Map's Edge by David Hair is a joyous adventure filled with a new and unusual magic system, that I thoroughly enjoyed. The idea of a spirit that takes on a pet-like appearance, and helps the user with spells is unique. The power is also rather punishing.

Most books have a slow start and gradually increase their pacing, but Map's Edge was foot-on-the-gas from the start. Even conversations that would usually cause a story to drag, didn't seem drawn out or bland.

I thought the story was distinctive in that your typical adventure is told with a small cast, but this has 300+!! Still the story remained interesting and coherent. The extra characters made sense to the overall story.

I thoroughly look forward to the next book.

I loved David Hair’s previous books, The Moontide quartet and The Sunsurge quartet, so I was really excited when I saw this on Net Galley. This is the opening book in a brand new series and is the story of a whole village who go on a search for the precious mineral Istarol, which fuels sorcery. They are escaping from the occupying empire of Bolgravia however they are pursued by the enemy who include powerful sorcerors.
In common with the author’s previous books, there are lots of characters to get to know which can feel quite confusing at first. The first part of the book felt quite slow and if I hadn’t read the previous quartets, I might not have persevered. However I’m glad that I did as the characters and the story settle and it becomes more engaging for the reader. The final third of the book is an exciting read and I definitely want to know what happens next.
Many thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.

Having never read anything by this author, I was interested to read this book as it looked like exactly to my taste.
I wasn't disappointed, in fact I was amazed by just how good this book actually is.
In my mind, fantasy is really hard to write, as it needs to walk between cliché & the perceived constraints of the fantasy worlds. This book ticks all the boxes and is truly engrossing & captivating, so much so that I physically had to dedicate an hour for the finale as I simply couldn't put it down.
The only downside is that this is a trilogy and the author leaves it finely poised for the sequel. I for one simply cannot wait to devour the next instalment of this amazing adventure.

Adventurous, exciting, suspenseful, and full of tension. The copy editing (even in the pre-release version I read from Netgalley) is cleaner than average. The characters are appealing and varied, and their various alliances, hostilities, and other interactions drive the plot in interesting ways.

I debated, though, about whether or not to put it on my Best of the Year shelf or not, largely because of the ending, but also a bit because of the worldbuilding. In the end, it squeaked through, but it will be at or near the tail end of the list.

Without giving spoilers, at the end the author feels the need to pull out three fortunate coincidences (including a Convenient Eavesdrop), spaced very closely together, to get the protagonists out of the corner he's backed them into. This isn't typical of the rest of the book at all; they succeed against the odds not by good luck, but by courage, intelligence, good planning, and the judicious application of their skills, which is how protagonists should succeed.

The ending is also a cliffhanger. I'm not as averse to those as some people are, but I don't love them either. Combined with the coincidences, it felt like the author rushed and forced the ending and finished the book too early.

Throughout, I was never sure whether this was planetary fantasy (along the lines of Sherri Tepper's True Game or Ann McCaffrey's Pern, where settlers on a planet gain unusual powers and forget their interstellar origins), or whether it was simply a secondary-world flintlock fantasy where several of the cultures were copied wholesale from Earth. The evil imperialists are Russianesque; one magical language is Latin, and the culture and language of the fallen empire from hundreds of years before appear Japanese. There's a tribe at the end who are essentially Maori (and ride on birds that are like more colourful moas), but they speak an odd blend of almost-Maori and kind-of-Japanese. If these are settler cultures on another planet, that's inadequately explored and not clearly justified; if it's just lazy worldbuilding by way of cultural photocopying, I have a problem with that approach.

So: most of the book is very sound and enjoyable, but it's let down by a couple of aspects, and so only barely makes my recommended list for 2021.

I have been wanting to read David Hair’s work for a while, and I really loved the concept of this new book, which starts a brand new series called the Tethered Citadel. Even so, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, since the blurb doesn’t give much away. It took me a while to get to know the characters, though I did like most of the right away, and there were moments in the first half in which I felt there were too many points of view and things were moving a little slowly, but as I got further in I started to appreciate all of it, and in the end I really loved it.

Map’s Edge is set in a world that has seen many upheavals; from the shattering of the ancient Aldar kingdom and the Ice Age their twisted magic brought forth, to the conquering of smaller countries by the Bolgravian Empire, a Russian-like people who wish to erase all other cultures in favour of one uniform nation. Raythe Vyre, the central figure in this story, is an Otravian noble who joined the rebellion against the Bolgravs and was forced to run when things went badly, ending up in Teshveld, a town on the fringes, full of people escaping their pasts and the watchful eyes of the Empire. Raythe is a sorcerer posing as a healer, and when he awakes one night to a group of Bolgravs at his door, ordering him to heal one of their men, he discovers they have just returned from an expedition in the newly discovered lands of Verdessa, where they have discovered vast reserves of istariol, a substance that fuels magic.

Sensing opportunity, Raythe incapacitates the enemy group, and calls a meeting with those of Teshveld that he trusts, to organise their own trek up into Verdessa, to mine the istariol before the Empire discovers it. Now, at this stage, I was expecting a Fellowship of the Ring-style group, a ragtag little team up against the world, but as Raythe rightly realises, mining and transporting a vast quantity of istariol takes a lot of people, and almost the entire town of Teshveld packs up their belongings and begins the long and dangerous journey North in search of wealth and freedom. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this at first, because a big group is hard to keep track of, and it can be difficult to remember and care about more individual characters, but I needn’t have worried. David Hair brings them all to life brilliantly, a group of morally grey, complex people, all scarred in some way by the invading Bolgravs.

Of course, there are key people that dominate, all of them with their own agendas and past traumas, and I loved getting to know them all. The first half of the book focuses very much on the way their dynamics develop in these close confines, and the power plays between all of them. Though at the time I wanted the story to move faster, I am grateful for the time spent on character development, because it pays off later during the more action-based scenes. Apart from the challenge of entering Verdessa undetected, and the dangers of the road, Raythe and his people are being followed by Toran Zorne, a tenacious member of the Bolgrav secret service who has been hunting Raythe for two years, and tracks him on his mad quest north, creating further obstacles for him and his people.

A big part of this story, as you can tell, centres around character tension, but another crucial, and beautifully crafted element, is the world building. There is so much packed into this book, so many little moments that suggest greater things, that made the world feel much vaster than the confines of the map. The mythology of the Aldar and their floating cities, the planetary rings that split the skies at night, the folk songs and stories, the range of different cultures represented within Raythe’s caravan, the magic system so reliant on the spirit world – it all builds such an exciting backdrop that I would happily explore for hours on end.

I really loved Map’s Edge and, what with the massive twist that comes right at the end, I cannot wait to get my hands on what comes next!