in the book, Dash comes into possession of a map with the location of a treasure trove of scarce magical ore — istariol. In this world, sorcerers use istariol to power their magic. Dash is able to read this map since, wouldn’t you know, he is a sorcerer!
So the story begins. Dash starts seeing dollar signs and, perhaps more importantly, the prospect of a peaceful life. He puts together a ragtag group of people from the town he’s currently hiding out in and sets off to form a colony. Quickly. So that they can get to the istariol before the empire finds out.
Obviously, things don’t pan out that simply. The empire gives chase. Factions within Dash’s colony start to butt heads. There’s quite a bit of exploration of the troubles of leadership, and Dash spends most of the book practicing conflict resolution. This is something I’ve enjoyed before in books like Abercrombie’s The Trouble with Peace, but I found it a bit repetitive here. I usually love a bit of found-family feel, and was hoping that I’d get that here, but unfortunately I didn’t find that to be the case. I thought there was too much conflict between the travelling crew for that sense of belonging to shine through.
Some of this conflict (and the subsequent mediation) took the story down a path that I really didn’t enjoy. There is an attempted rape of one of the more prominent point-of-view characters. Several attempts, really. The way that the first is dealt with leaves the plot thread hanging in a foreshadow-y way that I found uncomfortable. I assume this was the author’s intention, but that doesn’t change the fact that this may not be enjoyable for some readers.
This ties into one of the recurring themes of Map’s Edge. There’s some exploration of the dangers of being a woman, and on the forced reliance on men with more powerful positions. While I applaud the author for tackling this kind of topic, as I feel more authors should, I… didn’t really enjoy the execution. There were some poignant moments, such as when a character walking through the camp on her own at night starts to worry for her safety. But I feel that when you bring such a volatile topic as rape into a novel, you have to really nail the survivor’s story. You have to nail the emotions involved. You have to touch on the healing, show a way forward. And the way that it was handled in this book just didn’t work for me.
But if I’m honest, a lot of this book didn’t work for me. I didn’t think that there was much life or charisma in the dialogue. I thought that the characters continually made infuriating decisions, and that their flaws and motivations were often less complex than I’d prefer. Some scenes and character arcs just didn’t hold my interest. There’s one story thread where Dash’s recently-turned-sixteen daughter is determined to lose her virginity to the one “nice” guy from a horrible family, but her father doesn’t approve. While there might be someone out there for whom that storyline strikes a chord, it certainly wasn’t me.
Two things I did like were the magic and the worldbuilding, which are tied together in a way I found really interesting. I enjoyed watching the characters learn about them to the extent that I really didn’t mind the info-dumps. The magic system here involves sorcerers connecting with a sort of invisible animal familiar, which is always a plus in my book. There’s an element of “rediscovering an ancient lost civilisation”, too, which was one of the things that kept me reading.
In the end, Map’s Edge by David Hair didn’t strike a chord with me. There were some aspects I enjoyed, but more that frustrated me. It wasn’t my kind of book, but if you’re interested by anything I’ve said above, it might be for you.
We received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher (via Netgalley) in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Jo Fletcher for the review copy!
