The Map Room - A Weblog about Maps

Over on The Awl, Victoria Johnson has an essay about maps of fictional places, which of course is relevant to my interests. Johnson has chosen some very unique and distinctive maps to discuss -- Winnie-the-Pooh, The Phantom Toolbooth and The Princess Bride among them -- rather than the sort of standard fantasy maps you get in standard fantasy (which, I suppose, aren't worth discussing unless you like the fantasy world being mapped; certainly not as maps). Via Boing Boing (which sends a link in this direction).

I have not forgotten my Maps in Science Fiction and Fantasy project, though it's lain fallow for a bit while I juggled other things. Here are a few short stories about maps that I've encountered over the past few months.

"The Map" by Gene Wolfe (Endangered Species [New York: Tor, 1989], 20-36) belongs to the universe of The Book of the New Sun (one of my favourite works) and features one of its secondary characters. A former torturer named Eata now captains a boat along the river Gyoll. He is hired by a man with a map seeking treasure in the dead parts of the great city Nessus. The Book of the New Sun belongs to the dying Earth genre, and Wolfe's Urth is extremely old and layered; as such the map may no longer be reliable.

Those spidery streets might -- or might not -- be the very streets that stretched before him. That wandering line of blue might be a stream or canal, or Gyoll itself. The map presented an accumulation of detail, and yet it was detail of a sort that did nothing to confirm or deny location. He committed as much of it to memory as he could, all the while wondering what feature or turning might prove of value, what name of street or structure might have survived where there was no one left to recall it, what thing of masonry or metal might yet retain its former shape, if any did. For an instant it seemed to him that it was not the treasure that was lost, but he himself. (30-31)

In the event he has to be rescued; Eata seems to be of the opinion that maps are rather good at getting their owners into trouble, and not much else. The map, in this story, is a symbol of obsolescence.

"The Mappist" by Barry Lopez (Light Action in the Caribbean [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000], 146-162) is neither science fiction nor fantasy, but has genre appeal. Matthew Cheney (more on whom momentarily) considers it an homage to Borges; I'll let him describe the story: "it tells of a narrator's obsession with a pseudonymous author of remarkable travel guides and maps, works of such detail and care that they capture the 'essence' of whatever city they describe. The narrator eventually tracks down the creator of these works, the reclusive Corlis Benefideo, and visits him, viewing new maps Benefideo has created, maps of remarkable depth and brilliance."

When he placed the next map in front of me, the summer distribution of Swainson's hawks, and then slid in next to it a map showing the overlapping summer distribution of its main prey species, the Richardson ground squirrel, the precision and revelation were too much for me. I turned to face him. "I've never seen anything that even approaches this, this" -- my gesture across the surface of the table included everything. "It's not just the information, or the execution -- I mean, the technique is flawless, the water-coloring, your choice of scale -- but it's like the books, there's so much more." "That's the idea, don't you think, Mister Trevino?" (159)

Benefideo is capable of mapping impossible things, but he claims it's just a matter of hard work. "The Mappist" is a quest for "an elegant order [that] has disappeared" (161), but the maps are sui generis, the mapmaker unique.

"A Map of the Everywhere" by the aforementioned Matthew Cheney (Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, eds. [Easthampton MA: Small Beer Press, 2007], 207-221; Kindle version; audio version) is a beautifully written story that evinces Beckett in its absurdism. Its rather feckless protagonist, Alfred, drifts from job to job until a strange trio sends him to see a cartographer.

"You must dig a hole to China," one of the creatures whispered. "I was digging for faith or direction," Alfred replied. "I have no interest in China. I couldn't even find it on a map." "Then you have need of a cartographer," another of the creatures said. "I have known many cartographers." "They are a strange breed, cartographers," another of the creatures said. "They live in hovels and garrets," another of the creatures said. "They seldom shave." (210)

The cartographer Alfred ends up seeing is the questionably gendered Günther Lopez (whose name has to be a tip towards the author of "The Mappist"). Visiting the cartographer does not yield tangible results in the cartographic sense, but in the end, at last, Alfred does leave with a sense of direction, if not literal directions -- and that seems to be what the cartographer stands in place of.

Finally, I want to mention "The Dala Horse," a delightful story by Michael Swanwick (Tor.com, July 13, 2011) that isn't about maps, but it does feature a talking map, as well as a walking, talking knapsack, both of which accompany a fleeing Swedish girl who is trying to find her grandmother's house.

Carefully, so as not to tear, the map unfolded. Contour lines squirmed across its surface as it located itself. Blue stream-lines ran downhill. Black roads and stitched red trails went where they would. "We're here," said the map, placing a pinprick light at its center. "Where would you like to go?" "To Far-Mor," Linnea said. "She's in Godastor." "That's a long way. Do you know how to read maps?" "No." "Then take the road to the right. Whenever you come across another road, take me out and I'll tell you which way to go."

It sounds like a fairy tale, but it isn't; this is a tale in which technology is indistinguishable from magic, where "we taught things how to talk and think"; Swanwick's map is a satnav in fantasy clothing.

Update: Since this post is getting a bit of attention, I should mention that these are only the map stories I've encountered most recently. See The Map Room's Fiction About Maps category for earlier examples.

This animated map from NASA (Flash-only, sorry) illustrates global temperatures since 1880: "reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average." News flash: the planet's getting warmer. More information here.

Previously: Global Temperature Changes by Decade.

If you're interested in maps as art, you probably already have copies of books like You Are Here and The Map as Art, excellent collections of map art curated by Katharine Harmon (if you don't have these books and you're interested, now you know; off you go). If, on the other hand, you're a crafty sort and are interested in making art with maps -- whether as raw material or as theme -- then a new book by Jill K. Berry, Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking, may be worth your attention.

Personal Geographies is a short guide to making maps about personal subjects using the techniques of mixed-media artwork. Let me unpack that a bit. Mixed media involves combining several different art forms: paint, pen and ink, photography, collage; different materials and textures. Berry, lists as supplies a number of different kinds of paper and cardstock; pencils, crayons and paints; adhesives; tools; and embellishments like ribbons.

These are the raw materials. Berry chooses as her theme so-called personal geographies, broken up into three chapters: maps of the self, in which the personal is mapped to pictures of the head, the hand, the heart or the body; maps of personal experiences, such as trips; and art pieces made from real and fictional maps. Each lavishly illustrated chapter gives sample projects with step-by-step instructions; each chapter also collects map projects from a number of different artists to show you what else might be possible.

I received an electronic review copy of this book.

Buy at Amazon.com (Canada, UK)

Last week I received in the mail a review copy of Derek Hayes's latest book, the Historical Atlas of Washington and Oregon. Now, except for a day trip to Mount Baker in 1993, I haven't so much as visited either state, so my review is not as informed as a local's could be. What I can say is that this is the latest in a series of historical atlases by Hayes, whose previous works include historical atlases of North American railroads, California and the U.S. in general, among others. It's an attractive and reasonably priced hardcover, densely packed with contemporary maps.

On that point: Hayes uses actual, contemporary maps to describe the period. This differs from what I usually expect from historical atlases, which use modern cartography to display historical information. I'm not entirely convinced of Hayes's method: contemporary maps may not necessarily be accurate; and they're frequently reproduced at a scale too small to be of any informative use; and the map needed to tell a story may not always be available. But when considered as a thematically and chronologically organized collection of antique maps, it works very well indeed, though I think several subjects, such as the period before European (or as Hayes puts it, "EuroAmerican") contact, get short shrift.

Still, I cannot emphasize enough the wealth of cartography on display here (Seattle, Tacoma, Portland and the Pacific Northwest rail lines get particularly lavish treatment); this is the sort of thing that would do well as an iPad app or enhanced ebook, where you could zoom in to a full-scale reproduction of all these maps.

Buy at Amazon.com (Canada, UK)

Word first came in early 2009 that Jeopardy whiz Ken Jennings was writing a book "exploring the world of map nuts and geography obsessives." That book, Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, came out in September, and now I've had a chance to read it.

Maphead isn't really (or just) a book about maps; rather, it's a book about the people who obsess about matters geographical, including maps. The subject is pretty broadly defined. He begins straightforwardly enough. After a chapter on spatial awareness, Jennings looks at the scandal that erupted when a University of Miami professor discovered his students couldn't locate anything on a map, and at map literacy in general. There's a chapter on borders and placenames. But things really get cooking when Jennings turns to things people do. A chapter on map collecting. On maps of imaginary places. The National Geographic Bee. Roadgeeking. Geocaching. Even the Degree Confluence Project.

In its cheerful enthusiasm for all things map, Maphead reads a lot like Mike Parker's Map Addict (which I reviewed in 2009). This is a good thing. Like Map Addict, Maphead covers a lot of what for me is very familiar ground: I sometimes felt like I was reading my own blog archives, which is something I felt while reading Map Addict. But then Jennings goes and finds something I didn't know, like the fact that Borges's "On Exactitude in Science" was not the only work to play with the idea of a 1:1 scale map: Lewis Carroll and Umberto Eco did it too. Ken Jennings has managed to pull off a minor miracle: a profoundly erudite, well-researched book, written in a breezy, accessible and downright witty manner that is invariably entertaining. A pleasant book that you should look at, if you have any interest in maps.

Buy at Amazon.com (Canada, UK, Kindle)

Previously: Map Books for Fall 2011.

A new topographic map of the Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: "Today the LROC team releases Version 1 of the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) topographic map of the Moon. This amazing map shows you the ups and downs over nearly the entire Moon, at a scale of 100 meters across the surface, and 20 meters or better vertically." Late last year lunar topo maps were released that were based on laser altimeter data; presumably the WAC data, based on stereo observations, is better. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/DLR/Arizona State University.

At this time of year, for the last couple of years, I've put together a gift guide listing noteworthy books about maps published over the past year. Even though I'm not regularly blogging about maps any more, this year is no exception. This year's list includes the scholarly and the popular, the technical as well the artistic. Here's the U.S. list, here's the U.K. list, and here's the list for Canada. Selection and editions vary by store. As usual, books bought through these Amazon affiliate links make me a bit of money. Thank you for your support.

Previously: Map Books of 2009; Map Books of 2010.