Seriously, why do fantasy novels have maps in the front? Johan Jönsson writes about it.

The very idea that maps and fantasy belong together is of course a cliché in itself. Maps of St. Petersburg and Russia would not make much of a difference to a reader of Crime and Punishment even if the person in question had never even heard of Eastern Europe before, and the idea of a map of Britain in a novel by Jane Austen is laughable. A bleak way to look on the phenomenon is that the map is there as a crutch to help our understanding of our beloved heroes’ travels on their world-saving quest, or so that we can understand the strategic movements of armies of good or of evil. This would support the idea of the conservative fantasy reader who wants what he or she knows and who is only comfortable with innovation of the genre as long as it is kept within well-defined boundaries.

Addendum: Strange Maps. (I may have seen this before. In fact, Lars may have blogged on it, but I forget now.)