Reviews for Palaeogeographic atlas of Australia

The average rating for Palaeogeographic atlas of Australia based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-09-24 00:00:00 Andrew Vitela I have managed to acquire a copy of this childhood favorite. It was only $1.98 but they got me with shipping and handling. Still it only came to about $8, less than I paid for the original copy, which fell apart because the binding couldn't take the constant page turning. Poring over these maps eventually led me to the works of James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Austin Wright, Leigh Brackett and Clark Ashton Smith. I even heard about William Faulkner from this book since there's a map of Yoknapatawpha County in it (though, sadly, I didn't actually read him until I had to teach The Sound and the Fury for a high school Comp class). Two of the more interesting maps are those of E.R. Burroughs' many worlds. Not only to we get his sketches of Barsoom and Pellucidar but also of Amtor (from his Venus novels) and all the lost cities Tarzan managed to stumble across in his African adventures. The other is that of the land of Allestone, the imaginary country of a boy who died before he was six years old -- Thomas Williams Malkin (1795-1802). As the author notes "[a] calendar and dating system, a history and a culture, and a geography were created for Allestone. The stories may read a bit crudely but consider that they were written by a six-year-old child." I'd love to find a copy of his father's memoirs, where the maps, histories and stories are appended, but it was written in 1806 and I doubt there are many copies still wandering about.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-06 00:00:00 David Aranda My copy of AN ATLAS OF FANTASY is the 1979 paperback edition and is, alas, falling apart after years of use and abuse; at some point I'll track down a quality copy of the hardcover. I don't believe this was ever reprinted since the '79 Ballantine edition (the first edition from 1973 is slightly different) - or if it was, it wasn't updated or expanded. Which is too bad, as the fantasy genre has really exploded since the 1970s when this was originally published; on the other hand, I'd hate to have any of the more obscure and weird maps that are included in this edition dropped for the cartographic examples from the bajillions of current, in print Tolkien wanna-bes. And there have been other fantasy-map volumes published if you're interested in that sort of thing. What you get here is 200 or so pages of maps, presented in chronological order, reprinted and reproduced more-or-less exactly as drawn and published in their original sources - often by the writers of the various novels that are the predominate texts from which the maps are chosen. In most cases the maps are on the recto and a brief text describing little bit about the context - the work and author at the least - on the verso. A complete listing of all the maps included can be found in the Wiki entry for the book, but briefly they range from an 8th-century Spanish monks' conception of Eden to "The Four Lands" from Terry Brooks' SHANNARA series and "The Land" from Stephen R. Donaldson's THOMAS COVENANT trilogy. There are maps from religious and secular Utopias, humorous maps, maps from children's books, etc. The most-represented writers are Edgar Rice Burroughs, with 13 maps from his many series, and J.R.R. Tolkien with 7 of his own beautifully done maps of various parts of Middle-Earth. In short, lovers of cartography and fantasy should all hunt this down, preferably in hardcover as the binding on paperback isn't that sturdy and is liable to more stress and wear by the wide format of the book.