Do you like family trees and/or maps in fiction books?

[Interrobang]

I love maps, but make sure they capture all the significant locations mentioned in the text. Tolkien maps are very good like this; but the maps that accompany the 'Game of Thrones' books seem to miss out loads of stuff.

On the subject of family trees - if you really need one to to understand the plot, you probably have too many characters.

[donroc]

Yes for maps if the locale is a place few in our 50 states know about such places as Ilha de Santa Caterina in Brasil, where my novel A GATHERING OF VULTURES takes place.

Yes. definitely for classic historical fiction.

Watch any game show, and you will see that the overwhelming percentage of contestants are geographically challenged even if they are brilliant in other areas of knowledge.

[Wilde_at_heart]

Maps, yes, family tree, no...

Originally Posted by Interrobang

On the subject of family trees - if you really need one to to understand the plot, you probably have too many characters.

Agreed.

[muravyets]

Originally Posted by LJD

Sure, but not if they're essential to my understanding of the novel. I hate having to constantly flip to a reference page. But if it's there, I'll take a quick look. Any more than two pages or so is a bit much, however.

Originally Posted by buzhidao

This. Extra bits are fun, but I want all the information I actually *need* in the writing. I don't like having to go and find a reference; I just want to read.

But I'll look at the fun bits and think ooo neato...

+1 to these.

I enjoy both maps and family trees as illustrations, just like the cover art, chapter heading font, and other design aspects of the book as an object. To me, whether they're used for reference or not, their extra-textual presence can enhance the reader experience.

As references, I tend to ignore family trees because I find them hard to follow. However, for complex epics, I do appreciate a handy score-card and player list. I will sometimes refer to a map during reading. Usually, I don't care where I am in the story world because I'm immersed in the immediate action of a scene, but if there is a lot of movement from place to place, I will sometimes refer to the map to keep straight how all the settings relate to each other. So I do find them useful as well as entertaining.

But even with some setting confusion, if I couldn't comfortably follow the story without such references, I'd consider that poor writing.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Interrobang

On the subject of family trees - if you really need one to to understand the plot, you probably have too many characters.

Not necessarily. Sometimes the family tree sets out, frex, why someone is (or isn't) in line to inherit. That can be the case even if you only have a bare handful of characters.

[Goldenleaves]

I never look at them. Ever.

Once, having really enjoyed a book I read the cast of characters.

[Marniy]

Originally Posted by Kallithrix

Yup, it's more often that I've been annoyed by the lack of a map /family tree than I've felt they were superfluous. After all, if you don't find them helpful you don't need to look at them. But better to have a map/family tree and not need one than need one and not have one.

Yes! This!
I love maps and character lists. Not sure I've read a book that needed a geneology, but I'm guilty of buying all kinds of supplemental material for fantasy series from Middle Earth, Narnia, Pern, and beyond.

Joe Abercrombie refused to include a map for his First Law trilogy and it made me CRAZY. A quest fantasy with no MAP? MADNESS!
(I love you, Joe. Lets never fight again. Also maps.)

Don't like 'em? Totally cool. Just don't look.

[MagicWriter]

Originally Posted by ebbrown

As a reader of a series, would you be interested in a family tree with key details to refer to? Or a map of the area the characters lived in?

I will say that I do not think my story is terribly complicated. I don't think the reader NEEDS this information, but in some cases I think they may enjoy it.

Thoughts?

If there are a ton of characters and locations, then I do appreciate a map & family trees...Martin's "Song of Ice & Fire" series comes to mind. While I read that series, I remember referring to the list of family lineages & the maps, several times. I love Martin's voice, and I don't find his writing confusing or unclear, its just that the story has a lot going on in a lot of places.

I also appreciate a map and list of soldiers & participants when reading non-fiction, military books. If there is no map, then the battles tend to start blending together for me. It may be very vivid in the soldiers minds but if I have no map, and no way to refer back to who is in command of a particular group, or what their specialty is, its like every battle happened in the same imagined location.

[MakanJuu]

If a book takes place in a fantasy world, yes I love a good map, it makes the story seem a bit more tangable... although, I've discovered, more often than not, that maps made by third parties aren't all too accurate & it kinda gets a bit frustrating when you want to know where something is, only to find that it's not on the map, or your cast is apparently travelling in the complete opposite direction in the book to get there than they should have...

[johnhallow]

I love maps too! And yeah, I agree with some of the others, I'd rather they weren't needed to understand the story because I don't like feeling thrown off.

Anyway it's fun to look at the layout of a country or city, and I tend to gawk at cool maps for a bit before I actually open a book (that awesome map from the Edge Chronicles comes to mind, as well as the map in Magyk).

I've never come across a family tree, though. Knowing myself I'd rather skip it, unless it was done in some really cool/elaborate way.

[Susan Littlefield]

I think it's awesome, especially in those general sagas!

[Sentosa]

No! Definitely no!

[SeaTurtle]

I think that maps can be very useful, especially in historical novels - cities change drastically over time and it's good to have a reference. Unless I'm reading Shakespeare or Wuthering Heights I find genealogies superfluous.

[SunnyE]

Originally Posted by Kallithrix

Yup, it's more often that I've been annoyed by the lack of a map /family tree than I've felt they were superfluous. After all, if you don't find them helpful you don't need to look at them. But better to have a map/family tree and not need one than need one and not have one.

That's what I was going to say. I love maps and any other extras the author puts there for me, though I agree with others that the story needs to be clear without them. I truly don't understand why they would irritate people. If you don't want to look at them, turn the page. Why is that hard? You page past the title page, acknowledgements, etc., so what's one or two more? Anyway, I think better to have them for clarity for the people who want them, and let the people who don't just flip past.

[Coco82]

The ASOIAF books have both and I like that. Now, I'm not flipping back and forth, but it does help me to know where someone's at in relation to where they had been earlier or whatnot. I'm a fan of that.

[WeaselFire]

Originally Posted by ebbrown

I don't think the reader NEEDS this information ...

If I need it, then the book is too complicated for me to bother reading. I skip all this fluff anyway. But I may not be the type of reader you attract, so you need to figure this out for yourself.

Jeff

[21stcenturygent]

Honestly to me it is cool to look at when you open the book for the first time but I never use it when reading. It is like a Lord of the Rings adding the elvish writing in it, yeah it is interesting but what are you going to do? Run in the woods and start writing noting but Elvish?

In short it depends on the person. There are people like me who read it much like someone watches a movie, you go through and experience the story and continue on. But there are people who devote a good deal of time not only into the story but fan fiction as well and almost all but living in the world. So if it is a multi-volume series, ala Lord of the Rings or something such as Star Wars, that all revolves in a single world you want to build it as realistic as possible and draw people not only into the story, but the world itself. So in that instance a map and other types of things would compliment it well if you want people to truly be drawn beyond the story and be sucked into the universe itself.

[Liralen]

I love them both, especially when reading fantasy, or even historical fiction with unusual names and place names. I find that I don't track those as well as I do more familiar names.

If there are lineages involved (i.e. royal houses) ABSOLUTELY on the family tree. Especially when the same names appear but as the III, IV, etc.

Plus, I just like the orderliness of it, and the aura of reality and completeness they give a book.

[CrastersBabies]

I love love love supplemental material. IMHO, if people aren't interested, they'll pass. If they are, they'll spend hours looking at maps and family histories and trees and glossaries. In GRRM's work, I'll often go back and forth from map to family trees just to SEE a visual of where a country is located (refreshing my memory), or trying to imagine where exactly on the map it happened.

But, I'm also an RPG nerd who gets off on that sort of thing. I think it's something that people will give or take in a book. As long as it's not doing all the heavy-lifting in regard to world-building. The text/story should be doing that.

[Ellielle]

I don't really look at either maps or family trees, because I don't find them helpful or interesting. But it's not like I'd refuse to pick up a book if they're in there. I'm a big fantasy reader, so if I refused to pick up books with maps, I'd have a lot of trouble finding things to read!

I do highly appreciate it when they're at the back, though, instead of blocking my way to the story in the front.