Rogue Quake block diagram

My upcoming novel, Silent Sorrow (to be published by IFWG next year) features a number of maps based on the cartographic ideas I’ve been discussing the past few weeks. I’m writing a long story based on a secondary fantasy world, one not directly inspired by any particular earth culture, and so I am free to visualise the cartography any way I want.

The world of Silent Sorrow is seismically extremely active. Therefore geographers, trained to forecast earthquakes and map their consequences, are in high demand. Remezov of Sarella is one such, and he experiences a rogue (unpredicted) quake in a city he’s visiting. He writes a brief report on the spot for the Guild and accompanies it with a map, as featured here.

The diagram he produces relies on the oblique perspectives theory I discussed a couple of weeks ago. It allows the reader to see in three dimensions rather than the normal cartographic two, but at the expense of a fixed perspective. He chooses to orient the perspective with the source of the quake in the distance, implying direction, travel and a sense of elapsed time as the quake arrives in Hanemark. These ideas are all in accordance with the notion of an oblique perspective. The cutaway geological information adds an extra layer of information to the map.

The result is quite unlike anything in fantasy literature (that I am aware of, at least). It is a ‘found’ artefact, itself part of the story, in appearance just as Remezov would have drawn it – not simplified or ‘historicised’ for the reader. The effect is enhanced by the use of a paper background, as though the map was drawn on a scrap of paper and folded up. It adds vital information to the story while also reinforcing the world of the novel.