The Glass Sentence, by S.E. Grove, is a book that I've had on my read-and-review booklist for a month or two now. I saw it on Amazon and the little blurb about it there looked promising - some pirates, some sailing, a lot of maps, some sort of intricate setting, that kind of thing. It looked like it was going to be a really sweet story, a really interesting beginning to what could be a very interesting trilogy. When I saw that the library had gotten it, I was very excited and of course checked it out.
The story began fairly interestingly, introducing a world that has been torn and fragmented by the Great Disruption, a devastating event which caused the Ages of the world to fluctuate and change so that all over the world people are trapped in different Ages. New Occident, previously known as the American Colonies, is home to Shadrack Elli, a world-renowned cartologist, a man who makes it is business to map the world and the Ages in it. Living with him in their home in Boston is his niece Sophia Tims. Sophia is effectively an orphan after her parents disappeared on an expedition when she was three. Raised by Shadrack, Sophia has learned a lot about maps, mapmaking, and knows more than most thirteen-year-olds about the Great Disruption and its effects.
When her uncle Shadrack is kidnapped by a cult seeking the location of a legendary map called the carta mayor, a map that is said to chart all the Ages of the world, Sophia is the only one who begin the search for him. Helped by Theo, a refugee from the Baldlands, Sophia sets out on a quest to track down her uncle. Along the way they are pursued by his kidnappers, because Shadrack has entrusted her with a valuable map that is key to finding the location of the carta mayor.
With this kind of plot, the story sounded good - very good, in fact. I was very, very excited to read it, and maybe my high expectations are part of why I was so disappointed by this book. From the moment Sophia left Boston, I grew more and more confused as to where she was, and even more importantly, what she was doing there. With all the things going on - being attacked by Sandmen, throwing in with gentlemen pirates, and running across Theo's enemies - it was hard to keep track of the main thread of the story and the reason Sophia was going where she was going. Also, because of the Ages being all mixed up and varying from place to place, the world was fractured and cultures in these different Ages were vastly different. Normally this would make for an incredibly rich setting for the story to take place in, but I felt like there was so much extra detail thrown in that the story would occasionally be derailed when some new fact of the particular Age they were in had to be explained. The story would have been simpler and easier to read if some of those extra things had been pulled out and saved for a moment when they would really be important and not just peripheral information.
The other thing that really disappointed me in this book was the lack of a good villain. Blanca, the mysterious woman who has Shadrack kidnapped, lacked real power. Sure, when she was first introduced into the story, I expected her to be a truly terrifying villain who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted - unlimited power and control of the carta mayor. Not so. Although Blanca seemed like she would be a thoroughly heartless villain, all of her casual acts of cruelty that would have made her seem truly evil never really had that effect because Shadrack never seemed to feel really afraid. He was too much like a robot in my mind, barely touched by his emotions and forever thinking about everything without really feeling anything. S.E. Grove set her up to be a magnificent example of pure villainy, but she tore her down just as quickly by failing to make the characters react as if she were really that terrible. Because of this, Blanca never manages to be the villain who would have made the book really stand out.
However, the part about the Great Disruption and the maps was very good, the maps in particular. S.E. Grove definitely used her imagination in concocting this setting and the numerous details of Shadrack's trade. All the different kinds of maps - glass maps, metal maps, sand maps, even water maps - add such a unique dimension to the story. Also the emphasis that everyone in this world places on time. Since the Great Disruption, time and how it is measured has become a very important part of everyone's life. That's not a concept that I've seen discussed in a lot of books, and it adds a whole new dimension to The Glass Sentence. I can definitely say that the maps and the issue of time were my favorite parts of this book.
I also admire what S.E. Grove did with Sophia. She has no internal clock, and she finds it very hard to keep track of time. For her, hours can pass by in a matter of seconds, while a minute or two can drag on forever. In order to keep track of her own memories and life story, she has to map the events of her days, giving her a record of what has happened. In fact, its the fact that time has no hold on Sophia that makes it possible for her to do what has to be done to save the carta mayor from Blanca's clutches and keep the Ages of the world from colliding and destroying each other.
In the end, I give this book three stars because although it could have been really good, the lack of a strong villain character and my difficulty in keeping track of where things were taking place made this book less satisfying than I expected. However, I won't judge it too harshly, since it's just the first book of a new trilogy, called The Mapmakers Trilogy. A first book is only intended to start setting up the bigger story, so although I wasn't entirely happy with this first book, some of the issues I had with The Glass Sentence will most likely be resolved and dealt with in the two books to come. It's at least worth 3 stars, and I would definitely point you toward this book if you're interested in quest stories, imaginative settings, and fictional imaginings of the world.
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