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Rygar201 posted:The conflict is there to isolate the wizard from regular society. It's reinforced by the passages referring to how wizards used to curdle milk, grow warts, and change the colors of flame. In Dresden, sure. But not so in every book where it appears. The Fool posted:Matthew Swift is partially possessed by the spirit of the internet (I don't know if this changes in later books) Since I don't know who Matthew Swift is, this doesn't help me much. ConfusedUs posted:My issue with the "tech doesn't work" side of this is, well, what counts as technology? What aspects of it break down? Exactly! As a professional computer scientist, I'm bugged to high hell when people are all "electronics don't work around sorcery! hurr-hurr," because you're right. The things that make this stuff work are fundamental forces of the universe. It's hard to read this stuff when you're an educated person and get the same level of appreciation. ConfusedUs posted:One of the reasons I am so enamored with the Libriomancer series is that it doesn't shy away from this. There was Yet Another Great Magical Conspiracy to keep the muggles out of mage business. But you know what? That poo poo falls apart under the pressure of today's society. The internet, social media, etc...it's impossible to keep something of that scale secret. And so it doesn't. The end of the last book is amazing. This makes me want to go back to the Libriomancer series. Book 1 was OK, but I apparently wasn't interested enough to follow up on it.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:10
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My comments were generic, to the genre as a whole, and not specific to whatever book you're referencing. Most books come up with hand-wavy explanations for it. Some of them even make sense in the context of the novel. I find that level of effort weird. Why take the lazy road and then work hard to justify it? In the flip side, most works excuse the lack of technology with just the magical equivalent of technobabble. Lazy++, that.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:11
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Blasphemeral posted:Since I don't know who Matthew Swift is, this doesn't help me much. https://www.goodreads.com/series/46662-matthew-swift quote:Exactly! As a professional computer scientist, I'm bugged to high hell when people are all "electronics don't work around sorcery! hurr-hurr," because you're right. The things that make this stuff work are fundamental forces of the universe. It's hard to read this stuff when you're an educated person and get the same level of appreciation. In Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, the source of magical power is any sufficiently complex electrical system, which leads to things obvious things like cell phones and computers failing while magic is used around them. But also leads to magic users dying from their brain melting for over exerting, and vampires draining energy from computers, and other stuff like that. And unlike Dresden, stuff doesn't just die from the main character being around, he's able to use computers and cell phones with no problems as long as he doesn't perform magic around them. He's even installed a kill switch on his phone so he doesn't fry it. The Fool fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 20:32
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Like any other cliche I think the magic vs. technology thing works fine provided you do enough work on the back end to earn it. Dresden and Rivers of London are two good examples, where the author has done just enough fill-in to help you suspend disbelief without trying to get too technical and having it all collapse under its own weight.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:16
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Technology is science, and magic by definition is not. It's what science can explain. If it was physicists at CERN that found particles with which they could throw fire balls and summon toads, it just wouldn't be the same as old men wearing pointy hats doing it. Magic is what cannot be explained by science and therefore I don't think it's lazy to use them as opposites.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:17
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BabyFur Denny posted:Magic is what cannot be explained by science and therefore I don't think it's lazy to use them as opposites. But a lot of books that use magic still have magic explainable by science, it just either has the ability to violate certain rules or just that science doesn't understand specific things yet.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:22
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Blasphemeral posted:Since I don't know who Matthew Swift is, this doesn't help me much. The Matthew Swift books are really weird, interesting books, where magic is much more abstract and artistic than anything I've read in any other UF. It draws power from the concept of a city, its patterns and rules and superstitions and history and so on. Most of the supernatural creatures are concepts or beliefs that gained life. It's real trippy at times. And yeah it doesn't give a poo poo about technology because technology is an irreplacable essential part of London, and in fact works through technology in many cases. The magic of other places, like the rural countryside, while it won't like flat out short circuit technology, it won't work well with it or might not work at all, though.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:46
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Wolpertinger posted:The Matthew Swift books are really weird, interesting books, where magic is much more abstract and artistic than anything I've read in any other UF. It draws power from the concept of a city, its patterns and rules and superstitions and history and so on. Most of the supernatural creatures are concepts or beliefs that gained life. It's real trippy at times. And yeah it doesn't give a poo poo about technology because technology is an irreplacable essential part of London, and in fact works through technology in many cases. The magic of other places, like the rural countryside, while it won't like flat out short circuit technology, it won't work well with it or might not work at all, though. I've only read the first book, so these concepts might be dropped or expanded on in later books. Regarding style: the book talks about how different types of practitioners accessing their power in different ways, e.g. Wizards using symbols and formulas, and the sorcerers being the most powerful in their domain, but the most unreliable. Regarding location: Matthew talks about being able to sense the power represented by nature, but not being able/knowing how to harness it.
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Aug 11, 2015 22:04
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I'm reminded of J. K. Rowling's response to a question about why nobody just got a pistol and shot Voldemort - "Because that wouldn't be a very interesting story" or something to that broad effect. 
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Aug 11, 2015 23:02
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The Fool posted:Matthew Swift is partially possessed by the spirit of the internet (I don't know if this changes in later books) This is one reason I like those books so much. Modern wizards interacting in the world, not separate from it. Really nicely done as urban warlocks and shamans.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:08
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Wheat Loaf posted:I'm reminded of J. K. Rowling's response to a question about why nobody just got a pistol and shot Voldemort - "Because that wouldn't be a very interesting story" or something to that broad effect. It fits the theme of that story though, since wizards are (at best) amazed by mundane technology, so they probably wouldn't think about it. Harry doing that would be pretty funny though, as it would show Voldemort dying due to an invention created by "fundamental inferiors".
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Aug 12, 2015 00:46
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"Hermione? YOU killed Voldemort? How?!" Hermione took a slow drag from her cigarette. "It's called a sniper rifle, Ron. Who's an idiot for taking Muggle Studies now?"
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Aug 12, 2015 00:48
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Harry Potter as written by Raymond Chandler.
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Aug 12, 2015 02:39
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HisMajestyBOB posted:Harry Potter as written by Raymond Chandler. I wouldn't mind seeing something like this. A legit pulp noir story is something that seems like a perfect fit for Urban Fantasy, and so far as I know it hasn't really been done properly. Storm Front kiiiinda went down that road, but even before that novel was finished Butcher had veered away from the aesthetic and never really looked back.
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Aug 12, 2015 03:10
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Sandman Slim is noir as gently caress bro
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Aug 12, 2015 03:17
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Eric Carter is pretty noir too.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:04
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ImpAtom posted:But a lot of books that use magic still have magic explainable by science, it just either has the ability to violate certain rules or just that science doesn't understand specific things yet. Combining magic and technology inevitably leads to authors jerking themselves off by having their characters transform magic into systematized and quantified technology so that nerds like them can become wizards too. The interest in magic is that it is unknown and new and special. In order to combine it with technology, the world has to understand magic and then its just boring science. And you know what? As someone with a physics degree, rationalizing "magic breaks modern technology!!!" is still pretty easy! You just make up a reason! Like, I could say that magic modifies the bandgaps of nearby semiconductors. "bbbut that's incompatible with known physics!!!" says the loving sperg. You know what else is incompatible with physics? Magic, motherfucker. Clearly, stories where magic exists take place in a world with sufficiently different physics to justify making magic breaking computers and being dope as gently caress. gently caress nerds forever edit: also, libriomancer is dumb as poo poo and belongs in the trash
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Aug 12, 2015 05:04
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Slanderer posted:gently caress nerds forever What's that Grant Morrison quote about adults failing at fiction because they can't stop asking questions? I'm all for having an internally consistent set of rules for your world, but yeah, screw nerds and their fetishistic obsession with details.
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Aug 12, 2015 05:09
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Slanderer posted:Combining magic and technology inevitably leads to authors jerking themselves off by having their characters transform magic into systematized and quantified technology so that nerds like them can become wizards too. The interest in magic is that it is unknown and new and special. In order to combine it with technology, the world has to understand magic and then its just boring science. Clarke's 3rd law is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In a similar vein, I think that any sufficiently explained magic is just technology.
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Aug 12, 2015 05:27
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Slanderer posted:Combining magic and technology inevitably leads to authors jerking themselves off by having their characters transform magic into systematized and quantified technology so that nerds like them can become wizards too. The interest in magic is that it is unknown and new and special. In order to combine it with technology, the world has to understand magic and then its just boring science. I dunno about magic + technology inevitably leading to that. I mean, sure, there's a lot of trashy fantasy novels where a self-insert super genius engineering major is teleported to a magical world and totally becomes the best wizard ever but I'm pretty sure those would be trashy books no matter what the author wrote about. At the same time, magic is, pretty much like you said, just a universe with different rules, so plenty of fantasy and/or sci-fi universes can be internally consistent and still have magical things that people use in place of/with technology to do things normal technology could never do, because hey, fantasy/science fiction. Khizan posted:Clarke's 3rd law is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In a similar vein, I think that any sufficiently explained magic is just technology. I dunno about that, you could explain all the nitty gritty details about why wiggling your fingers and saying the magic words creates a fireball, but I wouldn't call it 'just' technology even if you had a robot that could wiggle his fingers and say the magic words and make a fireball. Unless his fingers had flamethrowers in them. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 05:47
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HisMajestyBOB posted:Harry Potter as written by Raymond Chandler.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:25
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Slanderer posted:Combining magic and technology inevitably leads to authors jerking themselves off by having their characters transform magic into systematized and quantified technology so that nerds like them can become wizards too. The interest in magic is that it is unknown and new and special. In order to combine it with technology, the world has to understand magic and then its just boring science. I'm sorry, all I'm reading here is "magic is supposed to be super-special and it upsets me when people don't treat it like that" which is way more 'gently caress nerds forever' than people trying to form coherent settings. Especially because no, the reason that magic and technology are incompatible is so an author can go "Why didn't (X) just use a cell phone?! Because it broke because of magic!" There are like four books I can think of that actually serious take on the idea of magic being undefinable and unknowable and most of them are not actually set in modern times. If you want an example of a book that actually addresses magic as a strange bizarre thing where attempts to quantify and understand it are fundamentally flawed, look at something like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:28
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Sanderson does "magic as tech/science" and it works decently. The real issue is that a lot of magic renders technology kind of redundant. Like, if you have the Floo Network in Harry Potter, do you really need a (landline) telephone? No, not really.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:50
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computer parts posted:The real issue is that a lot of magic renders technology kind of redundant. Like, if you have the Floo Network in Harry Potter, do you really need a (landline) telephone? No, not really. I thought part of the joke with Potter is that while they had tons of amazing magic but their basic infrastructure was kinda crappier than Muggle versions while they went 'tut tut how do muggles deal with this?" Like their primary method of communication is letters by owl post and they don't understand the concept of a telephone, or they're arguing about the idea of brooms or flying carpets as transport while everyone uses cars that, at best, they enchant to modify.
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Aug 12, 2015 17:08
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ConfusedUs posted:Sandman Slim is noir as gently caress bro Any idea if the new one is worth picking up?
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Aug 12, 2015 18:20
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OptimusWang posted:Any idea if the new one is worth picking up? Dunno. I stopped after the third one, which was pretty bad. I hear it picks back up tho.
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Aug 12, 2015 18:41
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Sandman Slim never really picked back up. Lot of cool ideas but it'd be nice if the protagonist was swapped out for one of the other characters. Kind of like Iron Druid and how much Atticus sucks.
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Aug 12, 2015 19:40
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Khizan posted:Clarke's 3rd law is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In a similar vein, I think that any sufficiently explained magic is just technology. Congratulations, you've just re-invented Niven's Law. Does his Magic Goes Away stuff count as "Urban Fantasy"? It's pretty much all set in cities at least.
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Aug 12, 2015 20:49
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As far as magic systems / ruminations on how magic works within the context of the narrative go, while I don't tend to mind Brandon Sanderson's ultra-intricate formulations, I am usually content if magic is basically just the Force, you know? Anyway, I'm just finishing Half-Resurrection Blues (yeah, I know, it's taken me ages  ), and while it was slow to start, I think it picked up strength as it went along. I ended up enjoying it (not as much as Dresden or RoL) and I will certainly look forward to reading the next one in the series when it's out.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:02
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ConfusedUs posted:Dunno. I stopped after the third one, which was pretty bad. Agreed. Amazon had the Kindle versions for $2 each a few weeks back so I got caught up, but I haven't read the latest one. Hoping it's more like the first two and less like the time he was the devil.
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Aug 12, 2015 22:29
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ConfusedUs posted:Dunno. I stopped after the third one, which was pretty bad. It does, by a significant degree.
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Aug 12, 2015 23:34
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ImpAtom posted:I thought part of the joke with Potter is that while they had tons of amazing magic but their basic infrastructure was kinda crappier than Muggle versions while they went 'tut tut how do muggles deal with this?" Like their primary method of communication is letters by owl post and they don't understand the concept of a telephone, or they're arguing about the idea of brooms or flying carpets as transport while everyone uses cars that, at best, they enchant to modify. That is the point for that series, that Wizards are just a bunch of old stuffy aristocrats even there are "good ones". Another example might be the Avatar universe - you don't need to invent a blowtorch if you have a guy who can shoot fire, or ditto with construction equipment when you have earth benders.
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Aug 12, 2015 23:35
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I personally preferred the human powered power plants.
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Aug 13, 2015 03:56
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Wheat Loaf posted:As far as magic systems / ruminations on how magic works within the context of the narrative go, while I don't tend to mind Brandon Sanderson's ultra-intricate formulations, I am usually content if magic is basically just the Force, you know? I'll give it a try then, I had it on my backlog but had been waffling over reading it since I saw your bored sounding reviews.
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Aug 13, 2015 04:08
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Wolpertinger posted:I dunno about that, you could explain all the nitty gritty details about why wiggling your fingers and saying the magic words creates a fireball, but I wouldn't call it 'just' technology even if you had a robot that could wiggle his fingers and say the magic words and make a fireball. Unless his fingers had flamethrowers in them. I know you're just making a point, but I kind of want to see some fiction with a robot wizard now. Not a warforged or magitech thing, not 'sufficiently advanced technology', straight up R Daneel Olivaw casting ray of frost.
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Aug 13, 2015 04:19
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computer parts posted:That is the point for that series, that Wizards are just a bunch of old stuffy aristocrats even there are "good ones". Robert Heinlein wrote a couple of fantasy books (well, a novel and a novella). Magic, incorporated, the novella, is basically a normal, modern (50's) world, but magic instead of industry. Dated, but a decent approach to the concept. Glory Road, the novel, is best kept for people like me, who read all his stuff without judging.
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Aug 13, 2015 04:27
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torgeaux posted:Robert Heinlein wrote a couple of fantasy books (well, a novel and a novella). Magic, incorporated, the novella, is basically a normal, modern (50's) world, but magic instead of industry. Dated, but a decent approach to the concept. Glory Road, the novel, is best kept for people like me, who read all his stuff without judging. There's also the Craft Sequence books where a practically futuristic society runs almost entirely off of corporate lawyer magic that uses soulstuff as fuel (which incidentally makes souls a major currency), and almost any and all technology is built off of it.
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Aug 13, 2015 07:49
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The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump is pretty good. As is the Lord Darcy series, ofc.
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Aug 13, 2015 08:16
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Wolpertinger posted:I'll give it a try then, I had it on my backlog but had been waffling over reading it since I saw your bored sounding reviews. It took me a while to get into it, and I wasn't enthusiastic at first, but I was enjoying it a lot by the time I got to the end. Not perfect, but I think it's a decent first entry in a series. That being said, I've a bit of a habit of getting drawn into things. I may not be entirely reliable.
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Aug 13, 2015 09:07
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Didn't dresden explain the magic / tech problem away as a placebo thing where Dresden causes the tech to fail because he thinks that's what should happen, not because it necessarily has to? I remember reading something like that in one of the books. Also that there were other wizards who had no problems with tech (although most did). If that's the explanation then you don't need any "natural" explanation of what exactly fails in the tech or what tech is affected, since it's all in the mind of the wizard. The whole thing about old cars being fine but new ones frying when he tries to use them comes to mind, i think it was in one of those expositions i read it. I may also have made all this up. I just read Echopraxia so i have minds on my mind.
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Aug 13, 2015 11:41
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