On 1/12/06, Jon_Lincicum at stream.com <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> wrote: > > Yeah, well, I've always seen this as a case of plot convenience, more than > anything else, since Brust never explains how a witch/familiar bond is > different from normal psychic contact. > > There was an internal decision-making process that said, "I need a way to > shield Vlad from Psychic energy to hide him from the Jhereg, but I need to > keep up the ongoing conversations between him and Loiosh while I do so." > > And rather than explaining a contrived difference between Vlad/Loiosh's > conversations and normal psychic ones, Brust simply notes that there *is* > a difference of some kind, and moves along. Well, yes, but he always does that. Actually, I could handwave a vague explanation: Regular psychic communication is more like telephony or radio; there are formal magical connections made between individuals. Vlad has essentially put himself in a Faraday cage by donning the Phoenix stones. Whereas the witch-familiar bond is more like quantum entanglement ("spooky action at a distance"), and thus cannot be defeated by the same methods. Now watch Philip Hart smack me down for abusing the word "quantum". > This is not a criticism. In fact, it's a rather elegant way of preventing > a piece of fairly meaningless minutae from getting in the way of a good > story. > > However, this is one example of where the books cross out of Science > Fiction (which generally offers explanations for things) into true Fantasy > (which does not). > I am not sure if this is necessarily the best definition of the difference between science fiction and fantasy. But I don't think the Dragaera stories could ever be described as being science fiction, despite the addition of genetic engineering and such. Hm. Maybe it's time for another definitions thread.