I won this book as a Goodreads First Read. And I really enjoyed it. It was not what I expected, but I can't tell too much in what ways because it'll give too much away. The three parts are very different and mostly very seperate stories, yet they go together in a perfect way. One of the characters who ties the stories together is the author H. G. Wells. This inclusion seemed an odd choice to me until the character appeared in the novel and then it seemed perfect. He easily was my favorite charcter.
The novel also took an interesting look at science fiction, and it's beginnings. As well as it's relationship to it's author and it's reader. As a reader of very little escience fiction this gave me an interesting perspective and new apprication for early science fiction especially. To aid in this widening of scope a copy of The Time Machine was included with the copy I won of The Map of Time. It is not necessary to read one before the other, but the two together added more depth to the backstory of the publication of The Time Machine and it's effect on the populaiotn and Wells himself.
The only slight complaint I had of The Map of Time was the first person perspective the author took, addressing the audience directly. Sometime this worked well and sometime it distracted a little from the story. But, these interludes were generally brief and sometimes with large gaps between them.