Hard and Soft

We sometimes speak, in the fantasy genre, of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ magic systems. This refers to the rules of how magic works in our created world, whether they are clearly delineated or ‘anything goes.’ There is a very wide range between those two. Tolkien’s magic is fairly soft; it is simply magic and some can wield it. This is not unlike the magic of the myths from which he drew many of his ideas.

Tolkien does soft magic well. In other hands, it can become nonsense, following no logic, and providing easy solutions to any problem that comes along. On the other end of the spectrum, an author like Sanderson provides quite strict rules for the use of magic.

All this, for the most part, is how magic works, not why it does. Admittedly, if one gets into explaining the nuts and bolts of it, one veers toward soft science fiction. I plead guilty to this. I need to know why my magic works, and it needs to be grounded in science of a sort. No depending on nebulous ‘elemental’ magic or ‘the power of words’ or anything of that sort.

Of course, my characters don’t need to know what I know. Most sorcerers are operating on empirical knowledge. It’s like that bit by Arthur C. Clarke about advanced technology being magic to those who don’t understand it.

More than a few old school science fiction writers leaned heavily on telepathy to create ‘magic.’ Andre Norton used it a lot, whether working in SF or fantasy. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs threw it in from time to time. Unfortunately, that can be as mushy as any soft magic, if we do not have a clear idea of how telepathy works. It doesn’t work in my primary fantasy worlds, but...well, the books do explain mind reading and more, and it all fits into the concept of infinite worlds and the ability to enter into them.

Admittedly, I do not clearly state why some have that ability. But then, we needn’t explain why some have better hearing than others, need we? Or why some are smarter! We just say ‘genetics’ and that’s how I explain it—some are born able to see or even partially cross into other worlds. And that is the basis of all magic.

Or I should say all known magic, or magic that works in my worlds. If we posit infinite universes there would have to be all sorts of magic out there. That is only of academic interest as it would not impact any world where it didn’t work!

So perhaps the bulk of my fantasy is really soft science fiction? It could certainly be argued but I would not attempt to market it as such. It reads like genre fantasy so that’s what I call it. It’s all part of the speculative fiction spectrum anyway.