I have to be honest with you, dear reader: I, an adult woman, love those maps in the front of fantasy novels. Sorry. I just love them. Give me those little triangle mountains surrounding the ruined Citadel of E'rroth, man. I'm all about it. So if you, like me, are an otherwise reasonable person who geeks out over small line drawings of imaginary nation states, here are some of the best maps from fantasy books.
Many fantasy writers, like the brilliant N. K. Jemisin, prefer a map-free novel, and that's fine. I get that maps can spoil the plot sometimes (gee, do you think our heroes will find trouble along the Demon Pass?). And they can limit the reader's imagination. And they can feel a little silly, if you're insecure about your adult reading habits. But I don't care. I want those little squiggly lines signifying the Swamp of Sorrow. I want to see the Lands Beyond that run right off the end of the page. I want to be able to track our heroes quest and then calculate the miles they've traveled based on the approximate time it takes them to get from one city to another by foot.
No shame, fellow map lovers. Here are some of the best maps fantasy has to offer.
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The Lands Beyond from 'The Phantom Tollbooth' by Norton Juster
The Phantom Tollbooth features one of the most educational fantasylands of all time. The Lands Beyond are a strange jumble of fantasy tropes and math puns, as captured in the simple-yet-clever map. Features include the Doldrums, the Sea of Knowledge, and the island Conclusions (you can jump there).
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Florin and Guilder from 'The Princess Bride' by William Goldman
The Princess Bride covers a lot less area than some of these sweeping fantasy epics, but the map of Florin and Guilder is still one of the most beautiful and intricately detailed of the fantasy maps. You can track our heroes from their picnic by the ravine in Guilder all the way to the Zoo of Death in Florin.
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Westeros and Essos from 'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R.R. Martin
Look, I have my quarrels with the TV adaptation of Game of Thrones (where the HELL is Lady Stoneheart?), but I have to hand to them: they kept the map in the beginning. And it's pretty darn close to the map from the books, just with much more dramatic music. If you're interested in the kind of painfully detailed map that makes reading a fantasy book feel like studying for a high school history test, then George R.R. Martin can't be beat. Also, there's an interactive Westeros and Essos map online, with spoiler control. You can view multiple different character paths.Someone needs to take this away from me or I'm not getting anything else done today.