(urth) S&S vs. SF in BotNS

[Jerry Friedman]

>From: Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com>
>From: Jerry Friedman 
>> From: Daniel Petersen danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
>
>> > (though curiously, nothing authentically 'magical' that I can see). 
>
>> How about the analept of the alzabo and the effect of drinking blook on the inhumi?  
>> After a moment's thought, the only way I can understand these is as magic, specifically
>> the principle of contagion (if I have it right).  Even if you believe in Lamarckian 
>> inheritance, the effect of memory and decisions on DNA or anything else located 
>> outside the brain is clearly very subtle--for instance, children aren't born knowing 
>> their biological parents' language--not what seems to happen to the inhumi or 
>> even to alzabo addicts.  Though actually I'm not clear on what happens to 
>> alzabo-heads who don't happen to be carrying the Claw.
> 
>It’s not magic – it’s bad science, just like FTL travel.  Wolfe doesn’t care too much if the science is questionable, what he cares about is that the world of the story is underpinned by natural laws.  The distinction between magic and science is that magic has either no rules, or rules that are arbitrarily connected to their physical effects (they may be psychologically non-arbitrary).

But that's precisely what we've got with the analeptic alzabo and the inhumi.  The rules underlying them make psychological sense because they work by "contagion", but they don't make physical sense to me.  That's why they feel like magic rather than science-fictional "bad science".

> > Certainly uncomfortable and disturbing in some ways, but genre confusions don't bother 
>> me.  Wolfe seems to care that what Decuman and Typhon do is hypnotism of some
>> very strange sort, not magic, but I don't see why he cares.
>
>I think he cares because it would be a different kind of world if it had magic.  Not necessarily for the characters in it, but for the readers.

But the reader can't tell.  Maybe that's why Wolfe felt he had to say it in an interview.  In any case, it's a distinction without a difference for this reader, and maybe for Dan'l too.  If we were supposed to find valid scientific explanations for everything, that would make a difference to me, but not if we're supposed to find bogus science-fictional explanations.
 
Daniel Petersen wrote:
> Ok, Jerry, so I think you, like me, have 'magical' as a subset of 'supernatural' or 'paranormal'. But, if not in terms of spells, etc., then in what sense are these phenomena 'magical'? (I think I normally think there has to be some human agency in terms of cooperation with greater powers through arcane [and usually uncertain] rules or rituals. That's the kind of stuff I feel I don't see in BotNS. If the Thecla ritual eating is to be thought of this way, then, for once, I'd probably tend toward a more 'scientific' explanation as has been discussed.)
 
To me, goety and theurgy are only one branch of magic.  Another is the kind that works by sympathy and contagion, such as sticking pins in dolls or keeping one's accidental cut from being infected by cleaning the knife that caused it.  Maybe in the same category is the kind that works by less obvious correspondences, such as Renaissance alchemy and astrology, or indigenous medicine that works by kinships among species that are based on stories.  Then there's knowing true names, as on Earthsea.  Another kind is magical devices, such as the One Ring.  And the kind that's just an inherent power, and is or isn't the same as psi.  I don't think I can classify all the kinds of magic, but "I know it when I see it" (and don't expect everyone to agree).
 
Jerry Friedman