" A burning map. Every epic, my friend Jack used to say, should start with a burning map. Like in the movies. Fucking flames burning the world away; that's the best thing about all those old movies, he said - when you see this old parchment map just… getting darker and darker in the centre, crisping, crinkling until suddenly it just… fwoom "

― Hal Duncan , Vellum (The Book of All Hours, #1)