Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This came up over in the 2020 challenge idea thread, and I'm really intrigued by the idea. Can anyone give me recommendations for books where magic is causing chaos/is out of control? Basically the magical version of technology run amok.

Thanks!

One example "Der Zauberlehrling", a ballad by Goethe (would also count as Alternate Form, Translated, and pre-1940 :) You're probably more familiar with the animated version staring Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, set to Dukas.
"The Master and His Pupil" by Joseph Jacobs is a very similar story from an English writer.

Hmm, what about Ariel by Steven R. Boyett. Basically you have our normal world when suddenly one day the rules of the world change and you are no longer governed by the rules of science but rather the rules of magic? A kind of post-apocalyptic magic story, though I wouldn't say the magic is really running amok after the moment it takes over. While I can easily see tech running amok, magic is less so because magic is more the equivalent of science and usually the underlying laws of physics don't run amok in the way the things humans build with it does :) But I'm sure there must be some more magic running amok tales out there. Maybe something where some ancient wizards build some magical monsters that then get out of control?

G33z3r wrote: "One example "Der Zauberlehrling", a ballad by Goethe (would also count as Alternate Form, Translated, and pre-1940 :) You're probably more familiar with the animated version staring Mickey Mouse in..."

Could also count as Humour :)

Andrea wrote: "Hmm, what about Ariel by Steven R. Boyett. Basically you have our normal world when suddenly one day the rules of the world change and you are no longer governed by the rules of science..."

Sounds a bit like Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels urban fantasy series, in which magic & technology keep switching places (apparently a changeover happens every few millennia, and now just happens to be the start of a transition, with them randomly flip-flopping for a few hundred years or so.)

I realize I'm focusing on the wrong thing in those stories, but I kept trying to figure out how electricity, being "science", would fail, turning off lights & stopping telephones, while the electricity that runs our brains & nervous system would go right on working? How is gas no longer flammable? Did all endothermic chemical reactions stop? And if so, how do we metabolize food? Does steam no longer expand, or does water no longer boil? What about steam engines? Do water wheels stop working? Do gears no longer work? Is my mind weird that I worry about such things? :)

My initial thought for the BINGO square is that if the story is about people trying to cope with an undesirable magic-wrought change, it's a magic run amok story, but if it's just the background to the world, it's not.

It is a challenge to distinguish it from the "magic exacts a price" trope; or maybe they aren't distinguished at all.

Maybe A wizard of Earthsea could sneak into this category?

G33z3r wrote: "I realize I'm focusing on the wrong thing in those stories, but I kept trying to figure out how electricity, being "science", would fail, turning off lights & stopping telephones, while the electricity that runs our brains & nervous system would go right on working? How is gas no longer flammable? Did all endothermic chemical reactions stop? And if so, how do we metabolize food? Does steam no longer expand, or does water no longer boil? What about steam engines? Do water wheels stop working? Do gears no longer work? Is my mind weird that I worry about such things? :)."

Ariel has the same problem. Gravity and friction and whatever biological systems we need to live keep working. It wasn't like quantum physics stopped and all atoms flew apart. So you could burn wood, but you couldn't use gasoline to drive a car. In the first book you just have to accept the randomness of this, while in the second the author tries to explain it a bit more, seems any technology more complicated than a lever (e.g. gears) stopped working. So lightning works, but you can't turn a turbine or store energy in a battery. Either way, decided not to put too much thought into it and just took it was the underlying premise, if the rest sort of made sense after that, it was fine.

Oh, and like Zelazny's Amber, gunpowder doesn't work either. Found that amusing.

And that's why when deciding if a book is fantasy or SF, I go with the following logic. If there is magic, then it's fantasy, because there is always science even in a fantasy book...the Fellowship in LotR would have had trouble getting from the Shire to Mordor if gravity didn't work :) However there can never be magic in an SF book even if the explanation the author comes up with is "magic" as far as we're concerned, if they at least try to ground it in some sort of science I accept it as SF, just not hard SF.

Another one where magic suddenly takes over is A Wizard's Henchman by Matthew Hughes. The author tries to explain how Vance's Dying Earth came about, where a far future Earth is ruled by the rules of magic rather than physics. In the latter, I wouldn't say magic was running amok since it had been that way so long it is the status quo, but in A Wizard's Henchman we're there at the moment of the switch. It's free to read on either Clarksworld or Lightspeed.

Bryan wrote: "Maybe A Wizard of Earthsea could sneak into this category?"

Yes, I would think so. Sparrowhawk's attempt to summon the dead unleashes a Shadow which in turn runs around consuming people, and he has to track down his errant magicspawn.

Much of the book is about respecting the effect of magic.

When it rained Ogion would not even say the spell that every weatherworker knows, to send the storm aside. In a land where sorcerers come thick, like Gont or the Enlades, you may see a raincloud blundering slowly from side to side and place to place as one spell shunts it on to the next, till at last it is buffeted out over the sea where it can rain in peace. But Ogion let the rain fall where it would.... Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen, and wondered what was the good of having power if you were too wise to use it.

Another example might be the Wheel of Time. In the Age of Legends, the Aes Sedai, in their hubris, tried to get direct access to the Source of the One Power. That Bore released the Dark One from its prison. (amok #1?) Lews Therin Thelamon, aka the Dragon, managed to temporarily seal the Bore, but at the cost of tainting saidin, the half of the One Power that males use, so all men who channeled the One Power went stark raving mad. (amok #2?) In the present age, the Dark One is almost free, and it falls to Our Heroes to remove the taint from saidin and lock the Dark One away forever, fixing the amoks.

If you read the entire Wheel of Time series for this one BINGO square, I will be most impressed. ;)

G33z3r wrote: "When it rained Ogion would not even say the spell that every weatherworker knows, to send the storm aside. In a land where sorcerers come thick, like Gont or the Enlades, you may see a raincloud blundering slowly from side to side and place to place as one spell shunts it on to the next, till at last it is buffeted out over the sea where it can rain in peace. But Ogion let the rain fall where it would.... Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen, and wondered what was the good of having power if you were too wise to use it."

I'm currently reading The Chronicles of Krystonia which isn't a novel so much as a collection of events that happen in that world (basically it's a way to give a background story to each of the characters you can collect as figurines) but there's a longer section about a wizard who puts together a Wizard Council exactly because one wizard wants rain, the other wants sun and their spells cancel out in spectacular hail storms that makes everyone miserable.

Angie wrote: "This came up over in the 2020 challenge idea thread, and I'm really intrigued by the idea. Can anyone give me recommendations for books where magic is causing chaos/is out of control? Basically the..."

Been faced with that issue in my series. Magic, by its nature, has rules. It might be unknown to the protagonist, but such rules exist. The only way I was able to go around it was to have a balance between creation and destruction as expressions of magic. Hence, it could go either way, depending on the main character.

You could watch the Disney film Fantasia - Mickey as the sorcerer's apprentice is certainly a case of magic going amok. And it could also fill the square for alternate form :)

Tony wrote: "You could watch the Disney film Fantasia - Mickey as the sorcerer's apprentice is certainly a case of magic going amok. And it could also fill the square for alternate form :)"

Which I see has already been mentioned a few times. That will teach me to read the thread before commenting :)

Andrea wrote: "I'm currently reading The Chronicles of Krystonia which isn't a novel so much as a collection of events... (basically it's a way to give a background story to each of the characters you can collect as figurines)..."

Well, I'd never heard of this, but I see the Internet has :)

So, collect all the figurines and it counts toward Alternate Form ?

Bloodstone is a sword & sorcery novel about an alien artifact who's magic runs wild.

Chris Evans wrote the Iron Elves trilogy which starts with A Darkness Forged in Fire.

Zelazny's Jack of Shadows has a cataclysm due to magic.

Green Eyes might fit.

The Magicians series is another.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Lots of titles for me to check out. :)