A presentation I gave at Sunstone Symposium 2014 in which I explore the influence of Latter-day Saint authors on the evolution of magic systems in fantasy literature.
In 2014, my friend Steven Carter (who is also the editor of Sunstone Magazine) invited me to participate in a panel on Mormonism and pop culture at the Sunstone Symposium. My contribution was this presentation.
This presentation is less of a real presentation and more like a collection of notes on three interconnected topics: first, a brief history on the 20th-century origins of magic systems in fantasy literature; second, what I called a “divinity” of obedience in Mormonism (in which everything–even God–has to obey divine laws); and third, an overview of the influence of prominent Latter-day Saint SF authors–specifically, Brandon Sanderson and Orson Scott Card–on how current novice SF writers (regardless of religious background) tend to approach writing their own magic systems.
At the end of my presentation, you’ll hear Steven taking the microphone and asking this tongue-in-cheek question: “So, are you saying that our generation of writers was influenced by D&D, and the next generation will be influenced by D&C?” To which I replied with equal measure of tongue in my own cheek, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Of course, that’s not precisely what I was saying, but there is likely more research to be done on the influence of Latter-day Saint views of divine laws on the development of magic systems across the genre in contemporary fantasy literature.
Here’s an mp3 of my presentation (~20MB & ~16 minutes).
Here’s a PDF of the PowerPoint slides I threw together (~1MB).