For the last five years or so over on the Malazanempire forum, various fans have been coming up with ideas for a complete world map. Whilst maps of the individual continents and sometimes individual kingdoms and cities appear in the novels, a grand overview map linking everything together has not appeared so far. At one time Erikson indicated an
Encyclopedia Malazaica, complete with finely-detailed maps, would follow the completion of
The Crippled God, but more recently has indicated this project is now on the back-burner and would only appear - if at all - much later, possibly after Esslemont has completed his books (the latter two of which will take place on continents as yet unvisited in detail in the books, namely Assail and Jacuruku).
For this reason the fan maps keep a-comin'. This is the latest version of my map, updated with information from
Stonewielder and
The Crippled God, not to mention with the help of
a rough map released by the Malazanempire admins based on a very rough drawing by Erikson himself.
The shape of the continents should now broadly be correct and the placements more or less accurate, though Erikson and Esslemont's own maps are prone to a lot of changes, so don't be surprised if additional information in forthcoming books invalidates anything you see here.
Do you know which route The Bonehunters took after their encounter in Malaz City? South of Genabackis? Past the Cabal Archipelago?
ReplyDeleteThe long way round, south of Genabackis and then direct to Lether's west coast. Or so I assume. They spent at least a year at sea according to REAPER'S GALE, and going the other way it doesn't look like it would take that long.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I thought as well, when I was rereading.
ReplyDeleteGood work, but I think Leather is way, way to close to Quon Tali for the inhabitants of each continent to not be aware of each others existence. IMHO Leather should be on the opposite side of the planet.
ReplyDeleteThe placement of Lether has been controversial, but it's incontrovertible word from Erikson that this is the continent's location.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't match the idea that Lether is extremely remote, but it is possible that the unrelenting isolationism of Shal-Morzinn (the empire in SW Seven Cities that scared off even Kellanved and Dancer at the height of their power) has dissuaded Malazan explorations any further west and south, especially when the also-hostile continent of Jacuruku is located in the way.
On the plus side, it puts Lether close enough to Seven Cities so that the Tiste Edur fleet's journeys in THE BONEHUNTERS make much more sense, as well as Shurq's journey to Jacuruku and back between MIDNIGHT TIDES and REAPER'S GALE is also more plausible.
Seven Cities on the same latitude as northern Genabackis ? How can that be ?..
ReplyDeleteThe ice fields of northern Genabackis are Jaghut, and thus magical, in origin. That said, agreed that Seven Cities is way further north than I am comfortable with fori its climate. Unfortunately, this is as close to an official configuration as we can get at the moment, so we have to roll with it.
ReplyDeleteSo it is basically like Malaz City is Sri Lanka and they headed east to Chile (Lether) :)
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a problem with the climate of Lether as well. I seem to recall in Midnight Tides that the area of the Edur Tribes was colder than that of the Empire. But it can't be if it's in the Southern Hemisphere. Or is the explanation due to the Jaghut's magic again?
ReplyDeleteThe Edur tribes' lands were frozen by Gothos on Mael's request I beleive. It's in the prologue on one of the books. as for Genabackis and Seven cities being in the same latitudes, I guess it does seem a bit odd. But I remember Genabackis being described with Mountainous regions (eg. where Karsa comes from). Altitude is my guess....
ReplyDeleteWhile the Jaghut Ice can make determination of latitude relative to the equator irrelevant, I would think that you could use hot areas to at least get a ballpark idea of there relative distance from the equator. If we assume that extremely hot regions are no more than 35 degrees N or S for example. So for example, by that logic, Seven cities (roasting desert) and the kingdom of Bolkando (they mention jungle like temps, and what sound like crocodiles) should at most be 70 degrees apart. Yet, those two are at the top and bottom of the maps. So, by my logic, either all these continents are located into a fairly narrow latitudinal band around the planet, or depending on where the equator is, one of those continents needs to be adjusted. Probably Lether/Kolanse since we know more relative locations around the Malazan empire than the Lether Empire.
ReplyDeleteI dont see why we have to assume the poles revolve around a star (their sun) the way it does on Earth. Poles doesnt necessarily mean its cold or frozen.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about the whole climate challenge. Have a look at our climate models for +5 degrees average world temperature and the like. A lot of what we assume to be standard - how climate should work in general - is based on prevailing conditions. Europe is only as warm as it is because the Gulf Stream is pulling heat up from the Caribbean, for instance. And the hurricane alley into the Gulf of Mexico is largely due to the Sahara's vast expanse of no windbreaks (you can pretty much draw a straight line from India to the Gulf without hitting a mountain worthy of the name). From what little I know about those climate forecasts, they seem to be varied enough that they're only marginally better than a series of educated guesses.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is with a relatively marginal, slow increase in world temperature. The Malazan world has a history of ice mage demigods spawning ice fields comparable to Greenland when they catch a whiff of undead army attempting genocide (seems reasonable put that way), and on at least one occasion, because a friend asked them to turn a continent into a museum (because Mael has a strange fetish for preserving stuff) This may be somewhat exaggerated for comic effect, but the point is - ice wizards who can create vast glaciers on a whim make for interesting (buggered) climates.
There is also no reason to believe the the equator runs through the center of this map from left to right. You could conceivably have an "arctic" pole region in say Korel, and have the equator run in a diagonal from seven cities (desert) to Kolanse (more desert).
ReplyDelete