Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

Recommended Books

February 2003

"How the Powerless Gain Power"

Astrology of Intimacy Sexuality and Relationship: Insights to Wholeness by Noel Tyl, Lllewellyn January 2002

Spell Casting to get people to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, Magical Battles, Wizards training for combat with armies and navies -- the use of Magic and various psychic powers as tools and weapons -- rivets the imagination.

Of course, if the Magician has no enemies and refuses to use Power for personal gain -- well, all the conflict is gone, and thus all the story is gone, and there's no fun in Power.

So even when I write about occult forces and power users, there's an enemy or at least an adversary or antagonist, and there's some clear-cut reason why the Magician must use the skills attained on the Initiatory Path to deal with the antagonist and resolve the conflict.

Video Games have conditioned an entire generation to view Magic in this light so that today, you can't get anything else involving power and Magic onto television no matter who you are. If you start out powerless in Hollywood, you really have no choice but to play by their rules -- or do you?

These commercial fiction rules may not be a totally wrong or bad thing. Consider, that if the only use you put your Power to is personal soul-growth and advancement on your own personal Path -- well, that's personal gain, isn't it? And unbalanced by service to your fellow mortals, that might not hold up too well to Divine scrutiny. So there's a question to be examined at the core of our primary assumptions about the Use and Abuse of Magical Power, and even about its acquisition.

"The Warrior" is one of the beginner's initiations, and we've discussed that archetype in this column previously both from the masculine and feminine angles. At this point in history, the U.S. public seems wholly focused (via video games, board games, derivative novels and TV &film ) on The Warrior. There is a pervasive feeling (possibly because those born in the 1990's are now approaching puberty) that our primary business in life is becoming The Warrior.

Today "Harry Potter" is a runaway best seller because it targets a demographic population that is larger than the babyboomer generation. Children's books aimed at 10-12 year olds - and even at teens - always focus on the acquisition of Power because that is what growing up is all about -- going from helpless infant to functioning adult is all about the acquisition of various kinds of power.

The kind of adult you become often depends on the order in which your powers are acquired, and the effect the power has on your self-image. A lot of this is set up in your natal horoscope, encoded in the Moon's Nodes, and significators of the Parental Axis.

Thus I include a children's book in this discussion, Nessie and the Viking Gold, a fantasy about two children who visit Loch Ness and meet the Monster, who is a mother protecting her young. The two children discover magical tools and learn things adults don't know. They use the power of their tools and knowledge to defend Nessie and her children, and in the process acquire a sense of efficacy and personal responsibility, solid values we all want our children to acquire.

Nessie and the Viking Gold is part of a series co-authored by my sometime co-author, Jean Lorrah. It is most easily available as an e-book. For more information, see www.simegen.com/writers/nessie/

Most of the fiction designed to provide the vicarious Initiation into The Warrior treats it as the end of the spiritual journey, the goal, rather than the first step in qualifying for the Path of Initiation.

That trend may have begun in the 1970's with the television show Kung Fu (later Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) which I've also discussed in this column.

Kung Fu introduced television audiences to the balletic beauty of Martial Arts moves, using a Lone Ranger style individual, Kwai Chang Caine, a wandering hero who defended the helpless before overwhelming force. Later, in "KF:TLContinues" we began to see how the Warrior Initiation of the Kung Fu disciplines eventually confers Mastery of levitation, telepathy, clairvoyance, mediumship, and other ESP functions. This turned a standard Western variant into an sf/f show --and developed the tv audience's tolerance for urban fantasy.

In the late 1980's, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller brought us the beginnings of the Liaden Universe novels. This series has gathered a loyal and active following that is burgeoning now. If you really dislike science fiction, you should not miss this series. It is just barely sf, and almost but not quite fantasy. It is good, solid, drama focused on character and relationship, embedded in a complex political background.

The novels are set in an interstellar civilization which does have a few alien species, but we meet only two, long lived turtle like beings, and a sentient Tree. The natives of the planet Liaden (who didn't evolve there) don't consider themselves "human" as Earth's denizens are. But the differences are not physical (they can interbreed) but entirely cultural. A few Liaden have some ESP, and a talent for Piloting which is based on a genetics for fast reflexes.

One of the ruling families of Liaden holds itself apart and is regarded as foreign by other Liadens. They harbor a huge Tree, an alien sentience from that interacts telepathically with the ostracized family and in return they protect the Tree. These books illustrate my January column.

The clan of Pilots who guard this Tree knows the other Liadens will one day turn on them to destroy them. They train their children to survive that day and save the Tree. If you have any interest in ESP and issues of Power, you want this series. There's a new volume coming out in February 2003 titled Balance of Trade. Don't miss it - Power, Economics, Piloting, Alliances - complex story telling.

Except for the lack of riveting alien points of view, these novels should appeal to fans of C. J. Cherryh's novels of interstellar politics. You don't notice the lack of aliens until after you turn the last page - the writing is precise, the plotting tight, the situations complex but lucidly explained, and you look forward each evening to your reading hour.

Lyskarion, The Song of the Wind, has structural problems. The ending wanders and is weakened by an ineptitude in the structuring of the climax. The novel is overburdened with made up language, calendar, and odd character names. These two traits make me suspect this is a first novel. This author has yet to master foreshadowing and point-of-view shifts, and would benefit greatly from a deep and thorough study of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the tv series and the book Joss Whedon, The Genius Behind Buffy.

Lyskarion seems to be the opening novel in a series about a group of young wizards who will grow up to bond with magical crystals that confer the knowledge and experience of Wizards of centuries past.

This civilization has suffered a devastating civil war where magical power ran amuck - reminiscent of the radioactive scarring on Darkover. Wizards here live for centuries whereas non-wizards live a normal human lifespan.

Wizards bonded to these ancient crystals live longest and become most powerful. Even though it's suspected that Wizards bonded to these crystals caused the war, they are advisors to rulers, and adjuncts to the military. Another war is brewing as one nation goes conquering.

So here is a civilization founded on the use of Wizardly powers, raising young people to become Wizard-Warriors. And they have a race-hatred problem - because some of their most powerful wizards are born shape-shifters. There's a hint that the shapeshifter genes are native to this planet, whereas those who call themselves "human" are Terrans who have arrived and interbred with the natives for perhaps thousands of years (again another Darkover premise.)

It is a rich and complex background, surely capable of supporting an 8 novel series or more. The children growing into power are sidling up to the essential questions of the use and abuse of Power. I expect future novels to address the ethical questions, and the magical backlash of abuse of power. J. A. Cullum is a byline to watch carefully.

If Cullum gains the skills demonstrated by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, as well as Joss Whedon, this series could easily rival Darkover in scope, breadth, depth, and longevity. Without those skills, it just won't.

Next month we'll see what all these novels have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.