In honor of Myke Cole’s second book release, we are giving away three signed copies of his first book, Control Point! All you have to do is tell us which magic school from the Shadow Ops universe you’d like to come up latent as. But first Myke will explain his magic system and how all the schools fit together.
Magic in the Shadow Ops universe is a wild, protean thing. It’s not well understood by humanity, and defies easy taxonomy. To quote the famous scholar of the arcane Andre Sinnawa (in his most famous article – “The Magic Behind the Magic”)
“We’ve impressed ourselves upon magic, tried to shoehorn it into human limitations. We’ve given it taxonomy, ontology, category. But it’s the nature of magic to ignore all that. It’s not interested in making us comfortable. It doesn’t care what we think is a “school” or which element we think it controls. Magic is wild and new and free. The idea of “schools” is an inadequate way to get our heads around a force that we’re only beginning to understand. Magic can do many things that we can only dream of. We’re chipping at the tip of an iceberg that runs very deep and very, very wide below the surface.”
Not surprisingly, this gives the US military fits.
The US government saw magic as dangerous, an assumption driven home by the Bloch Incident, where uncontrolled magic use resulted in the destruction of the Lincoln Memorial and the deaths of 34 people. In an effort to prevent future catastrophes, the McGauer-Linden Act created the Reawakening Commission of the US Congress, who designated five “authorized” schools of magic, and five “Prohibited” schools, otherwise known as Probe schools. Certain practices within authorized schools were also prohibited.
Magic isn’t terribly interested in being classified, as you will see in Fortress Frontier.
Here are the designated schools from the McGauer-Linden Act, taken from the SOC wallet card issued to every Novice training to become a commissioned Sorcerer in the Supernatural Operations Corps.
Authorized (legal) Schools:
Pyromancy
Manipulation of Fire. Includes the ability to boost fires and call flame strikes.
Hydromancy
Manipulation of Water. Includes the ability to kill via “dessicative” Hydromancy, and to create ice.
Aeromancy
Manipulation of Air. Includes the ability to fly, project lightning and summon storms. Frequently employed in conjunction with Hydromancy to control weather to facilitate air and maritime operations.
Terramancy
Manipulation of Earth. Includes the ability to create bridges and walls out of natural surroundings and to spur growth in plant life.
Physiomancy
Manipulation of living flesh. Includes the ability to heal wounds.
Prohibited (Probe) Schools and Practices:
Necromancy
Manipulation of dead flesh. Includes the ability to reanimate corpses.
Negramancy AKA “Black Magic”
Manipulation of decay. Includes the ability to cause instant breakdown of anything, biological or otherwise, into its component elements.
Portamancy AKA “Gate Magic”
Manipulation of the fabric between planes. Includes the ability to open doorways between planes, to effect transport of fauna from either side, and to move Portamantic gates at will.
Sentient Elemental Conjuration
Manipulation of the magical current itself to effect the creation of self-aware elementals formed from kinetically active elements such as burning fire, sparking electricity or blowing wind.
Offensive Physiomancy AKA “Rending”
The employment of Physiomantic magic to the wounding of another living thing.
Whispering
The employment of Terramantic magic to effect control of fauna of any kind.
Control Point Giveaway
First we’d like to thank Myke for stopping by and telling us a little more about his world. Myke’s latest edition to the Shadow Ops series, Fortress Frontier, is due out January 29th in the US and January 31st in the UK. You can find out more about the Shadow Ops sereis on his website and you can also follow him on Twitter.
Now for the contest part! In the comments below tell us which magic school you’d like to come up latent as and you could win a signed copy of the first Shadow Ops book, Control Point! This contest is open to UK residents only. Three entries will be chosen at random on January 31st. Good luck!
The contest is now CLOSED! Congrats to our winners: Kev, Tom Loock, & Alex Shepherd! 🙂
You can read our interview from last year with Myke here.
You can read reviews of Control Point here and here.
You can read a review of Fortress Frontier here and here.
And check back next week for a new interview with Myke!
Julia Kitvaria Sarene
Jennie Ivins
Necromancy, because who dosen’t want to set a horde on zombies on somone when they’ve had a bad day?
Necromancy!
Portamancy – you can go fricken anywhere!!!
Terramancy- Imagine, being able to halt an enemies attack, by unleashing a prison of thorns! The natural world would literally be your oyster.
Hydromancy – Mostly for the ability to manipulate ice, I’ve been trying to make a bloody Backyard Ice Rink for a while now and this would speed things up a notch 😉
Hydromancy. I definitely have a thing for water and water is ~everywhere~ so why not?
Negramancy- disintegrating everything and everyone at will seems like an amazing ability
Terramancy, I’d like to b creative, as well as having the power to destroy. With a little practice I’m sure I could raise buildings, sculpt works of art, landscape amazing gardens, Redirect rivers to where water is needed. I would also want to learn to whisper, who wouldn’t want to talk to the animals?
I’d probably go with Aeromancy. Who wouldn’t want the ability to fly? The other air manipulation is a plus.
Definitely Portamancy, getting places quick is what you want to be doing.
Aeromancy – Flying AND lightening control? Sold.
Sentient Elemental Conjuration
Physiomancy. Stay young and beautiful foreverrrrrr
I would love Sentient Elemental Conjuration!
Portamancy would be my preference, but who knows, they’re all pretty cool!
I would love to have been able to enter! Ah well, gogo UK 😉
I was torn between portomancy and aeromancy, but I’ve got to go with aeromancy. To be able to fly? Hell yeah!
(As an aside, my autocorrect wanted to change aeromancy to aero nancy. Harlequin would not approve!)
Physiomancy, but not to stay young and beautiful …
More importantly, I’ve become interested in these books!
Thanks and good luck (to the author AND to me).
Portamancy for sure. Although I’m not 100% clear on the limitations of said magic, being able to travel between planes seems pretty awesome. If there is a slow-time plane, you can go there to sleep so you can live longer in our reality.
Hydromancy. Slowly sucking the fluids out of an adversary, or boiling their blood and bile… that just sounds wicked.
So unbelievably cool to see everyone chiming in on the magic system.
[…] this month. A Control Point review, a Fortress Frontier review, an interview with Myke and an article by Myke on the Shadow Ops Magic System are already live, but this month we’ll have another […]
Aeromancy: ultimate support unit.
[…] Fortress Frontier is due out January 29th in the US and January 31st in the UK. For more information on Myke’s Shadow Ops series check out his website or you can follow him on Twitter. And if you are a UK resident, you can also enter to win a signed copy of Myke’s first book Control Point here. […]
Aeromancy: Flight and Lighting Control FTW! That’s not even considering the air shields you could create to stop objects (bullets?) from hitting you, the depriving of air to targets (suck the air of of a room?), and simply huffing and puffing and blowing someone’s house down. I’d pull a page from the Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time books and “wrap people in flows of air” all day. lol
Aeromancy: no more commutes for me
[…] Fortress Frontier, we are giving away three signed copies of his first book, Control Point! Click here to see how you can win a […]
We are picking the winners today! Make sure you check your email to see if you’ve won! 🙂