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Writer's pictureReed

Science for the Magician

For someone that believes in science, I do read and write an awful lot of fantasy and science fiction, though a great deal of what I enjoy in those genres does have a tinge of "believable magic," as I like to think of it.


As Wikipedia puts it, hard science fiction is "a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic." The genre includes some well-known books like Ringworld, The Andromeda Strain (and Jurassic Park, actually), Contact, The Martian, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (later known as Blade Runner), and Interstellar, just to skim the surface.


There's a companion genre for fantasy, though I read far less of that. However, I do consider Discworld to be of a similar logical bent, but with every trope either riddled with hung lanterns or entirely subverted.


I enjoy weirdness in my stories. Logical magic that follows rules, magic that follows no rules - especially when the author makes a point to make it as chaotic as possible to the point where you can almost hear them write the words "fuck it, have fun," that's fine. I enjoy stories that are based on mythology and religion, like American Gods (which has the best near-soliloquy in all of literature) and indeed like Discworld, both of which use the idea that the gods exist purely because they are believed in by someone.


I write stories that have elements of this. One of the novels I have going is more or less based on the idea that the protagonist is a beacon for the gods and spirits of multiple belief systems (e.g., yokai, native American deities, modern adaptations of Norse gods, etc) and helps them. I have one story where the protagonist ends up immortal by accident and hates it. All of these require research, not only because a good fiction writer does do research but because I'm the sort of person that likes to be accurate to what I'm writing about, or at least be inaccurate on purpose, and because I try to incorporate science and logic wherever I can because my literary heroes generally did as well.


Writers often do their best writing when they write what they know. In this sort of genre, that's sort of difficult to do when you're writing about a sort of Dyson sphere, since those are pure hypotheticals, but the theory is real. That applies to the more esoteric things like religion and mythology, as well; Robert Heinlein was rather famously grumpy about it when he was asked if his personal beliefs were reflected in his works. Given that he staged several of his works in rather outlandish science fiction universes that included some interestingly free-love woo-woo mythologies, I can't particularly blame him. I'm somewhat worried that, at some point, someone will ask me the same sort of thing - do I believe in all of this magic and mythology that I write? While I don't think that I would be nearly as annoyed as Heinlein was, I don't have any particular beliefs, but I am also not arrogant enough to believe that I know everything. I write escapism.


Blood for the blood god. Logic for the gods, science for the magician, magic for the scientist.

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