Fantasy with gunpowder questions

[Montero]

So we've got steampunk - which is Victorian-ish.
We've got classic medieval type fantasy.
So wondering - has anyone come across fantasy books which have gunpowder in them? (The in-between period as it were.)

In the medieval period (the real one) there were already cannon - not sure I've ever seen a cannon in medieval type fantasy. (Though magic often does the same job.)

Gunpowder came in for hand weapons gradually during the Tudor period. You get to the English Civil War and in a regiment you have a company of pike and a company (or two) of musketeers - matchlock.

So, questions are:
Any books with cannon, or matchlock muskets been published?
What do you think of mixing gunpowder and magic? (Other than it is probably very very dangerous. )

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Pistols rather than muskets: my own Goblin Moon (recently rereleased in both paper and electronic form) and its (one-of-these-days-to-be-rereleased) sequel.

I've never mixed magic with gunpowder literally, but they do exist in the same world and the same book. Why not? During the period you mention (as you perhaps already know, and I'm not telling you anything new) magic and science were still very much married to one another. I combined 18th century magic and science with 18th century culture and technology, including pistols, which my hero was rather fond of using. (I also weaseled in a just slightly later form of explosive just for the fun of it.)

You might also want to take a look at the three books Pierre Pevel has written about the Cardinal's Blades. Like the three musketeers (only from the other side) with magic and dragons -- though not the kind of dragons we're used to. Very much not the kind of dragons we're accustomed to.

 

[Dozmonic]

When I get round to finishing and publishing the kids books series I'm doing you'll have a mixture of shamanistic pirate magic combined with cannon and pistol. You'll be a few years above the target audience age range though

 

[Abernovo]

There's Anne Lyle's The Alchemist of Souls, which is a very enjoyable read. Tudor period.

 

[Montero]

Thanks folks.

Pierre Pevel - my library doesn't have the first of the three (Cardinal's Blades) is it a total spoiler to start with book 2?

 

[chrispenycate]

Quite a few, actually. I'm trying to remember a series set in renaissance Italy, it'll probably come back to me, or there's the Cherryh/Fish/Lackey 'Sword of knowledge' trilogy – and, considering Lackey, gunpowder isn't only used for weapons. She uses it for fireworks (and I suspect Gandalf's fireworks of being non-magical, too, except insofar as fireworks always contain a little magic). Certainly my dragons are facing gunpowder weapons at the beginning of the story; it's one of the reasons they want to end the constant conflict between themselves and mankind. Mind you, they're riding steam trains by the end; dragons live long enough to see a lot of technological change.

Now, I remember one where a castle is undermined and the cavity filled with black powder. I suppose it's all dependent on how powerful magic is, and how easy counter spells can be laid.

 

[biodroid]

David Gemmell's Ravenheart. This book has weapons with like old guns using gun powder and so does his Jon Shannow books, which is essentially a fantasy western in the future after an apocalypse that feels like it's set in the western era. I hope that made sense.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's not fantasy, but Brian Aldiss' Helliconia has some great gunpowder explorations...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Joel Rosenberg's The sword and chain series (Karl Cullinane stories) use the knowledge of how to make gunpowder to give them additional firepower in the fantasy world. And the locals use magic to replicate them, of a sort.


Also, weird western would use it - King's Dark Tower series springs to mind, although I've only read the first one.

 

[Toby Frost]

Well, the obvious choice would be Warhammer, which included cannons, but Naomi Novak's Temeraire has Napoleonic technology. The Fable computer games used a similar setting. I once wrote a novel which was set in a sort of supercharged Renaissance, but I doubt it'll ever see print.

One idea knocking about in my mind is a sort of road movie about a ghostly highwayman, in a fantasy version of 1750 or so. I think it would have potential: a sort of Pirates of the Carribean, without pirates and set on land. You could include the Jacobites, Jane Austen and Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla - in fact, pretty much anything between about 1700 and the point where people started wearing proper trousers. It would be very silly but a lot of fun.

 

[Kylara]

the point where people started wearing proper trousers.

So you're suggesting a skirted highwayman? With a hat? It always bothers me when they don't have hats, it's just bad manners...I refuse to be robbed by a highwayman with no hat.

 

[HareBrain]

Pistols rather than muskets: my own Goblin Moon (recently rereleased in both paper and electronic form) and its (one-of-these-days-to-be-rereleased) sequel.

I'd very much recommend Goblin Moon.

I'd also love to be able to recommend the spin-off series Dr Crow and Ezekiel -- think of an 18thC Hellblazer -- but I can't, because for some baffling reason it doesn't exist!

 

[Clansman]

This discussion is not complete without mentioning one of the more under-sold fantasy authors, namely Paul Kearney, and his Monarchies of God series, which was re-released 2 years ago in two omnibus editions, with minor re-writes to the conclusion. Werthead reviewed it here:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/528704-the-monarchies-of-god-by-paul-kearney.html

A finished series, lots of gunpowder (though more focused on culverin (early cannon)), but really great page-turning stuff. Kearney deserves a look by anybody who likes fantasy or historical novels.

 

[Anne Lyle]

So, questions are:
Any books with cannon, or matchlock muskets been published?

As Abernovo kindly pointed out, my Elizabethan trilogy has guns and magic. There's a snaphaunce pistol in the first, and wheellocks feature in the second. The cover of Book 2 even shows my heroine brandishing a pistol (probably not quite the right date, just whatever the photographer could get hold of that looked the job)

Others that I can think of:

* On Stranger Tides and The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers
* IIRC, Michael Scott Rohan's swashbuckling trilogy that starts with Chase the Morning

What do you think of mixing gunpowder and magic? (Other than it is probably very very dangerous. )

In the literal sense? Big badda-boom, I'm sure. I don't actually mix them in The Alchemist of Souls, though the Elizabethans' shaky understanding of skrayling alchemy/chemistry makes this a borderline case...

Figuratively? I chose an early modern setting precisely because I was bored of fantasy without gunpowder, esp when the settings were heavily based on Earth eras that did have gunpowder (i.e. any time from late Middle Ages onwards...).

 

[iansales]

There are guns in the third book of RA MacAvoy's excellent Lens of the World trilogy.

 

[Grunkins]

Cannons are introduced in Abercrombie's The Heroes.

 

[Trailblazer]

Ive never really liked mixing gunpowder with magic or high fantasy. It just takes so much away from the specialness of magic and melee combat.

Just like in real life, anyone can pickup a gun and kill someone from range with no training.
Were so very desensitized to the sheer raw power of what a gun can do and represents. The power to kill opponents of much greater strength and number in any conditions, at range, with ease.
Such feats in the pre gun era is what the legends we have today are based on.

Even the bow doesn't hold a candle to the gun, having far more limitations and requiring skill and strength to get even a wounding shot at close range.

It completely muddies the view of combat

 

[Montero]

Mm. Not disagreeing with you regarding your preference for magic without guns.

But

Would say that to a certain extent it depends on the gun - earlier weapons being a lot different from modern ones.

I've used a matchlock musket (blanks only) and the art of firing and loading it fast (3 shots a minute maximum) WITHOUT blowing yourself up or setting yourself on fire or having a hang fire does take a bit of learning. Granted that in the English Civil War period the musket block often included retired pikemen (think 50+ a side rugby with big sticks) who were no longer up to the physical requirements of pike, it still takes a bit of learning.

The learning was not always there - the musket also makes a fairly effective club.

I have it in my head that English Civil War battles averaged about 6 shots per man with the battle lasting several hours - but that might be a lot for the ones who knew what they were doing and none at all for those who didn't.

Not having done live firing, can't remember the effective range of a well made musket. Do have a bit of a suspicion that for range, accuracy and speed of fire a well trained longbow man could easily out shoot a matchlock musket. But as you say, that takes years of training and muscle building as opposed to a brisk afternoon going through the do-s and don't-s of a musket.

 

[Trailblazer]

Mm. Not disagreeing with you regarding your preference for magic without guns.

But

Would say that to a certain extent it depends on the gun - earlier weapons being a lot different from modern ones.

I've used a matchlock musket (blanks only) and the art of firing and loading it fast (3 shots a minute maximum) WITHOUT blowing yourself up or setting yourself on fire or having a hang fire does take a bit of learning. Granted that in the English Civil War period the musket block often included retired pikemen (think 50+ a side rugby with big sticks) who were no longer up to the physical requirements of pike, it still takes a bit of learning.

The learning was not always there - the musket also makes a fairly effective club.

I have it in my head that English Civil War battles averaged about 6 shots per man with the battle lasting several hours - but that might be a lot for the ones who knew what they were doing and none at all for those who didn't.

Not having done live firing, can't remember the effective range of a well made musket. Do have a bit of a suspicion that for range, accuracy and speed of fire a well trained longbow man could easily out shoot a matchlock musket. But as you say, that takes years of training and muscle building as opposed to a brisk afternoon going through the do-s and don't-s of a musket.

Indeed there is a significant difference between modern and older weapons.

I guess part of it is that there's no mystical element like in magic. While I lack enough knowledge of chemistry to make it myself or the make up of its chemicals bonds I know exactly how it works physically as a conversion of a solid into gas and the inherent changes in volume that result and power the functions.

Magic is well magic, even if you explain how it works its still a supernatural force channeled by the soul in the vast majority of fantasy (though I must concede here some authors have written stories with scientifically explained magical processes, though I do not favour these stories ).

 

[Anne Lyle]

Ive never really liked mixing gunpowder with magic or high fantasy. It just takes so much away from the specialness of magic and melee combat.

In my current series, magic is useless for combat - it's a subtle mental art, totally unsuited to the chaos of battle. And as Montero says, firearms of the period are slow and unreliable, and they're the fallback of people who don't have proper combat training (most of my characters are not warriors of any kind).

But in any case I'm not writing high fantasy, so I don't think it's an issue. It's not like all my characters are brandishing firearms - my hero carries a rapier, and uses it a lot more often than anyone fires a gun!