Map Monday: The Land of Eternal Twilight by Lynn "ToixStory" Davis

I haven't featured anything by Lynn "ToixStory" Davis in a while, so I was happy to see that she had a good week last week. She was interviewed on Odyssey Online by Alex Wallace and her newest map was well-received on social media:

This is "The Land of Eternal Twilight" (full size here) which was based on a request from Tardis218 and colonial names were provided by a Anton Larsson. It features a Sweden that came out of the Thirty Years War strong enough to remain an important player in European politics (without the help of West Virginian time travelers). I especially liked Sweden's unorthodox colonial empire, which treated the colonies as equal members of the Swedish government, which probably explains why they held onto so much of it after decolonization set in.

The map itself has that realistic style that I love and the colors are easy on the eyes (I also enjoy the color blue for some reason, so this map met that need). The airship in the background of the text is a nice touch as well and I don't get the feeling Lynn was just being lazy when she included it, unlike others I could mention. Another good map from a great alternate cartographer.

Honorable mentions this week go out to "The End of an Empire" by Zek Sora, "America at the Start of the 1870s Before the Last Great Period of US Expansion" and "Super Scythia World" by Bruce Munro.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Map Monday: Jewel of the Nordic Empire by Lynn "ToixStory" Davis and AshleeNova

It was hard to pick what map to feature today. There were some really good maps posted last week, but the one you see below gave me a lot to talk about, so I decided to go with it:

That is "Jewel of the Nordic Empire" and it is unique for many reasons. First, it is actually a collaboration between Map Monday alum Lynn "ToixStory" Davis and newcomer AshleeNova, which is actually pretty rare for this blog. Second, this map was created for Krall's Map of the Fortnight contest on Althistoria.proboards.com (a new alternate history forum). These contests were originally hosted on AlternateHistory.com by Krall, but he took him to his new site recently. So this map has some interesting behind the scenes details that caught my eye.

To sum up the story: the Kalmar Union (later Nordic Empire) expanded eastward while the Russian states fought with the Mongols eventually creating one of the largest land empires in the world. Despite its size, the Nordic Empire has a rather small population and is now trying to encourage settlers from England. This map acts as a piece of propaganda by showing all of the wealth awaiting for any of the families willing to move permanently to Northern Eurasia, which I found to be a nice touch.

The map itself is well done with easy on the eyes colors and fold lines that give the idea that this is a scan of the actual handout from this timeline. Admittedly the text that accompanies the map has weird extra-long spaces after the periods. You can even see them from the small size of the map I use for this article, but you can get a better look at them from the full sized version here. In the end I am just nitpicking because I do like "Jewel of the Nordic Empire".

Honorable mentions this week goes out to "Alternate History North America" by Keperry, "Strength Through Unity" by Rvbomally, "2000 AA (after Ascension)" by Pischinovski and "The Reluctant Railroad" by Rebecca "Upvoteanthology" Stirling. If you want more map goodness check this scenario that imagines the collapse of Russia and this map featuring Soviet WWIII plans.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Map Monday: Where Hearts Were Entertaining June (Europe 1800) by Lynn Davis

Today's Map Monday sees the return of a veteran of this series: Lynn Davis. She posted a new map on her blog that caught my eye. It is titled: "Where Hearts Were Entertaining June: Europe 1800". Let's cut to the chase and reveal the map:

 This is actually a sequel another of Lynn's maps, which was set in 1735, and takes place in her "Where Hearts Were Entertaining June: An English Brazil", which I covered on Timeline Thursday. In this timeline the English Armada is more successful and England is able to get its hands on Brazil, forever changing history. Today's map reflects the current state of affairs in Europe after republicans have come to power in Britain, Spain, Poland and elsewhere, while the remaining monarchists lick their wounds. Its a solid timeline and I recommend you check it out, but now its time to do the thing I always struggle with: commenting on art.

I have always been a huge fan of Lynn's maps. You can tell how she puts hours of work into it by just looking at all the details in the map. I especially enjoyed the use of white spaces surrounded by a colored outlines. Admittedly I do tend to praise Munroist and minimalist maps a lot, but even I enjoy a map that has a lot of effort put into it. Plus it certainly is an improvement from the map that it is a sequel of.

Honorable mention this week goes to "German Empire in 2015" by Samwell and if you want to see more alternate history maps check out the Maps and Flags Facebook group (which is also on Twitter and DeviantArt).

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Interview: Lynn Davis

Doing Map Mondays for more than a year now, I have to admire those alternate historians (who I usually refer to as "alternate cartographers") who have the patience and skill to create those wonderful and informative maps we find in timelines across the Internet. Wanting to learn more about this subset of our community, I decided to interview one of my favorite map makers: Lynn Davis. Check out our conversation below:

Who is Lynn Davis?

My name is Lynn Zelda Davis, a 21 year-old Texan college student currently working on their bachelor's degree in English Education. That's right, folks, history and cartography are just a side hobby for my real, crazy passion: teaching! Other than that, I love to write, to read, and just about everything involving Christmas. My favorite things in life are my partner Chris, my maps, and sleep. Most people around the web know me as ToixStory (formerly known as PlatoonSgt).

What got you interested in alternate history?

Sometime around 2010 I started to wonder about the usual history scenarios, about what would have happened if the Nazis had won, if Texas was still independent, etc., and found AlternateHistory.com that same year, which only fueled my passion. At the same time, I was becoming more and more interested in history itself, devouring every book I could find on any part of history, which only fueled my desire for alternate history. This past year has seen it really ramp up in terms of research and study, but the passion has been there for a while now.

When did you start creating alternate history maps?

Technically, I got started around 2011, using simple Wikipedia basemaps and the world-a basemaps you see on AlternateHistory.com Map Threads. However, I was never really satisfied with them, because they always seemed so...stale. Lifeless. After a while, I gave up on them. Then, last year, I picked up the hobby again, not with maps made in Microsoft Paint but in Inkscape, using more detailed techniques to create the beautiful maps I had seen posted on deviantart and AH.com before. I wanted to have maps that told a story, that showed a whole world instead of just a plate imitation of it.

In a world where geography is at the bottom of the list for someone's favorite subject, why do you think people make maps of alternate worlds?

I would say because, on some level, all people wonder how things would have gone had the circumstances been different. Alternate history is simply quantifying those thoughts and putting them into a study of how you think things could have gone, and maps are simply an extension of that. Not to mention, maps are something just about everyone has been exposed to at one time or another, from atlases to Google Maps, so I think anyone interested in alternate history has thought, at one time or another, of what the maps for different worlds would look like.

What programs do you use to create your maps?

I started out with, and still primarily use, Inkscape. It's a very sleek, free vector-based program that allows you to use all sorts of tools and tricks to get a map looking just right. It's easily manipulable and fairly easy to learn. Lately, I've experiment with using GIMP to make a base for the map before doing the details in Inkscape. There are definitely some advantages of GIMP, though I'm probably going to start going back to Inkscape more and more.

Where can people go if they wanted you to commission a map from you?

My deviantart is definitely the best place. I have a journal of all commission prices and info here or you can e-mail me at lzeldadavis at gmail dot com and we can talk prices and such.

Any other map makers you would like to recommend?

Oh, wow, there's almost too many to list. 1Blomma is definitely one of my favorites and is a master at the craft. There's also a ton more, off the top of my head: martin23230, Fenn-O-Manic, Kurarun, Undevicesimus, Pischinovski, ImDeadPanda, Kuusinen, Sapiento, ReagentAH, RvBOMally, nanwe01, and iselander. All of them are on deviantart, and definitely worth checking out.

Any other projects that you are working on now?

For alternate history? Well, something like 6 maps that are in some stage of completion, a tutorial, and a whole map series—world map, regional maps, flags, etc.--and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I may go a little overboard. As far as other things, I've got a couple novel ideas in the mix that I might sit down and write one day (alternate history, naturally), but mostly I just like my maps. Definitely my favorite and most soothing hobby.

What books are you reading?

Just like with my maps, I move between books very rapidly, so I'm never reading just one. At the moment, I'm reading In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India, An Empire of Wealth, Leviathan Wakes and A Canticle for Leibowitz. Like I said, my mind wanders a bit.

Any advice for aspiring alternate cartographers?

The biggest piece of advice I can give is: be patient. Cartography, whether it's digital or physical, takes time to get right. It can feel like a pain to meticulously trace coastlines, rivers, borders, and the like, but it definitely pays off in the end and makes your map look much nicer. More than half my maps took more than 50 work hours to make, with a couple taking over 100 hours of work time. It can be tedious, but find a rhythm and stick with it and you'll be a master of the craft before you know it.

Map Monday: In At the Death by Lynn Davis (a.k.a. ToixStory)

This week I get to feature one of my favorite map makers again, Lynn Davis (a.k.a. ToixStory), whose new map is titled: "In At the Death":

This in an "Entente victory" timeline where Erich Ludendorff is injured at the Battle of Liège and thus is not around to drive the Russians out of Germany in the east. Although the war is still rather bloody, Germany is eventually defeated after the Western allies drive across the Rhine and Russia reaches the outskirts of Berlin. Germany surrenders in 1917 and the country is split per the map you see above, which I may add is extremely well done. You can really see the effort Lynn put into this map.

The post-war world sees a "Cold War" develop between the Western Europeans and Russia, who have divided Europe between them. Russia in particular is an interesting player in this universe, what with avoiding the Revolution/Civil War and now able to project power across Europe and perhaps the world. I always like timelines like this and I think creators miss out on the innumerable possibilities that come out of World War I, besides the Central Powers winning the war. You can read more about the description of this world on AlternateHistory.com and Lynn's blog.

Honorable mention this week goes out to Reagant's "Zion Kenya", which features another favorite timeline of mine: alternate Israels. Also don't forget to check out Paul Levinson's map from The Plot to Save Socrates. If you want to submit a map for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.