Maps in Other Books

Today, I focused on other books which have maps in them.

These ones are from a fantasy series called the Land of Elyon by Patrick Carmen.

I like the clouds on the edge and the way the title is incorporated. 

These next ones are from several series that take place in the same fantasy world all written by Tamara Pierce. The first one is from The Lioness series.

The next ones are from the Protecter of the Small series. 

The next one is from the Wild Magic series.

The next ones are from the Trickster series.

The last ones are from the Beka Cooper series.

I like how each map of the whole world is different because of the it implies history behind each map.

The next few maps are from a book called Voices of the Storm about Hurricane Katrina

I like the before and after effect. You can tell that it is the same map with a new layer.

The next map appears in a book in the Chronicles of Narnia. 

I like the detail on the compass and the title and the mountains.

I also had an idea. I could make the border of my maps runes or elvish writing.

If I did a journey of the ring map the border could say the poem about the rings of power. For my tikkon olam map I could use one of Gandalf's quotes.

12/9 One thing that I notice about maps of fantasy worlds is that their purpose is different than conventional maps. They seek to orient the reader in the world of the story but not to show the reader how the reader can get from point a to point b. Thus representations of the height of a mountain or even distance are relatively unimportant in fantasy maps. What is important is that you can find were the story is. Thus fantasy maps lend themselves to a more stylistic approach. For example, terrain becomes more important than elevation.