Syuzhet Map

This short story, featuring Conan the Barbarian, with its origins in pulp fiction provides an exemplar for the mapping of an entirely fantastic world with no real-world counterparts through which a map could be anchored. The nature of the text and the model allows the alternate states of being and vague conceptual spaces to be explored as equally as the physical landscape of the text.

The central-most node for this visualisation is the meta-framing paratextual 'Song of Belit' – which is to be expected given its role as a summary of the events of each chapter expressed through a memorial rhyme. It also serves as an indicator for the points at which the narrative breaks, following the serialised format of the piece as first published. This serves as the connector of the most climactic spaces, such as 'The Temple of the Old Ones' which features prominently in the latter part of the narrative and is reflected in its centralised position on that section of the map. The merit of a non-Cartesian methodology is keenly demonstrated here, where frames can be named as non-specific cardinal directions that indicate relative spatial approximation (such as 'Southwards') and can be found in non-correspondent relational placements (here the Western-most node, with the connection heading 'up' to it). This hightlights the abstracted format of our topological mapping that prioritises entity placement according to their connections.