Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Southern Islands of the Final Empire . . . and the rust stain that inspired them
Not every fantasy author feels as strongly about maps as Brandon does. Terry Pratchett
includes a map page in every paperback of his popular
Discworld
series of comedy fantasy
novels, but the map is always blank. A caption reads, “There are no maps. You can't map a
senseofhumor.”It'struethatmapsandtextsmakestrangebedfellowssometimes.Amap's
goal, after all, is to suggest stability and completeness, while literature is all about sugges-
tion, nuance,
not
showing everything.
But that tension hasn't stopped some of my favorite writers from doodling maps of
their imaginary settings—and not just in the fantasy ghetto, I'm talking books
without
half-naked barbarian chicks on the cover here. William Faulkner drew his own maps of
Yoknapatawpha County; Thomas Hardy sketched Wessex. Even writers who ostensibly
create their worlds as philosophical exercises become inordinately fascinated with jots and
tittles of cartography. Thomas More's
Utopia
describes the title island in such detail that
he's clearly a closet world-building geek, the only canonized Catholic saint I can think of
who was so inclined. The first edition even included an addendum on Utopia's alphabet
and, of course, a detailed map. Yes, an appendix
and
a map! Epic fantasy readers would be
over the moon.
I wonder aloud to Brandon and Isaac if fantasy readers crave immersion as a form of es-
cape because they're dissatisfied in some way with real life. I guess I've wandered a little
too close to suggesting that fantasy nerds are all hopeless misfits, and Brandon calls me on
it. “Look, I love my life, and I love fantasy. I have no reason to escape my world, but I still
like going someplace new. Do people who like to travel hate where they live? When you
