Structurally, I really liked what this book was doing. I liked the conceit--I really, really liked the conceit--and I liked the obvious affection for profession and location that made its way into all the descriptions of antiquarian maps, book expos, the NYPL, and the philosophies espoused by all the various map-affiliated people. The mystery of the gas station map as presented at the start of the book worked really well; it was very engaging as a hook. The problem is that, as the mystery unfolds, it depends on two intertwining timelines, and the execution of intertwining was dreadfully clunky. The bits of the story that Nell manages to squeeze out of the various people she encounters in her quest are too conveniently and exactly chronological. Every person who finally decides to share their bit of what happened conveniently picks up where the last person left off, and sometimes the pauses for storytelling are awkwardly positioned in between conversations that go something like, 'there's no time. Leave now. Drop it. You've got to leave. There's no time. Go away. [insert incredibly long reminiscence]. But there's no time to say more. You've got to go. Now. Leave.'

Also, the story of how the Cartographers were formed and then fell apart is such a frustrating example of a bunch of young people who are all their own worst enemies. Like, I understand the appeal of creating this cohort of friends for life, and then poking at the cleavage points and seeing how they break. But at the same time, I just wish the Cartographers could have been less--not flawed, because I understand that character flaws are necessary and good--but less stupid about acting on their flaws. Eve and Francis--jeez, kids, I have no patience for that kind of behaviour.

I also found the Haberson corporation unconvincing. I simply do not believe that a single company can become as big and influential as it has without diversifying out of mapmaking. I also don't believe its internal structure. It's the in-world equivalent to Google or Amazon, and yet the astonishingly briliant founder has time to reply to emails from his underlings? All of them? All tens of thousands of them? I don't buy it. Also, whatever is revealed about William Haberson in the end, I had already twigged to it quite early, because I was so unwilling to believe that the corporation was actually as virtuous as it presented itself as being. Maybe if this book had been written fifteen years ago, when Google still pretended to follow the 'don't be evil' mantra, I could have bought it. 'Imagine,' Shepherd is inviting us to believe, 'that there actually was a company that truly was what Google pretends to be.' But those days are gone, and today that what-if is flawed from its very conception. I was impatient and annoyed with all the bits about how great Haberson is, and the reveal about William Haberson at the end did not do anything to dispel my fundamental skepticism at that component of world-building. Yes, it's fantasy, but if the author is replicating the NYPL down to the details of which maps are hanging on which halls, then I'd expect them to have a bit more care about understanding how large corporations exist in a capitalist world.

I also find myself straining against the idea that a bunch of computer scientists would actually believe in the mission of 'construct a perfect map'. Like, sure, a billionaire CEO might think that such a thing might be possible, but surely people in computing science might recognize how flawed and unattainable such a goal is. How do you define 'perfect', anyway?

The Hab Map  that can just spit out answers to questions about where people might be based on ALGORITHMS!1!! might have struck me, before ChatGPT, as handwavy voodoo nonsense that bears no resemblance to how actual algorithms work. Now, I fully believe that algorithms exist that can take in info and spit out answers, but I strongly doubt that the programmers who created the algorithm would actually believe that those answers are correct. But then, there was some Google programmer who insisted that ChatGPT was sentient, so who knows. Anyway, it felt thin.