My Paper Geofiction #7

This is a map of a place whose name I can no longer decipher. I used to invent writing systems to go with my imaginary worlds, and this one, undocumented, is lost to time. It’s clearly inspired by Tolkien’s Elvish, but I doubt it’s in any way directly related.

The archipelago-of-islands is obviously drawing on LeGuin’s Earthsea, which I thought very highly of at the time. I’d estimate this was drawn around 1979. The rapidograph ink lines give away the period.

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Best of Arhet, Week 12

The best mapping in Arhet for this week.

User Moskva, here, (concept by Mapping Expert, apparently).

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In fact this isn’t so hard, I don’t think – if you use the “add svg” plugin for JOSM. But I think it’s cool to imagine a topiary garden as a giant, detailed flag. I had done this once, in front of the presidential place in Ardisphere. But it was deleted when I started work on redesigning the capital city.

Music to map by: Meg Myers, “Running Up That Hill.”

My Paper Geofiction #5

This is the land called Tabec. I drew a dozen or so maps of Tabec during my high school years. It was a parallel-Canada – note the imitation Great Lakes.

I would put this one at 1980, or so. The green-barred continuous-feed computer printout paper gives it away as being fairly early. I used to get piles of the blank printout paper from my uncle, who took classes in computers at the nearby university.

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My Paper Geofiction #4

This is a very preliminary sketch of a USA-style town, somewhere in “parallel-California,” named “Fort Orly.” I’m going to guess I drew it around 1979. I had just discovered the short stories of Jorge Luís Borges, so you see a “Lake Borges” here.

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My Paper Geofiction #3

This is one of the many incarnations of what I know in my mind as the “Pas Taons.” This later became integrated to Mahhal lore as the site for the city of Derindonderak, but here it is still just the Pas Taons, and interestingly, I seem to have allowed some parallel-earth Spaniards to colonize the area (note the cities of Tripoli and Puerto Grande).

I suspect this is from when I was in high school. Maybe around 1982.

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My Paper Geofiction #1

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been drawing maps on paper since I was 6 or 7 years old (and houseplans, and schematics, and planetary systems, and many other things, too).

I’ve found my old, main stash of these drawings, all the ones I’ve saved over the years. So I’ve decided to post one “paper geofiction” every day.

Just as something to do.

I don’t always know exactly when I drew something. I’ll give a guess with each one.

This one is an airport (or spaceport), with contours(!), drawn in 1981.

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