A New Map for the World of Artamon!
A new map for The Tears of Artamon! Created by a very talented cartographer, Soraya Corcoran, who is also a writer of fantasy herself, so brings a very special insight into the problems of expressing in 2D a world that has imagined in 3D!
The original maps were created by Neil Gower in the noughties, commissioned by Random House/Transworld for the trilogy and then the map of Francia was commissioned by Bantam Spectra in 2008? for Tracing the Shadow, the first book of Alchymist’s Legacy (the prequel to The Tears). These maps have served their purpose very well – but now that The Arkhel Conundrum (Book 4) has been published, whole countries were not shown in the original maps: Tourmalise and Sapaudia…
You can also see all five emblematic creatures of the five countries of Artamon’s empire – as recreated in the imperial crown – each one bearing one of the imperial rubies! To find out more about the link between the ancient empire and the jewels…please read the original trilogy.
So how was the new map commissioned?
For many years now Mihir Wanchoo (Fantasy Book Critic) has done wonderful work to support SFF authors all over the world – and I’ve been very fortunate to have his support and encouragement over all these years! He’s kept The Tears of Artamon alive when it was – like so many works of fiction in this fast-moving age – dropping off readers’ radars, just because it was published in the noughties (mostly before social media became a Thing).
I have to confess that I’m not any use when it comes to map-making (as revealed in this extract from an interview I did for Bantam back in 2008) so I’m thrilled to see what a real map-maker can do!
Do you draw maps as you create your worlds? Do the maps change and expand over time, or do you try to adhere very closely to how they were originally drawn as you develop plots and characters?
‘Draw’ would be too refined a term for the illegible sketches that I scribble on odd scraps of paper while writing. I’ve been very lucky to have Neil Gower to transform my scrawls into ‘proper’ maps. But once those maps have been drawn, I can’t change them. I have to overcome the same difficulties that my characters face in traveling from, say, Francia to Azhkendir. It’s been fun writing ‘Alchymist’s Legacy’ because it meant that countries only briefly mentioned in the earlier books had to be added onto the map created for ‘The Tears of Artamon’: Allegonde and Tourmalise appeared for the first time. And (I’m no geographer, me!) that also meant I had to try to put what had been in my head for years on paper. It made me realize that my pathetic map-reading skills in the car (my poor long-suffering husband!) must be down to some genuine lack of spatial awareness on my part. I know where the city of Bel’Esstar is in relation to the mountains and the Dniera plain in Allegonde. It’s just that I can’t express it clearly in 2-D terms.
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