Hard & soft magic in Shadows of the Apt

I’d intended to take a pause in reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series after Book 4. However, when I went to pick a new book to read, I launched into Book 5.

As I described in my earlier review, the series is set in a fantasy world based on TTRPG. Humanity is divided into numerous tribes/nations, each with an affinity towards a particular arthropod. These include beetles, wasps, mantis, dragonflies, spiders, ants, flies and many others. The plot of the first four books involve espionage and warfare as numerous states uses their advancing technology to move towards modern methods of war. Tchaikovsky intentionally matches and mixes the state of technology so that in parts it is like late medieval warfare (including cannons and crossbows) but also like early Twentieth century warfare (aircraft and motorised vehicle.

Technology in the series is advanced by those groups who are “apt” (hence the series title). Aptness in the setting is an affinity for machines and devices. Those who are not apt (such as the Moth Kinden) effectively have a kind of cognitive disability in the more modern cities. Even simple devices such as door mechanisms can be confounding. In the first four books it is hinted that there is a kind of quid-pro-quo to this in terms of other abilities.

Meanwhile, each of the multiple kinds of people have their own art based on the kind of bug they align with. In particular, many kinds of people (wasps, bees, dragonflies etc) can magically sprout wings and fly. Wasps can blast people with stings, other peoples can see in the dark. The roots of these abilities as character classes in a role playing game are obvious. Notably, while these abilities are literally magical (they defy physics) they are also mundane superpowers. Because they are both commonplace and predictable, they are also unremarkable within the societies depicted.

Book 5 picks up on a recurring thread in the earlier books around the use of magic. The distinction here is magic in the sense of powers that many people within the setting do not believe in. Magic is mysterious, poorly understood, unpredictable but also old, antiquated and disappearing.

In short the series poses three sets of abilities:

• Aptness: the ability to use and devise technology
• Art: inherited powers related to a person’s tribe
• Magic: supernatural powers and effects

Aptness and magic are incompatible in a person. To access magic you lose the ability to make use of more complex technology.

It is interesting that Tchaikovsky manages to both have his cake and eat it this way. The art of each Kinden is not a complex of deep magic system. It is a set of arbitrary insect themed powers but commonplace aspect of it means people see it as natural and normal. The powers have limits. A person who can sprout wings and fly, is still buffeted by winds and gets exhausted from flying to long. I think it is these elements rather than a distinct set of rules that limit the writer. In principle the writer can add, say Head Lice Kinden and the only limitation to what power they might have is the theme of “head lice”. The best comparison is with the superpowers you might get in a Marvel comic if you were bitten by a radioactive head louse. I say that not to nit pick but to draw a distinction. What is relevant for the kind of magic the various arts are, is that they are commonplace and socialised to the characters in the story.

The magic-magic in the story is distinctly different. It follows dream logic, and is often ritualistic. One magical event may have quite different effects and impacts. It is also, to the characters, uncanny and unnerving. It is supernatural in the aesthetic sense rather than just in the sense of not following known science.

Within the books there is another distinction:

• Characters using their art is relevant within a given scene but only in the same way a character using a piece of technology might be or a character using a specific skill.
• Magic may have a specific impact in a scene but overall, magic is more relevant to broader plot lines or story arcs.

Mixing the two plausibly doesn’t always work but overall using both approaches to magical powers is one of the elements that I’m enjoying about the series.