Suggestions: Navigation Tech in Literature

[Swain Voorman]

As a long time lurker, I respect the heck out of this community, so I thought I'd reach out to pick your brains a bit. For a bigger project I'm working on, I'm interested in creating an archive of examples in literature where technologies of orientation or navigation lead to moments of horror, fear, or struggle (especially in the Lovecraftian sense, "the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"). Importantly, these examples don't have to be restricted to the horror genre!

Technologies such as the magnetic compass, lodestone, astrolabe, or even the divining rod, directing people towards fearful places (known or unknown) or even making people completely disoriented leading to various struggles, horror, or fear. Especially if these are moments that lead people to 'other' spaces beyond our physical, material space. I'm trying to come up with as wide a range of examples as possible, so if anything comes to mind from any period of time, I would be grateful if you could put them out there....

[kasie]

Are you thinking of something like the alethiometer in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials? Oh, and welcome to LitNet, Swain.

[Swain Voorman]

Sure, that's a good connection. Fictionalized technologies would be great examples as well... Thanks for the welcome!

[Jive One]

1001 Nights often features a lot of perilous travels. I know the Third Kalandar's Tale features a "magnetic mountain" that poses a threat to ships. There's also the tale of the Ebony Horse, about a magic horse used to journey to and fro from different adventures.

These are definitely a bit on the fantastical side but hopefully they're useful to you.

[Swain Voorman]

Thanks for that, fantastical examples are great... in fact, I would expect most of the suggestions to be...