Our year of opens in a new windowMagic X Mayhem is about to kick into high gear, and our authors are more than ready.
We asked them: Magic or Mayhem? and the results are pretty wild. But then again, we expected no less.
Magic or Mayhem?
Andrew Bannister, author of Iron Gods
Definitely mayhem, because people are the cause and the cure (if it needs during) of mayhem, and people are my favorite thing. Magic, on the other hand, seems to me to be somehow detached from people. Also, let’s face it, mayhem is fun!
Sarah Gailey, author of opens in a new windowMagic for Liars
Magic, because I’ve already had enough Mayhem to last me a little while.
Max Gladstone, author of opens in a new windowEmpress of Forever
Mayhem! Especially for Empress of Forever. Magic is many things to many people—it’s a tool for revolution or a technology for control. Mayhem is always and truly mayhem.
Cate Glass, author of opens in a new windowAn Illusion of Thieves
opens in a new window
Magic most definitely! Designing and writing magic is at least as cool as doing magic. It’s fun teaching it to your characters, especially in a world like the Chimera world, where there are no schools of magic, no books of lore, and asking questions about it can get you dead. I enjoy deciding what it feels like and watching them mess up and discover the cost. I do occasionally deprive my beloved characters of body parts—or at least the temporary use of them—and I’ve been known to stuff an extra soul into a person’s body, which I think would qualify as mayhem. That is the price of them having me write their stories. It is all for their own good.
Duncan Hamilton, author of opens in a new windowDragonslayer
Mayhem! Because, well, MAYHEM!!
Saad Z. Hossain, author of The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
I gotta go with magic. Magic just gives us endless possibilities and fun. I think we spend our whole lives trying to actually find some magic, and this search for magic is what keeps us alive. Do you remember that childhood yearning for actual magic to exist, any little bit of it, that desperate wish for hidden worlds to exist, even if we can’t see them or be a part of them? The sense of wonder? The conviction that impossible things might happen any minute? We become beggars when we lose that, plodding along trying to get ahead of some useless drudgery.
opens in a new window
opens in a new window
opens in a new window
S.L. Huang, author of opens in a new windowNull Set
Mayhem. Because let’s be real, if I had magic, I’d just use it to create more mayhem.
Andrew Bannister, author of opens in a new windowCreation Machine
Magic or mayhem? Definitely mayhem, because people are the cause and the cure (if it needs curing) of mayhem, and people are my favourite thing. Magic, on the other hand, seems to me to be somehow detached from people. Also, let’s face it, mayhem is fun!
Tamsyn Muir, author of opens in a new windowGideon the Ninth
Magic, because I am aspirational and can already cause mayhem on my own.
opens in a new window
opens in a new window
Brian Naslund, author of opens in a new windowBlood of an Exile:
Mayhem! Spells and incantations are cool, but anarchy is far more interesting. Life’s always a little more colorful when the world is completely falling apart.
JY Yang, author of opens in a new windowThe Ascent to Godhood
insert “Why not both?” gif, and also “Both. Both is good.”*
(Note from Tor: Reader, we inserted the .gifs)
But if I really had to pick one, it would be magic. Why? Because mayhem is fun, but magic actually gets shit done.
Stay tuned for more #magicXmayhem all summer long!
