Contemporary novels, set in the real world, rarely if ever need a map included in the text. Historical novels occasionally offer one, especially if they show old territories or ancient names for places. Dystopian futures and distant planets do often require them and, ideally, so should fantasies: the more fantastical they are the more we need a cartographic guide, however sketchy, to orientate ourselves.
What happens though when either no map is available or, if one is offered, it’s so sketchy as to be next to useless?
The answer, for people like me, is to make my own from whatever clues are offered in the text, letting logic — and occasionally imagination — fill in the rest.
And that’s what I have been doing recently: tripping the map fantastic, as it were.
Calmgrove 