Map Quest

I’m in Seattle till Thursday, working with my friend Adrian Smith (polymath IT genius whiz who has also been a guest DJ on my Podrunner podcast) to finalize the Google Earth maps depicting the locales and route for the primary events of ELEGY BEACH.

Since no one else seems to have realized what an amazingly cool thing this is, I’m gonna shuck any pretense of modesty and tell you what an amazingly cool thing this is.

One of the unexpected fringe benefits of my oddly obsessive-compulsive need to work for real-world accuracy in my own odd brand of reality-based fantasy is that you are able to use the free Google Earth application to follow the locations events of ARIEL and ELEGY BEACH in real time using satellite imagery to see exactly where these events take place.

You’re even more able to use it because we have worked very hard to provide you with custom downloadable Google Earth maps that delineate locations, tour them, link to online pictures of landmarks, and include relevant text from the novels. You really can tour the Del Mar racetrack that dominates the first section of ELEGY BEACH. You really can fly the hang-gliding route in ARIEL. You really can go on the Goodyear blimp ride at appropriate altitude between Carson, California, and the Tejon Pass. The accuracy and detail astonish me. Maybe you’re young enough to take this stuff for granted. I’m old enough to be amazed by it.

In any case, while there are Google street maps of book locations, I don’t know of anything like what we’re doing here. As of about a month ago you can even use these maps on Google Earth for iPhone. If no one takes advantage of it, it’s still so unbelievably cool someone should hand me some kind of special Hugo award for it. So nonny nonny pooh pooh.

I’ll finalize the ELEGY BEACH maps after I’m back from Seattle. I will tell you unabashedly that I love these. I love the technology that helps make it possible not only to render these impossible visions with even more clarity, but to make them available for readers.