Rawfoot’s Map

Here’s another map from – you guessed it – my upcoming novel, Silent Sorrow (to be inflicted on you mid-2020). I can’t say much about it as it would give away too much of the plot.

What I can say is: five points to those who, without googling, can tell me what this graphic is showing, what famous graphic it is based on and who drew the famous graphic (double bonus points for the last one*).

I can also say that the imaginary cartographer of this map is a POV character who ended up being edited out of Silent Sorrow to appear instead in the sequel. Rawfoot is a very interesting person indeed and an extremely reluctant cartographer – actually, an extremely reluctant everything.

For those new to this game, my goal in integrating maps into this novel is to find innovative ways of presenting both plot and character in the maps and graphics. This map shows a certain minimalism, a tightness and smallness of character, a prissiness in fact, in the efficiency the information is presented, the choice of font and his pedantic habit of putting a full stop/period after every place name.

One interesting question: once you’ve worked out in which direction the flow is going, should the map be oriented with Tanere at the top or White Medana? It depends, in my opinion, who the map is made for: the Beduil or the Medanans. Are the armies coming towards you as a growing threat or are you part of the army, heading towards a distant stronghold? One of my pet cartographic hates is the automatic assumption that north will be at the top. In this case, like in many others, orientation depends on your relationship to the data. (And even the term ‘orientation’ refers to the practice of turning a map to place east (the Orient / Paradise) at the top in the later Middle Ages for religious reasons. Bet you didn’t know that one.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map#Orientation_of_maps

I admit to being interested as to whether people can actually work anything out about the plot from this map. Probably nothing beyond the obvious, I’m betting.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard