A literal (and especially) figurative map to a parallel universe, the guide is richly illustrated and filled with historical anecdotes on the 1000-or-so gwomes (a word defined as “footprint of a nation” in the glossary of Kymaerican terms) making up Kymaerica proper. Manhattan, we learn here, was once “one of the most remarkable monastery districts in Kymaerica” until a Dutch-sounding ancestor recklessly gambled away its fortunes. In the end, the Manhattanites left, wilderness returned, deer grazed on Broadway and bears wandered the Bowery. Sikora admits that designing around the ethereal and the intangible presented certain challenges, but the similarities between the two worlds came through as saviors. “Kymaerica is a land—and some waters—somewhat coexistent with our linear world,” he reminds us. “Its general landscape is quite similar to large parts of what we would call North America.” by Dana Rouse