I am an unapologetic transit fan, and as The Night Girl is an unapologetic Toronto novel, the two are linked. Indeed, the inspirational incident that launched The Night Girl back in 2003 was my wife Erin suggesting that I write a story about Toronto subway builders "digging to greedily and too deep", to quote Tolkien. The story took a very different shape, over time, but the link to Toronto's underground and its underground city remains.
I'm also an unapologetic fan of maps. Paper maps are as much a work of art as anything. The way that they show you the way, without the help of GPS, is a miracle, and this is not to disparage online maps which let me explore the world from my desktop, finding roads less travelled that I might travel someday.
And fantasy maps are a big part of any transit fan or advocate's life. When we advocate for better transit, we draw maps, because we want to see where we might be able to go in the future, if only our governments would get off their tufts and get building.
And given that many fantasy novels have maps of their own, it only seems right that The Night Girl place itself in this intersection. So, early on in the development of The Night Girl, I had fun putting together a fantasy map of what the Toronto subway was turning into over the course of the story, thanks to the work of the goblins and trolls.
In styling this map, I had to tread carefully. I wanted to ape the style that the Toronto Transit Commission took with its subway maps in the 1980s (and still takes, with modifications, today). For Torontonians, the look of Toronto's subway map is iconic. Back in 2006, writer Cory Doctorow said the following:
I grew up riding the TTC, and the map is burned into my subconscious. It's part of every Torontonian's experience of the city, a part of the cultural fabric.
Cory said this after the TTC's legal department prodded a transit fan who had remixed the Toronto subway map, changing each station's name into funny anagrams. Cory questioned the merit of this move to protect trademark, noting "Culture gets remixed -- that's what happens with it. Trademark is supposed to protect rightsholders from competitors who use their marks to confuse the public in the course of commerce. No one who saw RobotJohnny's genius map would have confused it for a second with a real TTC map and sent him a subway token." He'd use similar phrases to defend me when the owners of the C.N. Tower sent me a cease-and-desist letter on The Night Girl for its legal use of a photograph on its cover depicting that building.
Since then, the TTC has been a lot more relaxed with the presence of fantasy maps, though many are still careful to ape, but not directly copy the colour-on-black background look the TTC used. It's one reason my fantasy map is purple.
Either way, I had fun putting this map together, and thought (not seriously) about paying to have it placed as an advertisement on the Toronto subway -- or installing a version, guerilla-style. Instead, I share it with you here. Enjoy!
And while we're here, below please find an image of Toronto's Underground City -- it's PATH Network -- as dug by. goblins and trolls as well...
