Magic Is...

[David Johnston]

Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.

Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.

Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.

Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.

Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

The Laundry Files by Charles Stross - Magic is Math. Which can be done
better by computers but _can_ (with usually unfortunate results for the
caster, eventually) be done in your own brain.

[Robert Woodward]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

<snip>

Post by David Johnston
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.

I don't remember seeing this variation, what book(s) are you thinking of?

[David Goldfarb]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

<snip>

Post by David Johnston
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.

I don't remember seeing this variation, what book(s) are you thinking of?

Not the OP, but I'm going to bet Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence:
Three Parts Dead
Two Serpents Rise
Full Fathom Five
Last First Snow
Four Roads Cross

and the upcoming Ruin of Angels.

[David Johnston]

Post by David Goldfarb

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

<snip>

Post by David Johnston
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.

I don't remember seeing this variation, what book(s) are you thinking of?

Three Parts Dead
Two Serpents Rise
Full Fathom Five
Last First Snow
Four Roads Cross
and the upcoming Ruin of Angels.

Yes that's correct. I would have actually given the titles of every
book/series I was thinking of except I couldn't remember that one and
figured at some point someone would mention it.

[l***@dimnakorr.com]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.

[SNIP]

"Magic is music" is a pretty common one.

[Kevrob]

Post by l***@dimnakorr.com

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.

[SNIP]
"Magic is music" is a pretty common one.

... or poetry, which in the days of The Bard would have been
connected. Or any other kind of art.

Greg Bear's "Infinity Concerto" and "The Serpent Mage."
Combined as "Songs of Earth and Power."

P B Shelly: "...poets are the unacknowledged legislators
of the world" from "A Defence of Poetry" inspired it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defence_of_Poetry

Of course, Tolkien's Yahweh figure creates the world through song.

For art, painting in particular, Bob Aspirin's Lalo the
Limner from the "Thieves World" shared world stories.
Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray," of course.

Kevin R

[Carl Fink]

Post by Kevrob
Of course, Tolkien's Yahweh figure creates the world through song.

Genesis itself has El creating the world by speaking what is presumably
ancient poetry. (He didn't adopt the name "Yahweh" until later.) Tolkien
was pretty religiously non-innovative.

[-dsr-]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is Feudal. You owe allegiance and duties upwards, and are granted
powers and authority downwards. Sometimes it's inherited, too.

Magic is Ecology. There's a hugely complex ecosystem of magic generations,
refinement, and predator-prey relationships.

Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

Magic is Emotion (usually anger, with love showing up at the end. Or not.)

-dsr-

[Carl Fink]

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

[David DeLaney]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

And its counter-formulation in Graydon Saunders' work - there are rules that
can be found out for actually crafting artifacts (enchantments, charms,
focuses), but sorcery in general works exactly how a given practitioner
_thinks_ it does, for that entity. To do actual science, you have to do it
in the presence of a 'null', someone who suppresses the Power and its usage
for a certain number of feet or yards around themselves.
A good bit of science still works its way into various people's sorcery,
merely because it's easier to do some things if you know how stuff works when
nobody is actually commanding it to do things.

Phaze had a variant on this where magic DID have a complete guide available,
but only one given mode worked for any given adept unless they were actually
using the guide.

Dave

[larry]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

And its counter-formulation in Graydon Saunders' work - there are rules that
can be found out for actually crafting artifacts (enchantments, charms,
focuses), but sorcery in general works exactly how a given practitioner
_thinks_ it does, for that entity. To do actual science, you have to do it
in the presence of a 'null', someone who suppresses the Power and its usage
for a certain number of feet or yards around themselves.
A good bit of science still works its way into various people's sorcery,
merely because it's easier to do some things if you know how stuff works when
nobody is actually commanding it to do things.

Remembering that Saunder's magic is perverse occasionally, because
it touches on some ancient malice or is subverted by some
non-Commonweal sorcerers.

Post by David DeLaney
Phaze had a variant on this where magic DID have a complete guide available,
but only one given mode worked for any given adept unless they were actually
using the guide.
Dave

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by larry

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Like Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, in which the laws of
magic were discovered in (IIRC) the thirteenth century, and can
be observed and formulated even by someone who can't work magic
himself. On the other hand, they have a few technological items,
such as railroads and "the teleson," which can carry messages
from one place to another (but not across the Channel.) They use
these gadgets, but have no idea how or why they work.

Post by larry

Post by David DeLaney
And its counter-formulation in Graydon Saunders' work - there are rules that
can be found out for actually crafting artifacts (enchantments, charms,
focuses), but sorcery in general works exactly how a given practitioner
_thinks_ it does, for that entity. To do actual science, you have to do it
in the presence of a 'null', someone who suppresses the Power and its usage
for a certain number of feet or yards around themselves.
A good bit of science still works its way into various people's sorcery,
merely because it's easier to do some things if you know how stuff works when
nobody is actually commanding it to do things.

Remembering that Saunder's magic is perverse occasionally, because
it touches on some ancient malice or is subverted by some
non-Commonweal sorcerers.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

This is how magic was portrayed in Garrett's Lord Darcy stories.

In fact, one of them ("Too Many Magicians") was set at a conference,
complete with presentations, pre-prints of papers, and academic
jealousies.

If I recall correctly, there was one character who was a great
theoretician, but couldn't do any magic himself.

[David Goldfarb]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study.

I would have said that (for all I count myself a fan of his) most of
Sanderson's work falls neatly into "Magic is Comic Book Super-Powers".
People learn to use their powers with greater skill, but that's still
what they are. His trilogy where the magic literally *is* comic book
super-powers is really of a piece with the rest, for all that it's not
set in the same universe.

[Carl Fink]

Post by David Goldfarb
I would have said that (for all I count myself a fan of his) most of
Sanderson's work falls neatly into "Magic is Comic Book Super-Powers".
People learn to use their powers with greater skill, but that's still
what they are. His trilogy where the magic literally *is* comic book
super-powers is really of a piece with the rest, for all that it's not
set in the same universe.

That's an aspect of it, but not the entire story IMO. Note that some types
of Sanderson magic can be used by anyone, e. g. Awakening.

Why the "for all that I coont" part? What's wrong with comic-book
super-powers?

[larry]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by David Goldfarb
I would have said that (for all I count myself a fan of his) most of
Sanderson's work falls neatly into "Magic is Comic Book Super-Powers".
People learn to use their powers with greater skill, but that's still
what they are. His trilogy where the magic literally *is* comic book
super-powers is really of a piece with the rest, for all that it's not
set in the same universe.

That's an aspect of it, but not the entire story IMO. Note that some types
of Sanderson magic can be used by anyone, e. g. Awakening.
Why the "for all that I coont" part? What's wrong with comic-book
super-powers?

I stumbled on his The Road North and read the next two in the series.
I didn't realize he had previous ... do you know if any of his
earlier works are available on-line?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

I stumbled on [Graydon's] The Road North and read the next two in the
series. I didn't realize he had previous ... do you know if any of his
earlier works are available on-line?

No, they aren't, darn it. The three that are online have been
subjected to a certain amount of critical editing; I love Graydon
to bits (note: we've never met), but his unedited work (which
I've never read) is said to be much more discursive, fascinating,
thrilling, convoluted, and challenging than his edited work.
Having read some of his posts on Usenet, I can believe this.
(I'd like to read it nonetheless, but it isn't online.

Still, he's working on more books, so there's hope for the
future.

[larry]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

I stumbled on [Graydon's] The Road North and read the next two in the
series. I didn't realize he had previous ... do you know if any of his
earlier works are available on-line?

No, they aren't, darn it. The three that are online have been
subjected to a certain amount of critical editing; I love Graydon
to bits (note: we've never met), but his unedited work (which
I've never read) is said to be much more discursive, fascinating,
thrilling, convoluted, and challenging than his edited work.
Having read some of his posts on Usenet, I can believe this.
(I'd like to read it nonetheless, but it isn't online.
Still, he's working on more books, so there's hope for the
future.

I'm sure that he'd be pleased to hear that. One of m'lady's regrets
is that, at his rate of publishing, that she shan't finish this
Commonweal series*. I think I'm safe (if my wits remain,) and
look forward to the plot twists and reveals.


* barring miracles.

[Peter Trei]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Just not knowing how it works doesn't make it not-Science - We have imperfect understanding of what 'dark' energy and matter are, nor of how quantum effects
or the brain operate.

pt

[David Johnston]

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

[Peter Trei]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

pt

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

[Kevrob]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Murder at a magickal professional conference, IMS?

There was this fanzine:

http://fancyclopedia.org/journal-of-the-royal-thaumaturgical-society

Kevin R

[Kevrob]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Scott Lurndal
Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Murder at a magickal professional conference, IMS?

"Too Many Magicians" in an analog serial in 1966, and by Doubleday.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3363

I think someone mentioned it up-thread.

Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other,

seemingly-unrelated areas

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Lots of it. _Too Many Magicians_ is set at a magicians'
convention, where two magicians are scheduled to present papers
which turn out to be on the same topic. When one of them is
murdered, the other is naturally suspect. Hijinks ensue.

[David Johnston]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic science in
the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be magic.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other,

seemingly-unrelated areas

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic science in
the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be magic.

And was for Barry Allen..

[Peter Trei]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic science in
the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be magic.

Ditto CSI:*
Enhance!

(and it turns out, in real life too - many 'settled' forensic techniques are
turning out to be a hell of a lot less reliable than advertised.)

pt

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

On Monday, May 22, 2017 at 5:34:31 PM UTC-4, David Johnston

Post by David Johnston

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

On Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:31:59 AM UTC-4, Carl Fink

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view)
in which each practitioner is discovering secrets of the
universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works
Like Science--it has laws and clever people can figure
them out, then use them to create specific effects in
clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other,
seemingly-unrelated areas of study. And like real
science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more
alchemy than the way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic
"magical"? If its reproducible and reliable, and you can
make hypotheses and test them, isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is
reproducible enough that you could science up that bitch.
Of course it only is science if you've got peer-reviewed
publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic
science in the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be
magic.

Ditto CSI:*
Enhance!

And every other cop show in existence. NCIS once pulled a
fingerprint from a digital photograph of a car with a good wax job.
Taken from dozen of feet away.

(and it turns out, in real life too - many 'settled' forensic
techniques are turning out to be a hell of a lot less reliable
than advertised.)

Even the uniqueness of fingerprints have never been subjected to
rigorous scientific scrutiny. Aside from the complete lack of real
standards in how to interpret them. (And there's at least one 100%
proven false positive in DNA, too.)
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 22 May 2017 15:17:08 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
<***@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
Even the uniqueness of fingerprints have never been subjected to
rigorous scientific scrutiny. Aside from the complete lack of real

It is obviously statistical in nature.

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
standards in how to interpret them. (And there's at least one 100%
proven false positive in DNA, too.)

Details on the DNA sit, please.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Gene Wirchenko
On Mon, 22 May 2017 15:17:08 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying
[snip]

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
Even the uniqueness of fingerprints have never been subjected to
rigorous scientific scrutiny. Aside from the complete lack of
real

It is obviously statistical in nature.

Which does not actually meet the legal standard that is supposed
to apply (and usually doesn't, in the last few decades) to
forensic evidence used in court. Fingerprints are universally
accepted as scientifically valid, even with the flaws in
interpretation (and lack of universal standards) and occasional
outright errors (like the terrorist bombing in Spain a few years
back that left the FBI fingerprint shop with egg on their faces).

Post by Gene Wirchenko

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
standards in how to interpret them. (And there's at least one
100% proven false positive in DNA, too.)

Details on the DNA sit, please.

It was in one of those rural areas of northern England that tends
to be, in redneck terms, a bit inbred, so the perp and the false
positive were some flavor of cousin. IIRC, there was video proof
that the identified guy was elsewhere at the time of the crime.
They did catch the right guy eventually. (Note: Identical twins
have the same DNA. This has come into play in several criminal
cases. That was not the case here.) Sadly, it was a number of
years ago, and I cannot find any online references.

It's the same as the birthday game. How many people do you need to
have in the same room before you have a 50/50 chance that two of
them have the same birthday? I suspect the number is rather lower
than your gut tells you, if you've never heard about it before:
23. At 29 (I think it is), you have well over a 90% chance. The
math on it is fairly simple, but not especially intuitive. Apply
the same principle to DNA matches, and you find[1] that you should
expect a false positive every trillion comparisons - but in
Britain, with a mere 5 million or so profiles in their database,
about 2.5 trillion comparisons have been made (500,000 crimes x
5,000,000 profiles), so statistically, you should expect two false
positives.

CODIS, the FBI's DNA database, has at least three times as many
offender and arrestee profiles, and far more crime scene profiles
to compare them to, which would lead one to expect false positives
on a fairly regular basis. But sadly, the FBI has flatly refused
to allow any kind of research to determine the likelyhood. There
are also other databases of non-offenders (people who apply for
security clearances, for instance, and many - many - forms of
background checks) that are regularly checked by law enforcement,
making for many millions more profiles, and trillions more
opportunities for false positives.

(And all of this, of course, is when everything is done correctly,
from evidence gathering to lab testing. Mistakes *do* happen, like
the supposed female German serial killer who was operating across
the country (and internationally, IRRC), but who turned out to be
a sloppy tech in the factory that manufactured the swabs used to
collect samples.)


[1]According to
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/may/25/d
na-database-false-positive

http://tinyurl.com/kdacsft
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy

Post by Gene Wirchenko
On Mon, 22 May 2017 15:17:08 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying
[snip]

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
Even the uniqueness of fingerprints have never been subjected to
rigorous scientific scrutiny. Aside from the complete lack of real

It is obviously statistical in nature.

Which does not actually meet the legal standard that is supposed
to apply (and usually doesn't, in the last few decades) to
forensic evidence used in court. Fingerprints are universally
accepted as scientifically valid, even with the flaws in
interpretation (and lack of universal standards) and occasional
outright errors (like the terrorist bombing in Spain a few years
back that left the FBI fingerprint shop with egg on their faces).

Post by Gene Wirchenko

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
standards in how to interpret them. (And there's at least one
100% proven false positive in DNA, too.)

Details on the DNA sit, please.

It was in one of those rural areas of northern England that tends
to be, in redneck terms, a bit inbred, so the perp and the false
positive were some flavor of cousin. IIRC, there was video proof
that the identified guy was elsewhere at the time of the crime.
They did catch the right guy eventually. (Note: Identical twins
have the same DNA. This has come into play in several criminal
cases. That was not the case here.) Sadly, it was a number of
years ago, and I cannot find any online references.
It's the same as the birthday game. How many people do you need to
have in the same room before you have a 50/50 chance that two of
them have the same birthday? I suspect the number is rather lower
23. At 29 (I think it is), you have well over a 90% chance. The
math on it is fairly simple, but not especially intuitive.

I've read this many times, and yet, in seventy-seven years, I have only
ever met two people with the same birthday as I have.

Apply

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
the same principle to DNA matches, and you find[1] that you should
expect a false positive every trillion comparisons - but in
Britain, with a mere 5 million or so profiles in their database,
about 2.5 trillion comparisons have been made (500,000 crimes x
5,000,000 profiles), so statistically, you should expect two false
positives.
CODIS, the FBI's DNA database, has at least three times as many
offender and arrestee profiles, and far more crime scene profiles
to compare them to, which would lead one to expect false positives
on a fairly regular basis. But sadly, the FBI has flatly refused
to allow any kind of research to determine the likelyhood. There
are also other databases of non-offenders (people who apply for
security clearances, for instance, and many - many - forms of
background checks) that are regularly checked by law enforcement,
making for many millions more profiles, and trillions more
opportunities for false positives.
(And all of this, of course, is when everything is done correctly,
from evidence gathering to lab testing. Mistakes *do* happen, like
the supposed female German serial killer who was operating across
the country (and internationally, IRRC), but who turned out to be
a sloppy tech in the factory that manufactured the swabs used to
collect samples.)
[1]According to
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/may/25/d
na-database-false-positive
http://tinyurl.com/kdacsft

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other,
seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic science in
the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be magic.

As described in 21st century television, it IS magic.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other,

seemingly-unrelated areas

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

Wasn't there something like that in the Lord Darcy stories?

Yes but then his point was that the descriptions of forensic science in
the police procedurals of the 60s might as well be magic.

Was that his point, do you think?

I knew Randall, back in the day, and I think his point was to
write stories in which magic had Laws like science, if one only
had the Talent; because then he could sell them to John Campbell,
one of whose strange ideas was that magic was really ESP.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Peter Trei

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei
Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

"New England Journal of Magic"
"SuperNature"
"Journal of the American Magic Association"

And there're less-reputable (and not peer-reviewed) magazines such as
"Popular Magic" and "Magical American".

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Carl Fink

Post by -dsr-
Magic is Science (often a medieval or romanticized view) in which each
practitioner is discovering secrets of the universe in their own lab.

A variant is Brandon Sanderson's work, where Magic Works Like Science--it
has laws and clever people can figure them out, then use them to create
specific effects in clever and increasingly-complex ways, and each new
insight can improve one's understanding of other, seemingly-unrelated areas
of study. And like real science, Sanderson magic is a cultural thing, not
the "lone genius" model dsr mentions above, which is more alchemy than the
way actual science has ever worked.

Late response, I know, but how is Sanderson's magic "magical"? If its
reproducible and reliable, and you can make hypotheses and test them,
isn't it Science?

Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

<source Clarke's Third Law>

[Garrett Wollman]

Post by David Johnston
Ah heck, more than half of fantasy fiction magic is reproducible enough
that you could science up that bitch. Of course it only is science if
you've got peer-reviewed publication.

Which ties this back to the other subbranch of this branch of the
thread, with Graydon Saunders' Commonweal, where they have publication
(not revealed if it's peer-reviewed) but not necessarily
reproducibility because of the previously-mentioned tendency for magic
to work however a sufficiently powerful practitioner thinks it works.
Still, magic-workers are able to learn from other people's published
descriptions.

-GAWollman

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is A Force of Nature (like electricity): You can do a lot of
things with it, in many different ways, but there's underlying rules.

[David Mitchell]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is A Force of Nature (like electricity): You can do a lot of things
with it, in many different ways, but there's underlying rules.

Magic is midchlorians.

<Spit>.

[David Mitchell]

Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's premise
was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking of other "Magic
is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys to earn
more.

If immortality is magic, then Highlander fits this.

Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the basis of
the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and we're
faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.

Eg. _The Magic Goes Away_ by Niven, presumably.

Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing the
right words and putting them in the right order.

And knowing the True Names of things.
Also the story RA at qntm.org has a good take on this.

Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do, all right?

Magic is all performed by demons - Blish.

[Kevrob]

Post by David Mitchell

Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do, all right?

Magic is all performed by demons - Blish.

Regarding Superpowers:

Many of the comic book superheroes, especially of the 1930s and
1940s, were powered by magic, most notably the original Captain
Marvel, through the wizard Shazam! Cap didn't do spells or
enchantments, but he and the other members of the Marvel Family
were the results of charms.

In the late 1970s, Dennis O'Neill, starting with issue #111 of
the revived silver age GREEN LANTERN title, pulled off this retcon:

The Guardians of the Galaxy, the Arisians to the GL Corps' Lensmen,
long ago gathered up all the ambient magic in the universe that they
could, and banished it to a parallel universe, so as to make the one
they lived in less chaotic and more orderly. This wound up being
"The Starheart," bits of which became the gear of the original ring-
slinger, Alan Scott, the Green Lantern of what had come to be known as
"Earth-Two," who belonged to the Justice Society of America along with
users of magic or magical artifacts such as the Spectre, Wonder Woman,
Dr Fate, Johnny Thunder and, arguably, the original Hawkman. Thus it
was explained why the "Earth-One" heroes of the Justice League were
more frequently "science-based" rather than the JSAers of E-2.

In the comics, magic is frequently seen as the intrusion into our world,
by accident or invitation, of physical laws from outside our home
universe; from an Otherworld, parallel universe, or Alternate Dimension.
What would be natural there is supernatural here. Often "magic =
aliens,"

THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #150 (SEPT 1981) WRITTEN BY Bob Layton &
David Michelinie:

"I hate magic." - Tony Stark

IM and Dr Doom get cast back in time by the Latverian monarch's time
machine to Camelot. In the comics of the day, Stark's identity
was not common knowledge, and Doom's attitude about dealing
with "Stark's bodyguard" is a stitch.

https://www.comics.org/issue/35645/cover/4/

http://majorspoilers.com/2014/02/23/retro-review-iron-man-150-september-1981/

Kevin R

[Stephen Graham]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is Life. Either it is directly your own life force and you only
have a finite amount or it is something you can harvest from other
living beings. The latter can be by sacrifice or draining them. Spending
too much will kill you or whatever you're drawing power from. Whether or
not this is a finite amount or something renewable varies.

[David Johnston]

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.

(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 17 May 2017 10:58:05 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.
(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

Warlockry.

(Don't trust cover blurbs; at least one of them consistently calls a
sorcerer a wizard, when the two forms are very different.)

The other major schools of magic are wizardry, witchcraft, sorcery,
theurgy, and demonology, and there are also several minor schools such
as herbalism, science, ritual dance, etc.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Wed, 17 May 2017 10:58:05 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.
(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

Warlockry.
(Don't trust cover blurbs; at least one of them consistently calls a
sorcerer a wizard, when the two forms are very different.)
The other major schools of magic are wizardry, witchcraft, sorcery,
theurgy, and demonology, and there are also several minor schools such
as herbalism, science, ritual dance, etc.

synchronized swimming..

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Wed, 17 May 2017 10:58:05 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.
(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

Warlockry.
(Don't trust cover blurbs; at least one of them consistently calls a
sorcerer a wizard, when the two forms are very different.)
The other major schools of magic are wizardry, witchcraft, sorcery,
theurgy, and demonology, and there are also several minor schools such
as herbalism, science, ritual dance, etc.

synchronized swimming..

Naah. That was debunked.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Wed, 17 May 2017 10:58:05 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by David Johnston
Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.
(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

Warlockry.

Re-reading my post, I can see some ambiguity.

Which book was it?

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 17 May 2017 15:50:47 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Wed, 17 May 2017 10:58:05 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by David Johnston
Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

This was the case with one type of magic (warlockry?) in one of LWE's
Ethshar novels. As you work with it more and more, you become more
powerful at it -- and your risk of being irresistibly called on a long,
one-way trip increases.
(I just looked at the cover blurbs of all the Ethshar books that I have,
but couldn't tease out from them which it was.)

Warlockry.

Re-reading my post, I can see some ambiguity.
Which book was it?

Oh, it's in several. I'm not sure which one you want.

[Stephen Graham]

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Wed, 17 May 2017 15:50:47 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

Post by Michael F. Stemper
Which book was it?

Oh, it's in several. I'm not sure which one you want.

Surely either Night of Madness or the Unwelcome Warlock.

[Michael R N Dolbear]

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Warlockry.

Which book was it?

.> Oh, it's in several. I'm not sure which one you want.


I recall buying _The Unwilling Warlord_ used.

It had been mislisted as _The Unwilling Law Lord_

Warlockry is a major part of the plot.

[David Goldfarb]

Post by Michael F. Stemper
Re-reading my post, I can see some ambiguity.
Which book was it?

Warlockry's powers and major limitation is introduced in
_The Unwilling Warlord_. It's further explored in
_Night of Madness_, and its mysteries more or less revealed
in _The Unwelcome Warlock_.

[Don Kuenz]

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

"Two Dooms" (Kornbluth) is probably an outlier story to this thread. In
the story a nuclear specialist at Los Alamos named Dr Edward Royland
ingests "God Food" (psilocybe). It sends him on a magical round trip to
the future. Royland returns a changed man.

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[David Johnston]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

"Two Dooms" (Kornbluth) is probably an outlier story to this thread. In
the story a nuclear specialist at Los Alamos named Dr Edward Royland
ingests "God Food" (psilocybe). It sends him on a magical round trip to
the future. Royland returns a changed man.
Thank you,
--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Yeah back in the day there was a set of stories where taking literal
drugs gave you magic and the issues with taking drugs were ignored
because...hippies.

[Don Kuenz]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

"Two Dooms" (Kornbluth) is probably an outlier story to this thread. In
the story a nuclear specialist at Los Alamos named Dr Edward Royland
ingests "God Food" (psilocybe). It sends him on a magical round trip to
the future. Royland returns a changed man.
Thank you,
--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Yeah back in the day there was a set of stories where taking literal
drugs gave you magic and the issues with taking drugs were ignored
because...hippies.

_A Scanner Darkly_ (PKD) exemplifies the hippie era of recreational drug
use. OTOH "Two Dooms" was first published in the summer of 1958, a few
years before hippies made their first appearance, AFAIK.

_The Door Into Summer_ (Heinlein) is currently being read by me. It
contains non-recreational drug use. Part of the story takes place on one
of the campuses of one of my alam maters, the University of Colorado at
Boulder. Whenever it's necessary for me to take a road trip through
Denver, it's always fun to stay overnight at Boulder and relive my
college days.

But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Carl Fink]

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

MDMA is reasonably safe, certainly moreso than alcohol.

No, not a hippy. I don't use either one.

[Don Kuenz]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

MDMA is reasonably safe, certainly moreso than alcohol.
No, not a hippy. I don't use either one.

It's not the drug that kills you. It's the "suicide Tuesday."

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Tell that to the three "J"'s (Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison).

[David DeLaney]

Post by Don Kuenz
_A Scanner Darkly_ (PKD) exemplifies the hippie era of recreational drug
use. OTOH "Two Dooms" was first published in the summer of 1958, a few
years before hippies made their first appearance, AFAIK.

Although, having just finished it myself, it was set in at least a
semi-crapsack world, and went into the consequences of drug D burning out the
protagonists' brain (no, I didn't misplace that apostrophe) in a fair amount of
detail near the end.

Dave

[Don Kuenz]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Don Kuenz
_A Scanner Darkly_ (PKD) exemplifies the hippie era of recreational drug
use. OTOH "Two Dooms" was first published in the summer of 1958, a few
years before hippies made their first appearance, AFAIK.

Although, having just finished it myself, it was set in at least a
semi-crapsack world, and went into the consequences of drug D burning out the
protagonists' brain (no, I didn't misplace that apostrophe) in a fair amount of
detail near the end.

In the real world, words contain the magic assuage trauma. The afterword
in _A Scanner Darkly_ stands by itself as therapy for survivors of
"suicide Tuesday" to help them cope.

This has been a novel about some people who were punished
entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a
good time, but they were like children playing in the street;
they could see one after another of them being killed--run
over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow.
We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not
toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for
such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was
beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not
believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned
that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based
killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character
Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I
myself was one of these children playing in the street; I
was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being
grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which
is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what
became of each.
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like
the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would
call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a
bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a
life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is
"Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying
begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is,
then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary
human existence. It is not different from your life-style,
it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or
months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit
go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the
cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Don Kuenz
_A Scanner Darkly_ (PKD) exemplifies the hippie era of recreational drug
use. OTOH "Two Dooms" was first published in the summer of 1958, a few
years before hippies made their first appearance, AFAIK.

Although, having just finished it myself, it was set in at least a
semi-crapsack world, and went into the consequences of drug D burning out the
protagonists' brain (no, I didn't misplace that apostrophe) in a fair

amount of

Post by David DeLaney
detail near the end.

In the real world, words contain the magic assuage trauma. The afterword
in _A Scanner Darkly_ stands by itself as therapy for survivors of
"suicide Tuesday" to help them cope.
This has been a novel about some people who were punished
entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a
good time, but they were like children playing in the street;
they could see one after another of them being killed--run
over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow.
We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not
toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for
such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was
beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not
believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned
that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based
killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character
Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I
myself was one of these children playing in the street; I
was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being
grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which
is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what
became of each.
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like
the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would
call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a
bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a
life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is
"Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying
begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is,
then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary
human existence. It is not different from your life-style,
it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or
months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit
go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the
cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

Nitpick: "Take the cash and let the credit go: is from
Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Though Villon said other things that might apply to that tragic
phenomenon. The Ballade of the Hanged Men, for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballade_des_pendus

[Greg Goss]

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.

It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

Probably just less saturated by hysterical media trying to grab attention.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

Probably just less saturated by hysterical media trying to grab attention.
--
"That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry."

I believe crime is actually way down from the days we were free-range kids.
Poor kids today..

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

Probably just less saturated by hysterical media trying to grab attention.

I believe crime is actually way down from the days we were free-range kids.
Poor kids today..

So say the statistics year after year but no one believes them for some
reason. "If there's so much less crime why do I keep seeing more on TV?!?!"

[Ahasuerus]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

Probably just less saturated by hysterical media trying to grab attention.
--
"That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry."

I believe crime is actually way down from the days we were free-range kids.
Poor kids today..

It depends on when you were a free-range kid. In the 1950s and the
early 1960s the US homicide rate fluctuated between 4 and 5 per
100,000 pop. It began rising around 1965 (5.1) and peaked in 1980
(10.2). After some minor ups and downs in the 8-10 range during the
1980s and the early 1990s, it began dropping, eventually falling below
the 1965 level in 2009 and plateauing around 4.5 in 2013-2014. It
apparently jumped to 5.0 in 2015, but recent data is always subject
to correction. See "Homicide victimization, 1950-2005" in
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf,
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1
and https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-16

[Don Kuenz]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

The 1960 to 2010 drug overdose rate:

Loading Image...

strongly suggests that the drug scene was far safer back then. Consider
America's meth epidemic. Then look at the "frequency of drugs appearing
in film" poster, which also contains interesting statistics:

Loading Image...

America's consumption of marijuana today far exceeds the meager amounts
consumed during the hippie era. Today's marijuana is also much more
potent.

Reports show that pot in the 1970s had THC levels of
around 1%. However, today, the herb you're smoking has a
lot more THC, with levels averaging more than 6-8%. Some
specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as
51%

http://herb.co/2015/09/30/modern-day-weed-vs-hippie-weed/

Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.

One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Kevrob]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Don Kuenz
But Boulder, and Colorado, have recently changed. Marijuana is now
legal. They tell me that the marijuana sold over-the-counter is quite
potent. There's also lethal drugs such as MDMA available on the street
these days. The hippie era seems almost quaintly safe by comparison.

Teenage girls hitchhiking across the country with no-one aware of
where they ended up, deliberately cutting ties with their parents. I
sometimes wonder how many of them disappeared with no-one knoing that
they vanished.
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/professionals/education/curriculum-tools/population-health/stewart-fig1f.jpg
strongly suggests that the drug scene was far safer back then. Consider
America's meth epidemic. Then look at the "frequency of drugs appearing
https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Infographic_high-cinema_ver56_Feb-5.jpg
America's consumption of marijuana today far exceeds the meager amounts
consumed during the hippie era. Today's marijuana is also much more
potent.
Reports show that pot in the 1970s had THC levels of
around 1%. However, today, the herb you're smoking has a
lot more THC, with levels averaging more than 6-8%. Some
specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as
51%
http://herb.co/2015/09/30/modern-day-weed-vs-hippie-weed/
Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

That Big Gulp tends to be "cut" with a lot of ice.

I don't know about the drugs. And I don't drink sodas with
sugar in them, though I probably ingest too much from other
sources.

Kevin R

(Pulls on "home made" lemonade, sweetened with Stevia)

[Don Kuenz]

<snip>

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don Kuenz
Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

That Big Gulp tends to be "cut" with a lot of ice.
I don't know about the drugs. And I don't drink sodas with
sugar in them, though I probably ingest too much from other
sources.

There's a limit to how much you can "cut" a Big Gulp before consumers
scream like a banshee. One guy took 7-Eleven to task for shorting him
4 ounces on his 44 oz. Super Big Gulp:

Really, Really Thirsty Big Gulp Drinker Says 7-11 Shortchanging Customers by 4 oz.
http://www.minyanville.com/mvpremium/really-really-thirsty-big-gulp/

Bigger-is-better in America. The Big Gulp is actually old-school.

Seeing a trend in the making, 7-Eleven not only rolled out
the big cups systemwide (the Stanford Agency, its in-house
creative group, cooked up the name), it's been making them
bigger ever since. The Super Big Gulp (44 oz.) appeared in
1986; the Double Gulp (64 oz.) in 1989; the X-Treme Gulp
(52 oz.) in 2001; and finally, in 2006, came the Team
Gulp. It holds 128 ounces--one gallon--of soda.

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/tall-cold-tale-big-gulp-162960/

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Kevrob]

Post by Robert Woodward
<snip>

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don Kuenz
Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

That Big Gulp tends to be "cut" with a lot of ice.
I don't know about the drugs. And I don't drink sodas with
sugar in them, though I probably ingest too much from other
sources.

There's a limit to how much you can "cut" a Big Gulp before consumers
scream like a banshee. One guy took 7-Eleven to task for shorting him
Really, Really Thirsty Big Gulp Drinker Says 7-11 Shortchanging Customers by 4 oz.
http://www.minyanville.com/mvpremium/really-really-thirsty-big-gulp/
Bigger-is-better in America. The Big Gulp is actually old-school.
Seeing a trend in the making, 7-Eleven not only rolled out
the big cups systemwide (the Stanford Agency, its in-house
creative group, cooked up the name), it's been making them
bigger ever since. The Super Big Gulp (44 oz.) appeared in
1986; the Double Gulp (64 oz.) in 1989; the X-Treme Gulp
(52 oz.) in 2001; and finally, in 2006, came the Team
Gulp. It holds 128 ounces--one gallon--of soda.
http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/tall-cold-tale-big-gulp-162960/

Reminds me of a beer "growler."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growler_(jug)

http://growler-station.com/about/history/

Some of them top out at 128 fl oz.

I don't know how much the old beer-pail carried.

Kevin R

[Greg Goss]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don Kuenz
Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.

That Big Gulp tends to be "cut" with a lot of ice.
I don't know about the drugs. And I don't drink sodas with
sugar in them, though I probably ingest too much from other
sources.

There's a limit to how much you can "cut" a Big Gulp before consumers
scream like a banshee. One guy took 7-Eleven to task for shorting him

How do they get to short a customer or over-cut his drink with ice?
Where I live, 7/11 gets the customers to pour the drinks, and can't
afford the labour to do it any other way.

(Yesterday was BYOC-quel - where they had a one-price deal for "any
size cup" that could fit into a 10 inch (?) opening. The web news
item I googled up says yesterday and today, but the signs at the local
one I go to only had yesterday's date on the sign.
http://time.com/money/4786136/7-eleven-bring-your-own-cup-day-slurpees-2017/
)

[[e-mail]]

Post by Don Kuenz
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

It also might indicate Big Pharma trying to outcompete heroin dealers. Keeps all that lovely profit in the country, so it's patriotic, too.


Mark L. Fergerson

[Kevrob]

Post by ***@bid.nes

Post by Don Kuenz
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

It also might indicate Big Pharma trying to outcompete heroin dealers. Keeps all that lovely profit in the country, so it's patriotic, too.

In some senses, it is riskier for people with "straight"* lifestyles
to get a scrip from Dr Feelgood than to buy street drugs. If you OD
on prescription narcotics, of course, you are just as dead, but until
that happens, you avoid some complications, legal and otherwise.

Kevin R

* to use an old 60's-ism.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Kevrob

Post by ***@bid.nes

Post by Don Kuenz
One notable aspect of today's recreational drug culture is how legal
drugs, such as OxyContin, tend to push out old school illegal drugs,
such as heroin. That may indicate that America's recreational drug use
becomes more sophisticated as it grows ever larger.

It also might indicate Big Pharma trying to outcompete heroin dealers. Keeps all that lovely profit in the country, so it's patriotic, too.

In some senses, it is riskier for people with "straight"* lifestyles
to get a scrip from Dr Feelgood than to buy street drugs. If you OD
on prescription narcotics, of course, you are just as dead, but until
that happens, you avoid some complications, legal and otherwise.

A friend of mine suffers from chronic pain--for purposes of this discussion
it doesn't matter why but her condition is not something that can be
"fixed", she just has to live with it. She's going to be on high intensity
pain meds for the rest of her life. The doctor she works with seems to be
stuck in the '50s with regard to the way he runs his practice (for example
electronic delivery of anything seems to be a novel concept to him) but
she's afraid to look for another one because she's concerned about being
accused of "doctor shopping". Every month, for years, it's been the same
drill with blood tests and pee in the cup and count the pills and the whole
nine yards. The stupid thing is that she used be charge nurse at a major
hospital--if she was going to sell drugs on the street or become a drug
addict she'd have done it when she had the keys to the cabinet.

In her case she probably _would_ be better off to just find a supplier of
street drugs.

Of course the doctor is only partly to blame--the war on some drugs plays a
hand as well, but the doctor seems to be using it as an excuse to abuse
patients.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Sat, 20 May 2017 06:29:51 -0400, "J. Clarke"

Post by J. Clarke
A friend of mine suffers from chronic pain--for purposes of this discussion
it doesn't matter why but her condition is not something that can be
"fixed", she just has to live with it. She's going to be on high intensity
pain meds for the rest of her life. The doctor she works with seems to be
stuck in the '50s with regard to the way he runs his practice (for example
electronic delivery of anything seems to be a novel concept to him) but
she's afraid to look for another one because she's concerned about being
accused of "doctor shopping". Every month, for years, it's been the same
drill with blood tests and pee in the cup and count the pills and the whole
nine yards.

That's not the 1950s so much as the '70s. In the '50s doctors freely
prescribed all kinds of shit for little or no reason. My mother was
given a big bottle of methamphetamine when she felt a bit overwhelmed
by her kids (I forget how many she had at the time). They were
handing out Miltown and other toxic stuff like candy.

Not to mention things like diethyl stilbesterol or thalidomide.
(Yeah, thalidomide was the '60s, not the '50s -- and it's what brought
about the change in attitude, from "sure, have some drugs," to "we
should be careful with this.")

Post by J. Clarke
The stupid thing is that she used be charge nurse at a major
hospital--if she was going to sell drugs on the street or become a drug
addict she'd have done it when she had the keys to the cabinet.

My mother-in-law was head nurse in the psychiatric wing of a VA
hospital. When she died we found all sorts of interesting stuff in a
locked medicine cabinet in her basement, from penicillin to Haldol.
She never sold them or used any, so far as we know, but she was
definitely ready to supply her kids with whatever they needed, with or
without a prescription.

Post by J. Clarke
In her case she probably _would_ be better off to just find a supplier of
street drugs.
Of course the doctor is only partly to blame--the war on some drugs plays a
hand as well, but the doctor seems to be using it as an excuse to abuse
patients.

The War on Drugs was the invention of the Nixon administration,
1969-1974. The evil men do lives on.

[Kevrob]

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Sat, 20 May 2017 06:29:51 -0400, "J. Clarke"

Post by J. Clarke
A friend of mine suffers from chronic pain--for purposes of this discussion
it doesn't matter why but her condition is not something that can be
"fixed", she just has to live with it. She's going to be on high intensity
pain meds for the rest of her life. The doctor she works with seems to be
stuck in the '50s with regard to the way he runs his practice (for example
electronic delivery of anything seems to be a novel concept to him) but
she's afraid to look for another one because she's concerned about being
accused of "doctor shopping". Every month, for years, it's been the same
drill with blood tests and pee in the cup and count the pills and the whole
nine yards.

That's not the 1950s so much as the '70s. In the '50s doctors freely
prescribed all kinds of shit for little or no reason. My mother was
given a big bottle of methamphetamine when she felt a bit overwhelmed
by her kids (I forget how many she had at the time). They were
handing out Miltown and other toxic stuff like candy.
Not to mention things like diethyl stilbesterol or thalidomide.
(Yeah, thalidomide was the '60s, not the '50s -- and it's what brought
about the change in attitude, from "sure, have some drugs," to "we
should be careful with this.")

Post by J. Clarke
The stupid thing is that she used be charge nurse at a major
hospital--if she was going to sell drugs on the street or become a drug
addict she'd have done it when she had the keys to the cabinet.

My mother-in-law was head nurse in the psychiatric wing of a VA
hospital. When she died we found all sorts of interesting stuff in a
locked medicine cabinet in her basement, from penicillin to Haldol.
She never sold them or used any, so far as we know, but she was
definitely ready to supply her kids with whatever they needed, with or
without a prescription.

Post by J. Clarke
In her case she probably _would_ be better off to just find a supplier of
street drugs.

The Authorities are harassing MDs who they see as prescribing too
freely, in their futile attempt to fight their War On Some Drugs.

See:

http://reason.com/blog/2016/03/16/cdc-prescription-guidelines-will-leave-m

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Post by J. Clarke
Of course the doctor is only partly to blame--the war on some drugs plays a
hand as well, but the doctor seems to be using it as an excuse to abuse
patients.

He is probably going through all those tests to safeguard himself
from scrutiny by those looking to accuse MDs treating pain of
prescribing cavalierly.

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
The War on Drugs was the invention of the Nixon administration,
1969-1974. The evil men do lives on.

Nixon escalated, as did NY Gov Rockefeller. I trace it back to
Wilson and the Harrison Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Act_of_1914

100+ years of this "fight." It still doesn't work.
Try something else, maybe?

Kevin R

[Greg Goss]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by Greg Goss
It might have been a safer time, or just a more naive time.

Serving size tends to grow ever larger in America. After a while, 6.5
ounces of Coke doesn't even begin to quench your thirst. After a while,
nothing less than 32 ounces of Big Gulp will do.

When I was growing up, the 26er of soda was labeled "Family size".
Enough pop for two parents and two or three kids.

[Joy Beeson]

Post by Greg Goss
When I was growing up, the 26er of soda was labeled "Family size".
Enough pop for two parents and two or three kids.

"Pepsi Cola hits the spot / twelve full ounces, that's a lot."

[Greg Goss]

Post by Joy Beeson

Post by Greg Goss
When I was growing up, the 26er of soda was labeled "Family size".
Enough pop for two parents and two or three kids.

"Pepsi Cola hits the spot / twelve full ounces, that's a lot."

I'm not sure if that campaign ever made it into Canada. Pretty much
all the soda was sold either as a 10 oz "king size" or a 26 oz "family
size".

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Joy Beeson

Post by Greg Goss
When I was growing up, the 26er of soda was labeled "Family size".
Enough pop for two parents and two or three kids.

"Pepsi Cola hits the spot / twelve full ounces, that's a lot."

I'm not sure if that campaign ever made it into Canada. Pretty much
all the soda was sold either as a 10 oz "king size" or a 26 oz "family
size".
--

I seem to remember that Coke used to be sold in two different sized bottles,
both of which cost the same from a coke machine..

[Kevrob]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
Recently I've been thinking of Rick Cook's Wizardry series and how it's
premise was that magic is computer programming. It started me thinking
of other "Magic is..." premises that I've seen in fantasy fiction.
Magic is Money. You have an "account" and you have to beat the bad guys
to earn more.
Magic is Economics. A more sophisticated iteration where magic is the
basis of the currency and corporations are sentient entities, artificial
gods.
Magic is Petroleum. Which is to say it's a nonrenewable resource and
we're faced with running out of it because this is a 1970s story.
Magic is Vocabulary...and maybe Grammar. It's just a matter of knowing
the right words and putting them in the right order.
Magic is Comic Book Superpowers. You just have something you can do,
all right?

Magic is a drug. Pleasurable, addictive, deleterious physical and
mental side-effects.

"Two Dooms" (Kornbluth) is probably an outlier story to this thread. In
the story a nuclear specialist at Los Alamos named Dr Edward Royland
ingests "God Food" (psilocybe). It sends him on a magical round trip to
the future. Royland returns a changed man.
Thank you,
--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Yeah back in the day there was a set of stories where taking literal
drugs gave you magic and the issues with taking drugs were ignored
because...hippies.

...and if you combine that with "Magic* is Comic Book Superpowers" you
get Victor Milán's "Captain Trips" in the WILD CARDS shared world series.

Kevin R

* For values of "magic" that include the effects of Xenovirus Takis-A.

[David Johnston]

What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

[Chris Buckley]

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

I think it came up earlier: The Max Gladstone Craft books have magic as
Contract Law.

I like the Gladstone books; I just think he can be doing more with them - the
last couple didn't have nearly the impact for me as the first couple.

Chris

[Kevrob]

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Faust, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," etc.

Kevin R

[David Johnston]

Post by Kevrob

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Faust, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," etc.

Problem is they have contracts but the contracts are loophole-free.
Sure Webster wins but he doesn't win on the law.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 22 May 2017 08:09:11 -0600, David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

If you mean that magic can seal a contract, it is a background
point of Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" stories.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[David Johnston]

Post by Gene Wirchenko
On Mon, 22 May 2017 08:09:11 -0600, David Johnston

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

If you mean that magic can seal a contract, it is a background
point of Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" stories.

No I mean the magic is the product of contracts with supernatural
entities. The deal with the Devil story is indeed one example.

[Carl Fink]

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Dickson's books about the guy who becomes a dragonet?

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Dickson's books about the guy who becomes a dragonet?

Dun da dun dun!

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Wellll.... reaching rather far here, but some of my Cynthia
stories reference the Classical mythic theme that what one god
has done, another can't (read, is forbidden to) undo.

Example follows; if you're not interested, hit 'n' now.

"You remember about Tireisias?" Mercury asked.
"Well, yes; the twining snakes, and how he changed his
sex twice ."
"And after that, Zeus and Hera asked him, as one who'd
know, which enjoyed bed-sport more, men or women? And he said,
Women, and Zeus had a great laugh at his consort's expense, and
Hera was so angry he struck Tireisias blind. And Zeus said, I'm
sorry, but I can't help you; what one god has done another god
cannot undo; instead, I'll give you the power of prophecy ."
"Is that the truth?" Cynthia said. "I always wondered .
Oh, forgive me, I interrupted."
"No, no, please: ask."
"I always wondered whether it was true, that what one god
has done another can't undo. How can the immortal gods be bound
to such restraints on their powers? Or is it simply that if they
were not bound, all the stories would fall to the ground? If the
character in your play gets into terrible trouble and then
immediately the god out of the Machine comes down and makes it
all right, you've got no plot, and you'll never win the Drama
Festival award."
Mercury laughed, and tossed one of the green things
(wobbling between one shape and another like a droplet of water
flung into the air) into his mouth. "That's almost right," he
said. "It's a matter of honor. It's not 'what a god has done,
no one can undo;' it's 'what one god has done, another is bound
in honor not to undo. You'll remember how Hera turned Io into a
cow, because she'd lain with Zeus? Zeus couldn't undo that; but
she wandered into Egypt where she not only regained her shape,
but rose to godhead as Isis. But if that hadn't happened, she
might have wandered into some mortal's farmyard and been
slaughtered . or put in the stockpen to bear calves for the rest
of her life. It happens all the time. It's tricky, for a god to
circumvent another's actions without breaking honor. Sometimes
the shortest distance between two points is around three sides of
a square." He drank again, and sighed.
"Well, my Lord, maybe it's just the wine, but I am
beginning to think you want me to do something." The god smiled.
"And you can't tell me what it is, because that would be
interfering."
The god smiled wider (the room was becoming warmer), and
made beckoning motions, as if to say "Go on, go on."
"Then how am I find out what to do? . Never mind that,
what *can* you tell me?"
"I can tell you," the god said, "that if you go to
Mytilene, on Lesbos, you will presently see and recognize what
needs doing. And if you'll agree to do it, I'll teach you a fine
charm for undoing enchantments."

Does that work for you?

[Don Kuenz]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Wellll.... reaching rather far here, but some of my Cynthia
stories reference the Classical mythic theme that what one god
has done, another can't (read, is forbidden to) undo.
Example follows; if you're not interested, hit 'n' now.
"You remember about Tireisias?" Mercury asked.
"Well, yes; the twining snakes, and how he changed his
sex twice ."
"And after that, Zeus and Hera asked him, as one who'd
know, which enjoyed bed-sport more, men or women? And he said,
Women, and Zeus had a great laugh at his consort's expense, and
Hera was so angry he struck Tireisias blind. And Zeus said, I'm
sorry, but I can't help you; what one god has done another god
cannot undo; instead, I'll give you the power of prophecy ."
"Is that the truth?" Cynthia said. "I always wondered .
Oh, forgive me, I interrupted."
"No, no, please: ask."
"I always wondered whether it was true, that what one god
has done another can't undo. How can the immortal gods be bound
to such restraints on their powers? Or is it simply that if they
were not bound, all the stories would fall to the ground? If the
character in your play gets into terrible trouble and then
immediately the god out of the Machine comes down and makes it
all right, you've got no plot, and you'll never win the Drama
Festival award."
Mercury laughed, and tossed one of the green things
(wobbling between one shape and another like a droplet of water
flung into the air) into his mouth. "That's almost right," he
said. "It's a matter of honor. It's not 'what a god has done,
no one can undo;' it's 'what one god has done, another is bound
in honor not to undo. You'll remember how Hera turned Io into a
cow, because she'd lain with Zeus? Zeus couldn't undo that; but
she wandered into Egypt where she not only regained her shape,
but rose to godhead as Isis. But if that hadn't happened, she
might have wandered into some mortal's farmyard and been
slaughtered . or put in the stockpen to bear calves for the rest
of her life. It happens all the time. It's tricky, for a god to
circumvent another's actions without breaking honor. Sometimes
the shortest distance between two points is around three sides of
a square." He drank again, and sighed.
"Well, my Lord, maybe it's just the wine, but I am
beginning to think you want me to do something." The god smiled.
"And you can't tell me what it is, because that would be
interfering."
The god smiled wider (the room was becoming warmer), and
made beckoning motions, as if to say "Go on, go on."
"Then how am I find out what to do? . Never mind that,
what *can* you tell me?"
"I can tell you," the god said, "that if you go to
Mytilene, on Lesbos, you will presently see and recognize what
needs doing. And if you'll agree to do it, I'll teach you a fine
charm for undoing enchantments."
Does that work for you?

Caveat emptor Wikipedia. The article on Esther [1] completely misses the
nuance of the permanence of a king's decree.

(Esther 8:8b) For whatever is written in the name of the
king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.

Allow me to argue a different case in the court of public opinion. :0) A
trade between a buyer and seller is an implied contract. Ergo, Magic is
a Trade.

If you're still with me, "The Book of Sand" (Borges) has a Scot from the
Orkney Islands and the narrator enter into an implied sales contract. It
happens when the Scot accepts the narrator's offer of one pension check
along with a black-letter Wiclif Bible for the Scot's Book of Sand. And
The Book of Sand is magic.

There you have it. Magic is Contract Law.

Note.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

[Kevrob]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Wellll.... reaching rather far here, but some of my Cynthia
stories reference the Classical mythic theme that what one god
has done, another can't (read, is forbidden to) undo.
Example follows; if you're not interested, hit 'n' now.
"You remember about Tireisias?" Mercury asked.
"Well, yes; the twining snakes, and how he changed his
sex twice ."
"And after that, Zeus and Hera asked him, as one who'd
know, which enjoyed bed-sport more, men or women? And he said,
Women, and Zeus had a great laugh at his consort's expense, and
Hera was so angry he struck Tireisias blind. And Zeus said, I'm
sorry, but I can't help you; what one god has done another god
cannot undo; instead, I'll give you the power of prophecy ."
"Is that the truth?" Cynthia said. "I always wondered .
Oh, forgive me, I interrupted."
"No, no, please: ask."
"I always wondered whether it was true, that what one god
has done another can't undo. How can the immortal gods be bound
to such restraints on their powers? Or is it simply that if they
were not bound, all the stories would fall to the ground? If the
character in your play gets into terrible trouble and then
immediately the god out of the Machine comes down and makes it
all right, you've got no plot, and you'll never win the Drama
Festival award."
Mercury laughed, and tossed one of the green things
(wobbling between one shape and another like a droplet of water
flung into the air) into his mouth. "That's almost right," he
said. "It's a matter of honor. It's not 'what a god has done,
no one can undo;' it's 'what one god has done, another is bound
in honor not to undo. You'll remember how Hera turned Io into a
cow, because she'd lain with Zeus? Zeus couldn't undo that; but
she wandered into Egypt where she not only regained her shape,
but rose to godhead as Isis. But if that hadn't happened, she
might have wandered into some mortal's farmyard and been
slaughtered . or put in the stockpen to bear calves for the rest
of her life. It happens all the time. It's tricky, for a god to
circumvent another's actions without breaking honor. Sometimes
the shortest distance between two points is around three sides of
a square." He drank again, and sighed.
"Well, my Lord, maybe it's just the wine, but I am
beginning to think you want me to do something." The god smiled.
"And you can't tell me what it is, because that would be
interfering."
The god smiled wider (the room was becoming warmer), and
made beckoning motions, as if to say "Go on, go on."
"Then how am I find out what to do? . Never mind that,
what *can* you tell me?"
"I can tell you," the god said, "that if you go to
Mytilene, on Lesbos, you will presently see and recognize what
needs doing. And if you'll agree to do it, I'll teach you a fine
charm for undoing enchantments."
Does that work for you?

Caveat emptor Wikipedia. The article on Esther [1] completely misses the
nuance of the permanence of a king's decree.
(Esther 8:8b) For whatever is written in the name of the
king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.
Allow me to argue a different case in the court of public opinion. :0) A
trade between a buyer and seller is an implied contract. Ergo, Magic is
a Trade.

Did you ever see Jim Henson's "Land of Gorch" segments on the early
NBC's Saturday Night?*

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mighty_Favog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_of_Gorch

Ploobis would propitiate the Mighty Favog by sacrifice.
As the MF would say, "It's gonna cost ya!" Usually a
chicken.

Even Odin sold an eye to Mimir for wisdom.

The Gorch skits were loathed by the SNL writing crew, but
I enjoyed the ugly, awful piles of felt. I loved the Paul
Winchell and Paul Ashley puppets we saw on NY local kids'
TV, and knew the Muppets from their prime time appearances
on Ed Sullivan's and Jimmy dean's shows.

Post by Don Kuenz
If you're still with me, "The Book of Sand" (Borges) has a Scot from the
Orkney Islands and the narrator enter into an implied sales contract. It
happens when the Scot accepts the narrator's offer of one pension check
along with a black-letter Wiclif Bible for the Scot's Book of Sand. And
The Book of Sand is magic.
There you have it. Magic is Contract Law.
Note.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther

Kevin R

[[e-mail]]

Post by Kevrob
Did you ever see Jim Henson's "Land of Gorch" segments on the early
NBC's Saturday Night?*

I did. Thanks for the blast from the past.

Post by Kevrob
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mighty_Favog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_of_Gorch
Ploobis would propitiate the Mighty Favog by sacrifice.
As the MF would say, "It's gonna cost ya!" Usually a
chicken.

I especially enjoyed the early dialogue-less bits where one critter aimlessly wandered around until something else ate it.

Henson & co. obviously were practicing for Dark Crystal when they did Gorch.

Speaking of which, I understand there's gonna be a prequel to that on Netflix soon. I hope they don't screw it up.

Post by Kevrob
Even Odin sold an eye to Mimir for wisdom.
The Gorch skits were loathed by the SNL writing crew, but
I enjoyed the ugly, awful piles of felt. I loved the Paul
Winchell and Paul Ashley puppets we saw on NY local kids'
TV, and knew the Muppets from their prime time appearances
on Ed Sullivan's and Jimmy dean's shows.

Yeah, I moss Rolf too.


Mark L. Fergerson

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by ***@bid.nes

Post by Kevrob
Did you ever see Jim Henson's "Land of Gorch" segments on the early
NBC's Saturday Night?*

I did. Thanks for the blast from the past.

Post by Kevrob
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mighty_Favog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_of_Gorch
Ploobis would propitiate the Mighty Favog by sacrifice.
As the MF would say, "It's gonna cost ya!" Usually a
chicken.

I especially enjoyed the early dialogue-less bits where one critter
aimlessly wandered around until something else ate it.
Henson & co. obviously were practicing for Dark Crystal when they did Gorch.
Speaking of which, I understand there's gonna be a prequel to that on
Netflix soon. I hope they don't screw it up.

Well, Henson's daughter (Lisa, I think) is directing, and Brian
Froud is involved.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Don Kuenz

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

[excerpt snipped]

Post by Don Kuenz
Caveat emptor Wikipedia. The article on Esther [1] completely misses the
nuance of the permanence of a king's decree.
(Esther 8:8b) For whatever is written in the name of the
king and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked.

I know; but I was doing Classical mythology, not Judaic maybe-
history-maybe-mythology.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Almost any in which magic comes from an outside and usually malevolent
source. You do a deal with a spirit or a demon and you have to adhere to
the deal as stated.

I think the first one in which it was explicitly dealt with in a legal
context was The Devil and Daniel Webster, but I wouldn't be surprised to
find the story was a few centuries older.

[Greg Goss]

Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Almost any in which magic comes from an outside and usually malevolent
source. You do a deal with a spirit or a demon and you have to adhere to
the deal as stated.
I think the first one in which it was explicitly dealt with in a legal
context was The Devil and Daniel Webster, but I wouldn't be surprised to
find the story was a few centuries older.

Faust?

[Kevrob]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Almost any in which magic comes from an outside and usually malevolent
source. You do a deal with a spirit or a demon and you have to adhere to
the deal as stated.
I think the first one in which it was explicitly dealt with in a legal
context was The Devil and Daniel Webster, but I wouldn't be surprised to
find the story was a few centuries older.

Faust?

The deal is in Marlowe's play: based on earlier works...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_(play)

Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

Post by David Johnston
What stories use Magic is Contract Law?

Almost any in which magic comes from an outside and usually malevolent
source. You do a deal with a spirit or a demon and you have to adhere to
the deal as stated.
I think the first one in which it was explicitly dealt with in a legal
context was The Devil and Daniel Webster, but I wouldn't be surprised to
find the story was a few centuries older.

Faust?

The deal is in Marlowe's play: based on earlier works...?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_(play)

Marlowe's play was earlier than Goethe's, but both were based on
earlier legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust#Sources