Review: The Map of the Sky

The Map of the Sky by Félix J. Palma

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A few years back, I won a copy of The Map of Time through Goodreads, a time travel book that was more an homage to HG Wells than anything else. What started as a strange tribute to The Time Machine ended up being a really compelling story regarding fringe science, quackery, and misdirection that I absolutely loved. When I saw that The Map of the Sky was announced, I quickly preordered it and then basically forgot to read it for a year. Having some time on a plane, I finally gave it a shot, and I'm frankly kicking myself that I didn't just read it right away.

This essentially takes place in the same universe as The Map of Time, a few years later. In this case, the book we're acknowledging is War of the Worlds, the classic alien invasion tale. We spend a lot more time with HG Wells as his story inspires love, impacts Edgar Allen Poe, and throws the entire world into disarray.

I can't speak more highly about this book on a whole. The translation is expertly done, as the tone and the lyricism of the book certainly comes across in English. Once again, as with Time, the story is a great homage with a lot of fun twists and turns along the way, and if you have any love of War of the Worlds (which I do), the nods to the story and the reaction, as well as how the rest of this story goes, is sure to excite you.

I can't say this was better than The Map of Time, as it was different in a lot of ways. But given how great both books are, having to wait much longer for the final volume in this trilogy (which one has to assume will either be about The Invisible Man or The Island of Doctor Moreau) is going to be tough.



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