A Master of Djinn 5:Magic

RichardAbbott

Although never described in detail, magic seems to be a mix of learned spells and actions, innate ability, and the occasional mysterious artefact. Did this blend work for you? Was there enough counterbalance between the different magical forces?

Apocryphal

Meh. Boiler Plate. Whatever that means. I don’t think the magic was ever meant to be systematized. I’m ok with that - with magic being magic, rather than a science. Though, now that I think about it, it does kind of work against the rise of magic being the impetus for the rise of Cairo, doesn’t it? I mean, for magic being analogous to a tech breakthrough, doesn’t that imply that Egypt needed to control the magic to take advantage of it? I didn’t see a lot of control in this novel. Also, the 🧞‍♂️ were a bit all over the map with respect to power and ability.

Actually, on the matter of Djinn, I read a book on these a few years ago and this novel really seemed to capture all the different types mentioned in that book, like Nisnas and Devas and Marads etc. So they did feel quite authentic to me.

clash_bowley

The magic was absolutely unsystematized and arbitrary. She decided to make it mysterious and unknowable, which is cool, but there should be some framework behind it all to my mind. In my case it was the one aspect of this book that felt arbitrary to me.

BTW, I did a HUGE amount of research on Djinn for Outremer, and I came up with far fewer Djinn types. Devas are djinn? Never saw that mentioned.

RichardAbbott

OK, so general agreement that the magic wasn't well-structured!

clash_bowley

I think so...

NeilNjae

I was happy with the magic as presented. The plot didn't revolve around the different types of magic that could exist and how they inter-relate, so I was content to be told by the characters what was important for this story.

I don't think there were any cases where the magic broke the rules that were presented earlier in the book, or magic that was outside the realm of possibility the characters knew about.

Things would need to be more precise for someone else writing (or creating RPG material) in the setting, but that's not this book. And I hope Clark has something more detailed in his "series bible" so that he doesn't end up contradicting himself in a few books' time!

clash_bowley

@NeilNjae said:
I was happy with the magic as presented. The plot didn't revolve around the different types of magic that could exist and how they inter-relate, so I was content to be told by the characters what was important for this story.

Oh, I don't think it hurt anything. You are right there! The book isn't about how magic works. Desn't mean it was well-structured, though!

RichardAbbott

> @NeilNjae said:
> Things would need to be more precise for someone else writing (or creating RPG material) in the setting, but that's not this book. And I hope Clark has something more detailed in his "series bible" so that he doesn't end up contradicting himself in a few books' time!

It'll be interesting to see if he does write more in this series - he might conceivably feel he's done all he wants to here, and will move on to other realms. For example the alternate New Orleans of _The Black God's Drums_ which I suspect in his mind is part of a much larger alternate America