{"id":5779,"date":"2014-05-23T07:23:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T11:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/05\/four-more-map-stories\/"},"modified":"2022-04-27T07:44:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:44:23","slug":"four-more-map-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/05\/four-more-map-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Four More Map Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four more fantasy stories about maps to tell you about.<\/p>\n

To begin with, two short stories by Beth Cato<\/a>, both published in Daily Science Fiction<\/a><\/em>, both available to read online. In the first, “Cartographer’s Ink<\/a><\/b>” (August 24, 2012), cartographers “peddle in ink, earth and war”: boundaries drawn on maps with magic ink have real-world effects. The second, simply titled “Maps<\/a><\/b>” (February 14, 2013), is a brief, quietly horrific tale of a young girl, Christina, whose left hand, against her will, draws maps that predict the future. Both belong to that group of map stories that deal in the tension between map and territory, between representation and reality.<\/p>\n

Next, “Caligo Lane<\/a><\/b>” by Ellen Klages<\/a> (Subterranean<\/em>, Winter 2014), which uses the map-as-portal trope: a San Francisco cartographer-witch in a hard-to-find home uses a map to conjure a literal passageway to the place being mapped.<\/p>\n

The secret of ori-kami is that a single sheet of paper can be folded in a nearly infinite variety of patterns, each resulting in a different transformation of the available space. Given any two points, it is possible to fold a line that connects them. A map is a menu of possible paths. When Franny folds one of her own making, instead of plain paper, she creates a new alignment of the world, opening improbable passages from one place to another.<\/p>\n

Once, when she was young and in a temper, she crumpled one into a ball and threw it across the room, muttering curses. A man in Norway found himself in an unnamed desert, confused and over-dressed. His journey did not end well.<\/p>\n

The Japanese army might call this art ori-chizu<\/i>, “map folding,” but fortunately they are unaware of its power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, we have “The Inner Inner City<\/b>” by Robert Charles Wilson<\/a>, which first appeared in Northern Frights 4<\/a><\/em>, an anthology edited by Don Hutchison (Mosaic Press, 1997); it’s since been reprinted in Wilson’s collection, The Perseids and Other Stories<\/a><\/em> (Tor, 2000). In response to a challenge to invent a religion, Jeremy Singer decides to create “a city religion. An urban occultism. Divination by cartography. Call it paracartography.” There is a tradition of using secret maps to find hidden places; this iteration is quite surreal.<\/p>\n

So my religion of the city would have to unite the two domains, the gnostic and the urban. Paracartography implied the making of maps, city maps, a map of this city, but not an ordinary map; a map of the city’s secret terrains, the city as perceived by a divine madman, streets rendered as ecstasies or purgatories; a map legible only at night, in the dark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Singer loses himself in overnight walks, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

What I rediscovered that autumn was my ability to get lost. Toronto is a forgiving city, essentially a gridwork of streets as formal and uninspiring as its banks. Walk in any direction long enough, you’ll find a landmark or a familiar bus route. As a rule. But the invention of paracartography exercised such trancelike power that I was liable to walk without any sense of time or direction and find myself, hours later, in a wholly new neighborhood, as if my feet had followed a map of their own.<\/p>\n

Which was precisely what I wanted. Automatic pathfinding, like automatic writing. How better to begin a paracartographic survey?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Previously: Four Map Stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four more fantasy stories about maps to tell you about. To begin with, two short stories by Beth Cato, both published in Daily Science Fiction, both available to read online. In the first, “Cartographer’s Ink”… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[745],"class_list":["post-5779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-maps-and-literature","tag-fantasy","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5378,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2012\/07\/kate-elliott-on-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":0},"title":"Kate Elliott on Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 July 2012","format":"link","excerpt":"Fantasy and science fiction writer Kate Elliott talks about maps. An excerpt: I know that some love maps, some are indifferent, and some dislike them. That's as it should be. I personally like maps, because I'm geeky that way but also because I process information both visually and kinesthetically, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1836218,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/01\/kathleen-jennings-shows-us-how-she-draws-a-fantasy-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":1},"title":"Kathleen Jennings Shows Us How She Draws a Fantasy Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 January 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Kathleen Jennings In addition to being an author in her own right, Kathleen Jennings is an illustrator who draws maps for other fantasy novels. For a recent work\u2014The Wild Huntress by Emily Lloyd-Jones\u2014she takes us behind the scenes, going step by step through the process to create the map. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/jennings-wild-huntress-sketches.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5243,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2011\/09\/the-farthing-party-map-panel\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":2},"title":"The Farthing Party Map Panel","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"26 September 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Farthing Party map panel (see previous entry) came off surprisingly well. I was actually shocked to discover that what I thought were my controversial thoughts about maps were actually not that controversial: I knew it was going to be a good panel when both Lila and Emmet said in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2248,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/06\/the-library-of-congress-looks-at-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":3},"title":"The Library of Congress Looks at Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 June 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Library of Congress's map blog, Worlds Revealed, has begun\u00a0a series of posts about imaginary maps.\u00a0\"We\u2019ll be exploring all of these types of maps and imaginary worlds this summer. Come revisit the Hundred Acre Wood and the other worlds of your favorite children\u2019s stories, spend some time in medieval Europe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5300,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2012\/01\/four-map-stories\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":4},"title":"Four Map Stories","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 January 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not forgotten my Maps in Science Fiction and Fantasy project, though it's lain fallow for a bit while I juggled other things. Here are a few short stories about maps that I've encountered over the past few months. \"The Map\" by Gene Wolfe (Endangered Species [New York: Tor,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4931,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/09\/you-are-here-an-anthology-of-sffantasy-map-stories\/","url_meta":{"origin":5779,"position":5},"title":"You Are Here: An Anthology of SF\/Fantasy Map Stories","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 September 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"I can't explain how I missed this one when it came out last fall. You Are Here: Tales of Cartographic Wonders is an anthology of 18 science fiction and fantasy stories about maps. Edited by N. E. White, it includes one story I've seen before: Charlotte Ashley's \"Eleusinian Mysteries.\" I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/you-are-here-sf-anthology-100x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5779"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1807074,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions\/1807074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}