The Historical Atlas..
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 5:28 am
I have read through the atlas several times back and forth, and after all those hours I'm beginning to complain... Just a little. I would like to suggest a few points in case that the 2nd edition is not an impossibility but something that might come in the distant future.
The Atlas as it is contains too few information that is not online already...and for those who actually buy the book, it's a bit disappointing. That was my honest impression, sorry. And the division into Erelae and Arcel is really a big downer in the print edition for the purpose of a leisurely, connected reading.
Well, a minor point first... the physical dimension. It's just too big and a bit clunky to handle sometimes. I think it'd be much easier to handle it if the dimension gets somewhat smaller...of course there are all those maps, but one map could take one whole page with 90 degrees rotation.
The base map for Arcel cover a larger area than Erelae base map, and it'd be helpful to have a "world map" with national boundaries as of 3480. And maybe a size comparison with some terrestrial states... I need to keep reminding myself that Arcel is not a small island and Uytai is probably as large as Dhekhnam. The two base maps kind of screw the sense of scale, unfortunately.
Another suggestion that I'd like to make is this: merging the atlases, so we can more easily refer to what's going on in Arcel while the Xurnese are fighting a civil war, for example. At least I find myself going back and forth between Erelae and Arcel, to read chronologically.
I don't think thie Skourene atlas could be merged entirely as it is, but some close-up on the Skouras might be helpful from time to time as the Skouras can be sometimes a bit difficult to decipher on a small scale map. Similar close-ups could be given for the Eretald, Xengiman or Be when they fragment to too many small states. "bewildering kaleidoscope of queendoms" by itself doesn't really say much, unfortunately.
I really liked the biographies accompanied to the Arcel atlas online and I was a bit disappointed it wasn't there.. Maybe a boxed section per time period for an important individual or some excerpt from a contemporary written document could bring the atlas more...alive.
I'd like to see the "minor" areas introduced as they appear in the history. Say, the information on the Nan could be given with a separate map of Nan when they get first mentioned. After all, the readers of the atlas are by definition outsiders who cannot be expected to know almean chronology in depth. Maybe Nan, Bekkai, Tellinor, Kereminth or Neinuoi don't really warrant independent atlases, but they would certainly be worthy of a few sections interspersed in the general historical atlas.
The Atlas as it is contains too few information that is not online already...and for those who actually buy the book, it's a bit disappointing. That was my honest impression, sorry. And the division into Erelae and Arcel is really a big downer in the print edition for the purpose of a leisurely, connected reading.
Well, a minor point first... the physical dimension. It's just too big and a bit clunky to handle sometimes. I think it'd be much easier to handle it if the dimension gets somewhat smaller...of course there are all those maps, but one map could take one whole page with 90 degrees rotation.
The base map for Arcel cover a larger area than Erelae base map, and it'd be helpful to have a "world map" with national boundaries as of 3480. And maybe a size comparison with some terrestrial states... I need to keep reminding myself that Arcel is not a small island and Uytai is probably as large as Dhekhnam. The two base maps kind of screw the sense of scale, unfortunately.
Another suggestion that I'd like to make is this: merging the atlases, so we can more easily refer to what's going on in Arcel while the Xurnese are fighting a civil war, for example. At least I find myself going back and forth between Erelae and Arcel, to read chronologically.
I don't think thie Skourene atlas could be merged entirely as it is, but some close-up on the Skouras might be helpful from time to time as the Skouras can be sometimes a bit difficult to decipher on a small scale map. Similar close-ups could be given for the Eretald, Xengiman or Be when they fragment to too many small states. "bewildering kaleidoscope of queendoms" by itself doesn't really say much, unfortunately.
I really liked the biographies accompanied to the Arcel atlas online and I was a bit disappointed it wasn't there.. Maybe a boxed section per time period for an important individual or some excerpt from a contemporary written document could bring the atlas more...alive.
I'd like to see the "minor" areas introduced as they appear in the history. Say, the information on the Nan could be given with a separate map of Nan when they get first mentioned. After all, the readers of the atlas are by definition outsiders who cannot be expected to know almean chronology in depth. Maybe Nan, Bekkai, Tellinor, Kereminth or Neinuoi don't really warrant independent atlases, but they would certainly be worthy of a few sections interspersed in the general historical atlas.
