INTRODUCTION

 

JONATHAN OLIVER

 

 

THE WORD MAGIC, for many, will conjure up images of gentlemen in dinner suits pulling rabbits out of hats and producing bunches of flowers from their sleeves. For sure, you can find the popular image of the magician here – the entertainer reveals himself in both Alison Littlewood’s ‘The Art of Escapology’ and Robert Shearman’s ‘Dumb Lucy’ – but you will find much about the magical arts that may not be familiar to you within these pages.

Genre fiction has had a long and complex relationship with magic. Horror fiction has often featured diabolists and their dealings with devils, cults pervade the works of pulp pioneers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and magic is an integral part of fantasy fiction as a whole. What I am seeking to do with Magic, however, is not to fulfil your expectations but exceed and confound them. This is a collection of unusual fiction; indeed an anthology of the esoteric and arcane.

One question that you’ll find repeated throughout is, what is magic for? The uses to which the arts of sorcery are tasked are often concerned with human desire. In Alison Littlewood’s poignant tale we have the child’s desire for magic and a magical existence come up against the realities of the world as experienced by adults. In Gemma Files’ story, ‘Nanny Grey’ we have a darker side of desire, where magic is used to lure a young man driven by sexual need into a horrific encounter. ‘First and Last and Always’ by Thana Niveau (a magical name if there ever was one) shows us how we can want something too much and how playing with magic, without true understanding, is a very dangerous undertaking. As it is in Will Hill’s story ‘Shuffle’, the structure of which is something of a trick in itself.

The thing about magic, is that it often confounds understanding. And, of course, when we write about magic we are often trying to express impossibilities. Sophia McDougall demonstrates herself to be more than capable of this in ‘MailerDaemon’ in which a computer programmer finds herself with a gift she’s not sure she asked for, and Robert Shearman’s beautifully apocalyptic tale shows us the possibilities of an impossible love. In Audrey Niffeneggers’s story, ‘The Wrong Fairy’, we are given a glimpse into an impossible world through the eyes of the father of a very famous writer. While in Liz Williams’ ‘Cad Coddeau’ we are taken back into the time of legend, where myth and story grow into something impossibly beautiful.

Of course, one of the most common uses for a spell is to help another. When the motivation is pure, this can bring about a positive change, as demonstrated in Storm Constantine’s story ‘Do as Thou Wilt.’ Lou Morgan, too, shows us an act of magical sacrifice in ‘Bottom Line’ that throws new light onto a morally ambiguous character. Sarah Lotz’s comic tale ‘If I Die, Kill My Cat’ shows the consequences of leaving an altruistic magical act unfinished. In Gail Z. Martin’s ‘Buttons’ we have a group of esoteric investigators whose mission it is to help people through the use of magic. In effecting magical change, however, the moral may not always be pure, as is clear from Dan Abnett’s politics-meets-magic story ‘Party Tricks’. Help sought also has a sinister side in Christopher Fowler’s story of magic gone wrong, ‘The Baby.’ Sometimes the magic user may not realise how far they have gone, as we can see when Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem introduce us to a mother who may not have her children’s best interests at heart in ‘Domestic Magic’.

While these tales show many aspects of magic, it is worth remembering that the act of writing has its own magic. I hope, then, that you find as much enjoyment in reading the works of the prestidigitators herein as I had in gathering them together.

 

Jonathan Oliver

August 2012

Oxford