An Atlas Of Imaginary Worlds 17: Rooksmoor's Guide To Creation Of A Fantasy World - An Easy Example

This posting is a sequel to my brief 'how to' guide about the easy creation of fantasy kingdoms which I posted in January 2013.  I cannot believe it was that long ago: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/an-atlas-of-imaginary-worlds-16.html  This latest iteration was prompted by a couple of things.  One was an article in 'The Guardian' about how the status of fantasy literature has been rising, especially as a result of the success of George R.R. Martin's 'A Song of Fire & Ice' series and the 'Game of Thrones' television series that came from those books, now in its 5th season.  You can read it here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/03/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-and-the-triumph-of-fantasy-fiction  The article has a small quiz about different lands created for various fantasy series.  The other prompt was stumbling across a map of the 67P Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet that the ESA probe landed on in August 2014. It seems made perfectly for a fantasy map especially as the regions have been name after Ancient Egyptian mythological characters.

As it is a solid, you get some repeated as we are looking at different faces of the irregular comet.  However, these could easily represent colonies of one country on another of the three continents.  Ash might be a colonial power like Britain, France or Spain, perhaps even the Netherlands or Portugal, from our history.  Nut seems to be a narrow coastal country pinned in by high mountains like Chile.  The dominant powers seem to be Imhotep on the south-western continent, Ma'at, Babi and Seth on the eastern continent.  Perhaps the people of Serqet are like the Tamils of our world split between northern Sri Lanka and southern India.  On the north-western continent maybe they were force inland by the arrival of Maftet.  

We could look at the global picture in two ways.  Perhaps the north-western continent is crowded with a range of powers fighting for territory with people looking for colonies in the much larger eastern continent.  Conversely the eastern continent might be the dominant one with countries having enclaves; the Ma'at lands on the western continent certainly seems something like Hong Kong or the German control of the Shandong peninsula in China in our history.  What is it that the people of Apis have that has allowed them to survive and not be engulfed by Ash or Imhotep?  The same could go for Hapi, perhaps important traders on what looks like comparative low-lying ground at the end of the long gulf.  Do they play off one against the other?  What is the history of Anubis?  It lacks colonies.  Is it actually a break-away from Atum which still surrounds it on three sides and itself lacks colonies.  Has there been a civil war or an ethnic one.  Could Atum be the Biafra to Anubis's Nigeria?

What about the Khepry, seemingly pushed to the periphery of two continents?  Down on these extreme southern coasts, what is the climate like - bitterly cold or very hot and humid or desert like?  What about the people of Aten in long valleys.  If these continents are on a sphere, is there travel between their two regions?  Perhaps they are undeveloped tribes left in the inaccessible regions of these continents.  Have I mistaken Maftet are the aggressors and it is they being pushed into the remote regions of their rugged land?

Starting with this map, I have adopted a very geo-political basis.  However, maybe the different regions represent different religions, with Ash as a religion of fisher people along the northern coasts and the religion of Ma'at only becoming established in a port on the north-western continent.  Perhaps Hapi is a religion only found in the most urban areas of the world.  Khepry seems ostracised no matter how you look at it.  However, perhaps controlling the trade across the Wide Sea or the Black Ocean they are far better off than they might look.

Do each of the colours represent an ethnicity, even a species?  Is there common ground between the Aten, Apis, Nut and Hatmehit or between the Ma'at and the Ash or the Aken, Bastet, Anuket and their southern cousins, the Imhotep?

The image though a scientific one can easily trigger off lots of ideas for a fantasy story.  The nature of the continents, the topography and the regions marked on them generate lots of prompts for plots.  As I have noted before, there is always a danger that you might simply transfer the British or the Chileans or the Biafrans into your fantasy world.  However, with changes and crafting you can move them away from that start point.  One you develop your story the different kingdoms or religions are likely to take on a life of their own and so will soon be unidentifiable as their Earth equivalents.

You might not want to use Egyptian names; Imhotep is well known.  However, you can use them as a start point as I noted in my previous posting on creating worlds.  Move them forward one vowel or consonant and immediately Ash becomes 'Etj' (though I might break the rule on that one and stick with Eti) or Urg, if you go back one.  Ma'at becomes 'Ne'ev' or 'Lu'us' both pronounceable.  Imhotep, perhaps the one needing most immediate change becomes 'Onjuviq' or 'Elgisan' the latter one much better than the former.  Nut probably needs to go too, 'Pav' or 'Mos' both are feasible.  Khepry sounds like it is the result of this process but could become 'Ljiqsz' or 'Jganqx' both very hard.  The system might need modification so 'h' goes on to 'i' rather than j; and r back to 'p' rather than q and p on to 'r'.  It is probably worthwhile treating y as a vowel. Thus Liirsa or Jganru are a little better.

Of course, sorting out your world is just the first stage of your fantasy novel.  While less picturesque, far more vital are the characters and you will have to turn to someone else for advice on them.  Unlike George R.R. Martin I find it hard to have amoral characters or see through the eyes of evil ones.  Like a lot of people I also hold back from killing off the nicest ones, so there would be no 'red' wedding in mine.  Perhaps you have more courage and skill than me and can succeed like George.  Remember it has taken him over twenty years to get there.

Atlas of Imaginary Worlds 15: The Continents of Seanchan

Being busy working on e-books, I have rather been neglecting this blog.  I have been pleased to find that Blogger has stopped insisting that I use the interface that they introduced earlier in the year and which proved incredibly hard to use compared to the traditional one.  There is a warning that I see whenever I log in that they will introduce a new one.  Hopefully that is not simply the same one as appeared before, but something with better functionality rather than being simply new, which these days always seems to be considered by providers as 'better' even though that is often not the case.

Anyway, I came across another map of a fantasy world and so I thought I would put it up here and take a look at it in the way that I used to.  I think it was stimulated by me watching the movie 'John Carter' based on the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I have featured maps from there before.  I was also looking for some new wallpaper for my laptop and ended up digging out the Elric world map, which in terms of artistic merit is still one of my favourites.

This images is of the continents of Seanchan which feature in a 14-book fantasy series called 'The Wheel of Time' with the first book published in 1990, six years after the first author, James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (1948-2007) under the pseudonym Robert Jordan.  Under a number of pseudonym's Rigney wrote westerns, historical novels and in the 1980s a series of Conan the Barbarian novels, which may explain his interest in vast continents in fantasy.  After Rigney's death the Wheel of Time novels have been continued with the final three novels being written by Brandon Sanderson (born 1975), a fan of the original series.  Sanderson has had success in his own right producing fantasy and children's fiction.  Though Rigney was an Episcopalian, taking high communion a number of times per week and a Fremason and Sanderson is a Mormon, the Wheel of Time stories which consist of classic fantasy with magic elements, epic quests and a whole host of characters, are influenced more by Eastern philosophies, with references to the cyclical nature of history as found in Chinese perspectives and the circular nature of things as seen in Buddhism.  The wheel and circles feature heavily in the iconography of the series.  There are also Zoroastrian references to the duality of nature, though it is apparent many English-speaking readers see this in Christian terms as God and the Devil; though personally it reminds me both of Catharism and Michael Moorcock's concepts of Law and Chaos in many of his fantasy novels.

Being such a sprawling series, Wheel of Time has led to its own wiki from which I have drawn the following:

Seanchan is the name of the landmass located across the Aryth Ocean to the west of the Westlands, and across the Morenal Ocean to the east of Shara. It is also the name of the Empire that occupies most of the landmass and its offshore islands, and also of the people who inhabit it.

The Seanchan home continent almost girdles the world from pole to pole and is considerably larger than the continent consisting of the Westlands, Aiel Waste, Great Blight and Shara. The nearest parts of Seanchan to the Westlands are located more than 5,000 miles across the Aryth Ocean, a journey of some months even by the fastest ships and contributing to the lack of communication between the two continents for most of recorded history.

Seanchan is split into two landmasses, divided by a long dividing channel. There are four large islands located off the coast of the continent, and three small ones within the dividing channel.

The northern landmass

The northern landmass is the smaller of the two. The northern-most part of the landmass consists of the Lesser Blight, which is a corrupted landscape similar to the Great Blight north of the Westlands. Considering its latitude, it is possible that this corrupted landscape extends across the entire world, even below the waves. Although the Lesser Blight is not as hostile nor as dangerous as the Great Blight, it is still considered the most dangerous part of the Seanchan continent.

South of the Lesser Blight are the Mountains of Dhoom [this seems rather derivative, almost comic in its title]. These are considered to be an extension of the mountains of the same name in the Westlands, and it is possible that the mountains completely encircle the Blight and even continue beneath the waves, as they tumble into the sea in the same confused morass of islands and cliffs as in the Westlands.

The Seanchan Empire claims all parts of the continent south of the Mountains of Dhoom. The remainder of the northern landmass consists of three peninuslas which extend for several thousand miles southward from the mountains. These peninsulas are mountainous, with only a few major rivers being marked on maps. The largest cities on the northern landmass are Sohima, Imfaral, Asinbayar and, located at the southern-most tip of the landmass on the equator, Qirat.

The north was secured by the invading armies of Luthair Paendrag Mondwin early during the Conquest, who took Imfaral as their base of operations and first capital before they invaded the south. This suggests their invasion fleet landed on the north-eastern coast of the northern landmass. 

The dividing channel

The two subcontinents are divided by a channel or sea. This body of water opens onto the Morenal Ocean at Qirat in the west and proceeds eastwards before turning north for several thousand miles, opening onto the Aryth Ocean at roughly the latitude of the Aile Dashar. A large off-shoot of this channel forms a significant bay or gulf between the peninsulas on which Sohima and Imfaral are located. There are three islands in the channel where it swings northwards.

The southern landmass

The southern landmass is by far the larger of the two. It is located mostly within the southern hemisphere, but a huge peninsula extends north and east for several thousand miles into the northern. The imperial capital of Seandar is located on this landmass, roughly due west of the island of Tremalking. Seandar is located at the meeting-point of two substantial river networks.

The southern landmass proper is vast and is covered by mountains several times the length of the Spine of the World, lakes large enough to be called seas, rolling plains, deserts and immense rivers longer and wider than the Erinin or Manetherendrelle. The other major cities of the Empire located on the southern landmass are Kirendad, Anangore, Shon Kifar, Rampore, Tzura and Noren M'Shar. Several large islands lie off the coast, one of which is presumably Marendalar, site of the last major rebellion against the Crystal Throne. The island of Maram Kashor lies off the south-eastern coast of the southern landmass.

[A coda on the bottom of the entry shows up some of the challenges that authors face when creating a world and trying to fit lots of interesting land masses on it.]

According to the text of The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, the Seanchan continent stretches for 4,000 leagues (16,000 miles) from north to south and for some 1,500 leagues (6,000 miles) at its widest point east to west. However, the former figure is not actually possible since the world of the Wheel is our world [I am not really sure why the author assumes that this world is Earth, maybe I missed something in the back story] (since it exceeds the Earth's half-circumference of 12,000 miles). The accompanying map, although hardly of scientific quality, suggests more plausible figures of just over 10,000 miles from north to south and just over 5,000 miles from east to west at its widest point.

The names seem to mix Middle Eastern/Indian ones with Celtic ones, both popular sources for fantasy country names certainly since the late 1960s.

What I liked about this continent is that bar a couple of lakes, it seems to have avoided any major inland seas for a change.  It has also avoided archipelagoes.  Instead we have something that almost has vast fjords.  In part it reminds me of Baja Mexico and in the East it is reminiscent of the Great Lakes.  Overall, however it seems to be influenced by Scotland and this is heightened by the dividing channel.  The part of Scotland to the North-West of the Highland Boundary Fault originally was part of the North American continental plate whereas the land to the South-East of the line is from the European plate.  The fault has a series of lochs running across Scotland from South-West to North-East.  Bar a twist of geology, a chunk of Scotland could lie separated from the rest of it by a channel like the one shown in this map.  In some ways it is nice to see that fantasy novels with wonderful continents are still being produced even today.

An Atlas of Imaginary Worlds 10: Pellucidar and Others

Before I continue looking at Pellucidar and some other assorted maps I have turned up recently I have to put in a recommendation for the Fantasy Maps blog: http://fantasymaps.wordpress.com/ On here you will find a thorough coverage of many fantasy worlds. It is a real delight to wander through and see what they have. In addition, as the blogger notes, it is an excellent resource if you happen to be reading a series and want to check up on where everything is.

This posting has been rather postponed. It was triggered by the release a couple of weeks ago of another movie version of 'Journey to the Center [sic] of the Earth', I thought it might be an idea to dig out some maps I ran across while looking for stuff on Pangaea and Antarctica. 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' was written by Jules Verne in 1864. There has been a previous movie made in 1959. Edgar Rice Burroughs most famous for the 'Tarzan' series, he also produced the Barsoom Mars stories. In addition he wrote a series of books based in Pellucidar another world in a 'hollow' Earth. The movie 'At the Earth's Core' (1976), is based on the first book in the series, with the same title, which Burroughs published in 1914. It features the US actor Doug MacClure (1935-95) who seems to have made quite a career out of these fantastical movies which were a fad in the mid-1970s. He was in 'The Land That Time Forgot' (1975), 'The People That Time Forgot' (1977) - both based on Burroughs novels (both published in 1918 and both available online through a Project Gutenberg; there is a third in the so-called Caspak series called 'Out of Time's Abyss' published the same year) and featuring a lost island where dinosaurs still exist. He was also in 'Warlords of Atlantis' (1978) though that was initially a screenplay rather than a book, it was very much in the same ilk with a Victorian scientist travelling into an underworld environment with fantastical creatures. Anyway, I came across a whole slew of maps of Pellucidar (the word 'pellucid' means that something allows light through it or derived from that it is clear in meaning, I suppose it is related to text or speech being 'lucid') on the following website: http://www.bouncepage.com/Pellucidar/maps.html

The site is interesting as it shows how maps for fictional worlds evolve and are re-interpreted as it features maps from 1915 (when what would become the novels were first serialised in magazines) to 2000. Pellucidar fits with views of the Hollow Earth that I have looked at on this blog before, having both an inner sun and a polar opening. I include here some for discussion, and the usual hunt for inland seas! For some reason this first map appears as a negative on the blog, but if you click on it then you can see it as black on white as it should be.

Empire of Pellucidar (1915)

This one was the first and shows just a little of what would later be revealed as the world of Pelludicar. It is shows the North-West coast of some sea filled with quite a few islands and numerous, unnamed cities, Mahar, being the people who inhabit them. I like the Unfriendly Islands which seems charmingly naive as is Land of the Awful Shadow and one would almost expect this world to be for a children's book rather than an adult one. The style is also remininscent of the one of Mongo that I have featured in a previous posting.

Map of Pellucidar (1929)

This one was also drawn by the author but he seems to not be very confident in expanding the world. We may be looking at an inland sea to the North-West of the map or one to the South-East. It is a bit disappointing that so much is unknown or unexplored. Perhaps he did not want to tie himself down. I also find 'Scale Unknown' to be irritating, but foregiveable. There is always a challenge in fantasy stories that you want huge sweeping continents, but then it takes months for your characters to cross them. I think he should have stuck to the peninsula he first features, but I suppose reader and publisher pressure led him to expand.

The World of Pellucidar (1966)

This tells us as much about reader expectations as developing ideas of the stories, especially in the 1960s when 'fantasy' as opposed to being a sub-set of science fiction, was coming into its own. The unexplored areas are now named and we still might have two inland seas, but they may just be long gulfs. The styling, in contrast to the simple maps of the pre-war era seems to try to indicate the fantastical nature with the creatures pictured on it.

Map of Pellucidar (1965)

In contrast, from the previous year is this very scientific map which, like the flag of the United Nations gives a picture of its world from hte North Pole. It also shows how comparatively small the original region that Burroughs featured was. In addition, the bodies of water one might thing were inland seas turn out just to be the ends of vast oceans, with more closed in seas elsewhere on the globe.

Pellucidar - From the 'Dictionary of Imaginary Places' (2000)

I used to own a copy of the 1980 German version of 'The Dictionary of Imaginary Places' by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi, apparently it was reprinted in 2000 in English. I saw a similar book back in 1985, in English, but foolishly had no money to buy it and have never seen it again. This blog might be very different if I had taken some money with me that day. This map like the following ones focuses on the key continent of the novels. It is never clear if the term Pellucidar represents the whole world or just this continent. Again you can tell the date of this one by the style. Gone are the monsters but we have a pattern somewhere between scientific and artistic. I think there must be a challenge for fictional mapmakers not to make their islands look like creatures, we seem to have a hare at the southern end of the map and a pointy-nosed crocodile (sea predators 62 million years ago on our world) at the northern end.

The Empire of Pellucidar by Bruce Wood (2000)

This again reflects the kind of maps you can find in real cartography online with a sandy colour for the land and a bright blue for the sea. This again shows the main continent but portraying it much slimmer than the version above. It almost looks like some lost Greek island. It emphasises the dominance of the oceans over the land in Pellucidar, so in some way moves us away from Burroughs's focus.

Pellucidar Mapped on to Earth (1970)

This is perhaps the most 'scientific' of the Pellucidar maps by Frank J. Brueckel who has drawn lots of maps of the world. It tries to overlay it with our world. There is a difficulty with this because, if Pellucidar is within our Earth then its diameter must be less than ours. I do not know whether Brueckel took this into consideration. If you went straight up from two points on Pellucidar and came out our Earth, those two points would be farther apart than down on Pellucidar as the arc between them would be wider.

The Discworld

The Discworld is the setting of Terry Pratchett's (born 1948) incredibly long-running comedy fantasy story series, of currently 36 novels. The first was 'The Colour of Magic' (1983), though Pratchett had featured a similar flat planet in 'Strata' (1981), though it was a science fiction story the inhabitants of the planet did not know it had been artificially created. Pratchett features ideas from across numerous mythologies and popular culture. This planet rides on the backs of four elephants themselves on a huge turtle 'swimming' through space. Physics is very different on the planet with light flowing across the Discworld like a liquid rather than a beam or wave.

The Four Corners of Civilization

In contrast to most of the maps you find on the internet, this one is from a pretty new novel, in fact the next two stories in the series are not out until 2009-10. They are the Kingkiller trilogy by US author Patrick Rothfuss (born 1973). The books are: 'The Name of the Wind' (2007), 'The Wise Man's Fear' (scheduled for April 2009) and 'The Doors of Stone' (working title, scheduled for 2010). They are a fantasy auto-biography of musician-wizard called Kvothe. Rothfuss wrote it in 1991 as 'The Song of Flame and Thunder' but publishers felt it was far too long (even for a fantasy epic) and so he was advised to break it down. This map looks as if it could have come from a book published in the 1950s and I adore the pencil drawn styling. Peninsulas seem to be these days, but notice numerous large lakes (possibly inland seas?) and certainly a candidate for an inland sea in the South-West, there is also another archiepelago up in the North. Rothfuss could probably be seen as an uber-fantasist, given that he wrote such an epic by the time he was 18. I guess there is hope for all of those teenage geeks to put aside their Gor books and start writing something for themselves. As such Rothfuss draws on a culture which is well established and all good to him. I look forward to his future worlds.

The World of Malaz

This one comes from Steven Erikson (born 1959; pseudonym of Steve Rune Lundin which actually sounds a more fantastical name; maybe he thought having 'rune' in his name would make people think it was fake). This world is home to the stories in the cycle the Malazan Book of the Fallen. The core books of the series are: 'Gardens of the Moon' (1999), 'Deadhouse Gates' (2000), Memories of Ice (2001), 'House of Chains' (2002), 'Midnight Tides' (2004), 'The Bonehunters' (2006), 'Reaper's Gale' (2007), 'Toll the Hounds' (2008), 'Dust of Dreams' (forthcoming) and 'The Crippled God' (forthcoming) as well as some novellas. There is so much detail about this world, that I might as well point you directly to the wikipedia entry for the world (rather than the novels): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Empire have an empire born out of city-states which then becomes a colonial power and over-stretches itself, so a nice mix of Greek and Roman history, of course with magic and pirates.

This world looks like a bunch of islands, but you have to note the scale and the fact that it is actually a collection of spread out continents. Malaz is in the centre and pretty small. There looks like one inland sea on the western continent and there is an archiepelago beyond that to the North-West. I am bit concerned to see an area called Jhag Odhan, because in the fantasy novel I wrote in 1988 I had an Ijahg City (soon to be featured on this blog).

Eladraigne and Namarre on Erith

I encountered more along this line on a rather cobwebsite, Daelstrom's Melted Maps: http://daelstorm.thegraveyard.org/maps.php which does not seem to have been updated since 2006. This has a very Celtic feel to it (and an inland sea or is it just a lake? Mirrinor), though the North-Eastern Nenian Sea presumably counts. There are two small archipelagos too. Anyway, this one comes from a female author, not that common, though as I began to think about it with Le Guin, Macaffrey and so on, there are a few. This is from The Bitterbynde triology by Cecilia Dart-Thornton an Australian author. The books are: 'The Ill-Made Mute' (2001), 'The Lady of the Sorrows' (2003), and 'The Battle of Evernight' (2003). There is not a lot online about this world, though there is already an online role-playing game set on the world. From the game you can see a range of races, with a mix of barbarians and more calmer peoples and elvish like races too, the 'Faeran'. The world as a whole is called Erith and Eladaraigne is the main kingdom which houses the Feorkind with its capital Caermelor (clearly reminiscent of Camelot). Namarre is inhabited by barbarians. So, it seems steeped in Celtic/early Anglo-Saxon culture.

Continent of 'The Way of the Tiger'

Rather than coming from a novel, this comes from a series of game books written by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith called 'The Way of the Tiger' series. They were: 'Avenger!' (1985), 'Assassin!' (1985), 'Usurper!' (1985), 'Overlord!' (1986), 'Warbringer' (1986) and 'Inferno' (1987). Their world is called The Orb. They were like the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks (and in fact one in that series, 'Talisman of Death' (1984; republished 2006) also by Thomson and Smith also features The Orb), in that you select options and go to the relevant entry. There is a simple combat system that allows you to battle opponents using dice. Effectively they were a role-playing game for people travelling or had no friends. The interesting thing about this series is that it has an unashamedly Japanese setting, with the player being a ninja and he can draw on 'chi' (as in Tai-Chi; it is the Chinese for the Japanese word 'ki' as in Aikido) which is a mental/spiritual force used in Chinese martial arts. Despite these references to our world, the setting is fantastical with barbarians, an Assassins' Guild, rangers, paladins and a whole series of gods, many related to war or evil. I like this map which is very North-South orientated (perhaps to match Japan itself) but the large fjords of the Great Valley Reaches seem reminiscent of Norway. It is not clear if this is the extent of the contient or if The Sea of the Star is an inland sea. There are no archiepelagos visible.

The World of Xylae

This one I can find out little about, it came off another blog hosted on blogspot, by someone it seems is called Tang. Despite the name, this seems to have Nordic and Italian, rather than Chinese influences. It has a hand-drawn 1930s feel, though the waves and mountains look put in by computer. There are stories on the blog, but I did not stop to read through them and there was little reference to this place except its name and I have no idea how you would pronounce Xylae (maybe it is like 'Skylar' which I know is now sometimes a girl's name, I believe, particularly in Australia). One reason I picked on it is because it has a mega-inland sea and a whole chaos of archipelagos. This Latchader Sea seems closed at both ends and at the bottom, the Romund Sea could be another inland sea, though if that is a cape, I guess not, it is just another gulf in a larger ocean. Clearly the West is most inhabited, though if this is set on a globe then the cities to the East of the map might be quite close to those in the West. You would have expected a bit more about Romundland. The title describes it as the 'known world', so if it is a typical fantasy setting, then maybe there are more 'undiscovered' continents.

An Atlas of Imaginary Worlds 9: Two Small Items

Now that I have cleared out my electronic map cupboard it is likely that in future you will just get items as I come across them in books or online and that is just what I have today. I just stumbled across a website which features maps of imaginary places from endpapers of books and they do have that lovely pencil drawn feel to them. I have not explored them, but there are a whole range the first are children's books: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/e/epm/epm.htm

These ones are adult books including some I have featured such as a different version of the map for George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and from 'Gulliver's Travels' even John Buchan's Island of Sheep which I have never seen despite enjoying the novel of the same title: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/lit.htm

The home page is: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/m/map/m.htm The site is full of historic and literary maps and wonderfully evocative images of imaginary places. Excellent work and lots to enjoy.

Lands of 'The Golden Key'

This is a map from 'The Golden Key' by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Robertson and Kate Elliott (1997). I am not sure why all three of them came together to produce this lengthy fantasy novel (1,075 pages in the edition I have) as each of them is a successful author, all of them each with at least eight fantasy novels in their belt. It may have something to do with the book being in three distinct sections so it might have been a challenge between them or something. If anyone knows it would be interesting to find out. The world of the story is very clearly based on Renaissance Italy and loads of Italian words and phrases are used throughout the novel. The story mainly focuses on the country in the middle of this map the Duchy of Tira Verte and certainly in what I have read its historic relations with Tza'ab Rih (a state like those of North Africa at the time seeking a religious leader to restore the fragmented desert tribes' glories); Tira Verte (in the language of the world meaning 'Lands of Green') took the province of Shagarra from Tza'ab Rih and to a lesser extent the Kingdom of Prancanza. There is almost an inland sea and there are frosty northern territories (one imagines, as I have read no details of them) in Friesemark. This is not a vast continent and one guesses it is say the size of Italy and Tunisia. A nicely drawn map that fits the setting. Compare this with the one for 'Tigana' similarly modelled on Renaissance Italy. I should have persisted as a youth as I always wanted to do a fantasy novel in a quasi-Renaissance rather than quasi-Medieval style which seemed compulsory in those days. It does not have to be the case but the Renaissance seems to imply a greater opportunity for politics and intrigue. I am not a great consumer of fantasy novels but if I come across any other imaginary world maps I will be sure to share them.

An Atlas of Imaginary Worlds 1: Narnia

Following my brief journey into the bizarre and sinister world of the censoring of internet maps I have come across a range of different imaginary worlds that are mapped in detail. The leading one has to be the Middle Earth of The Lord of the Rings story, as you can see there are stacks of those of different kinds, though lawyers are keen to stamp them out. Next in terms of internet popularity comes Narnia. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963; the part of his life are shown in the movie 'Shadowlands' (1993). Like J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973 who apparently converted him to Christianity though Tolkien was Catholic and Lewis Church of England) he lectured at the University of Oxford in the 1950s, they were both in the 'Inklings' writers' club and used to drink in the 'Eagle and Child' pub which still exists in Oxford. Lewis's 'The Chronicles of Narnia' consisting of seven books (a heptology I suppose): 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (1950), 'Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia' (1951), 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' (1952), 'The Silver Chair' (1953), ' The Horse and His Boy' (1954), 'The Magician’s Nephew' (1955), 'The Last Battle' (1956). Like Tolkien's work they are adventure stories (though probably aimed at a younger audience than 'The Lord of the Rings' and certainly shorter in length) with moral themes, and Christian undertones (notably the character of Aslan the lion, who like Jesus Christ in Christian theology redeems characters through his death and rebirth).

As with 'The Lord of the Rings' the CGI capabilities of the 21st century enabled Lewis's work to be revived through a blockbuster movie, with 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (2005). The scene in which the White Witch, Jadis, (very well played by Tilda Swinton who has a suitably otherworldly demeanour; the witch is white because she is icy rather than good) sneers at the boy Edmund Pevensie who betrayed his friends to her in return for sweets (he had admittedly come from Britain in the Second World War where sweets were unavailable) is a good lesson for today's very demanding youth.

Anyway, as with any decent fantasy novel, there is a map. Narnia, by the way, is named after a city North of Rome in ancient times. Like Tolkien and Robert E. Howard (more on him another post), Lewis drew on his knowledge of the Classical world to provide names and locations. He also used other cultures, for example Jadis comes from the Turkish word for witch. So, below is a selection of maps of his Narnia:

Whereas Tolkien's Middle Earth faces North-West, Narnia seems to face East. Wildlands or wastes of the North seem a common element, and probably reflects authors coming from northern Europe and North America. Maybe the fantasy worlds of authors from the Mediterranean, Africa or South America would be very different. I suppose another thing is that you need wide plains to ride across in dramatic fantasies and to counter this maybe why when we turn to the work of Le Guin and Moorcock who eschew their predecessors, you have lots of archiepelagos instead.