Re: Magical gizmo needed
- From: Sea Wasp <seawaspObvious@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:51:22 -0400
Zeborah wrote:
So, having watched the movie "Five Children and It" recently (which is
almost but not entirely unlike the original book(1)) and been inspired
thereby to read lots more Nesbit and Edward Eager (the former in Project
Gutenberg, the latter in my library's storage system, which one has to
pay to retrieve things from), I now want to write a children's magical
adventure In Space, because it seems awfully unfair that children in
space should be denied magic just because they also have airlocks.
Anyway, so I need a gizmo -- preferably something that's both modern and
ubiquitous nowadays -- that they can find/be given as a
heirloom/whatever which turns out to be magic. So far my brainstorming
has come up with:
If it's an heirloom, why does it have to be a gadget that's so... mundane?
I have no trouble with magic working with tech, but it should be something that would make SENSE to incorporate in tech. If what you want is a Wish Device, rather than just a magical one...
* a cellphone (but audio only seems like it'd limit the magic
potential);
Um, no. The cellphone calls up (either in the "summon forth" or in the literal phone sense) a powerful being who will grant the caller's wishes. But you only have so many minutes or calls available, and either that's all there is, or you have to do something difficult and dangerous to "buy more minutes".
* an mp3 player (but naming music titles seems like it'd cause me
copyright hassles);
I don't think just mentioning a song title has problems; I've seen it done in a LOT of books without noticing any special blurbs on permissions. If you're going to QUOTE songs, that's another issue.
I used to use that approach in one of my RPGs; there were various types of music-magic, including the modern pop one in which you could get an effect that was appropriate to a song title; a lightning bolt from AC/DC's "Thunderstruck", for instance.
* an ebook reader (but travelling into fiction is perhaps a bit too
classic - though I don't know if I've seen a group of kids travel into
sf books before (Heinlein did it with adults) - but again with the
copyright/trademark/fanfic/whatever issues);
Yes, alas, that's the PROBLEM with this. It'd be a great thing to do (I'd love to do it) but I hate being limited to stuff published 100 years before the target generation.
* a calculator (but who wants to solve maths problems to do magic?)
No one said magic was easy. You have to come up with a mathemagical formula to represent your wish. Maybe the computer or calculator permits you to sketch out symbols (for instance, your dad is sick, you want to make him well, so you can draw a picture of your dad, a minus sign, a picture of what's making him sick, then equals a happy face).
* a credit card (analogous to a magic penny - you get whatever you wish
for but have to pay it back with interest - probably a bit
(de)moralising);
That one would grate on me.
Any other ideas I can steal?
Zeborah
(1) (snip description) I recommend hastily laying some plastic down around you:
exploded brains are so hard to clean out of the carpet.
You know, this would have worked better if you put the warning **BEFORE** the explody brain causing stuff.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
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