what fiction would you recommend for people trying to learn magic from fiction? Lol, please share that LIST
*cackling* You’re terrible, and thank you for asking.
Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus is the MOST MAGICAL NOVEL EVER.
Neil Gaiman’s books. Like, all of them. Any of them. That man knows magic.
For witchcraft humor and understanding of witches: Terry Pratchett’s witch-centered Discworld novels.
Diana Wynne Jones’ books on witchcraft and folk magic, including the Chrestomanci books, are excellent.
A Rumor of Gems by Ellen Steiber is excellent for anyone trying to pick up lithomancy.
The Paper Magician series by Charlie Holmberg is really good too! Great ideas for spellcasting and learning materials-based magic.
Deborah Harkness’ All Souls trilogy is very well-researched and lovely, and everyone should read it.
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ghostlight series was pretty good for teaching basic 70′s occultism (don’t bitch at me about MZB, I don’t care).
The Dresden Files are great for urban adaptation of various bits of European fairy tale folklore.
Circle of Three, the novels by Isobel Bird (a pseudonym for Michael Thomas Ford, who is a friend of mine) is excellent for teens trying to learn about late 90′s/early millennial Wicca. Cate Tiernan (pen name of Gabrielle Charbonnet) also wrote the Sweep series during the same time period, and they were fun for a different, more theatrical, Twilight-esque kind of reason. In fact, I liked them infinitely better than Twilight, because Gabrielle can actually write, even if the storylines were badly mismanaged near the end of the series (and the story itself was absolutely ridiculous teen drama).
I know this is corny, but several World of Darkness novels and sourcebook excerpts were fantastic at illustrating what it’s like to be a magical person. My absolute favorite old WoD novel is Penny Dreadful, by Kevin Andrew Murphy, and of course Penny’s earlier two-part story from Truth Until Paradox, Silver Nutmeg, Golden Pear, and Grim Reminders. Penny is my hero.
Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne is really good! So is Twenty-Sided Sorceress by Annie Bellet, and Michael R. Underwood’s Geekomancy. Those are fun, and also informative and innovative in how they portray magical theory.
And of course, any fiction written by an occult author like Silver Ravenwolf or Ed Fitch or M.R. Sellars is going to be excellent at teaching you how they see magic and how they feel the world works. I particularly like Silver’s adult novels, Beneath a Mountain Moon and Murder at Witches’ Bluff.
That’s a good starter for witchcraft! I didn’t really get into books about faerie lore, or books about specific cultures or religions, or books about historical magic, or books about witches that don’t really illustrate how they did their magic, or books about magic users who are utterly not at all the same as real magic but are still super fun…
Seriously, magic in fiction is one of my favorite subjects. I’d love to do a Discord chat about that with some of my followers sometime.
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