A set of three this time, from KD Did It Takes On Books. There have been other reviews of the Alex Verus series that I liked recently – these are just the ones I remembered to link to here!
A bunch of questions have been building up in the comment sections, so I figured I’d clear them out. Here’s the first batch.
Comment from Juliette Gregson:
Hypnotism, real or fake..?
Uh, what?
Comment from Angelika:
I have like dozens of questions, but the one that interests me the most is this:
Dark wizards live by the “might is right”-rule. BUT Alex is often hesistant to do something he thinks is right, because he fears the consequences by the Light wizards. Then, he does them anyway. And lives.
So, here are my questions:
1) Is Alex a Dark wizard? Morden certainly thinks he is one, and nearly every other Dark wizard seems to respect him in some way. And they certainly wouldn’t respect a weak Light wizard. After all, there philosophy is about power, not about moral.
2) Are there some Dark wizards that do ‘good’ things with their power?
1) Tricky question. The thing about Dark mages is that they don’t have membership cards. I mean, there are mages who definitely are Dark, and there are mages who definitely aren’t Dark, but it’s not like there’s a list somewhere that decides who counts and who doesn’t.
There are a bunch of mages (especially on the Council) who think your faction is whichever one you were apprenticed with. So by that logic Alex is a Dark mage, and so are Anne and Vari. Personally I think that’s stupid as hell, but a lot of people seem to believe it. The way I see it is that being Light or Dark is like belonging to a religion, or being left-wing or right-wing in politics. You’re whichever one you act like.
Dark mages seem to think Alex is a rogue/traitor, but at the same time they do seem to respect him a lot more than the Light mages, in a weird way. Maybe they understand each other.
2) It’s not like Dark mages are all puppy-eating psychopaths or anything. Most Dark mages just keep to themselves and don’t really bother anyone else, and they’ve got friends and family and all the stuff that normal people have. So it’s not really that unlikely that a Dark mage could end up doing something nice for you.
Whether they make a habit of doing good things, though . . . depends. I mean, the basic Dark philosophy is that you can do whatever you like as long as you’ve got the strength to back it up, so if you want to use your magic to help someone that’s your business. I’ve heard stories about Dark mages suddenly showing up to help out an apprentice, or giving advice to adepts, but half the time people think it’s because of some really sinister motive.
Comment from Angelika:
And I guess I would love to hear more about how they deal with the normal humans. Where there big incidents in history? How did they cover those up? Who is responsible for that?
The arm of the Council in charge of dealing with normals is the Order of the Cloak, one of the Keeper divisions. They’re supposed to do the cover-up jobs, not that it’s exactly hard most of the time. You would not believe just how determined normals are not to believe in magic. They’ll believe anything sooner than a supernatural explanation.
As for big cover-ups . . . well. I guess the really big ones would be ones I wouldn’t know about. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Coldbringer War. It was some sort of flare-up in the 60s and there was a war between the Councils of a few different countries. It was over pretty quickly but there was some sort of secrecy order about it and no-one’s clear exactly what it was about. Official explanation is that it was a territory dispute but that doesn’t make any sense and the couple of times I’ve asked mages who were old enough to have lived through it they wouldn’t tell me anything.
From: Eric
You said previously that mages have the same lifespan as normals. With modern knowledge of genetics, free radicals, and telomeres shouldn’t a life mage or shapeshifter be able to repair or undo the damage that causes aging? This would give him an extended lifespan at the least.
I’m not a geneticist so I don’t know what modern knowledge of genetics is like (and I’ve got no idea what telomeres are supposed to be) but the way it was explained to me last time is that life magic basically does rebuilding/enhancing rather than modifying. It’s easy for a life mage to heal someone, because they’re just helping the body to do what it does anyway, but when it comes to ageing they’re fixing the symptoms, not fixing what causes it.
But yeah, you’re pretty much right, older mages go to life mages for exactly that. I think quite a lot of life mages make a career out of it, though they all try to keep it quiet since mages are so paranoid about looking vulnerable. I’ve seen a few mages who are supposed to be in their nineties and they look healthy enough.
Shapeshifters are another story – they really do modify their entire bodies into something else. There are rumours that they can use that to become functionally immortal but I don’t know if they’re true or not.
From: Ste
Hello Luna, What was Alex’ birth name and why did he change it?
His first name was always Alex, as far as I know – at least, that’s what everyone who knew him from back then still calls him. I’m pretty sure his surname wasn’t Verus, though. I think Verus is his mage name, and he took it in place of his surname once he graduated from apprentice, but he hasn’t told me what his full birth name was. I think there were some issues with his parents, but I don’t know what they were.
From: Petal
Dear Luna,
I was wondering how your training has been progressing with your focus whip? Have you learnt any new tricks with it? Would that be giving information to your enemies? Surely they don’t use the Internet that much!?
Also Alex mentioned that Emotion/Charm magic is stereotypically female. I was wondering if there were other branches of magic with a gender stereotype.
Sincerely,
Petal.
P.S. Could you ask Alex if we could have a Encyclopaedia Arcana in magi history? The Dark War or Gate Rune War maybe?
Yup, lots! I can use it to parry spells (if I focus it right it acts as a sort of counterspell on a stick) and I’m working on applying it for nonlethal attacks, though that’s harder – getting my curse NOT to kill whatever it hits takes a ton of effort.
There are lots of gender stereotypes with the magic types, though a lot of them are really vague and I think half the time people have different ideas about them anyway. Chance tends to be thought of as female (and used by witches, which is kind of ironic). Water and air usually get thought of as female, earth and fire and death are associated with men, mind is kind of in between. Divination’s especially funny, because it always seems to get used by female mages in the stories – I think it’s because the elementalists don’t think it’s ‘active’ enough!
On the PS, I’ll see what I can dig up. Fair warning, though, mage history is REALLY long. Alex and Sonder have been giving me books on it for what seems like forever.
From: Orion
Dear Luna,
can divination be used to learn skills more quickly than normal? for instance learning to right with your non preferred hand?or would a diviner have to look into the future for as long as it would take learn normally?
P.s I was thinking of using an alias any suggestions?
Asked Alex and he said no. Divination only shows you how to make something happen, it doesn’t actually stamp in the habits and muscle memory to teach you a skill. (He also asked why the hell anyone would want to use their magic to learn to write with their off hand, but I’m guessing you’ve got your reasons.)
As for aliases, I always liked the name Zarine, though I guess that might not fit you so well.
Now that the Advanced Divination series is finished, I thought I’d take a break before getting back to more Encyclopaedia articles. It’s been a while since I’ve done a news post, so here’s a general update on what’s going on with the Alex Verus series.
First up, my trip to New York Comic Con’s confirmed, and scheduled for this October! I’m flying out to NY around October 7th and returning on the 17th – the convention itself’s from the 11th to the 14th. I’ve been to a few UK sci-fi and fantasy conventions before but nothing anywhere near the scale of this one, so it’s going to be quite a new experience.
Alex Verus #4, Chosen, is written, edited, proofread, and cover-arted. I haven’t heard anything from the publishers on the subject of the book for a while, which is generally good news once you’re on track. It’ll be coming out on August 27th in the US, and September 5th in the UK. Honestly, I’ve been spending so much time on other things that I’ve almost forgotten about it (which is an occupational hazard when you’re a writer – the book you’re working on and the book that’s coming out next are usually different books). Still, I’m very happy with it, and I’m looking forward to the reactions once other people get to see it too! I’ll put up the first chapter as an extract in another couple of months or so.
And in the meantime, I’m spending all my time working on Alex Verus #5. (No, it doesn’t have a snappy title yet – I’ll see if my publishers come up with anything good.) The book’s due to be finished by the end of June and at the moment it’s on schedule to do exactly that. So far I’m 70% of the way through and reaching the point at which I can see the ending fairly clearly. Where Chosen focused more on Alex, this book is more focused on another character – I won’t tell you who just yet, but once you’ve read Chosen you’ll probably be able to guess!
That’s all for now. More news as and when it comes!
Closely related to fortune telling is the Dionysian practice of auguries. Like its relative, an augury looks into the future to find answers, but while fortune telling is focused around a person, an augury is based around a course of action. In Apollonian terms, it asks the question ‘is this a good idea or not?’ but since it isn’t Apollonian, the question and answer are more vague – and more far-reaching.
An augury requires a physical focus. Differing foci necessitate slightly different spellcasting styles, so most diviners pick a single one to master. Common choices include tarot cards, a crystal ball, a set of bones, tea leaves, the I Ching, or fresh entrails. This makes augury a difficult art – the diviner must not only correctly perform the magical elements of the spell, but must have sufficient skill with the focus technique to enact the ritual effectively and interpret the results afterwards.
Despite its limitations, augury is a powerful tool. Although an augury (like a fortune reading) is not guaranteed to be correct, the consequences it judges can be very long-term indeed, reaching to months or years – far further than any Apollonian spell can see. Moreover, more powerful auguries can provide hints or even instructions towards questions and problems that the diviner didn’t ask. An augury is not a simple yes-or-no – it can alert the diviner to issues that they wouldn’t have thought to look into.
It’s a source of great frustration to Apollonian diviners that Dionysian diviners can see so much further into the future than they can. To an Apollonian diviner, any kind of even moderately unpredictable situation is an impassable barrier – their method of divination means that they can’t possibly predict a human being’s medium- or long-term future, which Dionysian diviners can do easily (if not reliably).
Over the centuries, many Apollonian diviners and research mages have attempted to study how the long-term predictions of Dionysian diviners work. Some of the most popular theories include large-number probability (Dionysian spells predict average results, which usually but not inevitably win out), determinism (the future is predestined and Dionysian spells can look ahead and glimpse it) and interference (Dionysian spells nudge fate and probability and actually cause the events they predict to happen). So far none of these theories have been generally accepted, because all of them either fail to match the evidence, contradict existing Apollonian assumptions about how the world works, or both.
Dionysian diviners themselves couldn’t care less about how their spells work. They don’t think explanations are important.
One of the most obscure Dionysian techniques is oneiromancy – divination through dreams. The diviner sleeps, experiences some kind of vision, and gains some insight about a future event or situation.
Almost nothing is known about oneiromancy. The working theory of Apollonian diviners is that it makes use of the mind’s capacity to store memories and observations in the subconscious, and dreaming somehow allows a diviner to access areas of their mind which are usually closed off, but how and why this works is unknown. Since oneiromancy is virtually impossible to monitor or study, it’s unlikely this is going to change any time soon.
It’s commonly theorised that oneiromancy has some connection to Elsewhere, the strange dream-like world that exists beyond our own, and indeed Dionysian diviners do tend to be linked to Elsewhere in stories. Further discussion of Elsewhere is beyond the scope of this article, and will be covered in a later entry.
The last article in the Advanced Divination series is going up this Friday. I haven’t decided what to put up the Friday after that (I don’t have any other Encyclopaedia articles written, and I’ve only got two questions for the next Ask Luna) so if you have any suggestions, write them in!
Dionysian divination tends to have a bad reputation amongst Light and independent mages. This hasn’t always been the case – according to mage historians, until as recently as the Late Middle Ages, Dionysian methods were still seen as the ‘standard’ approach to divination. Only within the last few hundred years have they fallen into obscurity.
The reputation is understandable – even to the initiated, Dionysian divination can be frightening. Apollonian divination tends to be distant and detached, almost clinical, and rarely uses any focuses except for the mage himself. An Apollonian diviner at work just looks like someone sitting around doing nothing. By contrast, Dionysian divination is passionate and primal, and some of its rituals aren’t for the squeamish. Haruspicy (divination through examination of the entrails of a ritually sacrificed creature) is Dionysian in origin, and it isn’t the only one of their techniques that involves blood. However, it probably isn’t the blood in Dionysian rituals that really disturbs mages – it’s the hints of irrationality and madness that lie beneath.
Despite its suppression, however, Dionysian divination has never quite gone away. Perhaps it’s because it can do things that Apollonian divination can’t, or perhaps it’s because it speaks to something that’s too fundamental in human nature to be so easily discarded.
The most iconic technique of Dionysian divination is fortune telling. Through studying a subject’s palm or looking into their eyes, a diviner can predict their short, medium, or long-term future . . . sometimes. The futures that the spell reveals are vague, and always portrayed in terms of their relation to the person in question. Events of no personal significance to the receiver of the spell are never foretold – everything is seen through the lens of their personal experience.
Fortune telling is one of the most imprecise of all divination methods. Many mages have attacked it over the years, calling it unreliable, dishonest, and an exercise in manipulative psychology. There’s some truth to these claims – the vagueness of fortune telling makes it a fertile ground for liars and confidence tricksters, and certainly the number of fake fortune tellers is vastly greater than the number of real ones. There have been several famous cases of fortune telling ‘diviners’ being revealed to be just sensitives who were very good at fooling people (in some cases to the great embarrassment of their mage clients, who you really would have thought should have known better).
Even a genuine fortune reading does not guarantee success. The information gathered from this spell tends to be in terms of omens, items of symbolic significance, or images of a person or situation. It can provide guidance, but that guidance is by no means easy to interpret, and it’s very likely that the recipient won’t fully understand the omen until after it’s come to pass. Worse, the futures it predicts aren’t always accurate – fortune telling is a ‘best guess’ rather than a precise prediction. The fortunes of a genuine diviner do come true far more often than random chance would indicate, but whether they come true often enough to be genuinely useful is another question.
A less well-known aspect to fortune telling is that it doesn’t necessarily require the subject’s co-operation. Dark mages sometimes employ Dionysian diviners for exactly this purpose, extracting information about a target’s future movements that even they might not have known . . . though as always, the futures are subject to change.
To match up with the UK cover I posted a little while back, here’s the US cover of Alex Verus #4, Chosen!
They seem to be cycling through the colours of the rainbow, one per book. I’m going to see if I can get them to choose green for the next one.
On the subject of the US, the Comicon trip is booked and confirmed. I’ll be flying out to NY come October!
A little-known fact about divination magic is that it is divided into two subtypes. Both have gone by differing names over the centuries, but nowadays are most commonly referred to as Apollonian and Dionysian divination, although few would recognise the terms. The two techniques are not mutually exclusive – nearly all diviners have at least some talent for both – but most show a marked preference for one over the other.
Apollonian divination is by far the better-known type of divination, and for most mages is the only type of divination they know anything about at all. All of the previous four parts of this article have been describing Apollonian techniques, and most of the iconic abilities of divination magic – precognition, path-walking, danger sense – are Apollonian in origin.
Apollonian divination is rational, ordered, and impersonal. It teaches that the universe is an essentially understandable place which can be analysed and predicted through the application of divination magic. Since the universe is understandable, the Apollonian approach emphasises that a diviner should be able to spread their intake of data (to absorb as much raw information as possible) while also developing the ability to narrow their perception (to focus on specific chains of events into order to precisely predict them). Apollonian divination perceives events from afar, in order to see them more clearly, and diviners who follow the Apollonian model often develop a degree of disconnection from their visions of the future, even when they’re watching their own fate.
Apollonian spells tend to be very good at predicting machines, natural forces, and physical events that follow a primarily deterministic pattern. They’re less good with people and other living creatures (note that ‘less good’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’ – they’re still a powerful tool). The main drawback to Apollonian divination is that it’s completely unable to foresee the future once enough complicating or unpredictable elements enter the picture, meaning that for any event involving other people there’s an effective hard cap to how far Apollonian divination can see.
Self-discipline is very important to an Apollonian diviner. They take in vast amounts of information, yet strive to order it rather than letting it wash over them. As a result, Apollonian diviners tend to be mentally organised and self-controlled.
Dionysian divination works on a very different model from its partner. It holds that the universe is an essentially mysterious place that can never be fully understood. Dionysian divination is murky, unpredictable, and above all, personal – what one diviner sees with it will be very different from the visions of another.
The methods and techniques of Dionysian divination are poorly understood compared to Apollonian ones. Dionysian lore has traditionally been oral, passed down from master to apprentice and rarely recorded in books – Dionysian diviners tend to believe that the essence of divination can only be understood by practice, and written guides are misleading. In addition, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw sporadic attempts by factions within the Council to suppress Dionysian techniques. As a result, what Dionysian diviners can do is better known than how they do it (which isn’t saying much).
Just realised that this interview went up a month ago and I never linked to it! Oops. Well, better late than never, so here it is. It’s an interview with the Bookbag’s Ani Johnson, talking about the Alex Verus series, my writing influences, as well as the world of the Verus books (plus Alex’s love-life).
