I have a great guest blogger with us today – she’s Gabi Stevens and she writes paranormal romance for Tor Books. The Romance Reader described her writing as “wickedly funny” and “delightfully sexy,” and she’s won high praise from critics and readers alike. Gabi has a new book out in her Time of Transition series, and she’s here to tell us all about it.
Take it away, Gabi!
Magic is so cool. Okay, that was lame. Of course magic is cool. Who wouldn’t want to be able to swish a wand and create things or make things happen? I know I would love a little magic in my day-to-day life. However (Isn’t there always a “however”?) it can’t be that easy. I always imagined that if one could fly, it would require tremendous strength—even planes need lots of fuel (bear with me, I’m making an analogy here). So why would being able to create things, shift things, move things, transform things be any less difficult?
Magic can’t be an all-powerful force. If it were, then the only conflicts that could exist would be between those who have magic because no one else would matter. I think that’s why I have problems with super powerful beings—what reason would they have to allow humans to live at all? I suppose humans could be relegated to some form of conservation effort, like in too many of our environmental groups today, but any time a human would act out, he could simply be squashed (like what happens to a mountain lion who attacks hikers, or a shark that bites swimmers). To an all-powerful being, we would be insects, or maybe some higher form of animal. I know a lot of stories use precisely this conundrum as their conflict, but weakness must exist for me to feel any sort of sympathy with the supernatural.
In Wishful Thinking, I’ve created beings who can perform magic (and yes, that creation required a lot of energy—maybe not physical, although that was a part of it, but definitely mental) and while they have great powers, those powers come with costs. The easier the magic, the less the cost. For example, ordering a pizza from Merlin’s Pizza, a magical establishment, requires little more energy than we use swiping a credit card.
But for the big stuff, and there’s a lot of big magic in this book, the energy cost is great and creates major problems. And if you’re a newly chosen fairy godmother, like my heroine, Stormy, your skills aren’t up to par yet either. Luckily, she has help in the form of the three old godmothers and the two other new ones. And my hero, Hunter, although sometimes even he’s not sure which side he’s on.
So while magic is cool, it can’t solve all our problems. That takes ingenuity, skill, and heart. Nothing worthwhile is easy, and sometimes the greater, the effort the sweeter the reward.
But I’d still like a wand to do my housework.
What about you? Knowing I believe that magic takes energy, what would you use your wand for? One commenter will win her choice of a book from the Time of Transition series: The Wish List, As You Wish, or Wishful Thinking.
Believe in the magic,
–Gabi
Thanks for being with us today, Gabi! Readers, you can find Gabi at www.GabiStevens.com; www.GabiStevens.wordpress.com; Facebook at Facebook.com/GabiStevensfans; or Twitter at twitter.com/GabiStevens.