*** June 2010 Challenge Voting: Once Upon a Map ***

[Katto]

I'm exactly with tilt (thanks for writing down my thoughts). Also Imm had a little bonus, because I've just started to read the WoT novels and was a bit disappointed that a map (even a small one) was not included. Thanks for everone who entered the challenge. Fantastic maps this month!

[tilt]

you've picked the wrong publisher then... all my WoT books have maps

[Midgardsormr]

Although the German editions do have much better cover art.

Hard, hard choices. Of course, I'm quite attached to the WoT map at this point, given that I watched it so closely. It's one of the most refined of the offerings, although I think a few of the last minute changes weakened it a bit. Also, it is possibly the most complete map of the Westlands that I have yet seen, although I haven't looked real hard.

Djekspek's Ansalon is innovative and a masterful work of art. It suffers somewhat from a lack of geographic detail, though. I see cities, but none of them have names. Fully half of the image is eaten up by the quotation, which I feel adds little to the piece.

Sapiento's map of Captain Nemo's base is really cool, and I like the style: very Torstany. It needs more attention to the line work, which is uneven in its quality. Some areas are very confident—the ring wall and most of the buildings, while others are shaky and uncertain—the Nautilus, the dock, and many of the details like radio towers and cabling.

Finally, ravells boldly attacked the most well-known speculative fiction in the Western world and simultaneously stretched the definition of map with his infograph of Frodo's journey. The document is clear and attractive, and I can't really think of any way to improve it, other than making several more to cover the other characters, and maybe put it all in an interactive document. But that's just getting absurd.

Of those four, I think Sapiento's entry is the one that adds the most to its world. The Wheel of Time is well mapped (I've even done one myself), Dragonlance is bursting with them, and I've already noted that The Lord of the Rings is as well-documented as a fantasy world can be. I don't recall ever seeing a map of Nemo's base, though. So Sapiento gets my vote.

[mearrin69]

A lot of beautiful maps. Was hard not to vote for Djekspek and Immolate this time around but I had to go for Ravells'. First, I love LotR and second, it's a great mapping of the journey that made that book so awesome. Nice work everyone!
M

[Redrobes]

Gosh this one is a toughie. I really liked the bat cave and thought that was fun. Djeks Ansalon is tugging cos Im a bit of a dragon lance fan. Immolates map is so very good and I thought that was going to be the one but Ravs map is just so well done that I went with it. Its been done before by xkcd and its more of an infographic but I was just really impressed with the quality.

Something else that I was impressed with was that the thumbnailer actually got the PDF right which is probably the first ever PDF entry. I don't even recall programming that bit in. What a shocker.

Oh edit to add - this is another 9 entry challenge where my opinion still stands that we should round to nearest not down. I know this has come up before but the few zero votes at this time is no slight on their quality. 9 is the worst number of entries we can do with the round down system for getting a better spread of votes. So well done everyone who entered don't be disheartened if you end up with a 0 score - its just a bad month for that.

[Immolate]

I have to tell you Midgardsormr, nothing against the German books but in my personal opinion, the artist chosen for the US WoT series doesn't really fit the genre very well, so I don't think the bar was set all that high. It's more of a romance novel style and really doesn't capture the characters at all. I wish I could unsee half of the covers, because the images pollute my internal picture.

[moutarde]

Ravells took my vote, even though there were several beautiful traditional maps to choose from. I really like the originality of his timeline, and that he actually mapped Frodo's journey, rather than just making a map of Middle Earth with a dotted line on it

By the way Immolate, and Midgardsormr, have you seen the e-book covers for the wheel of time? They are head and shoulders above the original Tor artwork, IMO. Here's some links:

Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart

[Immolate]

Wow that is so much better than the books. Actual artists involved and all that. Plus they made Avienda look hot. What was that last book cover supposed to be? Rand looked like a goober and Avienda looked... dowdy.

[tilt]

really cool covers those.. .much better than the covers on my books (european/brittish version) to.. and they weren't all bad

[Djekspek]

Heya, I voted for Immolates map (a real stunner! although tried not to look too detailled to it Many great entries again so rep for all (at least to those i can rep ;P) ! cheers!