Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

August 2009

"The Mystery of Magic: Part I, Arm of the Law"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In April, I posted a far ranging blog entry http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/wired-magazine-for-romance.html about the May 2009 issue of Wired which was Guest Edited by J. J. Abrams, the producer of the STAR TREK IMAX release in May. Abrams theme for that issue was the Magic of Mystery and one article was based on Games Theory and the Tree of Life with emphasis on detectives and mystery.

Meanwhile, I’ve read a number of novels discussing the Mystery of Magic from various angles, so let’s take a close look at that conversation. Novels can reveal the cocktail party conversation where the Guests are whole cultures or civilizations. What’s being said in fiction in all media defines where we are now, and shows us our options for the future.

The process of doing Science is the process of solving the mystery of the universe. That’s one reason Science Fiction is a near cousin of the Mystery genre. Another reason is that, as I’ve pointed out in this column before, Science is a branch of Magic, not a competing philosophy.

Last month in this column (now posted on lightworks.com and simegen.com ) I alerted you to an alternate history fantasy series starting with Death of a Musketeer by Sarah D’Almeida, and now I’ve read the following 3 novels in that series. I absolutely must recommend the series to fans of Historicals, Mysteries, and oddly enough, of Sherlock Holmes!

As the Abrams issue of Wired points out, Holmes fans have been writing fanfic since before SF fen took up the banner. Originally, SF fanzines were all non-fiction and what fiction was published was very bad. Star Trek fans changed all that. But the Baker Street Irregulars would love D’Almeida’s series: The Musketeer’s Apprentice, The Musketeer’s Seamstress, A Death In Gascony. The writing has the flavor of the historical style without being difficult to read and all D’Almeida’s Musketeer novels are fantasy alternate history published as Berkley Prime Crime Mystery.

That’s right, D’Almeida managed to sell a straight mystery publisher a series of fantasies that were published in 2007-8. That was not only an inflection point year in the economy, the stock market, and perhaps world history, but also in fiction publishing. This series might have something to do with it – as cause or effect, or simply reflection.

D’Almeida transforms the Musketeers into detectives, but they were already loyal enforcers of the Crown’s Law. She does not lose the impact of their skill with swords, the politics of the era, and their distinct personalities. These novels are the sort you look forward to picking up again.

In this interval, I was invited to join the Amazon Vine program where publishers distribute review copies to Amazon Reviewers who have scored high with their posted reviews. It’s invitation only, but if you’re a voracious reader, it could be worth your while to post some well crafted reviews on Amazon and get a chance at free books, and even other products you’ve reviewed.

Recently, a legal debate has arisen about Reviewers who blog getting free products and blogging favorably about those products without disclosing that they got the item free. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2009/04/03/152652.php

So I’m warning you that most of what I review here came to me via one or another freebie program for reviewers. I do not review everything sent me, and I don’t review anything I can’t honestly recommend to you.

So I have here two Mysteries I got from the Amazon Vine program, plus one I actually paid for (the Kellerman). The mystery you might ponder is why an SF/F Review column focused on the training of a Magician is talking about Mysteries this month?

First lets consider Faye Kellerman’s The Mercedes Coffin. It’s a Decker and Lazarus Novel, but Rina doesn’t help solve the mystery this time. I suspect Mystery fan responses have influenced the course of this series, but it’s still outstanding because of the underlying, internal and often invisible thrum of sterling values in the main character.

Most detective novels, or police procedurals, feature a detective who has a consistent code of values that informs the character’s use of Power. But the Decker/Lazarus novels actually feature the value system.

The Mercedes Coffin has Decker promoted to a desk job but taking the field again because a rich woman wants a cold case opened. A new murder bears a striking resemblance to the cold case, and Decker has to dig up a connection to win a huge endowment for the department. At this point, his daughter is also climbing the ranks in the LAPD, and he has to move with consideration for her career.

Decker’s reputation has garnered him a considerable amount of sheer, raw power in the Department. The woman who offers the endowment has likewise climbed the ranks of her profession and exercises a lot of power, using money to get the police to dance to her tune for a good cause. Decker moves out into the field as a representative of a Power Structure backed by the whole of society – the rule of Law.

The Mercedes Coffin explores our current difficulty in affording the amount of Policing our clashing cultures require to maintain the rule of law. It raises some highly unpalatable questions we all need to ponder about power.

Flipping Out by Marshall Karp (copyrighted by Mesa Films Inc. and written like a High Concept feature film) likewise focuses on the Police. In this case a social group of policemen and their wives. The women have started a lucrative business partnership with a famous mystery writer. They buy a fixer upper house and fix it up while the mystery writer uses the house as the setting for one of her books. When the book comes out, they "flip" the house, selling it at auction for a bundle because it’s famous. Then there’s a real murder in the house they’re about to auction.

This is a High Concept novel, one in the Lomax and Biggs series. It’s a breezy read, obviously a film, that delivers just what a mystery fan wants, but it’s really about the power of society exercised through Police and the purely human motives of those men and women.

The Increment by David Ignatius raises the focus from local to International Intrigue, examining the plight of professional spies since the creation of Homeland Security. A scientist in Iran decides to help us stop the Iranian nuclear research program. A real professional spy near retirement, having seen it all, having close professional ties with British and other Agencies, gets the message and acts.

Several characters in The Increment have to make value judgments on themselves and others and use their power to act to change the world you and I live in without asking our permission. Film rights already sold to Disney.

Temporal Power (police, interpol, politics, money) and Magical Power are really the same thing. SF and Fantasy usually focus on the ultimate moment when one individual must decide the future of society, and with these three Mystery novels, you see that motif in a new light.

Any Magical Act must be targeted and fueled by Intention. Intention is shaped by subconscious motive which comes from our internalized View of the Universe.

A small error in our View of the Universe produces huge errors in results of our actions, magical and otherwise. Our View of the Universe comes from our solution to the puzzles Science investigates. The root value being examined today in novels across a range of genres is the place of the individual in society, and of society in the individual.

One for All; and All for One. What binds us? What restricts us? What empowers us to act for all humanity?

Who would question the "right" of a group to gather in Circle and invoke for World Healing or World Peace? How many Magicians does it take to make a quorum of Humanity?

One primary responsibility laid out plainly in the Bible, but practiced long before that, is the Rule of Law Not Men. It took millennia and many murdered tyrants to achieve our semblance of that ideal. Even today, "graft and corruption" generally means individuals trying to make a buck by circumventing the rule of Law or (organized crime; drug cartels) imposing their own values on all of society.

SF/F is "Heroic Fiction" – a genre about "The Hero’s Journey," about the path to maturity and full command of one’s innate powers. The Hero is mythical, his journey just a fantasy that often seems incompatible with the demands of our cultures and our societies.

The will of the majority somehow thwarts the needs of the minority, or the one. Or does it? Read. Ponder.