lostcarnival | [closed] book review

"A textbook?" Strange can't help but respond, with a little wrinkle of his nose. "I wanted my book to be anything but! It's for anyone who wants to learn about English magic, simple as that."

Says the person who uses the word 'history' in the title of his book. Entirely unaware of the flaws in his argument, Strange continues, crossing his arms over his chest in a bit of a huff. He can't help it: he's getting a little annoyed as well.

"Though, at least in my world, magic is hardly a science. It's an integral part of England herself, not something like...like chemistry or physics. Would you use scholarly language to describe a rainstorm?"

Well, Rita might. This might not be the best example Strange could have given.

"Well... yeah," comes the answer Strange maybe should have expected. Why wouldn't she?

But to say magic isn't a science... Rita shakes her head, because that's so obviously wrong. "Of course it's a science. You might be able to conjure spells without thinking about the chemical reactions or physics involved, but those processes are still a part of what makes magic manifest in the way it does."

"Then how can a science simply stop working? The Raven King brought magic to England and then, when he left, it took it with him. Surely that posits that at least my world's magic is something more than simple chemical reactions."

As he explained in his book. She read the book Strange, there's no need to re-explain what Rita already knows.

Simple chemical reactions? There's an irritated twitch in Rita's eye at that.

Frowning, she folds her arms. "I don't know how. I could hypothesize about it all day, but I don't have enough information to say anything for certain." And neither does Strange, she suspects, because if he did, he probably would have written those details into his book.

He doesn't have enough information. For all Strange positions himself as an expert on magic, there's still so much that he simply doesn't know. It's amazing and aggravating at the same time.

"Anyway, aside from the fact that I write like a poet," said with a roll of his eyes because geez his writing style is perfectly fine, "what else do you think about my book?"

"Well... it was illuminating, in a lot of ways. I now understand a lot more about your homeland, its history, your magic..." And you, she considers adding, but instead simply glances at him, then back to the book in question. After meeting the other Strange in Portland, Rita had good reason to wonder what kind of person Jonathan Strange really is. Few things could paint a better picture of who a person is than reading through page after page of said person's writings.

"...Could've done with less blatant adoration for the Raven King," she adds after a moment.

And him. Compared to the technical precision of which Rita would write a book, Strange wanted his to be a thing of beauty. Magic wasn't a science, it wasn't something that could be meted out and understood by tables and gauges. It was a force of nature. And all throughout his book, that sentiment just becomes more and more apparent.

However, as Rita mentions his blatant adoration for the Raven King, Strange can't help but wrinkle his nose. Good Lord. He already gets into fights about this with Norrell, don't tell me he'll get into a fight about it with Rita.

"I don't adore him...but I suppose I do admire the man. The Raven King brought all of magic to England. Magicians under his reign could perform all sorts of magic, magic that I couldn't even dream of performing! What's not to admire about that?"

Strange is just casually ignoring the fact that as a man raised in faerie, the Raven King could at times be just as cruel as the fae were.

"That part's all well and good." Magic of all sorts? Rita can get behind that. "It's the other stuff I'm concerned about." She gives him a pointed look and pauses, offering him time to maybe think of what those objectionable parts might be.

Whether he does so or not, she continues. "Just saying, you might want to ease off the admiration a bit for someone who, I don't know," she gestures at the those books, pulling an example to mind, "abducts people into faerie realms?" It's a bit of a sore subject these days, for certain people.

Strange just gives Rita a blank look. Other stuff? What other stuff would she be concerned about? It's only when she offers up an example that the blank look turns into one that's a bit annoyed.

"I wrote the book before I knew anyone who was abducted into a faerie realm," Strange offers up, with a frown. It's a terrible defense. But really, he doesn't have a good defense. He is a big ol'Raven King apologist because he is a big'ol Raven King fanboy.

"Besides, he was raised in faerie. Though he was human, it wouldn't surprise me if the Raven King found himself pulled between the two thought processes."

Rita definitely doesn't look like she's buying it. "That doesn't change anything," she says simply, looking unimpressed with him. He's not trying to say that he had to meet a victim to know that kidnapping is bad, is he?

Besides, even if his excuse for the Raven King may be the factual reason for his actions, it's still a poor excuse. The other Rita grew up in faerie too, and managed to not turn out a sociopath. Sure, she was pretty disconnected from humanity... but she still had a sense of right and wrong. Regardless, whatever happens to people to make them the way they are, they're still responsible for their actions. And despite what he's saying, Rita doubts Strange actually needs to be told that.

"...Did you have anything like an editor or a proofreader for the process?" she asks after a moment.

"For a bit," Strange admits, with a nod. "But truth be told, I ignored most of their advice. A large portion of London society didn't want to see my book published in the first place. Some proposed changed reflected that."

Norrell, Pole, undoubtedly more men in government who thought his book 'dangerous' and 'seditious.' How ridiculous. It was history, England's actual history that those men tried to brush away with talk of respectability and magic for the modern age and all that nonsense.

Strange starts to sulk slightly, lost in his own thoughts and own grudges against certain people back home.

It's pretty pathetic, watching a grown man sulk like this. Not that it's the first time Rita's seen it, mind you.

There's a sigh. It sounds like his peers were pretty useless as editors and advisers. Surely somebody could have mentioned the stylistic issues that grated on Rita so much. She can't possibly be alone in her opinions on that. And... that aside, for all her complaints and criticisms, Rita does have some semblance of a soft spot for controversial works...

"...I'm not saying the Raven King's accomplishments should be ignored or anything like that," she says after taking a moment to consider her words. "They're part of your history, and you can learn a lot from what he did. I'm just saying, if you're going to talk at length about him and his deeds, try not to overlook his errors and wrongdoings while you're at it. There's a lot to be learned from those, too."

"I suppose this is one of those things where if you were in my world, you'd think differently. When it didn't ignore him all together, the entire modern scholarship of the Raven King focused on his errors and wrongdoings!"

Granted, most of the modern scholarship ignored the man instead of focusing on his faults. Which really, is all the more reason for Strange to publish his book, just to attempt to place the Raven King back at the forefront of English magic, where he belongs.

"Still, I'll take that into consideration should I write a sequel. My book was originally supposed to be in a three volume collection, but I think I'll write a memoir next."

It should come as no surprise that the three volume collection is never going to get finished. Strange barely has the attention span to write one book in a series, let alone three.

There might be a good reason for all that negative coverage of the Raven King's deeds, but... at least it looks like Strange is taking the criticism about as well as can be hoped. "So long as you get it," Rita concedes with a shrug. It's not really her job to convince him of anything, but while he's here and lacking in colleagues, she might as well be a critical voice to keep him from getting too carried away with his own ideas. Peer review is crucial in magic, as it is in any scientific field, after all.

"Anyway, it's not like I didn't find some parts of it enjoyable. In fact... I've started thinking I might want to write a book of my own, while I'm here." Oddball that he is, there is something inspiring about Strange's passion for English magic. It's not unlike Rita's own love for blastia, in some ways.

Strange can't help it: he brightens up as Rita mentions writing a book of her own. She still seemed quite young to be doing something like that, but if anybody her age had the drive, knowledge, and ambition to write a book, Rita was the top candidate. "We should start a writer's circle," he teases. "Something to keep us both accountable and working!"

His tone softens a bit, getting less defensive as the conversation swaps from the Raven King to the ins and outs of book writing. "What subject do you plan to write about?"

Rita rolls her eyes at his teasing, but she too softens a bit with the change in topic.

"Blastia," she answers, running her fingertips gently over the red jewel in her choker. There's a distinct fondness in the gesture.

"After I go back... they're going to disappear from the world. People will forget about them over time. But there are some things I've learned that ought to be preserved." It's not the only reason, but it's an important one.

Now that's odd. Strange furrows his brow in confusion. The source of a world's magic disappearing...that's something he's annoyingly familiar with, even if he wasn't around for when the Raven King removed English magic himself.

Though Strange may tease Rita about their books, he's not teasing her about her fondness towards the jewel. It's her magic, after all, and he knows too well what it's like to have something that much a part of your self...and how desperately you would try to keep it if that part of yourself was lost.

"At least you know ahead of time," he can't help but muse. Though this opens up so many more questions. "How do you know they're going to disappear in the first place?"

The answer to that is both simple, and... not.

Rita's fingers fall away from the blastia as she brings her hand down to her chest. Her gaze lowers too, and there's a tinge of pain in her expression. But that's only for a moment of reflection, and soon she looks back up to meet Strange's eyes directly.

"Because I'm going to put an end to them."

That certainly isn't the answer he was expecting. A brief look of surprise flits across Strange's face, before he replaces it with a small frown.

He knows Rita has her reasons--she adores magic almost as much as he does, so he's not going to patronize her with any questions like 'do you realize the consequences.' But he's always gotten the opinion that blastia was the sole source of magic from Rita's world. To give all that up...he doesn't think he could ever do something like that to begin with.

"I didn't know they were that dangerous," Strange simply answers, a slight frown on his face. Because that has to be the reason, right? What else could it be? "How do you plan to do so?"

Sometimes, Strange really is smarter than Rita gives him credit for. She nods, confirming his assumption that the blastia are dangerous.

"I made an incredible discovery." Some of that tension fades from her expression. Giving up on the blastia is painful, more than anyone could know, but this is the greatest achievement of her career.

"Because of our use of blastia, the world's aer is out of balance. I came up with a formula to convert the aer into a more stable substance: mana. The first test was a success, but it yielded an unexpected additional effect." Normally, success and unexpected effect don't go together, but in this case, Rita's formula simply worked better than she could have imagined. "The blastia core I used as a converter changed form, into something with a life and will of its own. My formula created a spirit."

Strange still gets a little turned around sometime with some of Rita's jargon (how was mana more stable to begin with?). But he's able to follow along relatively well. The use of blastia tampered with the state of magic. Rita tried to fix it, but accidentally created a spirit instead.

And wow does Strange look downright interested as Rita continues talking. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the spirit is made up of mana, then wouldn't it mean the spirit was made of magic itself?"

If so? Good Lord, that was quite the discovery. Strange can't help but give Rita an impressed little nod. Coming up with the formula herself...that's certainly outside of his realm of expertise.

Rita nods excitedly. It seems he can appreciate, to some extent, the significance of her findings. "Yes, that's right. So far, we repeated the process three more times, creating elemental spirits of water, fire, earth and wind. The next step is to apply the formula on a large scale, converting all the blastia in the world into spirits."

It's a shame he probably wouldn't appreciate the details of the formula if she described them. As far as Rita's concerned, it's a work of mathematical genius in addition to its other qualities.

He's listening intently: Rita's excitement is contagious and Strange can't help but find himself getting excited as well. It's stupid to ask how Rita would convert all the blastia in the world to spirits, she obviously has a plan if she made it that far. Besides, Strange is more interested in the spirits themselves. "How much power over their respective elements do these spirits have? And can you communicate with them?"

It's obvious that Strange is putting together a theory of some sort, gears turning in his head as he talks with Rita. Because if her spirits were anything like the wind and rain of England, then perhaps magic wasn't entirely lost for Rita's world.

Edited (WOW i can spell) 2017-09-07 02:08 (UTC)

"I don't know how much power they have, exactly... but it's immense. They called themselves rulers of the elements." Which answers Strange's other question: they are sapient and capable of communication.

"They've agreed to help with our current plans, but while we can talk with them, they only show themselves when they want to. Fortunately, Estelle..." Rita stops herself, realizing she's never actually mentioned Estelle to him by name before. "...my friend, she has some kind of connection with them. She can probably reach them when needed."

"Well that's wonderful!" he adds, with a little laugh. And then, because Strange knows Rita's going to question what's wonderful, he just keeps yammering on. "That means that magic isn't lost for your world. You can still perform the spells, you'll just need to tweak the incantations, make an alliance with those spirits, and ask their help in order to do so! If you have someone who has a connection with them, I'm sure an arrangement can be reached."

Just said like that's a perfectly easy thing to do, no biggie, Rita's got this, she can certainly help create a whole new magic system out of scratch and working with spirits that she can barely reach in the first place.

Strange receives a confused look at first, but as he goes on, a smirk begins to tug at the corner of Rita's mouth. This is the closest she's been to laughing in a long time. It's interesting that he reached that conclusion so quickly... but it looks like he's underestimating her.

"Actually... research on spirit magic has already begun. When I told the other blastia researchers that their life's work was about to be obsolete, most of them told me off... but a few started looking into ways to use the power of spirits to create new spells. We're still in the early stages of figuring it out, but I've come up with one useful spell so far." Rita, of course, looks very pleased with herself.

Strange is just going to continue to feed that ego. Because conversations like this, where two equally talented magicians are talking about magic, exploring the ins and outs of their world's magic and learning just for the sake of learning? It's catnip to him. Strange could spend hours on these types of conversations and still come out of it with more questions.

"Well go on," he adds, with a small grin. "Tell me all about that spell." Of course Rita would want to talk about the spell. They already had a long conversation on the ins and outs of blastia magic in Rita's world, why not hypothesize about spirit magic as well.

"Well... the details about the formula are supposed to be an Aspian secret for the time being, but there should be no problem with discussing it in a general sense." Also, Rita kinda just wants to show off.

"The basic gist of it is that some of the mages figured out a formula to draw in the power of spirits, isolate the fire attribute from that accumulated energy, and... ignite it, you could say. The initial result was just a small spark of a flame, but with a little tweaking, I was able to modify it into a spell to summon burning rocks from the sky. Meteors, basically." She grins. For her first spell using a spirit formula, it's certainly promising.

Hell yeah, give it up for team show-off. Strange believe what Rita's saying a hundred percent and honestly, isn't surprised to hear the result. Of course she would manage to modify that spell from something small into something powerful enough to summon burning rocks. She's almost as talented a magician as he is!

"If you're able to summon meteors with your first spell, then I cannot wait to see what the state of your world's magic will become once you figure out more spells!"

"Yeah... it'll be a whole new era of magic." Rita closes her eyes, taking a moment to imagine what the world may look like in a few years.

But she can't afford to take it easy just because she had a few successes. "It's going to be tough, though. Right now, people rely on blastia for all kinds of necessities. They're going to lose their way of life, and we're going to be racing to come up with spells and technology to make up for it." As grim a thought as it is, there's no doubt that some people will die during the transition. Not as many as would die without the change, but it's a cost that can't be ignored. "But that's why I'm here."

Tough doesn't mean impossible. Yes, it would be tough for people to lose their way of life and he's not entirely certain how long the change will take (and also how well people would tolerate the change), but it must be doable. Because really, what else could they do? They needed to adapt to the new way of magic because it certainly wasn't going anywhere.

"If you wish my help on any of this, you simply need to ask. I'm confident you'll be able to change the world yourself, but it never hurts to have a second pair of eyes."

It shouldn't be all that unexpected for Strange to offer his help, given his enthusiasm for magic in general, but there's a brief flicker of surprise in Rita's expression before she promptly glances away.

"Thanks," she says after a moment, and she means it.

"Right now, I'm trying to collect information on other systems of magic and technology... ways that people live without blastia. That kind of information can go towards short-term solutions while we develop new formulas... or it might help us in working out the mechanisms and applications of spirit magic itself, speeding up the process." If Strange is willing to help, he might be able to keep an eye out for that kind of information for her. Maybe he even has some relevant data somewhere in these piles of notes. "We'll need ways to produce clean water, heating, lighting, transportation, and to protect against monsters."

"Well, you already know how my world works without blastia," he says, as he gestures to his book. And really, she'd get a much clearer understanding of English magic from his book than from Strange trying to explain it himself. Proofreaders are amazing.

"I don't think my travel through mirrors spell will work in your world--it's an adaptation of a spell that uses the king's roads, which I'm finding to be annoyingly world specific." The king's roads: the roads built by the Raven King from England to Faerie, hidden behind the mirrors until Strange pushed through and rediscovered them. Something he talked about in his book and something with absolutely beautiful engravings of in said book.

"I do know a weather spell to bring forth a storm. Perhaps that could help with your clean water problem?"

"I feel like we'd end up with a lot of social issues if everyone started walking through mirrors to get around, anyway," Rita comments dryly, picturing someone like Strange waltzing out a mirror in some noblewoman's bedchamber, or the imperial palace, or... it's probably best to stop picturing it.

"Your rain magic, though..." She taps a finger against her chin, considering it. Rita's seen that spell in action before. "Something like that could come in handy. It wouldn't be too difficult to rig up some rainwater harvesting systems." In fact, they probably should set up a few of those anyway if they're going to lose the aque blastia. It's still unclear if anyone from Terca Lumireis can reproduce English magic in any capacity, but... "Think you could write down that incantation for me?"

"That's only assuming the rest of your world is as reckless as I am," Strange teases in return. While he doesn't think he's reckless (he makes nothing but perfectly sensible decisions, thank you very much), so many different people have called him reckless that there's probably a slight bit of truth to the matter.

Still, the rain spell. Walking over to the table, Strange flips a few pieces of paper over until he finds one that doesn't have anything important written on it. A moment later, he takes a pencil from his pocket. Turning the paper over, Strange starts to scribble the incantation on the back, trying to keep everything legible. Because obviously he's going to write the incantation down now, why wouldn't he? The incantation is more of asking the rain itself to start, drawing upon alliances already put in place between the magician and that of nature...with a good chunk of 1800s formality thrown in.

"Here," he says, with a grin as he finishes writing down the incantation and hands it over to Rita. "I honestly hope it works."

[closed] book review

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