Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

October 2009

"The Mystery of Magic Part III: The Magician's Apprentice"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

I must thank "ozambersand," a reader of my blog, http://editingcircle.blogspot.com  for her comments on my April 24, 2009 blog entry. She provided the clue for how these novels are connected by puzzling over novel marketing demographics and asking me to explain how publishers think. Apprentices ask the darndest questions!

As a student of fiction writing, she’s trying to solve a puzzle, just as J. J. Abrams explained in the May 2009 issue of Wired, and just as any apprentice to a Craft or to The Craft must do.

We learn not by being told, but by asking questions and researching for answers. Listening to pundits is important. Listening to those symbolized by The Hermit Tarot card is vital to our maturation. But we, as mortals, don’t mature until we do it ourselves, whatever "it" may be.

Apprenticeship is the process of having experiences under guidance. The Journeyman strikes out to have experiences without guidance but also without customer expectations being too high to be met. The Master, though, must confidently distinguish the do-able from the undo-able.

This learning and maturing process is necessary in any craft or discipline, but in White Magic it is a matter of life or death not only for the Magician but for the world.

Yet today, almost all the Fantasy being published, whether alternate universe, contemporary urban fantasy, or historical urban fantasy, focuses either on Black Magic or the overwhelming danger of the Dark forces that must be beaten back by the White Magician.

The main protagonists of many of these novels are puzzling out the rules of magic, the rules of handling power, and learning some good rules that apply to real life in general. But most of the focus is on the external enemy, the huge forces destroying our world, or the protection of the innocent.

Read these books, puzzle over what this depiction means, and see if you can discern what’s missing here. We’ll be back to this in November and December.

So let’s look first at one of my favorite series, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files which is contemporary urban fantasy. Turn Coat continues the story of Harry Dresden educating his Apprentice, the daughter of the retired sacred sword wielder, Michael. Last month, I mentioned that Butcher’s novella, The Warrior, in the collection titled Mean Streets, is about Michael’s retirement. Michael does not appear in Turn Coat, but his daughter is a key figure as she struggles to become her own woman.

Turn Coat has a different plot structure than the previous Dresden novels. Here, Harry has only one problem, one client (his worst enemy who’s mostly unconscious), and one puzzle to solve, a classic "locked room murder" of which his worst enemy is accused but innocent. This is Harry going up against the Council, the organization of White Magicians that enforces the "Laws of Magic."

The central question for Harry, who has used Black Magic to murder, and his apprentice who has used the Black to manipulate humans, is why the laws must be enforced absolutely and without any regard for justice. To solve the murder, protect his innocent client, uncover the spy in the Council’s midst, and save his own butt, it seems Harry must violate the letter of the Council’s laws (again) and possibly get him and his apprentice executed for this Good Deed.

Harry’s ethical dilemmas resonate with modern readers, but he has the strength to hold his moral position without expecting everything to come out in his favor. His apprentice is absorbing that attitude by precept and example.

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow is a contemporary urban fantasy (like the CW TV Series, Supernatural) billed as the first in a new paranormal series like Buffy. High School student Dru is the daughter of a Hunter who destroys dark things like the one that killed his wife. Ostensibly a juvenile, this novel is one very dark horror action scene after another lightly laced with a sweet love story between Dru and a teenage boy who has Talent of his own.

As a loyal apprentice, Dru has learned her father’s combat skills, and now must carry on without him. I think many adults will enjoy this series of novels. The point of view tracks nicely, and the writing is solid and readable, but the rules of this magical universe don’t seem to focus closely enough on the ethical and moral issues the action raises.

You Are So Undead To Me by Stacey Jay is about a teenager, Megan, growing into a huge magical power which will wane when she becomes a mother.

Right now, though, she has to cope with zombies rising from graves and seeking her out. Her job is to put them down permanently. But someone in her High School is using Black Magic to raise hoards of zombies to attack the school, and she has to find out who before everyone blames her for it. Her mother can advise, but not help magically.

So Megan has to learn to handle intrigue, teen relationships, embarrassing honesty, and see through duplicity mostly on her own. She has no idea how high her mentor’s expectations are for her. Again, I think adults would enjoy reading this teen novel.

Both these novels would make fine gifts for a teen, and so would Trudi Canavan’s The Magician’s Apprentice. This is set in an alternate reality where the young woman apprentice, Tessia, has a father, a Healer, who temporarily allows her to assist him, but her mother wants her to get married. She has her heart set on becoming a Healer. Medicine, surgery and heal-craft fascinate her.

When a dark Magician attempts to rape her, she draws on power she didn’t know she had, and commits a magical act which leaves the local Magician no choice but to take her as an Apprentice – no matter what she wants.

This is a stand-alone novel in an established series, The Black Magician Trilogy, but doesn’t suffer in readability for that. The series seems to be heading for a pyrotechnic war among Magicians for political reasons, very like Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels. But, unlike Deryni, the Magician’s Apprentice is getting international promotion.

For a change of pace, if not subject, try Forbidden: The Temptation by Samantha Sommersby, an e-book original. The Forbidden novel series is a contemporary fantasy Vampire universe, but this entry is about a werewolf pack and a brand new minted werewolf who has to learn what she is and why, then learn about sex, power, and the eternal fight for Dominance in the pack.

The Forbidden series is all about erotic Romance with wall-to-wall hot-sex scenes and even a Happily Ever After kind of ending, though you can see enough threats left over for more sequels. The focus is on the ethics of power, the moral challenges, and the dilemmas of love vs. want.

The Alchemist’s Pursuit by Dave Duncan is a fast paced mystery that must be solved by Nostradamus’s (THE Nostrdamus) Apprentice while Nostradamus himself is laid up by rheumatoid arthritis. It’s a murder mystery amid authentic Venice politics of the 1500’s, but with prophecy and some real magic thrown in.

There are other novels in this series, The Alchemist’s Code and the Alchemist’s Apprentice, but Pursuit is a solidly written novel that does not bog down in explanation of the previous stories. It’s a whopping good read if you like history and the real history of magic. It has atmosphere.

And lastly don’t miss the premier Vampire Historical series, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s St. Germain novels. Borne In Blood is set in and around the area we call Austria in the early 1800’s. The story ranges to Amsterdam where the Vampire St. Germain has invested (in a previous novel) in a publishing house and now approves volumes to be published.

This publishing business is a totally minor investment for St. Germain who has had millennia to develop his fortunes, and who is (in the1800’s) a shipping magnate. And in fact, the publishing business is potentially a lot of trouble for St. Germain because of some very restrictive Church laws and values.

The company accepts for publication a treatise on the nature of Blood, presenting a very racist theory. Meanwhile, St. Germain has become deeply involved with a woman (to the extent of her knowing his true nature). St. Germain has offered her his Life, and she’s considering it. In an odd way, that would make her his apprentice. But the woman is connected to the author of the treatise on Blood.

Murderous jealousies are unleashed among young women adopted by the author of the treatise, who has a sexual appetite for pre-pubescent girls.

Yarbro shows us the dark world of genetics, marriage, and the plight of the widow who can’t own property or work as anything but a governess. We see how the powerless must consider ethics and morals a luxury.