Maps
I’m not a big fan of fantasy novels. By which I mean most of those brick-thick, sub-Tolkein tales of wizards, monsters and farmyard kids turning out to be the last great hope for civilisation.
It’s not the cheating that some writers do when it comes to how magic works. It’s not the reactionary mix of medieval politics and racial stereotypes. It’s not (in the very bad examples) the clearly made-up names that have so many consonants and inverted commas that you just don’t even try to think how it’s pronounced.
It’s the maps.
Generally speaking, any fantasy novel that has at least one map at the front is something I put right back on the shelf. It’s unfair, I know, to dismiss a work of fiction out of hand for something like that, but that’s just how it is.
It doesn’t help that most maps I’ve seen in such situations are so badly realised that you’d think it was the work of a toddler high on licking its orange crayons; I don’t think I’d mind quite so much if someone put some real effort into the maps and produced something at least comparable with The Ordnance Survey. But, of course, that would take time and money and, being honest, it probably wouldn’t overcome the fact that — particularly at the poor end of this kind of thing — they are just so clearly made up by someone with little or no understanding of geography, geology or indeed how to make things look even vaguely memorable.
There’s also the fact that, in too many cases, the maps seem to be there as a quick visual reminder for something that — really — should be made clear in the text. Having a map at the start of the book, if you ask me (and I know you haven’t, but we’ll let that pass), is almost as bad as a writer ending their novel with an A-Z of the characters. It shouts out to me that the author and the editor are not confident enough that readers will be able to get the world of the novel clearly inside their head.
Say what you want about Tolkein, but at least he didn’t have maps at the front of The Lord of The Rings.
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