Cartomancy

CartomancyMichael A. Stackpole is a frustrating writer. At least, that was my first thought upon finishing Cartomancy (Book 2 in The Age of Discovery series). I just think he is sometimes too clever for his own good.

Like The Secret Atlas this is a complex book with many different plotlines. I normally devour this kind of book. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series is a great favorite of mine. I’m a reasonably intelligent person and can keep all the plots and names straight in most books.

But not here and I’ve been trying to decide why. The first reason, I think, are the names. In particular, the two opposing princes here are Cyron and Pyrust. Maybe its just me, but I get them confused constantly, and I think its because they both follow the same pattern. An initital consonant, “yr” then a vowel and soft consonant ending. Now in my mind I pronounced Cyron as “SII-ron” and I’ve heard Stackpole talk about his books and he pronounces the name “KEE-run”. In fact listening to him speak, it took me a long time to figure out who this Kirin he kept mentioning was.

But it isn’t limited to these two. So many of his names just feel like they came out of a random name generator to me: Nimchim and Gachin are military leaders in the same force. There is a god named Wentiko (which always makes me think of Wendigo – a Bigfoot-like mythical creature) and a place called Wentokikun. Perhaps the place is named after the god, but that isn’t at all clear. Rislet Peyt is a person and Tsatol Pelyn is a place. Junel is a bad guy, Jorim is a good guy. It goes on and on.

And then there are the italicized made-up words. kwajiin, jaecaiserr, chadocai, vhangxi, jaedun, xidantzu, vanyesh, vrilcai, vrilri, mai, vrilridin, thanaton, xingna, maicana, centenco, quor. Having read two books in the series, I still can’t tell you what some of these mean. Mai is essentially magic or ‘the force’ and maicana is one who can manipulate it. quor is a unit of measure… like a bushel or a ton…not sure which. Athanaton is a machine. Jaedun is, I think, magic, but how it differs from mai isn’t clear. Jaecaiserr is someone who uses jaedun… or do I have the two confused?

Anyway, the book needs a glossary and a dramatis personae, badly.
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