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A review by woolfardis
The Discworld Mapp: Being the Onlie True and Mostlie Accurate Mappe of the Fantastyk and Magical Dyscworlde by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs
4.0
There are those readers who dislike drawings of the characters in the book on the cover of the books because they like to use their imagination. I'm slightly dubious of these people, because the Human Brain is incapable of creating an entirely new face from scratch. It can't even take different parts from others because the mish-mash will always return to something else: someone you've seen before.
Therefore pretending the characters looking like certain actors or already existing people is the way I usually do it. It's why I love authors who actively search to get drawings done of their characters. I have no qualms with seeing the authors character there on the page already, because the character is the author's. It is not mine.
And that's why I've always loved maps. If a fantasy book these days doesn't have a map at the beginning I feel short-changed. They're an integral part to fantasy: most non-fantasy books are set within one city, one town, one small, rural countryside village where the characters are killed off quicker than you can say "fusiform gyrus". I don't want to spend five days trying to figure out where one town is in relation to the major city. I want to spend five days imagining my own face as the main character (this sadly happens a lot).
This book will not really appeal to anyone who doesn't know what Discworld is. It won't really appeal to you if you're only a casual Discworld fan, to be honest. It has an introduction by Terry and Stephen Briggs, the artist, and also some fictional information on the Disc's own explorers, which is a nice addition to the general enjoyment of Discworld as a whole.
But the map. Oh the map. It is a very large, colourful map that shows that Disc in all it's flat glory. Seeing how the locations lay in relation to each other adds another kind of dimension to the stories and kind of helps them make sense, in a non-fictional-fantasy kind of way. It's probably not 100% accurate, but then again, it is the Discworld. Nothing ever is.
It must be noted that this map was devised and drawn in the late 90s when there were fewer Discworld novels released and won't contain all aspects of the books since there, but the general geography is accurate.
Therefore pretending the characters looking like certain actors or already existing people is the way I usually do it. It's why I love authors who actively search to get drawings done of their characters. I have no qualms with seeing the authors character there on the page already, because the character is the author's. It is not mine.
And that's why I've always loved maps. If a fantasy book these days doesn't have a map at the beginning I feel short-changed. They're an integral part to fantasy: most non-fantasy books are set within one city, one town, one small, rural countryside village where the characters are killed off quicker than you can say "fusiform gyrus". I don't want to spend five days trying to figure out where one town is in relation to the major city. I want to spend five days imagining my own face as the main character (this sadly happens a lot).
This book will not really appeal to anyone who doesn't know what Discworld is. It won't really appeal to you if you're only a casual Discworld fan, to be honest. It has an introduction by Terry and Stephen Briggs, the artist, and also some fictional information on the Disc's own explorers, which is a nice addition to the general enjoyment of Discworld as a whole.
But the map. Oh the map. It is a very large, colourful map that shows that Disc in all it's flat glory. Seeing how the locations lay in relation to each other adds another kind of dimension to the stories and kind of helps them make sense, in a non-fictional-fantasy kind of way. It's probably not 100% accurate, but then again, it is the Discworld. Nothing ever is.
It must be noted that this map was devised and drawn in the late 90s when there were fewer Discworld novels released and won't contain all aspects of the books since there, but the general geography is accurate.