Maps, or no maps?

So, how does /book/ feel about maps in fantasy novels?  I usually just ignore them but apparently it's a major point of contention among authors and genre-fans, or something?

Well, as fantasy novels are worthless,

>>2
Oho!  Well, you sure told me!

>>2

They're pretty fun, but they don't necessarily add much to the story. It can help in visualizing where everybody is when people move around a lot.

Really depends. If the novel in question has characters traveling in different directions with their progress somehow related / large scale wars / army movement, maps help. If it's more character-centric with few locales maps are fluff.

That said, I like to have them in either case, but I don't care much if there isn't one.

I am right now just finishing david eddings Mallorean series and I went online to look at the maps. It helps to see how they are traveling.

>>2

It depends on the book.  Some maps are just pointless, but if it's a long series with multiple groups of characters being in different places at any given time, it can help with the confusion a lot.  They can also give you a pretty good idea as to the author's imagined layout of cities.  They're especially useful if the series takes place on more than one continent, with a lot of jumping around between books because you can check the maps before you start reading and know kind of where things are going to be happening.  I find that they can also be good reminders of what's already happened in other books.

I really enjoyed seeing the maps of Mid-World after reading The Dark Tower books. I had my own vision of the world, but seeing it and tracing the paths of the characters made it even better. Same with Lord of the Rings.

I liked them when I was a kid, but now it's just more of the same.  Okay, wait, I take that back-- LM Bujold's _Sharing Knife_ books have a map, & it's pretty useful to the story since they're always traveling.  But some have this "O hai I wrote fantasy so here's mah obligatory map" map & that's pretty weak.