Lyndon Hardy: Secret of the Sixth Magic (1984)

Edition: Corgi, 1986
Review number: 801

Having written his first novel around a carefully constructed theory of magic, Hardy undermines it in his second. It is set in a different country in the same world, with a new central character who is unfortunately very similar to the hero of Master of the Five Magics. (Having someone who studies all the different magic arts is of course a useful device for exposition of the theory.)

The plot of Secret of the Sixth Magic is based around a crisis, when the art of sorcery ceases to work. This spreads to magic - a serious problem when this art is used to guarantee major currencies. Finally, Jemidon works out what is happening - magic is not being destroyed; its laws are being changed by the mysterious Melizar. When Melizar's minions become the only people to know the new laws, they will have immense power, so Jemidon has to work out how to transform the laws back again.

The whole thing seems to be simultaneously contrived and unimaginative. It also undermines an interesting facet of Master of the Five Magics, the correspondence between the branches of the magic arts and our scientific disciplines; to change the laws of physics would have much more far reaching and interesting effects (probably fatal) than just putting physicists out of work. Repeating the same plot with essentially the same poorly drawn characters is dull, and the one really remarkable aspect of this novel is just how uninteresting Hardy can make a completely alien world (in which Melizar imprisons Jemidon) and how unalien its supposedly completely different inhabitants seem to be. There is a further sequel, but this novel has always quashed any desire I might have had to read it.

Lyndon Hardy: Master of the Five Magics (1980)

Edition: Corgi, 1985
Review number: 789

One of the aspects of the fantasy genre I find interesting is the variety of mechanisms by which magic works. These are rarely as systematic as they are in this novel; Hardy pictures a world with five very distinct magical crafts, with their own uses and methods. Practitioners of one know little about the others, and jealously guard their own secrets in turn.

The main character is journeyman thaumaturge (the branch of magic roughly corresponding to engineering) Alodar; though born of a noble family, he has been forced by circumstances to take up a profession. With the queen and much of the army of Procolon, he is confined in the fortress of Iron Fist by a massive rebellion. As the fortress falls, he discovers a hidden treasure - of the art of alchemy - and a way of escape for the queen and her companions. He also discovers an ambition: to prove himself worthy to be declared a suitor for the hand of queen Vendora and thereby to restore his family's fortunes.

Though the novel is not comic, its tone is reminiscent of Sprague de Camp's Unbeheaded King series. It reads well, particularly given that the author is concerned far more to explain his system of magic than he is interested in plot or character. It is interestingly scientific, but with holes (each craft has a small number of guiding principles, but their origins are obscure and their application somewhat arbitrary; research is not about finding new principles but about developing new applications). Towards the end of the novel, there is an attack on scientific research, which throws some light on the background to the novel. Though awkward in places, Master of the Five Magics is generally very readable when compared to other fantasy novels about a single idea.