"Magic of Recluce" Travel and Maps (or lack thereof) *possible spoilers*

[Brad]

Two things that really struck me while reading The Magic of Recluce, and I felt they were tied tightly together, were travel and the lack of a world map, which most big fantasy novels have.

The travel is integral to the story. After all, Talryn's charge for Lerris is to "travel Candar beyond the Easthorns to the Westhorns, and you must not return until you feel you are ready. You must also travel alone; that is, not in the company of anyone else from Recluce." But the travel is our also our introduction to Modesitt's world, laying out a small part of Recluce and the general geography of Candar. I almost felt, at times, that I could draw a map from the detail in Lerris's narrative.

So what to y'all think and feel about the travel in the story? Would you have liked to see a map? What do you think of Lerris's own use of maps? How do you feel, in general, about stories that use a journey at their core? Let 'er rip.

[L.E.]

I'd like to note that I, as the author, finally got the maps in the fifth book, and that lack of maps was not my decision.

[Jon]

Yes, I would have loved a map, and in fact I had forgotten that the map didn't 'appear' until several books into the series.

Even though the map(s) didn't make it into the novels until later, did you, as the author, have one sketched out while writing?

[L.E.]

For every one of my fantasy series, I have and have had a map in hand before I started in to writing more than background notes.

[Brad]

Fascinating. I guessed that you chose to skip publishing a map because your writing about the geography was so detailed. Do you still have your original maps? Those would make killer decorations in your office.

[L.E.]

I do... but the way I put them together originally doesn't lend to their decorative capacity. They're very smudged and then some.

[[deleted user]]

Maybe I'm just strange(heh, no maybe about it) but I never really care for maps. Anytime I read a fantasy novel, I just skip over the map entirely and let the story itself build the map in my mind.

[Lynn]

I've found a really cool interactive map of the Recluce world online:

http://www.hellspark.com/dm/maps/recl...