Mary Catelli&#39;s Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

Was there a story where someone turned a city to glass? That's a very cool image.

When I imagine magic as being something within human purview, I imagine learning it as being like mastering other skills. I imagine anyone could learn a little, most people could get passable or even good with practice, and some people would have a gift for it and could be stunning.

When I imagine it as being a non-human trait, then the only time I imagine humans being able to do it is when they've got some non-human admixture in them.

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A potential, as with music. You still have to study, but if ya ain't got it, ya can't get it. Of course, there could still be a mental block of some kind, depending on your plot.

OTOH, magic could be like science. How many people can do science?

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I'd imagine that everyone could do it at least a very little, I guess there are a few completely tone deaf people, but most of us can sing a little--"Happy Birthday" and "Row Row Row Your Boat," and, with practice, can do better than that, even if we're never going to be great singers.

Magic equating to science is interesting because it tends, I think, to turn into science--another branch of. But then it ceases to be quite so... uh... magical?

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marycatelli

Most people can do some science, and some music. People who can do neither are the unusual and, indeed, rather rare ones.

And, you get immense graduations in ability. Which you don't get so much in on-off situation.

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And perhaps specialization as well. My Mrs. Bailey has hunches about financial markets that keep the organization well-funded. We don't see Mr. Bailey do anything magical, but he is a heck of a lawyer. Clyde Dinkins can fly a magical spaceship, as well anything with wings. Miss Farnsworth displays no magic but is a good dorm mother, teacher, and biochemist. Clarion von Drakenburg can sniff out space pirates, slave traders, and people who might make good cops--a cop's instincts. None of these characters have wands. But can we really say that the gifts of somebody who is extraordinary at what they do are confined to their brains and bodies? We call it instincts, but are they in fact reading tea leaves the rest of us don't even see? So, maybe magic is present even in our mundane society.

My wand wavers are rare in the population. The gift is hereditary. They get rich. People with high skills to meet the desires of the market get rich. Is this different from Bill Gates?

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maybe magic is present even in our mundane society.

I completely agree. It's a matter of perspective and how you name things.

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marycatelli

Er, yes, this is different from Bill Gates. Because Bill Gates is doing on a grand scale what many others do and have done. A difference of quantity, not quality.

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Magic that has physical manifestations has to have some relation to the physical world. I define magic as a symbolic act that causes a physical event. Somebody at JPL clicks an icon and twenty minutes later, a Mars Lander takes a sample. In this case you could trace the physical connections from the mouse to the lander's scoop. I'm just surmising that other magic works the same way. We just don't specify all the connections in our stories, any more than a SF writer provides all the computer code for the AI system in her story.

I don't think this makes the magic less magical. I've met plenty of folks who view technology, particularly computers, as magic. I once read a study where water witches with good track records for finding water were brought into a lab. They couldn't find the water in the lab. Bring the wizard to the lab, and you don't get magic. Statistics can investigate certain things and not others. We do know that observation changes the outcomes of certain experiments.

The wizard may know the physical connections, or he may just be using empirical experience, passed by thousands of years of oral tradition. Either way, I think there has to be a physical connection, at some level. Quantum mechanics comes to mind.

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It seems like quantum mechanics somehow always comes to mind these days. In general, anyone who doesn't know a lot about said quantum mechanics is going to turn off the portion of fantasy readers who are also major science geeks.

...Says the person writing basically anti-entropic magic. Le sigh.

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Heh. That may be a fair definition of magic, too; anti-entropic, given the entropy that pervades the physical Universe.

Sure, factual mistakes noticeable by many people will get you killed. Right now, I think, not enough is known by anybody about quanta to say my stuff won't work. I don't go into a lot of detail.

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Not going into detail is probably the best way there.
The big issue being that in our world the effects just don't scale, of course, but in yours of course they could. :)

It's the quantum mechanics technobabble that turns off some people (I know).

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I agree with what you say about the magic of science, for sure. There's stuff in science to make your scalp prickle. Speaking of water, I've heard scientists mention what a strange substance it is; its properties are so unusual--for instance, that it expands instead of contracting when frozen. And stuff like the the connection between twin particles, such that when something happens to one, the twin "knows"--even if it's too far away for the information to have reached it in a mechanical way.

As you say, statistics can investigate certain things and not others. Certain language is better for certain purposes than others. We have lots of moods, and modes to match our moods--wonderful.

So yes, maybe I should back away from the statement that magic in science is less magical. I think I merely meant that having an empirical explanation for everything feels less mysterious, but I'm not sure, if pressed, that I even think that, necessarily.

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marycatelli

Err -- actually the image I had was the effect of a really, really large firespell.

But I would be fascinated to read your story with a city turned to glass.

Especially with the way you imagine magic. I wish more fantasy writers imagined it as you do.

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Ouf, i'm feeling my bones charring as I think of that really large firespell.

So maybe I shall try a short story with a city of glass... a short-lived city, I fear, unless the spell is reversed quickly...

...although... (thinking more)

There is glass and glass and glass... hmmm

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marycatelli

Have fun!

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Sounds like fun!
Also, painful to live in. I don't suppose it'd be that nice glass that breaks into cubes. I see jagged sharp bits ahead.

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I'm thinking: if people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, what shouldn't people who live in glass cities do? Wage war?

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People who live in glass cities shouldn't...

...drop anything.
...fall over.
...light fires.
...sing soprano.
...play with hydrofluoric acid.

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Er, sorry, that was me.

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Gah. LJ hates me today. I logged in for sure that time...
Anyway, yeah, sorry.

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(Trying this again).

I'm caught between going, darn, you'd hate my novel, and going, ha, I'll be subverting that so much that maybe you'd like it anyway :)

Though I certainly don't have an on-off switch, which on rereading is perhaps what you meant. Still. Even a learned skill has its elitism, especially if different people have different levels of talent for it. I think what I dislike about a lot of fantasy is that the elitism is seen as a good thing.

Anyway, magic is nice and all but tech is so much more reliable.

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marycatelli

From your description it doesn't sound any more elitist than -- say, writing.

Most people can do it, some people don't learn, and there's a lot of variation.

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