War of the Maps, Paul McAuley
War of the Maps, Paul McAuley
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War of the Maps

Author: Paul McAuley

Narrator: Jonathan Oliver

Unabridged: 15 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/01/2021

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction


Synopsis

"The underrated McAuley is in top form in this hard science fiction novel with heart." —Washington Post Book World

On a giant artificial world surrounding an artificial sun, one man—a lucidor, a keeper of the peace, a policeman—is on the hunt. His target was responsible for an atrocity, but is too valuable to the government to be truly punished. Instead he has been sent to the frontlines of the war, to use his unique talents on the enemy. So the lucidor has ignored orders, deserted from his job, left his home, and thrown his life away, in order to finally claim justice.

Separated by massive seas, the various maps dotted on the surface of this world rarely contact each other. But something has begun to infiltrate the edges of the lucidor's map, something that genetically alters animals and plants and turns them into killers. Only the lucidor knows the depths to which his quarry will sink in order to survive, only the lucidor can capture him. The way is long and dangerous. The lucidor's government has set hunters after him. He has no friends, no resources, no plan.

But he does have a mission.

About Paul McAuley

Paul McAuley was born in Gloucestershire on St. George's Day, 1955. He has a PhD in botany and worked as a researcher in biology at various universities, including Oxford and UCLA, and for six years was a lecturer in botany at St. Andrews University, before leaving academia to write full time. He started publishing science fiction with the short story "Wagon, Passing" for Asimov's Science Fiction in 1984. His first novel, 400 Billion Stars, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988, and 1995's Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Awards. He has also won the British Fantasy, Sidewise, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. He lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liviu

After a few misses, finally, another highly expected 2020 novel that delivered and more; very inventive and packing a lot in its 400 odd pages, War of the Maps is mainly a novel about exploring a new and very interesting far future universe with many twists and turns - it reminded me of the zany and......more

Goodreads review by Gerhard

‘On us, on other maps … A war of the maps, yes, why not? It’s possible that the invasion was not quickened by a skyfall after all, but is an accident caused by misuse of applied philosophy.’ Review to follow.......more

Goodreads review by Mark

At its most basic level the War of the Maps is a revenge tale, a story of a bad guy used by the good guys to get rid of problems. We begin with something like a science-fictional version of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger – a lone man on a horse travelling across a landscape. Thorn is a lucidor – a re......more

This is a far future SF, with people living at a gameplay map abandoned by initial godlike players, so that a lot of tech is actually closer to the past (mounts, slave labor) than the future. This is my first book by the author. The story is set on the outer surface of a Dyson sphere. Inside the sphe......more