Name: The Islands of Dara from The Dandelion Dynasty
Author: Ken Liu

Like many other authors whose work is in this collection, Liu followed in Tolkien’s footsteps by starting with a map of his world, the Islands of Dara. Dara is an archipelago comprising a larger central land mass surrounded by scattered, smaller islands. Liu has spoken in detail about the foundational aspect of his cartography to his world-building:

"The whole series actually started with that hand-drawn map. I had to draw it for myself first to be able to envision what the nations and the overall setting would be like. Later on, as I wrote the novels, I needed better maps to help guide the thinking, so I had to learn how to use these mapmaking tools. Ultimately, we had to commission Robert Lazzaretti, an artist, to draw the map for the official publication. The geography mattered a lot. In the novels, the world of Dara is just as important as any of the other characters. The entire setting itself is a character that had to be described and evolved, so I had to get to know it the same way I would have gotten to know any character."

Ex Carta

 novels present an epic secondary world inspired by East Asian history and myth. The books’ accompanying maps situate this ‘silkpunk’ world within a traditional fantasy landscape shaped by rivers, kingdoms, and shifting political frontiers. The maps featured here are those drawn by the author, offering the most authentic reflection of the stories' fictional world.

For Liu, the map was not an afterthought but the starting point for the entire series: he drew Dara before writing the novels, populating his new geography with the nations, conflicts, and cultures of his story world. In this respect, 

 continues the Tolkienian tradition of map-led world-building, while redirecting it through East Asian historical romance and the distinctive material and technological imagination of ‘silkpunk’.

Ken Liu (b.1976) is an American author, translator, and engineer, whose body of work includes a Star Wars novel and the English-language edition of Liu Cixin’s (b.1963) 

 (2008), which became a popular Netflix series in 2024.295 Liu’s own fiction has garnered many Hugo and Nebula awards, and 2015 saw the appearance of 

, the first instalment in his fantasy tetralogy The Dandelion Dynasty.

 (2016), The Veiled Throne (2021), and finally 

 (2022). Liu coined the term ‘silkpunk’ to describe the genre he had created, described on the cover of 

 as ‘the Wuxia version of Game of Thrones’. Liu says that ‘tropes and techniques from East Asian historical romances are deliberately juxtaposed with elements from Western epic narratives’.

As an engineer, Liu pays close attention to the material culture of his world, basing his fantasy technologies on ‘materials of historical importance to the people of East Asia and the Pacific islands: bamboo, shells, coral, paper, silk, feathers, sinew, etc.’297 However, Liu also suggests that the series not be read simply in terms of its unfamiliar ‘Chinese-ness’, but – as per the ‘punk’ part of the term ‘silkpunk’ – as a new, destabilising way of thinking about contemporary America and to ‘re-imagine America for the future’.

Like many other authors whose work is in this collection, Liu followed in Tolkien’s footsteps by starting with a map of his world, the Islands of Dara. Dara is an archipelago comprising a larger central land mass surrounded by scattered, smaller island. Liu has spoken in detail about the foundational aspect of his cartography to his world-building:

The whole series actually started with that hand-drawn map. I had to draw it for myself first to be able to envision what the nations and the overall setting would be like. Later on, as I wrote the novels, I needed better maps to help guide the thinking, so I had to learn how to use these map-making tools. Ultimately, we had to commission Robert Lazzaretti, an artist, to draw the map for the official publication. The geography mattered a lot. In the novels, the world of Dara is just as important as any of the other characters. The entire setting itself is a character that had to be described and evolved, so I had to get to know it the same way I would have gotten to know any character.