The Crimson Skew (Mapmakers Trilogy, #3)

by S. E. Grove

The thrilling conclusion to S. E. Grove's New York Times–bestselling Mapmakers Trilogy—a historical, fantastical adventure perfect for fans of Philip Pullman!

It is late August 1892, and Sophia Tims is coming home from a foreign Age, having risked her life in search of her missing parents. Now she is aboard ship, with a hard-earned, cryptic map that may help her find them at long last.

But her homecoming is anything but peaceful. Threatening clouds hang over New Orleans harbor. Sinkholes have been opening in Boston, swallowing parts of the city whole. Rogue weirwinds tear up the Baldlands. Worst of all, New Occident is at war, led by a prime minister who will do anything to expand the country westward. He has blackmailed Sophia’s beloved uncle Shadrack into drawing the battle maps that will lead countless men and boys—including Sophia’s best friend, Theo—to their deaths.

As Sophia puzzles out her next move, Shadrack is peeling back layers of government intrigue, and Theo is bracing himself to fight. A red fog of war is rising, and New Occident’s future hangs in the balance . . .


* "A triumphant conclusion to a prodigious feat of storytelling."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "A sharply creative, engrossing trilogy . . . Grove's imaginative world building continues to dazzle in this third entry . . . An enormously satisfying wrap-up."--BCCB, starred review 

• ISBN10: 0142423688
• ISBN13: 9780142423684
• Publish Date: 4 July 2017 (first published 12 July 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 25 June 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Puffin
• Format: Paperback (US Digest)
• Pages: 464
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142423684

Reviews

[lizarodz]

Quite the Novel Idea http://quitethenovelidea.com http://quitethenovelidea.com/liza-reviews-crimson-skew-s-e-grove/Although I've listen to all there books in audio, I failed to review them and so I must give you the basic premise of the series without spoiling it for you.  So there it goes:  Some years ago there was a "big disruption" that shifted territories into different "ages.  For instance, Boston, one of the main settings of the series is in the 1800's "Age", Australia is in the future, and Spain is in the Inquisition age.  This creates travel and exploration between ages dangerous, and very strange. Some of the are off limits since they are in the past (like in the Ice Age) and others are so far ahead in the future that it would cause a lot of confusion to go there.

That being said, the Mapmakers trilogy is a fantasy and even though it is considered middle grade, it had an universal appeal.  There is magic, religious fanaticism, prejudice, bad people (and I mean BAD people), pirates, adventure, exploration and much more.  It is really hard to put into words how much is housed between the pages of the book.  The plot is intricate, complicated, full of twists and turns and action packed.  I mean, Grove is a genius to create so many settings, languages and cultures. The writing is beautiful.  

Sophia, Theo and Shadrack are our main characters.  Shadrack is one of the most famous cartologists of New Boston, a professor and prominent citizen very active in the government.  Sophia is Shadrack's nice. She's in search of her parents that left to help a friend in Spain when she was very little and never came back. She's also a student of maps and her internal clock is broken (that means she looses track of time very easily).  Theo is an orphan that we get to met on the first book of the trilogy and is sort of adopted by Shadrack. The characterization is incredibly good and there are SO many characters both new and old. The character growth that both Sophia and Theo undertake throughout the course of the series is amazing.

I really don't want to get into the details because so much happens here and a lot of it is spoilery if you haven't read the first two books.

The only thing I didn't like is that even at the end, Grove didn't explain how the Disruption came to be.  I thought that we would get some sort of explanation of what happened.

Overall, The Crimson Skew is an imaginative series of a that creates an intricate world building based on a catastrophic event. It s a series about family and friendship, about adventure, about following your heart, about doing the right things even when it's not the easiest thing to do. It's about being open to the possibilities and about maps.  



The Crimson Skew (indeed, the whole series) was narrated by Cassandra Campbell.  She is a veteran at voice acting and it shows.  The voices are amazing, very distinctive from each other and cohesive thought the series which is a big accomplishment since there SO many characters and accents.  An outstanding job.

 This review was originally posted on Quite the Novel Idea

[nightingalereads]

3.5 stars

There were certain aspects about this series that I loved and some that I didn't. In the last two books, we get a lot more expansion of the world and magic system, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The world S.E. Grove created is truly fascinating. However, the focus on the mechanics of the world sometimes crowded out other important aspects of the story, such as character development. This is where I was let down. I am a character-driven reader at heart. My favorite part of reading is delving inside the minds' of the characters and seeing how they interact with one another. I love to watch how relationships evolve over time, and the two main protagonists, Sophia and Theo, had such a great dynamic in the first book. I was excited to see how it would progress in the later installments; I was imagining them going off on adventures together, exploring the rest of the ages and growing in their friendship. So I was terribly disappointed when I realized that they spent a majority of the other books apart, almost with separate story arcs. I missed all the character interactions from the first book, which I feel got pushed aside for the sake of world development. I still enjoyed the story, but my excitement for it dimmed once I realized that my two favorite characters barely shared one meaningful conversation after the end of book one. In order for me to care about the story itself, I need to actually see the characters develop and interact with each other. Otherwise, their relationships will just sit stagnant and undeveloped. For instance, Sophia's trust in Theo was tried multiple times in The Glass Sentence, which progressed both of their character arcs. There were few, if any, examples of this in the later books. We barely get any substantial scenes with the other prominent characters from TGS either, like Mrs. Clay, Shadrack, and the pirates. Even characters that are introduced later on in the trilogy - who I liked! - get left by the wayside without any real resolution. I can't care about characters if they're never fleshed out, or if their only purpose is to serve the plot. I need character reveals as well as plot reveals.

If characters are not your primary concern, then you may not find this bothersome. I just personally wish there had been a better balance of world-building and character development.