So Where Did the Magic Go? -- Mystical yes, Magical yes, but not Mysterious!
Written: Jun 20 '02 (Updated Jun 20 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: successfully allegorical
Cons: hackneyed, slim, and rather dated
The Bottom Line: A hard scifi writer tries his hand at fantasy, and does a so-so job.
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| scmrak's Full Review: The Magic Goes Away |
You either like fantasy or you don't. No, wait - I take that back: you either like good fantasy or you don't. And there is plenty of good fantasy out there. Take for instance the entire generation who discovered the wonders of hobbits and wizards and rings of power thirty, even forty years before Frodo and Gandalf were given cinematic flesh (for the record, the purchase date scrawled inside the front cover of my copy of The Hobbit is 1964).
Over the decades, though, I've come to dislike much of fantasy writing, perhaps because more of it than I would like seems derivative; all following the same outline. Each new trilogy or tetralogy elicits only slight variation on the themes of "quest," "fellowship," and "talisman of vast power." Certainly some authors have risen above the masses: I was quite taken with David Eddings' Belgariad, for instance. But a distressing portion of new fantasy seems but a rerun of tired old plotlines with different mythic settings and stranger names.
The reason why some people prefer hard science fiction to fantasy is that the former incorporates an internal consistency; a science, if you will. Whatever happens obeys the laws of the physical universe, either as we know them or by extrapolation. Not so with fantasy, for there is no physical reality in which speaking an arcane phrase or creating a mystical sign can heal the sick or give fish the power of speech. No matter how much one might wish it, such powers are illusory.
But what if there were a logic to the use of magic?
An Ecology of Power
Trust a "hard scifi" author such as Larry Niven (Ringworld and The Mote in God's Eye) to cross over and fashion a reality in which magic not only works, its function can be quantified. Niven's reality lies in our distant past - ten or twelve thousand years ago - and its geography is familiar: Europe, Africa, Australia and the Americas all lie in their proper places (no need for some crude, inconsistent map pasted inside the covers).
Earth of this era is awash in an energy source men call mana, the source of magic. Wizards, witches, warlocks and shaman are but adepts who can harness this energy source at will. Once long ago, there were even gods, beings of mythic proportion who consumed mana at a ferocious rate; but the gods are all gone. Now there are regions where even the most powerful human sorcerers cannot work even a simple youth spell, for all the local mana has been used up.
It's been used to keep mythical beasts alive: unicorns, centaurs, rocs, all must metabolize mana to live. It's been used to keep fanciful castles floating in mid air. A vast amount of mana has been used to keep a fabled city afloat off the coast of Greece; a city named Atlantis. But as the supply of mana has dwindled, the mythic beasts have perished and the castles have fallen. As for Atlantis, well...
The Unavoidable Quest
What would a fantasy be without a mythic quest? Thus, once upon a time, a fellowship of four - make that four-plus - set out to seek a means of replenishing Earth's supply of mana. Their plan is perhaps the quintessence of "pie-in-the-sky": they hope to lower the Moon to Earth. The means to this end? They must awaken the one remaining god, Roze-Kattee, god of love and madness. Warlock and Clubfoot (wizards) are joined by Mirandee (a witch) and Orolandes (a mundane), not to mention the still-living skull of the immortal necromancer Wavyhill, on their journey to Valhalla. That the party travels on a cloud doesn't seem remarkable. That the lissome Mirandee is actually almost eighty years old seems just fine, especially since the count of white threads in her raven tresses serves as an accurate gauge of the local mana supply.
The journey north is uneventful - oh, sure, there's a little telepathic/physical hanky-panky between witch and mundane swordsman, an occasional attack by a magical beast, and a bit of conversation with an eighteen-foot giant. Then, too, there is philosophical discussion: "Where should we put the moon when we get it down?" and such questions. But the real action doesn't start until they find the sleeping god, and then all hell breaks loose. Really.
An Uncharacteristic Statement
Consider for a moment the times in which Niven wrote The Magic Goes Away: OPEC's oil embargo was halfway through its ten-year run, and the finite nature of our most important energy source - hydrocarbons - was never more evident. Into this milieu, Larry Niven interjected an allegory for the depletion of resources squandered on frivolity: Youth spells? petroleum forms the basic feedstocks for most cosmetics. Flying castles? as I write this, I'm in an MD-80, 30000 feet over Illinois. Wars? it goes without saying.
Just as depletion of mana represents the end of a way of life for Niven's characters, the projected depletion of oil reserves (at the time, predicted for about 2030) represented a true threat to "the American way of life." And, like the gods and wizards who squandered mana, so did modern society use up its hydrocarbons at a furious pace (for those of you not aware of it, the USA has imported more than half its annual oil consumption every year since 1970).
The Magic Goes Away is not only a cautionary tale advising conservation to husband dwindling resources, it also touched on the preservation of species. Entire populations of semi-magical beasts become extinct as the substance they must have to exist disappears: talk about your loss of critical habitat! It's odd, though, to see such musings from Niven's pen. What makes his statements uncharacteristic is the harshly anti-environmental stances of his friend and frequent co-author, Jerry Pournelle. One must wonder if the two of them ever discussed the fervence of Niven's allegorical tale.
The Physical Representation
The 1979 edition of Niven's novella is a profusely illustrated trade paperback. Black and white line drawings - some covering two pages - abound. Stylistically, they're typical fantasy fare: muscular swordsmen, statuesque women in leather bikinis, and demonic shapes in windblown clouds. All the drawings are by Esteban Maroto except the full-color cover, which was drawn by Boris (Vallejo), a quintessential fantasy artist of the period. That Boris' vision of Mirandee bears more than passing resemblance to the silhouettes seen on the mudflaps of Peterbilts is, well, par for the course. His depiction of Orolandes, too, might be the model from which Fabio was cast...
Overall
The Magic Goes Away is a prime example of the relatively rare literary genre logical fantasy, albeit a quite short and somewhat lifeless tale. Niven contrived to create in his work an allegory for the times, which originally lent the tale an air of urgency. Now, almost twenty-five years after its publication, the urgency - like the mana that fueled the magic - has gone away. Perhaps we, unlike those gods of yore, had best start paying more attention.
This review is part of the Mysterious, Magical, Mythical Write-off, hosted by katm and fionablackwolf . Links to works by the other participants, which include:
amyk49 | arathi | ariel10575 | arielssong | badkittyM | dedemw | fionablackwolf | freelancer1 | fyvel | goldmoon | KatM | kurt_messick | LEDOMAINE | littlelotte | marytara | mattygroves | mnehr | mridula | murasaki | rianleeann | robynkoz | scmrak | schmoo321 | shadow8 | shadow_dream | skbreese | sneil_iv | snpmurray | susanwhipple | vince006 | yogore
can be found on Kat's profile page at
http://www.epinions.com/user-katm
Recommended:
Yes
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