Skip to main content

story identification - Man can do magic by writing spells on the inside of his mind


I'm trying to identify a fantasy fiction (possibly epic fantasy) book I read several years ago, although I'm sure it was out well before then. It may or may not be in a series, but it was a decently thick hardcover book I found in the adult section of my local library. The book was set in medieval times (there were castles and a lord's solar), and the main character is able to perform magic by closing his eyes and concentrating on emptying his mind, kind of like a blackboard, and then mentally writing out the spells or symbols. I think he learns to do this during the book.


I seem to recall part of the plot being an effort to try to free somebody (a woman, perhaps) from an enemy's castle, but I'm not completely sure about that. I do remember the characters ride horses and fight with swords and there were also archers at some point: It's not just magic. I realize this is pretty vague.



Answer




Sounds like one of Gordon Dickson's Dragon series. In the second book of the series, The Dragon Knight, protagonist Jim is taught use of his magical power by the wizard Carolinus. This turns out to involve clearing his mind, treating the inside of his head as a blackboard, and 'writing' spells on it in a simple symbolic pseudocode-like language.


For example, Jim's most commonly used spell ("turn into a dragon") is


NOTSHAPE ME -> DRAGON

The language isn't a true object-oriented magic language (though it made me want one); it's a channel for his thoughts. He often creates new and silly object nouns on the fly, as when looking out for magical traps from the bottom of an enemy's tower:


ME/SEE -> MAGIC WORKSABOVEINRED

(The effects are consistent with the spell cast, however. Later Jim is caught out by a magical trap beneath him - specifying 'above' was a mistake.)


The solar you mentioned is in Jim's castle, which he takes from an evil knight in the first book, The Dragon and the George. The woman he rescues would probably be his wife Angie, whom he rescues from evil wizards in a dark tower at the end of that book. (He is not yet a wizard at this time, though he is a dragon for most of the first book - that being the premise.)


Nearer the end of the series Dickson dumped this system and let Jim move on to the because-I-say-so magic used throughout by his mentor.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

fan fiction - Does the Interdict of Merlin appear in original Harry Potter canon?

In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky a concept called the ' Interdict of Merlin ' appears: (all emphasis added) Chapter 23: His hand on the doorknob, Harry Potter already inside and waiting, wearing his cowled cloak. "The ancient first-year spells," Harry Potter said. "What did you find?" "They're no more powerful than the spells we use now." Harry Potter's fist struck a desk, hard. "Damn it. All right. My own experiment was a failure, Draco. There's something called the Interdict of Merlin -" Draco hit himself on the forehead, realizing. "- which stops anyone from getting knowledge of powerful spells out of books, even if you find and read a powerful wizard's notes they won't make sense to you, it has to go from one living mind to another. I couldn't find any powerful spells that we had the instructions for but couldn't cast. But if you can't get them out of old books,
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec
Post a Comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir
Post a Comment
Read more