Inventing Elephants

Matt Mantrell figured out how to work magic via poetry in a world where science didn't work.  Better poetry made better magic.  Her Majesty's Wizard, a fantasy novel written by Christopher Stasheff, made a big impact on me when I first read the book in junior high because of the thought processes the main character used.  If I wasn't currently in a mode to be thinking of the impact of fiction I would have just said that I really enjoyed the book because it was fun and inventive.  I certainly bought my own copy and then all the sequels as they were released and have reread them a couple times since.

Later, I found that many parts of the plot were not particularly original and for many of them a better example exists, but those books didn't personally impact my thinking in the same way.  Matt logically worked out the rules of magic by observing cause and effect and experimenting.  Although his process was analytical his experiments were intuitive, connecting the literature and ideas stored in his mind with the unusual and previously undreamed of situations that he was facing.  In a way, it featured a synthesis of left-brain and right-brain thinking in an attempt to both grasp and use larger concepts.

This was also the first book that I remember reading where a character was put into a whole world where the rules were different.  I read many fantasy books in the children's section of the library before I made it to the adult's, so that's probably not entirely true, but it was the one with the stickiest ideas, or perhaps the one where the change was more fundamental, yet still realistic.  The medieval ideas of religion - where evil and good were absolute - were true in this world and the divine right of the true ruler conveyed certain abilities.

When I went to write this entry I took the time to read the reviews on Amazon.  Many of the readers rated it highly, but a few had some interesting challenges.  Dr. Zoidberg found the religious aspect of the book ruined it for him and there were others who disliked the serious undertones.  C. E. Crowder was disappointed that magic seemed to always work according to plan.  William E. Marshall was also irritated that Matt's powers were theoretically unlimited but not used or countered in such a way.  I was surprised by the latter two and had to think about why.

Magic worked as it was conceived to work.  The clearer that the magician held the idea in his mind and the better words that he used to express it, the closer the result was to what he envisioned.  The success of Matt's spells was a direct result of his ability to imagine what he wanted, to incorporate others' thoughts into his own creations, in contrast to others who learned spells by rote.  This was Matt's strength, but also a limit.  He couldn't have used "Yawn, yawn, evil's gone," as Crowder suggested, because he couldn't imagine how that would work and it didn't provide a robust enough structure to support his intent.

This post was inspired by my previous post on Learning About People from Fiction.  I wondered which fiction books had influenced me in the past, and was a little surprised when this one came to mind.  It fit so well into my overall blog theme that I had to write about it.