Imaginary Places
- Fantasy Map Roundup
- Author Lev Grossman interviews Roland Chambers, the artist who created the maps for his novels The Magicians and The Magician King (forthcoming). Via io9. Meanwhile, illustrator Mike Schley writes to share a link to maps he produced for children’s…
- Fantasy Maps and Role-Playing Games
- Scott Taylor’s essay about fantasy maps on the Black Gate website is actually about maps of fantasy role-playing games — they’re not the same. Via MapHist….
- Game of Thrones Opening Credits
- How about those opening credits to Game of Thrones, the HBO series based on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series? It’s a fantasy map with gears, which is somehow appropriate. (The map will apparently change…
- Essays About Fantasy Maps
- Nicholas Tam has written a very long essay on maps in fantasy novels — their design, their relationship to the text, their use to the reader. It’s definitely worth reading in full; here’s a piece: So when we open up…
- ‘The Hobbit’ Remapped
- I don’t often post links to (or via) Strange Maps — not because I have anything against Frank, but because I assume that you’re already reading it. But I’m making an exception in this case for Frank’s post about…
- A Better Class of Fantasy Map
- Fantasy novelist Saladin Ahmed has put out a request for a high-quality map for his upcoming series. “Now. DAW’s in-house person can provide a very serviceable, basic, black-and-white line map. I love my publisher to death and have zero complaints…
- Urban Geofiction: Maps of Made-Up Cities
- Here’s another great website about maps of places that only exist in the minds of the mapmakers. Urban Geofiction is a collection of maps of imaginary cities by divers hands. Some maps are hand-drawn, some are produced to such…
- Brian Nunnery’s Map Collection
- Brian Nunnery has been doodling maps of imaginary cities since he was in kindergarten. He’s amassed a collection of nearly 500 maps, and he’s been posting them to his website — 20 so far. The maps, says Brian, “evolve steadily…
- More Maps of Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire’
- In this post (reprinted on io9), Adam Whitehead discusses the size of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms in George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. One map shows just how big Westeros is: “about 3,000 miles…
- Mapping the Real Stars of Imaginary Worlds
- 3-D Starmaps is a website by Winchell Chung about science fiction star maps: it has resources for science fiction writers interested in generating their own star maps (including how to plot them on a three-dimensional grid), discusses the real-world locations…
- Maps of Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire’
- Most maps found in fantasy novels are rather uniform in design, following the style of, for example, the black-and-white maps Pauline Baynes did for novels by Lewis and Tolkien. J. E. Fullerton’s maps of the world of George R….
- Imagining a Hartford Metro
- Brian Cook has imagined a Metro for the Hartford, Connecticut area, and designed a map redolent of Harry Beck’s London Underground and the style of the Paris Metro. He’s doing a limited print run, too. Via Mark….
- Ankh-Morpork Subway Map
- Daniel Drucker has imagined a subway map for Ankh-Morpork, the main city in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of fantasy novels. Since, as far as I am aware, Ankh-Morpork doesn’t have a subway in the Discworld novels, he’s imagined that…
- Comic Book Cartography
- Comic Book Cartography collects maps and diagrams from comic books — more the latter (e.g., cutaways of superheroes’ headquarters) than the former so far. Via Boing Boing, among others. At right: Jack Kirby’s World of Kamandi. Previously: The Marvel…
- A Blog About Maps in Fiction
- (e)space & fiction is a blog about the use of maps “and other spatial machineries” in works of fiction, from novels to movies to comic books. Bilingual, in French and English. Thanks to Paul for the link….
- Video Game Maps
- Over on Autostraddle, Taylor posts a “love song” to maps in video games. Well, no: no actual singing involved; it is, however, a long, appreciative post on maps found in various video games….
- Time Bandits Map
- Jon Heilman’s replica of the time portal map used in the 1981 Terry Gilliam movie Time Bandits is available for sale as a $100 giclée print on 40×24½-inch canvas. Via Boing Boing….
- Maps of the TV Series Lost
- The best maps of the island in the Lost TV series, from official and fan sources, as compiled by the sci-fi blog io9….
- A Look at Fantasy Maps
- On Tor.com, a series of posts by Jason Denzel that examine maps in fantasy novels, fantasy computer games and other fantasy media (with a digression to geocaching). Update, July 23: Add to that a fourth post on maps for Robert…
- Maps of Imaginary Places: A Roundup
- Kidlandia is an interactive map builder that allows you to create custom fantasy maps for children; you choose from one of four maps (which seems rather limited to me), which you customize with your own place names. Prices for…
- Cross-Stitched Legend of Zelda Map
- Okay, brace yourselves: a cross-stitched map of the video game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Via Boing Boing….
- Modified Mars
- Frans Blok has been imagining maps of a future, terraformed Mars. He writes, “Almost ten years ago I made this map of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars. Recently I created a more sophisticated visualisation of a terraformed Mars, although no…
- Fantasy Cartography
- Fantasy Cartography is a blog that reprints scans of maps from science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as role-playing and computer games. The archives are quite extensive. Via La Cartoteca….
- Maps of Non-Fantasy Fictional Worlds
- Try to find a fantasy novel without a map; but what about what we science-fiction and fantasy enthusiasts call “mainstream” fiction? “My undergrad thesis argued that world-building wasn’t just for fantasy and sci-fi writers — every tale has a setting,…
- The Cartographers’ Guild
- Another online forum about maps — The Cartographers’ Guild — with a decided focus on fictional maps. The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be…
- Fantasy Atlas
- The Fantasy Atlas is a German-language collection of maps from various fantasy (and some science fiction) novels. That there are so many entries speaks to the fact that it’s virtually impossible nowadays to write a fantasy novel without creating a…
- Strange Maps
- Strange Maps is a relatively new blog about maps with a taste for the hypothetical, the fictional and the unusual. Via Cartography….
- Storybook England
- Storybook England is an interactive map to the locations associated with children’s literature, whether as fictionalized setting or behind the scenes. Briefly mentioned in the New York Times, which article promises a downloadable map, link to which downloadable map generates…
- Tolkien Maps at Upcoming Field Museum Exhibit
- Between November 2 and January 27, there will be a maps exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. Not many details yet, except that it’s called “Maps! The History of Cartography” and it’s co-sponsored by the Newberry Library — and…
- Les voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne
- Garmt de Vries’s Jules Verne Collection has several pages of interest to us: The Maps from the Voyages Extraordinaires, a collection of scans from the original (French) editions of Jules Verne’s novel (Verne apparently didn’t invent a geography for…
- Globe of Sawyer’s Quintaglio
- Science fiction writers frequently create maps of the worlds they create for their stories; one of Robert J. Sawyer’s fans turned around and made him a globe from those maps. From his blog: “A fellow named Patrick J. O’Connor,…
- Question: Fictional Maps with worldKit?
- Tony Straka is looking for a way of creating maps of imaginary places with open-source web mapping tools. He writes, “One thing I have searched for is fictional maps created with one of these programs and I cannot seem to…
- The Middle-earth DEM Project
- The Middle-earth DEM Project is, writes Carl Lingard, “a non-profit, hobbyists’ project devoted to mapping Middle-earth as a fully georeferenced digital elevation model and topographic map (using Google Earth as one of its targets). We are also seeking to develop…
- The Marvel Atlas Project
- Today is Free Comic Book Day, in honour of which, here is the Marvel Atlas Project, an online attempt to map the locations of the Marvel comics universe. As it turns out, Dr. Doom’s Latveria is in the Balkans. Via…
- Map of the Star Wars Galaxy
- This map of the Star Wars galaxy (or, in insiders’ lingo, the Galaxy Far, Far Away or GFFA) is probably not “canon” (i.e., official), but it’s sort of interesting anyway. Via Cartography, who didn’t think much of it….
- Map of Narnia
- This interactive map of Narnia, a tie-in with the upcoming movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is actually quite good: it’s a compilation of material from several Narnia books (specifically, Prince Caspian and The Silver Chair) and adds…
- Adrian Leskiw’s Fictional Road Maps
- The Map Realm: The Fictional Road Maps of Adrian Leskiw is a marvellous collection of hand-drawn and digitally made highway maps of non-existent places conjured straight from Adrian’s imagination. I love this stuff. I used to draw maps of…
- A Literary Map of Manhattan: The Results
- Back in April, Randy Cohen solicited submissions from readers of the New York Times Book Review for a literary map of Manhattan (see previous entry). That map is now online as scheduled, and it’s well done: interactive, with lots of…
- A Literary Map of Manhattan
- Randy Cohen in the New York Times Sunday Book Review (free registration required): “I propose to create, with the help of the Book Review’s readers, a literary map of Manhattan — not of its authors’ haunts but those of their…
- World of Warcraft Map Viewer
- Those interested in computer game maps (see previous entry) should take note of WoWmapview, a map viewer for World of Warcraft: “It uses the data files included with the game to display the 3D game world, which you can explore…
- Karen Wynn Fonstad
- Karen Wynn Fonstad, the freelance cartographer who authored atlases of Middle-earth, Dragonlance and other fantasy worlds, died March 11 of complications from breast cancer. She was 59. This Toronto Sun article from 2002 reviews her best-known work, The Atlas of…
- Watership Down
- This page on the differences between editions of Richard Adams’s Watership Down also has scans of the different editions’ maps (the 1972 original hardback had something that looks like a UTM grid; the 1973 Puffin paperback had a more traditional…
- Mapping Middle-earth
- Since The Map Room started at the end of March 2003, the about page has said, “from medieval Mappæ Mundi to satellite imagery, and from topo maps to Tolkien.” I’ve done posts on all of these subjects save one: I’ve…
- Mythical Geography
- The Philadelphia Print Shop has a page on mythical geography in antique maps: Illusions, Confusions and Delusions. Old maps are filled with inaccuracies — rivers running a wrong course, cities placed incorrectly, coastlines lacking bays, and mountains, lakes and islands…
- Mongo
- Jeff Patterson writes in to point to a map of the planet Mongo (187 KB JPEG). You pathetic earthling….
- The Night Land Maps
- William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land, published in 1912, is apparently a cult classic, with the usual fan-generated materials, including, notably (else why I would I mention?), maps. Jeff Patterson writes to point us to this page, which he describes…
- Stephen King’s Maine
- Stephen King’s official web site has a map of Maine that includes the fictional towns — like Castle Rock and Derry — from his works. It’s a popup from the Miscellany page….
- Online Video Game Atlas
- “The Online Video Game Atlas is a site made for video game maps. This site is made possible by gamers who rip or draw maps and contribute them here for others to view.”…
