How Maps Automatically Make Any Book More Awesome
As a kid, I would rarely get the opportunity to go to a big bookstore and pick out a book for myself. We didn’t have much money growing up and all those fancy bookstores were tucked away in expensive malls. But those bookstores were like storybook heaven for a kid, they offered a wide range of fiction that was more than just the collected classics and pirated harry potter books you could find at the pavement bookstalls those days. So when I did get a chance to walk around in one of those big, fancy bookstores, with their overwhelming range of options, I had to pick my books carefully, because I didn’t know when I might be coming back.
I had a simple rule in place for such occasions: If I opened the covers and saw a map then I knew it was going to be good. The Eragon series, His dark materials trilogy, The edge chronicles, and Lord of the rings. They all had maps and they absolutely ruled. It never missed.
The maps meant the heroes were going on an adventure. More than the heroes themselves, the maps were meant for me. Now I get to escape my little corner of the room. A room connected to my house, connected to a street that leads to my school and back again. I get to break that terrifying loop and escape into a whole new world of strange creatures, wacky characters, and fantastical landscapes.
The map rule worked for movies too. Indiana Jones, Tintin, The Mummy, and Pirates of the Caribbean. They all promised a globetrotting adventure and they all delivered it in style, with a cool scene transition where they show an animated plane/ship travelling over a map. Even Though it might sound like I’m just weirdly obsessed with maps for some reason trust me when I say that I am actually hinting at another more pertinent issue. And that is the severe lack of simple adventure stories. The kind of adventure where the characters followed a map or an ancient clue to find the treasure or simply a story that moved all across the globe and provided us with ample amounts of fun and excitement.
