Magical Thinking

I hate magical thinking. I love to think magically.

It comes as a surprise to people that there is not a shred of magic in my Wizards Trilogy. True, most of the characters think their world runs on magic. Characters often get it wrong. We all do.

All of us come into this world naïve. We know not a single thing. Lasa, my heroine in Blood of Anjels, is exactly like us in that way. And, just like us, she proceeds to learn about her world, first through her senses, and later through the teachings of others.

Both methods of education are suspect. Our senses often fool us: Look, that oar bends when it goes into the water! Those who try to teach us can lead us even further astray, often because they’ve been taught to believe something patently ridiculous themselves.

As a result, we all grow up believing some things that we later find out are not true. It turns out that bent oar is a trick of refracted light. And the Easter Bunny isn’t the benevolent deliverer of eggs we thought he was.

Life is full of such misapprehensions. So are my books. Of course, as the god of the novel, I may be getting some things wrong, too, even when I am teaching my characters the errors of their ways.

Lasa is a believer because what else could she be? She is an integral part of the myth of anjels. When her own experiences make her start to question her beliefs, it is the beginning of her transcendence. She might have been happier if she could continue believing, and that is her tragedy.