I give you Terry Pratchett's Sourcery:
This book does not contain a map. Please feel free to draw your own.
They really dont. Dont get me wrong, on my current reread of the Robin Hobb series, yes I enjoy looking at the map cause I already know the story.
But generally speaking I dont read fantasy for the geography.
I present to you, my favorite book map of all time:
Which book?
I miss the olden days. I remember trying to win some Pikachu crap in a random magazine.
But where do the witches hang out
I feel like the 3rd book of dungeon crawler Carl could’ve been this but the author put in a note at the beginning saying essentially, ‘it’s too complicated. Don’t try to follow what’s going on and where they are in the map lol’
There are some attempts to diagram it out online but it really just doesn't make sense imo
Reading through the third book right now, and either missed or completely forgot the suggestion to try not to follow it, but glad I saw this message because I am often getting confused as to where people are. Still having a blast though! Well written books? Maybe not, but they are very fun.
So far DCC is giving me a nice break from the Cosmere and Sanderson's in depth world building.
Is it too complicated or was it just not written woth that in mind? I mean, you can follow the fellowships path through the mines of Moria and it’s not like that’s a straight shot.
Comparing to tolkein is just unfair.
That man has the worldbuilding capabilities second only to Eru. Even Aule doesn't hold a silmaril to Tolkein's creativity.
The man legitimately never stopped thinking about middle earth. And I am all the more glad for it, since now I have maps aplenty, intertwining stories, and the guidebook to end all guidebooks for fantasy worldbuilding.
Comparing that to someone who knocked out a book in a few years seems unfair.
Yeah, reading Tolkien growing up kind of set me an unrealistic standard for fantasy serieses. After I finished the LotR I became hungry for something as good, and nothing came close. People who only watched the movies don't understand what a masterpiece those books really are.
On a positive note, it saved me from potentially countenancing some absolutely garbage fantasy works, but on the other hand it left me on some search that could never truly be satisfied. Because lets be honest, nothing else holds a candle.
Now decades later, I just finished the Wheel of Time, and even though I ended up really liking it, I had trouble enjoying it at first because I kept comparing it in my mind to Tolkien. It wasn't until I finally convinced myself to stop doing that that I really began to appreciate it for what it is.
I'm reading the prequel now, but mostly just because I'm interested in Moiraine's backstory. (The characters are what really make WoT in my opinion. Without Jordan's skill at writing people, the plot alone would just be meh. Something I felt Sanderson really dropped the ball on in the last three books, where the characters and dialogue get really awkward and bland except for the chapters that were clearly written before Jordan died).
I also read one of the Earthsea books a few years ago and thought it was really good. I've been meaning to read the rest of those, which are probably next on my list.
And I have some of the Ring World books waiting for some more lighthearted fantasy. Howl's Moving Castle was another fun lighthearted one, but I haven't read either of the sequels.
Other than that, I'm not sure if there are any other fantasy series that interest me. I don't think I can get into Narnia. I'm not interested in Song of Ice and Fire or the Witcher. Maybe there's a gem tucked away somewhere I haven't heard of yet, but I don't intend to do much digging to look for it. I recently read about Piers Anthony, so maybe I'll pull that string a little more. But overall I think Ring World will keep me occupied for a while (after I finish Earthsea, of course). Then maybe I'll move on to some scifi.
Have you read any Brandon Sanderson other than the last three WoT books? He’s a pretty amazing worldbuilder. And his hard magic systems are phenomenal. He’s also a master of story structure. The only area he lacks is prose, but he’s been improving on that over time.
Just finished book 3 and I will say the added railway layout confusion kinda took me out of the story, I would find myself rewinding full descriptions several times and still not understanding. The author took a lot of time to describe the different train lines and all the stations but I just stopped caring because it really didn't matter. Just annoying he took the time to explain everything but it still made no sense.
Book 4 starts way better, with the showrunner explaining the rules and the objectives as soon as they get to the 5th floor.
The original Dragonlance book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, didn't need a map. Because a major plot point was that all the maps they had were pre-cataclysm and over a hundred years old. They had smaller local maps, but no explorers had stitched them together as 100 years is short to do that. So traveling over the map outside of where they would normally be in their lives, meant they couldn't be sure where they were going or where they'd end up.
They went to Tarsis-by-the-sea to take a ship to cut down their travel time, only to find it had become a dry seabed.
They did still have a map, but much more local to where the group started out and lived. I suppose that's why in most fantasy settings, you need a local map, because big world ones like Tolkien had require a lot of stability over a long period of time, along with trade and a market for large map.
And that's how you know it was a DM that said: I'ma get around to a map later.
My absolute favorite book series. I've probably read the first trilogy 5 or 6 times. I do love your point about the maps being pre-cataclysm but there were some smaller maps in the book that I appreciated having
I remember trying to go as Raistlinn one Halloween. Get rid of the staff and I was Sheev Palpatine.
Lmao. Never made that connection - physically ill body with hooded robe and magical powers
This reminds me of when Ultima Underworld first came out in 1992, and it came with a map of the first level printed on a piece of fabric, and it looked hand-drawn. I was 13, and I have never played a complicated adventure game like that before, so it was extremely extremely helpful in figuring out how the game worked and how to visualize the levels of the game moving forward. Plus, as the character had a map just like that one, it really helped with the immersion.
Considering that, 34 years later, it is still resonating this strongly in my memory, I’m definitely in favor of maps being included in fantasy stories.
By then, they'd already been including such maps for close to a decade!
I don't recall if Ultima III had one, but IV certainly did. Not to mention those glorious manuals.
I discovered that when I ended up buying Ultima VII next lol
Sadly, ultima underworld ii did not come with a fabric map, but one printed on paper 😔
I miss the days of high production values for every part of the game. Obviously the majority of games from my youth (after dinosaurs and the invention of color, but not much) were mediocre or even flat out shovelware, but the greats are still shining achievements.
Terry Pratchett agreed with your aunt
Then he realised that actually he did, and had to go through all the works carefully to figure out a layout that worked.
Idk I listened to the entire Stormlight Archives and never thought to look up the map. When I was younger I would have agreed, but now...
I recently reread Eragon and Eldest which I loved as a kid. I thought it was so cool to flip to the back of the book to read elf and drawf translations. This time I found it gimmicky and annoying lol
Great book but mapmaking could use some work. One of these is a lush rich planet, and the other is a near-barren moon. Which one do you think is the moon?
You'd think it was Flippy, but you'd be wrong. It's Hambone
Urras?
Annares
Thanks I hate it
And the audiobook version needs to have a pdf/png of the map as part of the download.
Why not an audiomap?
reminds me when i read 100 years of solitude without family tree, big mistake, but on my defense i didn't know what i was getting into and it was before the Internet
I also don't think you need anything beyond a very rough map which sometimes can be directly inferred from reading the book. Anything more is like cover art or illustrations: it competes with my mental picture while I read it and I don't prefer it.
Last time I was asked that question, I replied: "Many of my family members believe in god".
Whoa edgy
phantom tollbooth
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