At Longreads, Adrian Daub has a long, discursive, in-depth essay about fantasy maps, fantasy novels with maps, and what it meant to grow up loving same. It’s so full of good bits and covers so much ground that quoting just a paragraph would mislead you into thinking it was just about that one thing. It’s piece I’ll be returning to often, I think.

Alex Acks, whom we last saw complaining about the mountains of Middle-earth, admits that they don’t like fantasy maps. Remember: Acks has an M.Sc. in geology, and that’s part of it, but it’s also about how the maps reveal failures in worldbuilding (the lands look like they were created to fit the story) or basic mapmaking (e.g., no scale).