You don’t need a map to find this one! Today we’ve got the awesome interior map of David Edison’s Sandymancer here to share. We’ve also got David himself to talk about the meaning and impact of maps, both as fantasy art, and in the personal sense—their impact on him.
Check it out, and preorder Sandymancer!
By David Edison
Like most map-loving readers, I have an origin story. Sometime in April of 1987, I cracked open the spine of Guardians of the West, the first book in David Eddings’ sequel series to The Belgariad, which was called The Malloreon. The new series’ expanded map didn’t just blow my mind, it blew it wide open. The Belgariad had lovely, intricate maps of the lands explored therein, and I had committed them to memory so I could adventure there in my daydreams. The Malloreon’s map, however, pulled back the camera to show a vast, two-continent spread of imposing nations and territories, all as detailed as the original, with the storied lands of The Belgariad cramped into one tiny corner. I ripped through those volumes as they were published, desperate to learn every story that could be plotted across The Malloreon’s mysterious mountain ranges and scar-like borders.
After all, maps tell stories, and stories draw maps. Both are powered by mystery.
In Jim Grimsley’s excellent, queer, one-volume saga, Kirith Kirin, a map spans two pages, its lines sparsely drawn in a style that’s almost childish, crocheted with regions and locations but also missing important cities, temples, etc. At first glance this seems odd, maybe even misleading, but as the tale builds, the map becomes a cipher—an old toy decoder ring, offering the reader insights and playgrounds while tempting them with delicious, succulent mystery.
Tell me a story. Draw me a map. Readers of speculative fiction are astral travelers – we have packed our kit, set out clean water for the pets and then, nested in our reading nook, we slip out of this world with our spellbook in hand. To paraphrase Sarah Chorn: the real world is plywood and drywall, but SF/F worlds are obsidian and sandstone. Many of us find that unearthly plenitude to be irresistible; what’s the case for drywall?
The same forces pull us into the maps of other worlds: Kansas is a goner, these are Quadling lands now. St. Leibowitz is long-dead and Brother Francis Gerard wanders a Utah the borders of which are less than a memory. Númenor has fallen, but we know to look to the west. (Or turn to Christopher Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, and find the gem that is the Númenórë map.)
Like the text itself, a map tells a story by what it shows and by what it doesn’t. Think of Númenor, or of Eddings’ original, unexpanded map in The Belgariad. That’s mystery fuel.
The world of Sandymancer, once the Land of the Vine, now 800 years removed from an environmental cataclysm, is a decrepit and desiccated version of its former glory. There are too few people and too much territory to bother with borders, names and places have shifted over the centuries, and the land itself has buckled and eroded as it slowly dies. An ever-expanding wasteland has swallowed most of the world, while folk cling to life on the rind of the continent, watching their sky darken and the sandstorms inch forward, year by year.
At a certain point in the book, Caralee’s nemesis and tutor shows her his left palm, and asks her to imagine that it is a map of the world. He shows her where they have been, and where they are headed. He is ancient; perhaps in his day the land did look like a human hand. Does it still? And if so, are we looking at a sculpted continent, or an uncanny coincidence?
I’ve been holding my breath, waiting to see for myself how the visual art would support the story. This beauty was certainly worth the patience.
Map artist Rhys Davies hugely uplifted Sandymancer with his stunning interpretation of my scribbles and descriptions. The architectural style of the frozen Northen Authorities blows me away – are those windows? – as do the craggy mesas just to the south. Out west, Rhys took Oldmuck, the last of the seasides, and its petrified Stone Navies, and spun a little visual story that’s inspired future storylines. In the southeast, towns like Comez and Grenshtepple’s look just as I described – astonishingly so.
Sidestepping any major spoilers, the Metal Duchy rises, imposing, with its conical steel palace, while the Sevenfold Redoubt towers over the surrounding land, built by magick atop the slope of a red-dirt mountain. The Wildest Wood looks overgrown and impassable, and the settlement at its heart does indeed seem as if it’s been hidden away from the rest of the world.
Rhys didn’t just nail the map by land and by sea, he did a brilliant job of suggesting the larger setting without spelling it out. I won’t ruin that, but the deliberate oval shape of the world, the stark border, and the blackness beyond tell just the story I’d hoped they would. I don’t trust myself to say anything more.
I can’t wait for you to meet Caralee and her friends, mortal enemies, friendly beasts, and the occasional steel harpy. I wish that the cover, the map, and the text spin you a yarn you’ll appreciate. I hope you’ll follow me into the thickets of mystery, an unmappable place where anything can happen—and often does.
David Edison is the author of The Waking Engine and Sandymancer. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he has spent most of his life living in New York City and California. His passions include rescuing pit bulls, leveling up, and all things queer.
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