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Head canon: The Wrath of Trees
Dec. 29th, 2011 06:25 pmWarning: this post contains more than mild spoilers to the plot of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bard_bloom's latest novel, The Wrath of Trees, and a few other fiction bits, including an ongoing serialized novel in Analog magazine. If this bothers you, don't read! Instead, pick up copies of both and read them instead. They're quite good.
I've been quite enjoying Bard Bloom's latest novel, The Wrath of Trees. It's as information-rich as the varioussythyry arcs, each page carrying new intrigue and insight that I'd easily miss if I tried speed reading through it. As such, I'm taking it nice and slowly, and I should finish it up in a day or three.
While reading through, many references are made to the setting's analog to magic -- "philosophy" -- and Melyl's powers being a direct analog to it (by experimental evidence) if not one and the same. Repeated references are made to spells and various magitech trinkets, such that it's pretty clear magic is an established staple in this universe in much the same way as insythyry's.
However, due to simultaneously reading Robert J. Sawyer's Triggers, my right brain decided to spawn an interesting tangential head canon based on a single idea: that magic does not exist in this setting. And he gives me a brilliant little backdoor into how Melyl controls and reads minds from afar: controlled quantum entanglement. Spells might also take this form, implying that Melyl can freely entangle particles in her branches as long as her seeds form the anchor and entry vector of the entanglement.
What follows is this brilliant little set of side proofs trying to figure out how the rest of the setting's otherwise-magical components work together. I'm sure some of this is the intent of the author (ie, the artificial nature of the New Pantheon), but much of it -- such as how Ehekinet spikes might work -- becomes unintentional amusement for the idle physics nerd.
Since the author reads here, I'm not exactly asking for a word of God (or the patron god of blue lizards, sapient trees, prose, and dirty laundry, as the case may be). I just figured I'd share my amusement with others, since it makes his book that much more enjoyable to read. "Magic is science" is an old trope, but it's still a good one.
bard_bloom's latest novel, The Wrath of Trees, and a few other fiction bits, including an ongoing serialized novel in Analog magazine. If this bothers you, don't read! Instead, pick up copies of both and read them instead. They're quite good.I've been quite enjoying Bard Bloom's latest novel, The Wrath of Trees. It's as information-rich as the various
sythyry arcs, each page carrying new intrigue and insight that I'd easily miss if I tried speed reading through it. As such, I'm taking it nice and slowly, and I should finish it up in a day or three.While reading through, many references are made to the setting's analog to magic -- "philosophy" -- and Melyl's powers being a direct analog to it (by experimental evidence) if not one and the same. Repeated references are made to spells and various magitech trinkets, such that it's pretty clear magic is an established staple in this universe in much the same way as in
sythyry's. However, due to simultaneously reading Robert J. Sawyer's Triggers, my right brain decided to spawn an interesting tangential head canon based on a single idea: that magic does not exist in this setting. And he gives me a brilliant little backdoor into how Melyl controls and reads minds from afar: controlled quantum entanglement. Spells might also take this form, implying that Melyl can freely entangle particles in her branches as long as her seeds form the anchor and entry vector of the entanglement.
What follows is this brilliant little set of side proofs trying to figure out how the rest of the setting's otherwise-magical components work together. I'm sure some of this is the intent of the author (ie, the artificial nature of the New Pantheon), but much of it -- such as how Ehekinet spikes might work -- becomes unintentional amusement for the idle physics nerd.
Since the author reads here, I'm not exactly asking for a word of God (or the patron god of blue lizards, sapient trees, prose, and dirty laundry, as the case may be). I just figured I'd share my amusement with others, since it makes his book that much more enjoyable to read. "Magic is science" is an old trope, but it's still a good one.
