Fantasy maps are awesome

Rob Beschizza 8:17 am Wed Feb 8, 2012

Victoria Johnson revisits the maps we "wandered into" as kids:

If I ruled the world, or at least a publishing company, all books would contain as much supplementary information as possible. Nonfiction, fiction—doesn't matter. Every work would have an appendix filled with diagrams, background information, digressions and anecdata. And of course, maps.

I did not accept that I was a map nerd until the day I caught myself scoffing at geological implausibilities in a map in a pulp fantasy novel. An excellent coffee-table compendium is J.B. Post's Atlas of Fantasy, but the itch may be scratched immediately with Google and TVTropes' entry on Fantasy World Maps. Artist Jon Roberts specializes in making them. Mapblogger Jonathan Crowe has an overview of resources for following suit.

Pictured above is fantasy epic Elfquest's world of Abode, a personal fave, and refreshingly geologically plausible until you start thinking about biomes.

Previously: Wondrous, detailed map of the history of science fiction and Maps.

Expert on the shortcomings of mass transit in Cyberpunk 2077's Night City

Cyberpunk 2077 (reviewed at Boing Boing) was, all told, a mammoth hit and ultimately a polished game. A good game, too, with solid FPS action and an amazing, sprawling, magnificent futuristic city to explore. At Kotaku, Ari Notis intuits something wrong with it and knows who to ask: a transit expert. Where the system falls… READ THE REST
Watch the first trailer for Warner Brothers Multiversus

When news of a Warner Brothers-based Smash Bros clone first hit the net, the idea sounded pretty awful. Many wondered how the diverse cast of characters, including Gandalf, Superman, and Bugs Bunny, to name a few, would coexist. However, it was impossible to ignore the strategic brilliance of the announcement on WB's end, considering that Smash Bros Ultimate was… READ THE REST
Study: games and video-watching correlate with kids getting smarter, social media a wash

On the impact of digital media on childhood intelligence, games and watching videos were consistent with cognitive benefits. Socializing digitally, however, had no consistent effect. Here we estimated the effect of each three types of screen time (Watching TV and online videos, Socializing via social media, text, and video chat, and Gaming) on intelligence after… READ THE REST
Teach yourself how to play guitar with the Jamstik trainer

We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. Has learning how to play the guitar been on your bucket list? Learning how to play guitar should be simple, fun, and accessible, but with the average guitar costing $600 — lessons not included, you might… READ THE REST
Make room for important and large files with Prism Drive cloud storage

We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. With most of our daily activities happening online, no one will ever complain about having too much storage space. On the contrary, it's frustrating when you run out of storage or have… READ THE REST
This 13-in-1 media hub brings your favorite content to the big screen

We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. We're sure our parents had a wild time back in the day without modern media, and to some degree, we wish we could be a little less plugged in. But then we… READ THE REST