McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Good Magic References

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Cooper:
Okay.  I finished my notes and sketches of my proposed magical human race.  What I need is the magic part and I have no clue where to start.  I do have one magic reference book (grimwore to an apprentice wizard) but if anybody has any magic references for their stories that would be great.

Paynesgrey:
Do you have any idea what "style" you want the magic to be?  Formulaic incantations & components, where it's a "scientific" approach, or something more fluid and "spirit" based?  Or an assortment of methods available?  One set of "magic rules" for everybody, or different schools of thought, with differing approaches being available? 

Here's the Wiki link on "magic", you might be able to find some useful items in the assorted references and sources.  Wikipedia isn't something I'd suggest as a "source", but it can provide some useful starting points for research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_%28paranormal%29

Spectacular Sameth:
I'll like the scientific approach myself with equivalent exchange (x amount of magic to do x level of spell), too much magic in a system can be volatile. Mine is quite a bit like the magic in the Dresdenverse, except a little more scientific than that.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: The Spectacular Sameth on May 02, 2008, 08:00:20 AM ---I'll like the scientific approach myself with equivalent exchange (x amount of magic to do x level of spell), too much magic in a system can be volatile. Mine is quite a bit like the magic in the Dresdenverse, except a little more scientific than that.

--- End quote ---

The thing about the scientific approach to magic is that it's very rarely done in ways that feel like actual science.  There are some excellent novels with industrial magic - Walter Jon Williams' Metropolitan and City on Fire in particular come to mind - but not many that capture the feel of real cutting-edge research.

"Too much magic in a system can be volatile" is absolutely right.  Even a little magic can either be drastically volatile or, more often in a conventional fantasy setting, not thought through enough. [ Good example; Steven Brust's Dragaera, where one of the most common uses of fairly widespread magic is for people to be able to check the time. Bad example; any number of fantasies where there is magical healing, but the effects this has on infant mortality and population growth has not been considered. ]

Myself, being a working scientist with a fondness for the feel of being on the cutting edge of human understanding, and also a bit of a contrarian, I am working on a novel in which Newton followed up the Principia with the Praxis Artis Magnis, codifying the rules of alchemy and simple sorcery and enabling it to become a scence; there was then another revolution in the conceptual understanding of magic at the end of the nineteenth century, enabling magic-based industrialisation, travel to the Moon, and a number of other changes in society; and the protagonist is involved, between 1985 and 2069, in a third revolutionary expansion of understanding of magical possibility, and the drastic changes that are its consequences - which are going to explode across Faerie, Hell, and the Solar System.

Franzeska:

--- Quote from: neurovore on May 02, 2008, 04:05:13 PM ---I am working on a novel in which Newton followed up the Principia with the Praxis Artis Magnis, codifying the rules of alchemy and simple sorcery and enabling it to become a scence;

--- End quote ---

The Wikipedia article on alchemy lists a bunch of sources.  You could also check out feng shui books if you're looking for an ordered system.

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