Dragons & Jetpacks discussion

Anyone else in this group an absolute map GEEK? I know I am, so much so that designing the maps for my own books is one my favourite parts of the process... Not sure who I'd pick as my favourite in that area though... Any thoughts on that?!

I suppose obvious contenders (in no particular order) would be George RR Martin, Tolkien and Robert E Howard (though he's light on details I do like the myriad countries).

I make maps for a living so definitely a map geek. I also collect antique maps and my walls are adorned with quite a few of them
Tolkien has to be the classic one for maps. Raymond E feist got some great ones in his books. In recent books Bradley P Beauliue had some really nice ones in the Twelve Kings book and looks to add decent ones as the series progresses.
Also really liked the Anthony Ryan ones.
In recent series Sebastien De Castells one in the first version of Traitors Blade were awful but he upped his game in the later edition and later books in the series.

Also should give a strong mention to our member Mark Lawrence whos Broken Empire maps are great and also based on Europe with the sea raised (Although Ireland is completely absent )

Ah yes, I'd almost forgotten about those... I like what he did to Old Blighty in particular! I guess Ireland didn't survive his apocalypse, and went the way of Atlantis...

Or Ireland remained unmapped like it did in Roman Times because we scared the crap out of everyone

Funny you should mention that: I'm reading Gibbon and he mentions the Romans occupying parts of Ireland... But it's a passing reference and I'd not heard that anywhere before, so I had been wondering...

Pretty much accepted they never came here at all.

Yeah, that's what I thought to be honest.

I am currently reading The Winter King by Bernhard Cornwell which is about King Arthur and I'm pretty sure he says that the Romans just avoided the Irish completely, so a chuckle at that.

sir Lancer wrote: "I am currently reading The Winter King by Bernhard Cornwell which is about King Arthur and I'm pretty sure he says that the Romans just avoided the Irish completely, so a chuckle at that." Wouldn't surprise me: they had enough trouble trying to pin down the Britons as it was!

Damien wrote: "sir Lancer wrote: "I am currently reading The Winter King by Bernhard Cornwell which is about King Arthur and I'm pretty sure he says that the Romans just avoided the Irish completely, so a chuckle..." And that's before we get to the Scythians, the Alemans, the GOths, Visigoths, Persians and Sassanids... To mention but a fraction of the peoples that harassed the Roman borders throughout the (all things considered, surprisingly) long history of their empire...

For those that love maps check out this etsy store

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Gubitzandco...

I just got a map of Roshar for my birthday and it's pretty awesome.

There goes my grocery money for the week. They are amazing

They look amazing in person

I'm very tempted. We're in the process of moving and in the house we are moving to if all goes well we will have a small library room and I'm looking for a few additional book related pictures for the room. The shire would possibly be my preference but its a tough call.

Mmm.... lovely :) Yes, done right mapping can be an artform in itself - I do so love it... [insert hearticons here]

Oh, nice. I like the paintings, too, especially the southern Utah ones.

Paul wrote: "I'm very tempted. We're in the process of moving and in the house we are moving to if all goes well we will have a small library room and I'm looking for a few additional book related pictures for ..."

My dream is to have a library with wall-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Its only a small bedroom but we are going floor to ceiling with the shelves and putting in two armchairs

Niiiiice.

I promise to post a pic when we eventually sort everything out

I used to belong to a Tolkien message board, and (long story omitted) a bunch of us decided to get a gift for a couple of the admins. Someone suggested a map representing the site, and someone said, "Hey, this guy Daniel Reeve did all of the maps and calligraphy for The Lord of the Rings - can't hurt to ask him how much he'd charge." We (I) contacted him, collected money, told him roughly what we wanted - and it was amazing: he took the land masses of Middle-earth and turned it into our online home. (Hey, it's still on his website.) It's gorgeous. If you love maps, go hang out on his site - he does astounding work.

Tracey wrote: "I used to belong to a Tolkien message board, and (long story omitted) a bunch of us decided to get a gift for a couple of the admins. Someone suggested a map representing the site, and someone said..."
Had a glance ... yeah, looks very impressive! Works of art indeed :)

I love drawing maps - sometimes during periods of writer's block I work on maps, picking out details etc... Then I can feed that back into the narrative. It's useful for battle scenes as much as adventuring narratives and a wonderful aspect of our genre.

I recently finished Zero World by Jason Hough. It was a great book, but I was frequently frustrated that I had no idea where they were most of the time, and a map would've made it so much more fun

Is there one online? I've googled maps for audiobooks.

Oh! Good idea, I'll have to check

I recently heard an interesting podcast about this topic.

Imaginary Worlds Podcast