Wayne Throop wrote:
> : According to Clarke's Law, advanced technology may appear to be magic,
> : but there's always an explanation like the Old Ones or the Man Behind
> : the Curtain.
>
> Any technology with such an explanation is insufficiently advanced.
Advanced technology emulates the features of magic, like restriced
access and a natural interface. Advanced magic emulates the
reliability of technology. But you knew that.
> : The absence of magic is one of the necessary characteristics of
> : science fiction. The presence of magic is sufficient to call the book
> : fantasy.
>
> If there's an explanation in the forrest, but the author chooses
> not to write about it explicitly, is it magic? If not, how do you
> know whether something's magic or not? For that matter, if *so*,
> how do you know whether a setting has magic or not, unless there
> are massive infodumps explaining all the doors dilating?
For some, I advise asking, what are the author's influences? What
words do they use to describe scientific effects? What do they
believe to be possible? Does the choice of a single word, dilating,
indicate that the door is responding to a microphone or a motion
sensor?
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