Title: A book on geographic exploration with no maps ?
Review: While Tournament of Shadows alternates between chronological accounts central Asian exploration and mini-biographies of the explorers, the book always revolves around the Great Game, or quest for central asia. This makes it all the more surprising that there are only a few, sparsely annotated maps throughout. The text frequently references cities or geographic features that are NOWHERE to be found on any of the maps, a particular source of frustration and (I think) an indication of very sloppy preparation. The front- and end-matter maps (which are identical, unfortunately) are blury and bleed into the spine, rendering certain important locations unreadable. The text itself is an enjoyable read but light-weight analytically (more of an extended time-line than a serious analysis), and the lack of maps is extremely disappointing.
Is this product review negative?