The Ethuveraz, the lands of The Goblin Emperor

[xpian]

A few years ago, I read the wonderful fantasy novel The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. This is a great book, filled with vivid characters, an intricate plot, and breathtaking world-building. It won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards.

As a fantasy cartographer, one of the things I always look for in a fantasy novel is the map. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one, but I realized that I was in a unique position to change that.

I reached out to the author and offered my services. She shared her original sketches, and over a series of months I produced the map you see above, working closely with her to make sure all the details were right. Serendipitously, she was working on a companion novel set in the same world, The Witness for the Dead. This meant that she was able to direct me to insert details into the map which hadn’t been published in book form yet.

One of the fun things about this particular map was that it offered me the chance to explore an alternate style. Usually, I work in strong ink lines and pay attention to every pixel. This map, by contrast, has softer, looser lines and achieves much of its look through gentle shading. It offers a different feel for the terrain features like mountains, forests, deserts, and swamps. All of the art was drawn in Procreate on the iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. The text and other graphical elements were built in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. With the border, I wanted to evoke a bit of the steampunk feel that bubbles under the surface of the novel—but I had to make sure the teeth of the gears meshed together and each gear was affixed to a hub! There’s nothing sillier than steampunk gears that are just slapped onto surfaces as inoperable ornamentation. Drawing the airships was fun—as readers of the book will know, they’re important to the story.

Goblin-Emperor-Map-Final_Candidate.jpg

[Diamond]

Fantastic and beautiful. I've had this book in my TBR pile for a while now, this is giving me inspiration to move it up the stack! Great job, and it's awesome you got to work with the author to create it. Any chance of it appearing in further books, or on her website?

[xpian]

Fantastic and beautiful. I've had this book in my TBR pile for a while now, this is giving me inspiration to move it up the stack! Great job, and it's awesome you got to work with the author to create it. Any chance of it appearing in further books, or on her website?

She has it up on her site! It's where her sketch used to be. Link: https://www.katherineaddison.com/map

[Turambar]

Incredible map! The mountains, especially, are absolutely exquisite.

Like Diamond, this book has been on my reading list for awhile (I purchased a couple years ago but haven't read it yet). I will certainly be referencing this map when I start reading it, which I am now reminded to do!

[Ink_alpinist]

What a nice story! And really cool of her to accept your service, did you made it as a voluntary? Anyways, your map is good! It is fun, like the baloons on the airships, the textures are really good, made me want to read the book kkkkk so thanks for the recommendation also

[xpian]

What a nice story! And really cool of her to accept your service, did you made it as a voluntary? Anyways, your map is good! It is fun, like the baloons on the airships, the textures are really good, made me want to read the book kkkkk so thanks for the recommendation also

While I do some commission work for other clients, this was a project that I initiated and I wanted to be clear with the author that I was doing it as a fan, and not seeking any compensation.

[- JO -]

Beautiful map: the colours are vibrant and the biomes are very well rendered, pleasing to the eye and meaningful.
You've taken great care with the details, both on the map and on the border (which is incredibly precise).
I admire your initiative too: how many fantasy books don't have a map (sacrilege!) or have an ugly map that isn't even credible (but what is the river police doing?)
You were right to offer your help, it's all to the benefit of the author and the readers!

[Ilanthar]

Looks great, I really like the general feeling of flying over the land.

[ChickPea]

Lovely work. I really like the painterly style on the mountains especially. And congrats for working hand in hand with the author. That's a fantastic addition to your portfolio!

[ThomasR]

I've missed your wonderful mountains so much ! The rest is great too but those ridges ...