I couldn't agree more. Warlord wrote: > Just to take a different side of things, it may be that we > are going at this the wrong way. I like the adventure, and > trust the author to take me along for the ride. Dissecting > *everything* is like taking a grand aged bottle of wine, and > after the first half-glass doing a chemical analysis on the > rest of the bottle knowing that you'll be able to buy another > one next year. Personally, I'd rather drink the wine. Sure > we don't always know what is going on, but since the author > (sorry about the third person here, Steven) thinks it needs > to be that way, then I think it is best that way. With enough > analysis, we can figure out clues; but, in reading, I believe > this is analogous to driving with your foot on the brake. I > prefer to be on the rollercoaster, with no brakes, enjoying > the swoops and loops, and letting engineers and the Lords of > Judgement take care of gravity. Not that I don't enjoy a > Good Mario guess every now and then. It is quite possible for Steven to write a geographic puzzle that doesn't have a solution - because he never intended for us to map his world and never mapped it himself. This isn't a religion where every word has some hidden TRUTH. It is entertainment. And he has accepted some things that are impossibilities for me. The whole life spans of the Dragaerans is to match up with our current myths about elves. It is a literary match up of fictions. I have to suspend my disbelief even in a SF/Fantasy work - but I do so, because the story is worth it. I certainly am not going to demand that the map works unless it is part of the story.