Creating high-magic worlds

[limyaael]

This essay suggestion had an unfair advantage, admittedly, because I was considering it a few weeks back. But, oh, well, them’s the breaks.

Comments

[xianghua]

Nifty cool. (I think I mentioned my pseudo-Victorian high magic world in response to a past rant?)

I'd really like a rant about holidays.... I'm having the WORST time coming up with an excuse for a mid-winter holiday in a culture that is not based on Christianity- solstice is BORING, everyone has that.

[jetamors]

Maybe the blooming of a specific flower or something like that?

Love the rant, especially #2; now I want to write a story about researchers trying to work out a Grand Unified Theory of Magic, only then when they're almost there the aliens show up, and their magic is *completely* different.

[xianghua]

Hmm... probably too abstract. I'm kind of thinking about the Queen's Birthday or something... Dunno. When magic-users live 600 years, there's a LOT Of time for traditions to build up just in one person's lifetime.

[silentstone7]

On point 4

[anna_wing]

Cassandra Claire's Harry Potter fanfics mention something like this. Non-magic children born into magical families are called "Squibs" and dumped into the Muggle world, with more or less preparation and help depending on the nature of the family.

[anna_wing]

Oh thanks. I'm not actually a Rowling reader (two books out of the six and then I got bored), so I'm very clueless about details, sorry.

[flippyfrog]

tehe, sorry you made me giggle with point 2. As soon as you mentioned thinking of the different magical systems as different branches of technology, my brain went to who would own it? and would we get a microsoft globilised magic? Will little images of window surround wizards as they called up their aura (or were resting?) Maybe it would occaisionally get bugs and you would have to ring up tech personal in a country yet to recieve such hardware but have been 'trained' in all microsoft magical gear and yet have no idea how to fix the bug.

I'm going to stop now before i really get going, this could get quite scary :P

[garonwhited]

Drat. I do not remember the title, but there was a two-book series about a computer programmer who got snatched into a magical world. He figured out the rules to magic (well, some of them) and effectively wrote his own operating system for spells!

When other people started hacking his spells for their own advantage, he engineered a disaster, apparently caused by the hacked spells--and then told them that tech support could not help them, as they were using something that was not a licensed product!

--Gaz
"My lord, does this man never shut up?"

[dsgood]

Could this be it?
Cook, Rick

Series

* Wiz Biz
o 1 The Wiz Biz (1997)
o 2 Cursed and Consulted (2001)

* Wizardry
o Wizard's Bane (1989)
o The Wizardry Compiled (1990)
o The Wizardry Cursed (1991)
o The Wizardry Consulted (1995)
o The Wizardry Quested (1996)

[garonwhited]

The title "The Wiz Biz" rings a bell. I wasn't aware there were so many of them, though...

--Gaz

[zeborahnz]

I think _The King's Peace_ and _The King's Name_ by Jo Walton would count. And Lois McMaster Bujold's _The Hallowed Hunt_. Also, in urban fantasy, James A. Hetley's _Dragon's Eye_ (and the sequel, out in November).

[chiyo_no_saru]

OMG Icon love.

And I adore the phrase "pregnant power versus manly magic".

[khavrinen]

There's also Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar stories. As he says on his Introduction to Ethshar page:
Ethshar is a magic-rich environment.

Very magic-rich. What may be its most unusual feature is that the World of Ethshar has several different kinds of magic that relate and interact in different ways. The result is that most Ethsharites, being pragmatic folks, can't be bothered to learn about all the different varieties -- they just hire magicians as needed, of whatever sort is handy and willing.

I've read about half of them, having coincidentally just finished Ithanalin's Restoration last week, and in my opinion they deal pretty well with all six of the issues addressed here. The plot of Ithanalin's Restoration, for example, is that a wizard who specializes in animating things has an accident while working on a spell, and has his life force/soul split between several pieces of his parlour furniture ( couch, coatrack, rug, etc. ), which then run away all over town. In order to restore the now non-animated wizard, his apprentice has

[peculiar_writer]

::hangs head at first point::

That always bothered me in HP. "If they have time travel, why not go back in time and kill Voldemort? Or go to a time when he's shitting on the toilet and kill him?" "If they have this spell that automatically kills people, why not do it on Voldemort?" "If they can apparate anywhere, why not just surprise Voldemort when he's in bed? Or again, on the crapper?"

Is that my fault, or Rowling's?

Very excellent rant, btw. I am so tired of books where the magic just doesn't make sense. Definitely points to keep in mind.

[silentstone7]

For the record... The spell that automatically kills people doesn't work on Voldemort when he counter-curses, since he's stronger. They can only apparate to places they know of (or else would end up in brick walls) and they don't know where Voldemort is. Does a man who lives in various other people's bodies and as a freaky ghosty thing, and in various states of disarray sleep/go to the bathroom?
Not sure about time travel, other than he was powerful enough to kill people amd defend himself as a teenager, so you'ld have to go pretty far back, and know where he was.
I know, I read way too far into that, but as contrived as Harry Potter may be, it works in it's own quirky way.

[flippyfrog]

It's okay, i thought the same thing. She has set up the rules for it fairly well, if i poke holes with JKR it's mainly for we use of a prophecy, that was such a HUGE let down.
Okay, there's also the cute levels going a bit too far and the fact that i don't think she's known a teenage boy since she was a teenager herself, but i figure i can forgive some of it because she is, after all, a young adult writer.

As a young adult writer myself, i can't believe i just said that :P