Best Use of Magic in a Fantasy Series

[Fist and Faith]

Malazan is also great.

[Holsety]

Sometime back I started reading Jack Vance's The Dying Earth a little at a time. It seems to me that Vance's magic is supposed to be a very ancient discovery, solution, and and implementation of the ultimate unified field equations, whatever they turn out to be, such that in the latter days mastery of some part of this barely-understood lore makes one a powerful magician able to perform feats by manipulating spacetime. By the time of the stories, the unified field equations are remembered by the inhabitants as mostly 'canned' spells for such particular purposes as conjuring someone away, or inflicting a "dismal itch."

Aah, man, let alone the magic system itself, the magicians of the 21st aeon are a motley but amazing bunch. I do love cugel, but I actually enjoyed Rhialto's ordeals in time and space the most.

[Xar]

Fine, and I'll say it: I like Jordan's system.

To be honest, I also like Jordan's system. The "magic" in his books has a reason for being other than "to let wizards do cool stuff" (it is supposedly drawn from the power which drives the Wheel of Time), it is almost limitless in its applications, it has structure (the weaves, etc. - but you don't really have "spells") and it can potentially pop up in anyone, though in practice few people can access it. In fact, it is so handy that many characters use it frivolously ("let's light my pipe with the Power!"). Also, the characters don't "have" magic; rather, they "channel" it through themselves.
Like the rest of the Wheel of Time setting, it is of course heavily influenced by the male-female duality that is inherent in the setting - and admittedly, some of the differences between male and female halves of the Power don't really seem to have a reason for their being so - but other than that, it is a rather creative depiction of magic.

[Fist and Faith]

I only read some of the WoT story from the Legends collection, so I'm obviously not very clear on it. But that little bit seemed interesting and logical enough.

[MsMary]

I have avoided getting started with WoT altogether, for better or worse.

[Holsety]

My only problem with jordan is the riggaged s'angreal in the series. I mean, it's like "oh ya, with callandor you could like own all the forsaken, with the choedan kal for male saidin you could own the dark one, and linked up with a lady using the female access key you could own the creator. Oh, but even though we have just tossed godly powers into your hands they are liek too dangerous or something so nm then go take over the world using normal armies." I know white gold is also a sort of "uber thing which is unfortunately too dangerous to toss around willy nilly" but I find Donaldson's version of it more interesting.

[Endymion9]

I like many of the ones mentioned, but one I was always partial to that I haven't seen mentioned are the Lyndon Hardy books.

Master of the Five Magics and the 2 sequels.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh! I forgot about those! I loved Master and Secret when I read them years ago! Didn't know there was another.

[Endymion9]

Too bad they are long out of print or I'd reread them. I've forgotten enough about them that they'd be like new. I always have to look up the titles or can't remember them.

Master of the Five Magics
Secret of the Sixth Magic
Riddle of the Seven Realms

[Farm Ur-Ted]

My favorite use of magic ever was in The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. It's been a long time since I read those books, but the main character had a little magic leather pouch I've never forgotten. Anytime he was hungry, he could open it up and there would be pieces of cauliflower in it. How cool is that?

[Holsety]

My favorite use of magic ever was in The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. It's been a long time since I read those books, but the main character had a little magic leather pouch I've never forgotten. Anytime he was hungry, he could open it up and there would be pieces of cauliflower in it. How cool is that?

Forget magic. Prydain had the best creatures.

Ya, you know exactly who I'm talking about.
This badass right here.

IT'S A GURGI!!!

[balon!]

Although most of it is cheezy, I DID really love the creative magic aspect that Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series had.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I completely forgot to mention Master of the Five Magics, by Lyndon Hardy. I also started a thread in the literature forum.

It has a great description of magic - the progression of the character through the story is pretty formulaic, but learning about the author's laws of magic is fun. There's even a Wikipedia entry on them.

So far, no one else has fessed up to having read it....

dw

[Endymion9]

I love all three of Hardy's magic books. Wish they were still in print.

[Fist and Faith]

There's even a Wikipedia entry on them.

How! A rather large entry for a largely unknown book, eh? Pretty cool, though.

[loremage]

Thinking of Jack Vance again (author of The Dying Earth, etc.):

His trilogy based on ancient British Isles mythology is some of the best writing in the genre:
Lyonesse
The Green Pearl
Madouc