A third set of 3 reviews of the Alex Verus series, this time from the site Sleepy Book Dragon!
There have been quite a few reviews over the past few months . . . should probably get around to collecting them one of these days. Although the novelty factor’s worn off I still enjoy reading them, particularly when they pick up on something that doesn’t usually get spotted.
One question that apprentices and adepts always ask sooner or later is how magic stays secret. If so many people can use and detect magic, why doesn’t everyone know about it? Why hasn’t the existence and practice of magic been documented and recorded via cameras, cell phones, eyewitness accounts, CCTV, scientific research, and so on?
The answer is both simpler and more complicated than they expect.
The most popular explanation for the secrecy of magic is the global conspiracy. Under this theory, the Councils of the various magical nations work together to suppress evidence of magic, using manipulation of the media, control of governments, and mind- or memory-altering magic to guarantee that no-one can ever prove that magic is real.
This theory does have some truth to it. The fourth clause of the Concord does state that magic should be kept a secret, and each magical nation does have an organisation that works to this effect (in Britain, this is carried out by the Keepers of the Order of the Cloak). It’s even true that the the Order of the Cloak does have connections in the media and the government, and while they don’t make a habit out of using mind magic on normals, they’ve definitely done it in the past.
There is, however, a problem with this theory: large-scale conspiracies of silence aren’t very practical. The simple fact is that keeping a secret which is known to lots of people is very, very difficult, and the larger the number of people who know the truth and the longer the length of time that the conspiracy is to be maintained for, the more ‘very difficult’ becomes ‘impossible’. When all it takes is one person getting the truth out, maintaining a conspiracy is a losing battle.
In the case of magic, multiple people have gotten the truth out. In fact, if you know where to look, it’s possible to find quite detailed explanations of how magic works, all available to the public. Yet magic is generally disbelieved in. And while the Order of the Cloak are influential, they have neither the power nor the inclination to manipulate the minds and opinions of everyone in the country. So while it’s true that the Order of the Cloak run a kind of conspiracy, it’s also fairly obvious that their efforts alone wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to keep magic a secret even in Britain, much less the rest of the world.
Before getting into the real explanation for the secrecy of magic, we’ll cover a few more of the false ones, and the problems with them.
• Magic messes up technology and stops recording devices from working
Problem: While it’s true that some kinds of magic can mess with recording equipment, it’s also true that lots of others don’t. Besides, people don’t need to see something to figure out that it exists. The vast majority of human knowledge was not accumulated by means of watching videos.
• Everyone who finds out about magic gets silenced by the mage police
Problem: There is no way even all of the Keeper orders put together would have enough manpower to oversee the entire population of Britain with that kind of thoroughness. And while they can be ruthless, they’re not that ruthless.
• Humans are stupid and good at deceiving themselves
Problem: They’re not as stupid as many would like to think. And while self-deception is entirely real and very common, it generally happens for a reason. People don’t fool themselves just because. (However, although this explanation is mostly wrong, it is getting closer to the truth.)
Felicia Day has done a very enthusiastic set of reviews for the Alex Verus series! You can read them here:
I’m guessing a good number of those who read this blog know who Felicia Day is already, but for those who don’t, she’s an actress and independent filmmaker famous for (amongst other things) Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Guild. I’ve watched all three and I’m a fan of hers, so finding out that she likes my books is very cool. 🙂
And part 2 of the comment clearout. Here’s the last lot.
Comment from Orion:
two suggestions.. an ask Alex to give Luna a break, she probably doesn’t even get paid the poor thing.
And a shape shifting encyclopaedia entry 🙂
I completely endorse this suggestion. Alex, you reading this?
(And no, I don’t get paid. Well, not for this. Specifically.)
Comment from Ellery:
This might be an Ask Luna… Just about all the Light Council mages, both the Council members and the Keepers, seem to be male. Are there actually fewer female mages, or is it more a case of the old boys’ network?
Now this one’s interesting.
It’s definitely not true that there are fewer female mages than male ones, at least in terms of potential. In fact, from what I’ve heard, there are actually more female novices. The Light apprentice program skews towards girls, not boys, too – maybe 55 percent or so.
However, the further up the ranks you go, the higher the proportion tilts the other way. There are at least twice as many male Keepers as female ones, and the command positions are tilted even more. And by the time you get up to the Junior and Senior Council, I think there are only about 1 or 2 women on the whole thing.
The why of it is a lot harder to figure out – it’s one of those things that everyone has an opinion on and that they love to argue about at parties, but it’s mostly just talk. The old boys’ network definitely has something to do with it, but I don’t think it’s the only reason.
Comment from Locnil:
Uh, ok, so where can we see her answers to the questions?
How you can figure out the comments but not the rest of the site . . .
Comment from Locnil:
So, we know Alex has no qualms about going gambling/playing the lotto to make cash. What about mages with other abilities? I mean, some of the articles already touched on this tangent, like how earth mages are builders and architects and fire mages just extort money, but they never really went into detail. And there’re some bits which seem a bit complex – a mind mage could just walk into a bank and make them hand over a couple million dollars, but that’s the sort of thing that would draw major attention and piss off the Isolationists and Directors (those who aren’t doing the same thing that is). Apart from being mercenaries for hire or just doing what fire mages do, death mages, as you pointed out, pretty much lack any mundane ability whatsoever (or if they do, then I’d like to hear about it too). Also, a lot of mages, like space mages and time mages, are mentioned as usually making their income working for other mages, but what do they do if no other mage is willing to hire them, or if no other local mages have any real income-generating ability either? Space mages could probably go with burglary, but time mages seem kinda screwed in that regard.
All of the magic types have their ways to earn a living, but some have it easier than others.
Space mages are couriers. They can move anything you want from anywhere, to anywhere. If you can’t think of a way to make money with that, you’re not trying.
Time mages actually have it easiest of all. They have access to all kinds of information and all they have to do is sell it. If they just want quick cash it’s easy for them to get someone’s password or details just by wandering into a room where that guy used to be – they never need to, though, because most of the time they get employed by the Council or the Keeper orders directly, and if the Council doesn’t want them someone else will. Having a time mage on retainer means never having to do an investigation the mundane way.
Living mages usually figure out some sort of people-oriented jobs. I know at least one mind mage who works as a psychologist, and at least one enchantress who’s a vamp (what’s that, you’re in love with me and want to give me everything you own?). Life mages heal rich people for money. Death mages are the exception – they’re more like elementalists.
Elementalists would have the hardest time, except for the fact that they’re usually on the top of mage society and they can get other mages to do what they can’t. Light elemental mages tend to band together in sort of cartels, with investments and properties. How exactly they turn their magic into money doesn’t get talked about much, but if the rumours are true a lot of it’s ‘protection’ services. Dark mages do the same, they’re just more open about it.
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!
