Tiger Prince
Sep. 23rd, 2016 11:17 pmSo I'm rereading this adventure-romance novel for some light reading after Gone Girl, and I noticed something that had slipped past me the other time I read the book. Our hero desperately wants to acquire a particular island 250 miles off the coast of India so he can mine the rich veins of gold he's noticed in its mountains. Our heroine needs to build the railway line to bring out the gold, because that's what she does, although it's 1876 so she can't really get hired to do that sort of thing otherwise. Our author needs to design the island so that it's large enough that building the railway line will take a fair amount of time. So, although Cinnidar is described as a "small island," later we are told that it's actually some 300 miles by 600 miles. In other words, this island is many times the size of Sri Lanka. It's bigger than Oregon! But it's "small," and nobody's really heard of it, and there's only one non-native-style house on it...