… tuned to a dead channel

Sci-fi, fantasy, horror, krimi és egyéb regényannotációkat a Google Maps/Earth-re!

For instance, the “unstable” streets that appear and disappear in China Miéville’s short story “Reports of Certain Events in London” are suddenly available for mapping; you can follow their speculative routes, and even plan day trips around them, hiking through the nonexistent side streets of the city.

Or you go to Google Maps one day, because you’re planning a trip to Japan or to San Francisco, and you click on “Satellite” view - and then on “William Gibson,” a new visualization option. It’s brought to you by a partnership between Putnam and Google Maps. So you click on “William Gibson” and a whole informational layer of Gibsonian detail appears. Gibson mentioned this street, and this bridge, and this hotel room - and here it is on a map for you to follow.

Within six months, you can click on “Alfred Hitchcock,” “Ray Bradbury,” and “H.P. Lovecraft” to see how their films and stories map out. It’s the becoming-literary of Google Maps.