torstan (Jon Roberts) delivers lecture at the British Library about his GOT Map

[ravells]

Took the day off today with a friend and we went to the British Library which has an exhibition about maps. My friend had bought tickets for an evening lecture about maps of fictional places in books. There were 3 speakers, one of which was our very own Torstan (Jon Roberts), speaking to a packed house of about 500 people about how he did the Game of Thrones map and the trials and tribulations about working with authors to bring their maps to life.

It was a brilliant lecture and I'm really proud to see one of our number so successful.

Congrats Jon. I can only imagine the number of hours of hard work you've put into mapping and it's a pleasure to see you getting into the limelight you so well deserve.

best

Ravs

p.s. Good luck with the Rugby game tomorrow.

[Diamond]

Congrats to Torstan! 500 'normal' people that like maps well enough to buy tickets to hear you talk? Awesome.

[ravells]

One of the other speakers, Brian Sibley, who I remember for dramatising LOTR for radio back in the 80s, also mentioned Dungeons & Dragons, Torstan mentioned Cthulhu and made a reference to the River Police. I was stunned as to how far the world has come on!

Brian's talk was on the evolution of the map as part of the fictional novel. The one widely recognised as the first in the 'modern' sense is the map of 'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stephenson. Which you can see here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Island-map.jpg

It's pretty good! We were told when he sent it to the publisher it got lost so he had to do it again from scratch.