I’ve been wanting to have maps for the Emperor’s Edge books for a while now, but my artistic abilities are…well, they just aren’t actually. You don’t want to see how badly I can mangle a stick figure… Fortunately, EE reader and fellow indie author Jenna Elizabeth Johnson agreed to help me out. She likes to draw. She illustrated the cover art for her YA fantasy series with colored pencil and used the same style for my map.
Here’s the first one we (more her than me) put together for the region where the EE stories take place:
Some of the cities and terrain in the south will be appearing in the next couple of books (EE4 has a big train adventure and there might even be some flight…).
We’re also going to do a map of the capital, since lots of the adventures take place in the city, but I need to re-read the books first and make note of all the districts and landmarks mentioned (note to self: in the future, make a map as you go, even if it’s ugly as sin and no one else will ever see it). I’m hoping to have both maps ready to go by April so I can include them in the next ebook.
In case any of you are looking for an artist to help you with custom maps for your world, I believe Jenna is willing to take on some commissions. You can contact her through her website.
That’s an excellent map! Beautiful work. 🙂
Thanks, John!
I’m so glad you are adding maps. I LOVE having maps in the adventure stories I read.
I love maps, I’m a bit of a geography nut as well as other things and I love when a setting has a map that really helps me visualize an area that I’m reading about. Especially epic fantasies that involve multiple characters and lots of traveling. Can’t wait to see these maps completed! And EE4 sounds fun, I need to catch up!
Hah, I always swear I prefer urban fantasy to go-travel-across-the-country-side stuff, but my guys do tend to wander out of the city now and then. And, come on, trains are just fun. 😉
Very cool!
Hey, what do you think about starting up a wiki about the emperor’s edge world? If you put it up on something like http://www.wikia.com/Wikia, you could have fans help put in details rather than have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. The world is starting to get detailed enough to be an interesting place to explore, especially now that you have maps.
Hi Cathy, thanks for the idea. I’d never considered it, but it could be fun. I’ll have to look into what’s involved with starting one some day. Thanks!
Ooooh! Every fantasy/adventure book needs a map. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the city.
Looks great Lindsay! Can’t wait to use it to track our heroes in the next book ;).
Pretty! Pretty! It will look especially nice on the color readers, something print novels don’t have – color maps. 🙂
Beautiful! If you want an easy way to make a quick cheat-sheet sort of map without worrying about being artistic, maybe you could try just labeling blocks on grid paper, or use a spreadsheet program like excel. That way you won’t even have to draw anything, but you’ll know how it’s all laid out 🙂
I’ll definitely be doing something like that in the future, Keri!
Very nice! I love the colors and textures 🙂
Read the Assassin’s Curse last night, so it’s nice to see Darkcrest Isle on the map and its relation to locations vividly mentioned in your other EE books — Stumps and the Dam Project.
Any plans to do illustrations of your characters? Maybe for your print editions?
Haha, yes, I think I’ve got all the cities and landmarks that are mentioned in the first three books and short stories. 😉
Oh, I’d love to have illustrations done of the characters, but it’s so hard to have someone else get them down the way you see them in your head. Maybe I just need to take some art classes and learn how to do it myself. 😛
Cool new map. She did a great job.
Oh… wow. I’m an artist, but it never occurred to me to do my own art because… well all my reasons don’t make any sense now.
Nice map, and Jenna’s cover is inspiring.
Are you planning to do a map of the larger world with the boundaries between the different nations? I think that might be helpful as well. But I’m sort of a geography nut and love maps.
Maybe someday! I really want to get a city map done next, since the guys spend a lot of time in there. 🙂
I’m kinda sorta obsessed with your books!Your such a good writer. Having a map is super cool and really helps visualize the setting of the stories.
Thanks, Kailei! I’m glad you’re enjoying the books.
I’m hoping to start including the maps in the ebook files. I don’t know how they’ll look in black-and-white on the kindle, but it should be nice for folks with color e-readers.
Love maps! This is a great addition to a couple of great books. I definitely would like to see the capital.
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Did you ever get the map of Stumps made? I’m currently re-reading the full series for the 4th time and would love to see what your vision was!
Best books ever!!!!
Sorry, Emma. No more maps since this. It’s a pretty time-consuming thing, especially if you’re doing it retroactively (if I were smart, I would design maps before I start writing a new series), and then I’d have to pay someone to make it a reality.
I still didn’t complete reading The Emperor’s Edge series, although I’ve already read the Forgotten Ages saga. Only now I found this very nice map of Begonia Satrapy. I hope there are other maps. I’m still looking for them. At first, I thought the planet where all the adventures occur would be Earth, or some alternate Earth, an Earth that could have been or an Earth in a parallel universe. I was under the impression that Turgonia was geographically North America, that the Kayatt Island were Hawaii, etc. Of course, the Begonia Satrapy map shows me I was so very wrong. Anyway, I love the books and I’ve always loved maps. I hope there are more maps of Turgonia and maybe of the Kayatt Islands.
Hi, Lourival. Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to have maps made. Even if someone else (with artistic abilities) does them, you still have to tell them where everything goes! None of these stories are set on Earth. It’s all made up. 🙂
I’m trying to figure out the positioning of all the countries in relation to each other in this universe.
It’s taking a lot of trial and error!
Any scribbled mud map of the continents from Lindsay would be amazing.
Great News, Larraine. I hope you succeed.