Envisioning Nation of Giants

The World

Map illustration by Ben Roffelsen

I’ve always been fascinated by maps, so when I wrote the first draft of Nation of Giants, I had this grand vision of what the map would look like. Yet my level of visual arts acuity is at about a grade five level. So when I first asked my friend Ben Roffelsen, I was thrilled when he said he could visualize the story in ways that I couldn’t.

Since then, Ben has been working on character sketches, the map of Lendos you see posted here, and a number of other ideas that visualize the stories I’ve been writing. I love the attention to detail he has put into his work, particularly the Telu Mountain Range, which in the stories is known as the Spine of the Earth… the way he drew the mountains resembles a spine.