While i liked the Edge of the World quite a lot, The Map of all Things is even better despite its transitional middle volume character; there are three reasons:

- the action is more compact in time and the character set is the same (at least the surviving ones since the author does not shy in killing characters) while under the pressures of total war new radical technologies develop

- the book is even darker and *more realistic* at least as politics go, with the full reality of fanaticism, as well as of otherwise reasonable people caught in a spiral of atrocities on both sides; so the Urabans use the ravirs to break an Aidenist attack by assassinating commanders, the Aidenists massacre hundreds of prisoners of war and throw their heads into the Uraban camp and then so it goes with atrocity topping atrocity on both sides; same with the other threads that do not involve the war, but have their own darker sides too

- there is a lot of exploration, sense of wonder and finally we have quite a few voyages of discovery going on, as well as magic

the same clear and serviceable prose makes the book a fast read despite its length since it's a page turner you do not want to put down; the ending is on moderate cliffhangers in some threads and on a big one in one of the threads but the heft of the book makes it ok since a lot happens between its covers

A strong A to A+ depending on reread sets up an asap The Key to Creation trilogy ending novel...