My Own Take on Magic

I’ve been reading fantasy and
science fiction for as long as I can remember, which is broad research for
writing any story that includes magic. Throw in that I have a degree in
Cultural Anthropology, which involved a lot of reading and research on myths,
legends, and lore of other cultures, and magic has been part of my life longer
even than writing has, since I didn’t start writing seriously until I was well
into my twenties. I suppose it was pretty inevitable it would show up in my
stories.

Magic in fiction comes in a lot
of different flavors. There are probably as many different approaches to thaumaturgy
as there are authors writing about it. 
Depending on the author, magic can be a religion, a science, a myth, a
technology, or simply a fact of life.

And the way magic works tends
to vary depending on the genre. In other-world-set fantasy, it’s frequently an
integral part of the world and the way it functions. Everyone knows it exists
even if only a few can use it. It generally already has a culture built around
it and may be the basis of the world’s religion. No technical details are given
for how it works and none are expected.

On the other hand in urban
fantasy, magic often has a more arcane, secretive flavor. It’s usually a rare
power, and those who have it often try to hide it for fear of the reactions of
those without it.  Think Harry Potter or
any of the gazillions of vampire books.

I’ve written it both ways.  In my fantasy novels, Wizard’s Bridge and
Witch’s Journey, the magic is the magic of another world, a fact of the
environment, and a gift that some people can access while others can’t. I don’t
try to explain what it is or how it works, though I try to show how my
characters interact with and make use of it.

Still, I wanted to try a novel
set in our contemporary world, where a secret group of people have magical
abilities.

According to science fiction
author Arthur C. Clarke, “Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  I’ve always been fascinated by that
suggestion.  It doesn’t take much
imagination to figure out why, and we’ve seen it in action often enough when
more technologically developed cultures first come into contact with more
primitive ones.

A riff on that idea
formed the basis of my book, The Wizard’s
Shied

If an advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic, why couldn’t what we might call magic now
actually be a technology or even a biological possibility that we don’t really
understand?

Which led me to wonder,
what kind of technology might that be? 

After some debate, I
chose to go with an invisible force, but I wanted it to relate to something
that most of us are at least vaguely familiar with.  In the book, I posit that magic is a kind of
subatomic psychokinesis (the ability to move objects using just the mind).  My wizards, of whom only a small number are
actually strong enough to do anything useful with this inborn ability, are
psychokinetics who can view and move things on a microscopic level, but can do
a lot of it on a scale that lets them do things that look like magic to
everyone else.

In the excerpt included I
try to show how my heroine uses her power. Beyond the question of whether
psychokinetic ability is even real, I try to ground the way it works in reality
as much as possibility. It takes a great deal of energy, first of all, so when
my characters do magic, they have to rest more and eat more to compensate. And
the larger the object they try to move or the greater the force in opposition,
the more power it takes to manipulate them.

In most ways
their powers obey the laws of physics. And I use that idea as the basis of the
plot, when the hero, a physicist with a specialty in micro-circuitry uses his
knowledge to build a shield to keep anyone else’s magic from affecting him. He
was once tortured by other wizards and he doesn’t plan to let that happen to
him again. But he hasn’t thought through all the ramifications of what such a
device might do in others’ hands—until it’s stolen from him.

Back Cover Copy of The Wizard’s Shield: A
powerful wizard with a physics degree and a checkered past invents a shield to
ensure he’ll never again be tortured almost to death.

The wizarding powers-that-be fear the repercussions of such
a device and send his former girlfriend, an accomplished wizard herself, to
retrieve the device or destroy it.

When the shield is stolen by the magical mafia, Ilene
McConnell and Michael Morgan have to set aside their differences and work
together to recover it. Michael claims he needs the device as insurance against
the kind of injury and injustice he suffered once before. Ilene maintains its
potential to upset the delicate balance of power makes it too dangerous and
that it needs to be destroyed. But none of that will matter if they can’t
retrieve it before a ruthless, powerful wizard learns how to use it for his own
ends.

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Reviews
for The Wizard’s Shield

“I
truly enjoyed this book. The characters are wonderful. Michael is the
all-around good guy, gone bad, but on his way back around and Ilene is the
broken-hearted girl trying to make it on her own despite never getting over her
lost love. They are great as individual characters, but fantastic together.

The
storyline is original and well done. The descriptions are vivid and I love the
new twist on magic. The science behind the magic is great. The plot is clever
and creative. The book is well written and nicely paced.

There
is a load of emotion coursing through the entire story. We get love and anger,
betrayal and mistrust, all mixed together with desire, longing, magic, and of
course shifting balance – – on so many levels!“
~ Beverly at The Wormhole   Full Review

“If you like romance blended with science facts and fantasy,
you’ve hit the mother lode. Wizards Michael and Ilene battle a powerful evil
wizard using air, fire, water, and earth as weapons throughout the story. The
close proximity and united front brought on by their partnership is complicated
by unresolved feelings from their youth.

Strong characters, a solid plot, and realistic dialogue blend into a
compelling fantasy.“
–Muddy Rose Reviews on Amazon

Excerpt
from The Wizard’s Shield

The rush of a sudden, fierce
wind outside drew Ilene to a window to watch the shrubs and palm trees flapping
wildly. Sand blew over the pavement and splattered against walls and trees.
Dead leaves, loose papers, and other debris danced in the air. A livid,
purple-tinged darkness turned the day grotesque. Tendrils of indigo-shaded
power floated along with the dark storm clouds.

A flash of lightning seared its
way from sky to ground just beyond a row of houses across the street, followed
closely by a crack of thunder that rattled the windows.

A man and woman hurried three
small children along the boardwalk that led over the dune from the beach to the
street. They toted coolers, bags, boogie boards, and buckets. The youngest
trailed a towel flapping behind him in the wind. More lightning zig-zagged from
sky to ground, not far away. Ilene sucked in a sharp breath.

The father looked up and
flinched. Fear tightened his muscles as he dropped a cooler and turned around
to snatch up the straggling toddler. His voice carried over the rushing wind.
“Get to the van. Quick!”

He nodded toward a vehicle
parked down the street. His wife and two older children raced on ahead.

Ilene’s hands clenched into
fists. Too much energy crackled in the air. It wasn’t directed at the family,
but that didn’t guarantee they wouldn’t get hurt by it. Collateral damage. Some
of the more ruthless mages cared little for who else was affected by their
activities.

Two flashes hit nearby, one
right after the other. The child let out a frightened wail as his father, bent
low over him, dashed off the wooden walkway and down the street. Even they
could sense the danger building.

Ilene couldn’t trust their fate
to chance. She roused her own power, feeling for charged particles in the area.
Gathering them in, she rolled and pushed them into position, building a lattice
of force around the family. It wouldn’t keep out the wind or the rain—she could
have done that with air, too, if she’d had time—but it should keep the
lightning from reaching them. For the moment, that mattered most.

Even at a distance, the rush of
oppositely charged particles prickled in her brain. The growing polarization
signaled an impending strike.

What formed out there made her
gut clench in fear. It was so close to the father and child the hair on their
bodies must have been standing on end. The man looked around wildly, searching
for shelter. The panic in his eyes radiated across the fifty feet or so that
separated them.

Would her barrier be enough to
protect them? The ground charge was forming so close it could jump right
through it if she’d left even a small opening. Ilene reached out toward the
building charge differential. Playing with lightning was tricky business.
Choosing her positions carefully, she pushed in various weak spots to move the
polarizing field.

It sucked a lot of energy out
of her to divert its course. Her ribs and head ached as she herded protons in a
subatomic cattle drive to get the charge well away from the family. Those
minuscule bits of potential energy were every bit as ornery and uncooperative
as cows were reputed to be.

Even as the bolt formed, she
didn’t know if she’d succeeded. Her breath stopped in her throat for a long,
long moment as she waited.

The streak of lightning
followed the diverted path to the beach, a safe distance away.

The man ran to the van, getting
there just moments behind his wife and older children. He pushed the toddler
into the back seat and ran around to the other side, while his wife slammed the
rear door and got into the front. Ilene didn’t let out the breath she held
until they were all safely inside the vehicle. She released the protective
field. The van’s headlights flicked on and moments later it chugged off down
the street.

More lightning singed the sky.
An inflatable ring rolled down the street like a runaway tire. Ilene shuddered,
though it wasn’t entirely the weather that set it off. The storm was a natural
thing, but someone—a powerful wizard—was using it.

Using it to attack. The island
or the house or its occupants. Brilliant, livid streaks of orange and red mixed
with violet and deep blue swirls riding with the clouds. The smells of ammonia
and ozone and peppers burned her nostrils.

Lightning flashed brighter and
closer. Dangerously closer.

The grumble of thunder grew
almost constant. The rushing downpour of rain added to the chaos and noise.
Driven by the wind to blow almost horizontally, it splattered against the
window in big drops that spread out, then slid down the glass like groping
hands trying to claw their way in.

Something was out there. The
swirls of lividly hued power grew deeper and more intense. It rode on the storm
in frightening concentrations. Why here, though?

About
the Author

Karen McCullough’s wide-ranging
imagination makes her incapable of sticking to one genre for her storytelling.
As a result, she’s the author of more than a dozen published novels and
novellas, which span the mystery, fantasy, paranormal, and romantic suspense
genres. 

A former computer programmer who made a career change into being an
editor with an international trade publishing company for many years, she now
runs her own web design business to support her writing habit. Awards she’s won
include an Eppie Award for fantasy; three other Eppie finals as well as
finaling in the Daphne, Prism, Dream Realm, Rising Star, Lories, Scarlett
Letter, and Vixen Awards, and an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future
contest. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and numerous
small press publications in the fantasy, science fiction, and romance genres. She
lives in Greensboro, NC, with her husband of many years.

You can reach Karen at:

Website:
http://www.kmccullough.com

Blog: http://www.kmccullough.com/kblog

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