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>My corollary of that law: "Any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from boring technology." This is a very good corollary, and something I have

>My corollary of that law: "Any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from boring technology." This is a very good corollary, and something I have complained for a long time as it pertains to fantasy fiction (sorry if this is off topic). Modern fantasy authors tend to fall over themselves to over-explain and over-elaborate on "systems of magic" in their works. Many people like that, but I find it often takes away from the "mystery of magic" and results in science-lite element than actual magic. Tolkien was one who did magic correctly, with sufficient vagueness and poeticism to preserve the sense of mysticality in magic. Sorry for the rant, it's been years since I wanted to write this!

tpxl 4y ago
I loved how 'Monday starts on Saturday' just threw you into a world of magic without explaining anything to you or the protagonist. I'd highly recommend that book.
- octoberfranklin 4y ago
  And another excellent book by the same authors, The Dead Mountaineer's Inn, is exactly the opposite. You spend most of the book thinking you know what it's about, except you really don't. But their masterpiece, of course, is Stalker.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    > But their masterpiece, of course, is Stalker. Pardon me, but isn't the book titled 'Roadside picnic' upon which the movie 'Stalker' was based?
dsign 4y ago
Funny that you say that. I'm re-reading the Lord of the Rings and I have a grudge with the ring(s), because all I'm thinking is that Sauron is a misunderstood magic engineer that managed to fit a miracle of power into the tiny space of the ring. As the story progresses, I muse about the "magic subsystems" and "magic dev-ops", not to mention the amazing "find-my-ring" mental manipulation subsystem which figures so prominently in the story. Tokien sees all of it as "bad, reproachable perversion that must be destroyed," and the Lothlorien elves give up their really pretty land in a heroic sacrifice to destroy the "evil of the ring tech." To put it as a mobile tech example, I suspect that cell-phones cause autism in kids. At the same time, my phone is free of games and social-media apps, and it is incredibly useful to find places, check my bank saldo and buy train tickets, among many other things. But if I were Tolkien, we would be throwing the One Phone into a volcano, and after it all cell-phones would stop working and we would be back to using horses to send envelopes with letters. That way, we wouldn't need to find a way for our kids to play with each other in person instead of obsessing with our "rectangular obsidian mirrors".
- wrp 4y ago
  > ...throwing the One Phone into a volcano... Ha! I read that and the outline of a whole epic adventure just shot through my mind.
curtainsforus 4y ago
What you call over-explained magic, others call 'hard magic' (like 'hard sci-fi'). Mysterious magic can give that sense of wonder/ambience, but it's hard to use it in order to satisfactorily solve problems: because it isn't clear what the magic can and can't do, if you have Gandalf whip out magic to fix every issue that comes along, the plot devolves into a series deus ex machinae. This means the more mystic magic has to have a subtler influence on the plot. It's not as annoying if vague magic causes, or can cause problems, though. Even The Lord of the Rings contains some hard magic: when Frodo puts on the ring, he turns invisible, but becomes more visible to shades. The useful effect is a pretty well-defined and discrete! The full extent of the costs and dangers are less clear, though- which gives you a great feeling of foreboding every time Frodo puts on the ring, or is in a situation where it might be needed. Harder magic more often gives a character a toolkit, and it means you can have a them come up with a novel combination or application of the abilities they have available to them to solve a problem without it feeling like an ass-pull. It's like a murder mystery, where you can wonder at what the answer is ahead of time, try to pick up on clues. I think there might be two different genres wearing the same face, here. I like "scientific fantasy" as much as "fantasy", but in general they might appeal to different people. In the fantasy book 'the misenchanted sword', the main character doesn't understand magic (he's just a scout), but when his sword ends up enchanted to 'protect him' (no other information given), he does what a real person might do- he tries to figure it out, see if it follows any rules! Along the way, he sometimes misunderstands or doesn't know enough, and consequently makes bad decisions. I really liked it, and I wouldn't have liked it as much if the main character hadn't been... doing science on his sword! I agree that a lot of stories that incorporate harder magic systems also lack some poetry, but I don't think that's necessarily because of the hard magic. I think there's a selection effect going on, where the type of author most likely to write a story with discrete, well-defined powers is also more likely to have a discrete, well-defined, non-mysterious approach to the whole story. I recently read a story called 'Wander west, in shadow' that has characters with pretty discrete magical abilities (they can learn to use more of 'the Art', but they each only know a few tricks), but magic and the world in general feels mysterious and broad. You know what the characters can do, so when they cleverly improvise it feels earned, but you don't know exactly how big the world is, and the characters are continually coming across things they don't understand. I got a 'Tom Bombadil' or 'Elven tools aren't magic, or are they?' vibe from a few parts of the story, for example. I really recommend it.

tpxl 4y ago

I loved how 'Monday starts on Saturday' just threw you into a world of magic without explaining anything to you or the protagonist. I'd highly recommend that book.

octoberfranklin 4y ago
And another excellent book by the same authors, The Dead Mountaineer's Inn, is exactly the opposite. You spend most of the book thinking you know what it's about, except you really don't. But their masterpiece, of course, is Stalker.
- tpxl 4y ago
  > But their masterpiece, of course, is Stalker. Pardon me, but isn't the book titled 'Roadside picnic' upon which the movie 'Stalker' was based?

dsign 4y ago

Funny that you say that. I'm re-reading the Lord of the Rings and I have a grudge with the ring(s), because all I'm thinking is that Sauron is a misunderstood magic engineer that managed to fit a miracle of power into the tiny space of the ring. As the story progresses, I muse about the "magic subsystems" and "magic dev-ops", not to mention the amazing "find-my-ring" mental manipulation subsystem which figures so prominently in the story. Tokien sees all of it as "bad, reproachable perversion that must be destroyed," and the Lothlorien elves give up their really pretty land in a heroic sacrifice to destroy the "evil of the ring tech." To put it as a mobile tech example, I suspect that cell-phones cause autism in kids. At the same time, my phone is free of games and social-media apps, and it is incredibly useful to find places, check my bank saldo and buy train tickets, among many other things. But if I were Tolkien, we would be throwing the One Phone into a volcano, and after it all cell-phones would stop working and we would be back to using horses to send envelopes with letters. That way, we wouldn't need to find a way for our kids to play with each other in person instead of obsessing with our "rectangular obsidian mirrors".

wrp 4y ago
> ...throwing the One Phone into a volcano... Ha! I read that and the outline of a whole epic adventure just shot through my mind.

curtainsforus 4y ago

What you call over-explained magic, others call 'hard magic' (like 'hard sci-fi'). Mysterious magic can give that sense of wonder/ambience, but it's hard to use it in order to satisfactorily solve problems: because it isn't clear what the magic can and can't do, if you have Gandalf whip out magic to fix every issue that comes along, the plot devolves into a series deus ex machinae. This means the more mystic magic has to have a subtler influence on the plot. It's not as annoying if vague magic causes, or can cause problems, though. Even The Lord of the Rings contains some hard magic: when Frodo puts on the ring, he turns invisible, but becomes more visible to shades. The useful effect is a pretty well-defined and discrete! The full extent of the costs and dangers are less clear, though- which gives you a great feeling of foreboding every time Frodo puts on the ring, or is in a situation where it might be needed. Harder magic more often gives a character a toolkit, and it means you can have a them come up with a novel combination or application of the abilities they have available to them to solve a problem without it feeling like an ass-pull. It's like a murder mystery, where you can wonder at what the answer is ahead of time, try to pick up on clues. I think there might be two different genres wearing the same face, here. I like "scientific fantasy" as much as "fantasy", but in general they might appeal to different people. In the fantasy book 'the misenchanted sword', the main character doesn't understand magic (he's just a scout), but when his sword ends up enchanted to 'protect him' (no other information given), he does what a real person might do- he tries to figure it out, see if it follows any rules! Along the way, he sometimes misunderstands or doesn't know enough, and consequently makes bad decisions. I really liked it, and I wouldn't have liked it as much if the main character hadn't been... doing science on his sword! I agree that a lot of stories that incorporate harder magic systems also lack some poetry, but I don't think that's necessarily because of the hard magic. I think there's a selection effect going on, where the type of author most likely to write a story with discrete, well-defined powers is also more likely to have a discrete, well-defined, non-mysterious approach to the whole story. I recently read a story called 'Wander west, in shadow' that has characters with pretty discrete magical abilities (they can learn to use more of 'the Art', but they each only know a few tricks), but magic and the world in general feels mysterious and broad. You know what the characters can do, so when they cleverly improvise it feels earned, but you don't know exactly how big the world is, and the characters are continually coming across things they don't understand. I got a 'Tom Bombadil' or 'Elven tools aren't magic, or are they?' vibe from a few parts of the story, for example. I really recommend it.