{"id":1461,"date":"2007-04-30T10:09:24","date_gmt":"2007-04-30T08:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/30\/magic-or-madness-trilogy\/"},"modified":"2007-10-19T13:56:29","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T11:56:29","slug":"magic-or-madness-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/30\/magic-or-madness-trilogy\/","title":{"rendered":"magic or madness trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I’ve just finished reading my friend Justine’s<\/a> first trilogy, Magic or Madness<\/a> – Young Adult Fiction – and it’s great. Mostly intended for teens (without condescending to them), and widely read by adults — her husband, an old friend of my wife’s, Scott<\/a>, has been on the NYT bestseller list a few times – I’ve been enjoying YAF since the two of them introduced me to the genre.<\/p>\n

spoiler warning<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

The basic premise is simple in that “clear and easy to understand, but I never would have thought of that and it’s so cool” kind of way. Here it is: magic (for those who have it), tho wondrous, drains your life any time you use it – most magic folk consider themselves extremely lucky if they reach the age of forty; but if you don’t use it, prolonging your life, you go mad. Oh, and you can steal magic from others, shortening their lives while making your own longer.
\nAs you can imagine, this creates all kinds of interesting (and horrible) relationships, especially among magic friends and family, and we follow 15-year-old Reason Cansino over the course of (I think it’s about) 2 weeks, from her discovery of magic, her learning how to use it, her wielding of massive amounts of power, her unfolding of the lies and deceit in her family because of (and through) magic, and finally the destruction of magic (at least across the hundreds of living magic-wielders in her own family).<\/p>\n

Aside from being well-written, surprising, suspenseful and fun, the final book left me in awe of just how much Justine trusts her readers – children and adults alike. Cory Doctorow (boing boing) called the ending<\/a> very risky, “really disturbing and thought-provoking… a direction I hadn’t expected and that has me thinking about it still.” Magic becomes an allegory for money, power and greed, where a little is needed to live (once you enter the system – like capitalism, perhaps?), but the more you have the more you want, and of course, there is only one top dog: isolated, and without humanity.<\/p>\n

But it’s also not so simple as it sounds – some of her characters are stripped of their magic without them wanting to be, others are left magical without knowledge or choice. And while Reason opts out of magic, one of her friends, Tom, does not; he keeps his magic, and his foreshortened life. Justine is careful in her writing of his justification (“magic is who he is”), and leaves us hanging as to how he will turn out (he is the only character in the book that is never selfish with his magic, has never attempted to steal anyone else’s, and has even given it away when others needed it — but then again, he’s still young). We as readers are not meant to judge, and we only hope he will walk the lines between need and greed, power and responsibility.<\/p>\n

Nice, J. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just finished reading my friend Justine’s first trilogy, Magic or Madness – Young Adult Fiction – and it’s great. Mostly intended for teens (without condescending to them), and widely read by adults — her husband, an old friend of my wife’s, Scott, has been on the NYT bestseller list a few times – I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,25,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","category-reviews","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-nz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/05\/scott-snib-is-cool\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":0},"title":"scott snibbe is cool","author":"nathaniel","date":"05 May 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend recently reminded me of Scott Snibbe's Artwork, very worth checking out. Some fantastic uses of technology, which interface with the body, in very conceptually sound ways. That very same friend introduced me to Michael Takeo Magruder, an artist-curator in England who also deserves attention. And here in SA,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5309,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/kate-daniels-urban-fantasy-ilona-andrews\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":1},"title":"Urban Fantasy geek out: the Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews","author":"nathaniel","date":"08 September 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Urban Fantasy is one of my guilty pleasures. (I'm lying; part of me thinks that as a doctor\/professor\/artist type, I'm not supposed to love it. But I have no guilt, really. Only pleasure.)\u00c2\u00a0That's fantasy - vampires and werewolves, fairies and elves, things along these lines - but in the present\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/magic-breaks-slider1-1024x512.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/magic-breaks-slider1-1024x512.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/magic-breaks-slider1-1024x512.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":362,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/06\/05\/hee\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":2},"title":"hee","author":"nathaniel","date":"05 June 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"On a quick search to see who shared a birthday with me, the first name to come up was Kenny G - am I the only one who sees this as a bad omen? Last night, Kupfer (whose blog seems to be updated nearly as often as I have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "me"","block_context":{"text":"me","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/me\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":667,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/12\/up-and-coming\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":3},"title":"up and coming","author":"nathaniel","date":"12 July 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey all. Still in bed, but at least managing to get out for a coffee (actually, herbal tea) now and again (even left the flat yesterday! Whoa!), and starting work on some research for an academic conference I have in August (Prague! So excited!), and a new large-scale, interactive installation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "south african art"","block_context":{"text":"south african art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/south-african-art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1910,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/24\/wikipedia-art-madness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":4},"title":"Wikipedia Art madness","author":"nathaniel","date":"24 April 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"You probably heard about the threat of a lawsuit from Wikimedia on Wikipedia Art by now, but just in case: Here's how we went public, on EFF: Wikipedia Threatens Artists for Fair Use Here's the legal history on our site. And it exploded, of course, when it got slashdotted. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2090,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/20\/chelsea-highlights\/","url_meta":{"origin":1461,"position":5},"title":"Chelsea Highlights","author":"nathaniel","date":"20 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Wonderful day yesterday, slowly moseying around Chelsea and surrounds from gallery to gallery, afternoon drinks with good friend and great artist Sean Slemon, dinner with brilliant writer\/thinker\/academic and all-around fabulous lady Rebecca Schneider (and our respective partners - can't get enough of that Nicole Ridgway, so it's a good thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hany Armanious at Foxy Productions","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/armanious.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}