Favourite System of Magic from Fantasy

ixoy

Looking over some of my fantasy books, I see that often nowadays the authors go to some lengths to create a unique system of magic for their world. While some of the big names like Feist are happy enough to describe their characters merely waving their hands about and mumbling enchantments, many others put in more thought:

Robert Jordan, for example, goes to some pain with his, with having separate halves of the Source, dependent on gender and dividing up the female practitioners amongst different Aes Sedai factions. When it comes to casting a spell, they must draw upon a source and seem to perform a sort of "knitting" as they weave a spell.

Or there's Janny Wurt's "Wars of Light and Shadows" series where the few magicians there, draw their power from ley lines and focus points, and a huge amount of detail surrounding it regarding frequencies and harmonies, forming a strong link to wave formation with the reader.

Then there's something like R. Scott Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series, where magic is instead realised often through deep meditative training to allow pure logical constructs in the mind. Again, a fairly unique take on how to create magic.

My favourite however has to be Steven Erikson's incredibly complex Warrens of magic in his Malazan series. A fantastic amount of detail has gone into these and their inter-relationships (not to mention still getting time to develop other forms of magic, such as spirit-based). The concept of having characters enter these realms as well and form it as one of the most important points in the story makes it unique to my mind and the best of the bunch out there.

What about anyone else - do you like author's attempts to create differing systems of magic? Do you have a preference for one or would you rather they just go back to characters wiggling their hands and muttering incantations?

eVeNtInE

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There was the old D&D system of magic - you had to be a mage of a certain level to cast certain spells, which increased in power as the mage did.

Furthermore, once a spell was cast it is erased from the memory of the mage (reason for this was to limit the power of mages in the actual game, but in D&D literature they explained it so that the gods had made this so that mages could never equal their power).

They also needed cantrips (basic ingredinets) to cast different spells.

Playboy

I loved R. Scott Bakkers interpretation of Magic and the whole politic that surrounded it e.g that it was blasphemous to be a magician

Dirty Dave

The Godslayer books have an interesting take on it.

In this series, Gods walk amongst the rest of us and all magic comes from the Humours of the Gods. In other words, their bodily wastes - blood, sweat, tears.... and the rest!

Each humour has different magical properties.

David Gemmell had an interesting one in his novel "Knights of Dark Renown".

Now Gemmell was never heavy into magic per se, most of the "magic" in his novels involved either the use of ancient technology (looked at as magic by those who used it), or a form of spirituality using the "Source" (a recurring theme in his books).

Anyway, I digress.
In the "Knights" novel, the system of magic was based on colours. Each colour corresponded to a purpose - e.g. Green represented "Earth" magic, and red "War", etc. Each magic user used his spirit to "fly" in a colour, and were stronger using one colour than others.

However, there was one colour (Gold), that was hidden by the "Yellow" colour. Only once every few hundred years was someone born that could recognise and use this, the most powerful, of colours. That person was known as the Dagda (lots of names in the book draw on Celtic mythology), and he would pass on his knowledge to the next when that person was born.

trout

I like how magic is treated in Barbara Hambly's Darwath books.

The conflict between magicians and the religious leaders provides for great drama in the backdrop. In the foreground, the mechanics of learning magic, the repetition and nomenclature is too much for some students, being dull & somewhat tedious at first.

There is a memorable and powerful transformation that Rudy goes through in the second book, when he is in fear of his life, and relying on innate magic skills for the first time. This brings to a focus the brusque lessons and tedious, monotonous learning that Rudy endured at the hands of Ingold Inglorion over many months, while they searched for clues about the Mages of the Realm.

The fate of the other Mages that Rudy & Ingold uncover, the concept and explanation of shape-changing and 'native' magic skills are fascinating, as is the complete lack of understanding the Keepdwellers have of the magic that built and powered the Keep thousands of years after it was created ... and how this magic is essentially a lost technlogy ... like Arthur C Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Actually - Ingold himself is a most fascinating character, I wish Hambly had seen fit to break him out in a standalone book, like she did with the Icefalcon. The ethical aspects of using magic, and the risks of using magic are richly detailed in these books ... I'm going to have to read those books again now

Shryke

I have to say as far as magic systems go the Malazan world is seriously bad ass. The warrens and holds are complex and interesting. I liked in the earlier books how chaotic and archaic the magic in the malazan world was. In the later ones magic becomes much more defined. I think there is such a thing as too much detail and when

a warren starts to speak with someone you know a line is being crossed.

But all in all I'd agree that the Malazan world has one of the best magic systems around.

Ironbars

ixoy wrote: »

My favourite however has to be Steven Erikson's incredibly complex Warrens of magic in his Malazan series. A fantastic amount of detail has gone into these and their inter-relationships (not to mention still getting time to develop other forms of magic, such as spirit-based). The concept of having characters enter these realms as well and form it as one of the most important points in the story makes it unique to my mind and the best of the bunch out there.

I couldnt agree more

ixoy

Yeah, seems the Malazan one is quite popular! I've a feeling it might be all laid out more clearly when Erikson writes the Malazan encyclopaedia - apparently it's due after the current series ends (before he spins off into the other Malazan series). The fun is how the system is gradually being unfolded as are the rules - from stuff like

Quick Ben unfolding far more warrens than is supposed to be possible, to founding out what happened to the Imperial Warren and other warrens and how they merge into the real world.

Some other ones that I recall:

The Recluse saga - Not a particularly great series, but I did like how they had the black-robed sorcerers represent order and white represent chaos - the opposite of the normal. The logic was quite sound too since they argued white light is made up of a multitude of colours whereas dark is more pure and prone to order.

eVeNtInE

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ixoy

eVeNtInE wrote: »

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Whoops! I should report myself and give myself a red card

eVeNtInE

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James-Brod

I'm another fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time magic system. Also love James Barclay's magic in the Chronicles/Legends of the Raven. The series is a hugely battle-based series, with lots of combat, leading to magic being very combat based. Its fairly straight forward in that mages know how many spells and of what type they are capable of casting and it decreases as they are used, until they must regenerate. They draw on their mana, and mold it into a specific shape in their mind, which relates to different spells. Many spells can be made incredibly powerful by having multiple mages casting together, and some magic is "dimensional" using other dimensions in various ways. And there is generally a large reliance on mana/spells in the story.

Penis Eye

i think robert jordans is the best by far and although its great in a book i think if they decided to make a film of any of the books (the first 3 could be a film on their own) the saidar/saidin would be very difficult to portray!!! however sayin that i thought raymond e fiest's systems in the riftwar and serpentwar series with pug and macros are also excellent. i liked the way certain individuals where only capable of using one path of magic but each path had different pros and cons!!!

i disliked the system in the farseer trilogy and the ones by jv jones (bakers apprentice or whatever its called). felt like they didnt explain many aspects of it (the metallic tastes e.t.c)

also liked the magic system in the dragon lance series with raistlin forgetting spells after casting them!

well thats my 3 cents worth of information.

eagleye7

terry Goodkind had a nice system i felt two simple types of magic really the positive and negative aspects. for example one type can only add things or change them eg. grow himself a beard but not get rid off it

the other type could use "subtractive" magic to get rid of things and use necromancy magic i liked the fact that the magic wasnt based on spells as such but the elemental control of the user,

ie. the magician doesnt create a force field they compact the air into a solid wal in front of them. to create a firebell they use their talent to ignite the gas molecules not just recite a spell and it appears from nowhere.

Ps. with Regards Feists system i like how in the more recent books the magic has begun to change into a single path that can be bent to the users will only depending on their particular talent i think it shows well the entire evolution of the Feists world and how the characters comprehend magic

DanSolo

Deleted User wrote: »

There was the old D&D system of magic - you had to be a mage of a certain level to cast certain spells, which increased in power as the mage did.

Furthermore, once a spell was cast it is erased from the memory of the mage (reason for this was to limit the power of mages in the actual game, but in D&D literature they explained it so that the gods had made this so that mages could never equal their power).

Penis Eye wrote: »

also liked the magic system in the dragon lance series with raistlin forgetting spells after casting them!

The D+D magic system, i.e. study, cast, forget is pretty much stolen (too strong?:p) from Jack Vance, in particular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazirian_the_Magician

Earthhorse

Magic systems wouldn't be something that appeal to me one way or another. Too much explanation and it's no longer magic, though if something is woven carefully into the plot and world, as it seems to be in the Malazan series then that can add a lot to a book.

Personally, I'd be happy enough with Edding's "they just will it" explanation in the Belgariad series. It takes away a lot of the fluff.

The Dragonlance system of memorisation, incantation and so forth, has sort of lost its appeal as I've grown older, though Raistlin is no doubt a fascinating character (or to my teenage self he was anyway).

But the most impressive use of magic (maybe not so much a magic system as it's hard to call something so simple a system) was in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. Other than saying that the magic is used subtley and to great effect I won't say any more.

eVeNtInE

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Nebride

I have to say that I'm a fan of Trudi Canavan's magic system - her portrayal of it kinda reminds me of a tank of petrol - you have to keep topping it up and you can run out of it! I recently finished the magician's apprentice and I liked her detailed descriptions of how magic could be used to heal.

Also liking the system of bells used in necromancy in Garth Nix's Lireal.

I have to agree though that Jordan's system definitely deserves special mention for the amout of thought he put into it.

KarlNedCarew

I thought Brent Weeks (among others) idea of solar powered magic in the night angel trilogy was pretty cool.

But Jordans concept of the True source

and the One source (can't remember exact title) the Forsaken draw on

is by far the best I've seen just because of all the detail he has gone into