The wonder of fantasy maps...

And an introduction to the cartography of my imaginary worlds!

My sketchbook and drawing tools.

He [Bilbo] loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all his favorite walks marked on it in red ink.

— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Greetings! It seems Bilbo Baggins and I share many things in common. For one thing, we both have anxiety-prone, easily-flustered temperaments. We both enjoy the comforts of home, whether it’s preparing a good meal in the kitchen or spending quiet afternoons walking about the neighborhood. And we are both rather fond of maps.

I cannot say precisely when my fascination with maps, especially fantasy maps, first began. Probably the very first imaginary world to really make an impression on me was the gorgeous full-color map at the beginning of

James Gurney

’s Dinotopia.

The magic of maps: Dinotopia & Middle-earth

Reading Dinotopia was the first time I can remember feeling truly transported into a fantasy world. That lost world of dinosaurs and their human companions was so believable, so richly detailed, that I had the wonderfully uncanny idea that the work of an author’s imagination could, after all, in some mysterious way, be a real place!

It’s possible that not only my love of maps, but also my lifelong habit of creating detailed imaginary worlds, and my enduring desire to be a fiction writer, all have their origins in lazy summer days spent poring over the incredible artwork in the Dinotopia books.

Then, when I was about thirteen, I discovered The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s maps were as enchanting as Gurney’s but in their own unique way. Soon enough I was reading Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-earth from cover to cover. The Shire and Wilderland became as real to me as were Dinotopia’s Waterfall City and Sauropolis. Getting to these magical places seemed as easy as stepping out into my own backyard.

My framed maps of Middle-earth.

When I was a kid, I loved drawing. I was always sketching dinosaurs, monsters, robots, spaceships, and (of course) maps. Then, for some reason, in my twenties, I gave up on the hobby for a while. Probably due to the pressures of my academic studies. Recently, I’ve taken it up again, and I’m so glad I did.

I had forgotten how much I loved drawing! Even though I haven’t had any professional art training (the most I’ve done is study a few how-to-draw books) the years of practice as a child have stayed with me.

That’s not to say that everything I draw is good! Really, most of my sketches are quite awful! But picking up my pencil again was as effortless and second nature as riding a bike after a lapse of many years. (That reminds me, I really need to save up for a new bicycle . .)

Now that I’ve begun to take charge of my fiction writing as a serious vocation, I’ve seized on a crucial piece of creative wisdom from J. R. R. Tolkien as I begin to craft new imaginary worlds:

I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit. . . The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story.

— J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 144

Honestly, I wish I had taken this advice sooner! It would have saved me a lot of trouble and frustration. As you’ve probably seen, I’ve been working on many different ideas of fantasy and science fiction settings, but I’ve been hampered so far by recurring writer’s block.

Indeed, I think part of the reason I’ve been experiencing this writer’s block is that I’ve been having trouble visualizing where all my characters are located geographically at any given moment in the story.

So, in recent days I’ve been hard at work drawing maps for a couple of my SF/F settings.

Eldrenna & Arathain (Fantasy)

A work-in-progress map of the land of Edrenna, including the Realm of Arathain and the surrounding Wilds.

As long-time readers of this newsletter will know, I’ve been working on an epic fantasy series for some time. I have an outline for the first book and a basic synopsis of the entire plot. But, until recently, I had no map to go along with them. The above is the current layout of the land of Eldrenna, which contains the Realm of Arathain and the Wilds, a vast region that is largely uncharted (. . .by humans, at least).

Large portions of the map still need to be filled in, and almost all the settlements still need to be named. (If you look closely, though, you will see that I’ve penciled in the intriguing note “PIRATE PORT” next to a location in the far northwest corner of the map. . .)

Visualizing Eldrenna has given me renewed motivation to keep plugging along on The Sword of Arathain universe. If you guys are interested, I can post an updated version of the map when it’s finally in a more completed state. Eventually, I’d like to hire a professional artist/cartographer to create an even better map of Eldrenna than I could ever produce.

The Planet Avalon (Science Fiction)

A very early sketch of the major landmasses in the southern hemisphere of Avalon.

In my WIPs post, I mentioned briefly that I’ve been worldbuilding a science-fantasy setting inspired partly by the novels of Anne McCaffrey—especially The Dragonriders of Pern but also The Mystery of Ireta. This map represents my earliest attempt to sketch out the continents of the planet Avalon.

The name “Avalon” is currently a placeholder and it may change as my ideas for this story evolve. (Indeed, in an earlier iteration the planet was called “Takhar” by its human inhabitants, and I may return to that idea.) In any case, this world represents everything I love about old-fashioned sci-fi adventure stories. I’m going to continue working on it and fleshing out the lore of this mysterious planet. I might even share some of that here on the newletter.

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Pageturning is quickly approaching 300 subscribers! If you’ve just discovered my little corner of Substack, I want to invite you to subscribe and to share this post—perhaps with someone else who loves fantasy maps! This newsletter only exists with the support and interest of my readers.

I love to engage with other SF/F fans! Do you have a favorite fantasy map? What’s your favorite SF/F universe and why? Let me know in the comments. Let’s get a fun conversation going!

I have some big plans for the future of Pageturning and I can’t wait to share them with you. Stay tuned! In the meantime, God bless and happy reading.