HARD MAGIC by Larry Correia
Larry Correia’s HARD MAGIC is a novel that everyone who likes a feast of awesome with a side order of awesome slathered in awesomesauce should like, if not love. Anyone who has lost the vital connection with his inner ten-year-old is not allowed to read this book.
The time is 1930’s after the Great War, smack in the middle of a Great Depression, and nothing is great. The place is a world next door to our own, where random members of the population are ‘Actives’ who have magical talents, everything from telekinesis to teleportation to pyrokinetics to summoning demons to superhuman strength to the ability to control gravity. Imperial Japan has discovered more about this Power, what it is and where it came from and what it wants from mankind, than anyone in the West, and Japanese have ruthless global ambitions, and the winds of war are beginning to howl.
Prohibition is still in force, Oklahoma is a dustbowl, and John Moses Browning is still making guns that are works of art. Like all good alternate histories, there was no Hindenburg disaster, and so blimps and zeppelins are the favored method of travel, and, of course, they are equipped with cannons and machinegun blisters.
Nikola Tesla was an ‘Active’ who talent was in works of mad genius, a ‘Cog’, who could make machines of impossible power, including death rays able to incinerate cities, and an even deadlier weapon whose components have been hidden in the hands of a secret society know as the Grimnoir.
Faye Vierra is an Okie girl whose family is so dirt poor that they sell her to a farmer for ten bucks. But the farmer bought her to save her life, because she is an Active with a strange power that will kill her without proper training. Then one day a group of automobiles drive up, and men in hats and guns get out, following a one-eyed man. They are looking for something, and willing to kill to find it.
Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant is the richest man in the world, an arms manufacturer and a hypochondriac, rich enough to hire a warlock known as the Pale Horse, who was said to be able to inflict sickness, torment, pain, and death that even magical healers can never ward off. There is one man in the world Stuyvesant hates bitterly enough to dare deal with the Pale Horse, who terrifies him. But the strange practitioner does not want money for his services, but something more sinister …
Jake Sullivan is a Heavy, that is, an Active who can make bricks float and feathers clang to the ground. He is also a war hero who survived the nightmare of the Somme, a condemned criminal who broke rocks in the hot sun, and a bounty hunter working under the thumb of Herbert Hoover’s newly-minted Bureau of Investigation. He is the hardest of hard cases, but, once in his life, you see, there was this dame … Who could pick up a Model T and throw it through a brick wall. And apparently she has gone on a murder spree. When Hoover sends Jake to hunt down the only skirt he ever loved, he does not like it, but he cannot say no. It’s either that or back to prison.
Awesomeness ensues.
Larry Correia pulls out all the stops, cranks the awesome up to TEN, takes out a pen, dips it in Awesome, writes ELEVEN next to it, and twists the dial beyond that.
The big blow-off set piece in the climax takes place when an aging sky pirate talks his crew of South Sea toughs into driving their high-speed pirate- zeppelin into the middle of a tornado where a flotilla of aerial ironclad superdreadnoughts of Imperial Japan, where an immortal sorcerer-aristocrat and his Iron Guard have gathered the Tessla weapon, kidnapped one girl, killed the other girl, murdered the grandfather, betrayed the flag, and corrupted the main character’s evil older brother who is somehow still alive and thirsting for vengeance … And then the pirate zeppelin meets the superdreadnought in the superthunderstorm and rams it.
And then when the superstrong heroine, the beastmaster, the German spy who can walk through walls, and the telekineticist find the central chamber where the McGuffin is ticking, and the dead samurai on the deck moan and stand up again, everyone holsters their pistols and draws blades because no one dares ignite the highly inflammable gas bags billowing around them. The battle is joined between a gravity-controlling hardass gumshoe and invulnerable samurai, and one teleporting ninja-babe with a samurai sword is in a high-speed duel with a irrepressible teleporting hillbilly gal with a shotgun blinking in and out of existence from stem to stern faster than the eye can follow. And then the zeppelin catches on fire…
I wish I had written that scene. Man, I wish I had written that scene. I am soooo eaten up with awesomeness envy it is pathetic.
But my favorite scene of all is where one character, without turning a hair, listens to another explain how and why it is that the ends justify the means, and that all the vile betrayals were done to serve a good cause — and then — and then — but the muses would curse me if I gave away any of the plot twists, reversals, or double-backs of this rollercoaster ride of a thriller.
I will only say that his is a Film Noir style book, filled with grim and gritty and cynical, one where the bad guys are squared away and smart as hell, which makes the occasional act of vengeance or justice like a ray of heaven’s light breaking through the murk all the more lovely by contrast.
Every chapter starts with a quote from someone who, in our world, went a slightly different path, but, as best I can tell, is based on something the person really wrote. The writing is clear and uncluttered, the action keeps moving, the characters are engaging, the good guys are good with a slight bad edge and the bad guys are bad with a slight good edge, or, at least, a reason for what they are doing.
And the author knows his guns like nobody’s business.
Not once did an anachronism nor an improbable coincidence jar me out of my suspension of disbelief, which is the surest mark of professional, if not masterful, writing. Larry Correia believes in his world and he brought it to life.
Let us inspect the PERIODIC TABLE OF AWESOME: this book has: Ninja, pirates, sniper, grenades, bombs, rockets, zombies, assassin, wizard, bounty hunters, alien, robots, money, teleportation, sword, battleship, scars, tattoos, yin-yang, kung fu, sonic boom, daggers, throwing stars, storms, tornado, ghost …
Please note how many items on this table Mr. Correia can triumphantly check off:
This book is the rule of cool come true, set in one of my favorite periods, harping on one of my favorite themes, and the women are femmes fatale except when they are as bright and sunny as a firework from the Fourth of July, and the men are the hardest of hard boiled eggs. Even the black hats are admirable.
There is even a cameo appearance by an accountant named Raymond. Bonus points if you recognize him.
Let me quote another favorite scene of mine, from Chapter Three. (I have slightly bowdlerized it, for the sake of a PG audience):
The gate was lying in the weeds. The grass was hip deep on what had once been a lawn. Faye thought that she could just barely smell the ash as she gingerly put her weight onto the charred boards of what had been the porch, and it reminded her of another, more recent, fire. She noticed that somebody had etched strange symbols into the crumbling floor, and she stepped over them carefully.
There was nothing else there.
Somehow she knew that something bad had happened here, something worse than the fire. Lives had been lost in this place. Death was in the air.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I didn’t expect this,” she said as she slowly turned around. “I thought maybe somebody around here would help me.” She had been so certain that the address would hold the answers that she had not thought about what she would do next if there were no answers to be found. She was on the outskirts of a strange city, had no friends, and no idea what to do. She picked out a pile of bricks and sat down.
Why am I here?
Faye wasn’t sure. Grandpa hadn’t even really given her any last words, he’d just choked out half a sentence before dying, given her some weird metal thing, which she’d managed to already lose half of, and now she was just alone. She wanted to cry, but she felt like she’d already cried all her tears, and now she was just all dry and hollow inside.
A fat brown squirrel crawled up onto a nearby board. It cocked its head at her curiously, as if wondering what this strange human girl was doing sitting on some ashy bricks in the middle of its forest.
“Hello,” said the squirrel.
Oh, great, now I’ve gone crazy.
“Hi,” Faye responded.
The squirrel just kept looking at her, twitching nervously like squirrels do, and for a minute Faye thought that maybe it had just sounded like the little animal had spoken. Grandpa had always said that she got her brain spinning too fast sometimes and that if she spun it too hard it might break. The squirrel examined her for what seemed like an abnormally long time, and Faye started to doubt that she’d heard anything at all, and felt stupid for talking to it.
“Nice ring,” the squirrel said. Its voice didn’t seem to match, like the sound wasn’t coming from the animal, but through it. It had a deep, scratchy, male voice. “It set the ward spells off. Where’d you get it?”
“My Grandpa gave it to me,” she answered, holding up her hand to show off the black and gold band. She could have sworn the squirrel nodded thoughtfully. “He gave me a list with some names on it. I’m looking for somebody named Pershing. Could you help me, little squirrel.”
“We’ve got a live one at the old place,” the squirrel said, like it was talking back over its shoulder. Faye looked into the grass for other squirrels but didn’t see anything else hiding in the grass.
“Are you okay, Mr. Squirrel?”
“You ain’t from around these parts, are you, kid?” asked the squirrel.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Well, yeah, actually…” The squirrel twitched and swiveled its head back toward the road as it sensed something. A large black automobile was coasting to a stop on the road. Its whiskers twitched violently as the doors opened. “Sh*t! If it ain’t some Imperium m*ther-f*ckers!” exclaimed the squirrel, then it swiveled back to her. “Damn it! Hide, girl! Hide! Go!” Then it leapt off the board into the grass.
Faye watched the profane little animal disappear, then switched back to the car. Three men had gotten out and were heading straight for the fallen gates. They reached into their coats and came out with guns. She scrambled behind the pile of bricks and ducked down low. It was just like what had happened to Grandpa, and she realized that she was shaking uncontrollably.
She could hear the crunching of the grass as the men moved. They were obviously city-folk, not hunters, loud and clumsy. She risked a peek around the side of the bricks, and the closest was going to be on the porch in seconds. And there, right in the soft ashen wood, clear as day, were her footprints, leading right to where she was hiding.
“Psstt. Over here.” The squirrel’s head poked up out of the weeds. “Stay low.”
It was either follow the squirrel, or Travel before they found her, but she didn’t know where to Travel to, and if she appeared in front of one of the other men, they’d shoot her dead just like they had done to Grandpa. Faye crouched down, bunched up her dress so she could crawl, and hustled after the squirrel. The animal was gone by the time she got there, but there seemed to be an indentation in the grass. When she pressed on it her hand went right through into an empty space.
There was a footfall a few feet away. With no time to think, Faye shoved her head through the grass and found herself staring down an ivy-coated chute. There was only a foot of light before everything was masked in shadow. She kept going, scooting down a gentle slope. Spider webs hit her in the face and insects skittered across her body. A second later her hands landed in soft dust, and she pulled herself into a tight black space. A few spikes of sunlight pierced the darkness from holes in the floorboards above. Every time one of the men took a step, ash cascaded through the light. Something furry and warm pushed past her lips and she almost screamed.
“Easy…” the squirrel said softly.
“Where are we?” Faye whispered.
“Coal cellar… Hurry up, Francis. Imperium *ssholes right on top of us.”
“I’m not Francis. Who’s Francis?”
“Shut up, kid. I ain’t talking to you,” the squirrel hissed. “Move your *ss, boy.” There was a thud directly overhead and one of the men shouted something. They’d found Faye’s tracks. “Sh*t… They’re gonna find us. Never a grizzly bear or a moose or a Doberman around when I need one… Hey, girl, you got any Powers?”
“Yeah,” Faye whispered. “I’m a Traveler.”
The squirrel sighed. “What? Son of a b*tch. I was hoping you had super strength or shot lightning bolts out your eyes or something because these Imperium goons are gonna find us any second.”
“My name’s Faye.”
“Did I ask for a life story? We’re about to get killed here…” The squirrel let out a long sigh. “Aw hell… My name’s Lance. You just scoot for the woods. I’ll hold them off.”
She wasn’t sure what exactly the squirrel, Lance, was going to do to fight off three men with guns, so she reached into her pocket, and pulled out her little revolver. She cocked the hammer as slowly and quietly as possible. The squirrel rubbed up against her face again. “Are you daft? The only thing you’re gonna do with that little thing is p*ss them off. What is that? A .32? J*sus, you ain’t hunting squirrels. Gonna use that to put us out of our misery?”
There was a sudden crash. A pile of ash broke lose from the ceiling, obscuring the tiny shafts of light. Then another crash, and a much larger shaft of light appeared as one of the men smashed a hole in the floor with his boot. “Go!” Lance shouted. The furry shape left her face, bounded up into the light, and launched itself into the air.
One of the men screamed. “It’s crawling up my pants! Kill it! Kill it!”
“Quit being a punk, and step on it, Al. We’ve got business.”
There was a commotion, shouting, and then one of the men started to laugh at his companion’s problem. They didn’t know they were dealing with a magic squirrel. Faye thought about the area near the front gate, concentrated, feeling her magic. She hadn’t Traveled since getting the bug stuck in her foot, and for the first time in her life, she was scared to use her Power and hesitated.
I can do this.
Her thoughts went ahead of her. The air was clear of objects, the grass was tall, waving, not a concern for a normal, but for her, every piece represented potential death, a single blade of grass potentially as deadly as a steel knife. No leaves in the air. No big pieces of sand or grit, no bugs, only particulate so small that her passage would brush it aside. Nothing was about to enter that space. She saw everything. And it all happened within a tenth of a second and she was gone.
Faye appeared an inch over the tall grass, still in the same prone position she’d been in the cellar, and dropped like a stone. Her landing was cushioned by the weeds and she popped right back up.
The three men were standing in a circle over something. One of them was pointing his pistol at the floor, and she knew that the magic squirrel was just as dead as Grandpa had been. “Lance!”
The men looked up simultaneously, guns rising toward her, and Faye prepared to Travel again, but their eyes collectively jerked upward as something passed through the air over her head with a rustle of cloth in the wind. A petite shape landed between the men in a crouch, knocking one of them sprawling.
It was a woman in a red dress. She rose quickly, slammed her palm into another’s chest with a terrible crack, throwing him back and completely through the brick chimney, collapsing the entire structure in a cloud of red dust. She spun back toward the last man, just as his gun stabbed out toward her, and Faye screamed. There was a gunshot.
The man’s head snapped back. The pistol dropped from lifeless fingers before he collapsed into the ash.
“Good shot, Francis,” the woman shouted, then she turned back to the first one she’d knocked down. She kicked a giant beam casually out of the way, bent down and grabbed a handful of hair, dragging the struggling man from the ashes.
There was the sound of an action being worked, and Faye turned to see a man standing back at the gate with a bolt-action rifle. Faye almost Traveled, but he didn’t point the rifle at her, instead he gave her an easy smile. “It’s going to be all right. We’re here to help you.”
The man was young, probably not much older than her. “Are you Lance the magic squirrel’s friend?”
“Huh?” At first he seemed bewildered by that, then he started to laugh, like she’d said something hilarious.
Faye was confused by his reaction. “Come on! I think they squished him!”
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
