Bitten by Books
Welcome to the poll of the week!! Polling runs through Sunday, April 5th. How to participate: FIRST VOTE on the bottom RIGHT HAND SIDE of the site. Next stop here to tell us Which series has the most believable system of magic? and why you chose your answers. The only VOTES that count are the ones on the actual poll not the comments!
Please comment as MUCH as you like. We want to hear from AUTHORS AND READERS alike! Choose wisely, as you only get 3 votes, though you can comment below as much as you like!
Feel free to use the banner at the top of this post. Put it on your blogs, groups etc. to let your FANS and friends know about the poll! Link back to this post here:
http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=84104
Be sure to join in and enter all of our other awesome contests by clicking here.
ADMIN NOTE: Please be respectful of other people when commenting. Everybody’s opinion is valid regardless if it matches your own. We have a ZERO tolerance for flaming and cheating. Anybody who is caught doing either will have their comments deleted and IP Permanently banned from this site. Thank you.
Support our site by using these links to shop for books, videos, music, games and more. This helps us to continue to bring you the best authors, contests and events around! Thank you for your continued support and encouragement!
Shop Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=bittenbybooks-20
Support BBB:
First off, thanks for using my idea Rachel! Now, to my picks. I’ve read almost every single one of these series and while I love them, some are more believable than others. Harry Potter is out, sorry. Harry Dresden, on the other hand, is one of my top picks, right up there with Rivers of London and The Iron Druid Chronicles. They all work on the concept of sympathetic magic, to a certain point, and I can really get behind that.
Thank you for the great idea Joshua!!
Oh man, oh man tough decision. I chose Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey. Vanyel and Kethy make magic so interesting. I chose Warriors of the Mist by Alexis Morgan and other. Because no matter what, I cannot forget Forgotten Realms’ magic… The Simbul rocks! LOL
The other day the hubby and I mentioned how awesome Ed Greenwood’s Seven Sisters would be as movies. I could see people liking Storm and The Simbul.
Though David Eddings The Belgariad comes close too
There’s more than just a handful of writers - the Usual Suspects - who could be trotted out for this. If you want careful worldbuilding and magic with rules you might want to check out the Worldweavers series by Alma Alexander.
I loved working with Alma when she came to our site. I can’t wait to feature her again! Great recommendation too.
My picks were:
Harry Dresden
October Daye
The Hollows
Followed closely by Jane Yellowrock and Mercedes Thompson.
The number one for me is The Belgariad by David Eddings. While the books themselves are pretty fomulaic- the magical system is top notch. It has rules, cost & benefit analysis, it makes logical sense when set out (and it is presented fairly early on in the series.) Plus, this is just hands down one of my favorite series.
The October Daye series is close to the Belgariad. There is a bit more variation since we are dealing in present times & with the Fae but for the most part it is mapped/logical.
Third choice was HP- could be wish fulfillment- I desperately want to go to wizarding school.
That would be followed closely by Jane Yellowrock, but there are still some concerns there (mainly because I think we are just getting to the good stuff magicwise…)
I really think Kelley Armstrong’s The Otherworld Series nails it.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and Harry Potter are my choices
If I could just get through all the gratuitous sex, and I think erotica has its place, the Anita Blake series is still one of my favorites
My choice was Mercy Thompson….It seems less over the top than some of the others??? and I love this series.
Okay, I guess all her books (that I can think of) are stand-alone, but what about Alice Hoffman?
Anita Blake by Laurell K. Hamilton, Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series and Marjorie M. Liu’s Hunter Kiss.
Brandon Fox’s Pledged To Magic series is one of the most wall-to-wall sexual m/m series I’ve read, but it works well because the sex magic logistics are established through excellent world-building. I was very impressed!
I chose Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling~just amazing in every way~the characters, the magic, the world!
=chuckles= I know I’m the one who threw it in the pot for this poll but I severely doubt Rick Cook’s Wizard’s Bane books. While fun to read, the whole hacking magic like cheap software was a bit silly.
There have been a few interesting magic methods thrown around: magic through song (Spellsinger series), magic through poetry (Her Majesty’s Wizard), magic through prayer (The Elenium, Tales of the Kenycrath), magic through artifact, and so on…
HA! you got me on the one. D. lol I haven’t read that series.
I voted for Dresden Files, Harry Potter and Hunter Kiss by Marjorie M. Liu.
Unfortunately, I haven’t read all of these series. I put down Mercy Thompson series, Kate Daniels series and Other series of The Markhat Files by Frank Tuttle.
I voted for The Dresden Files, The Hollows, and Harry Potter.
I chose the Mercedes Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. I haven’t actually read most of the series listed listed, though I have read some other books by a few of the authors listed. I also chose other. The only other series that I read out of those up was Harry Potter, and while I loved the series and characters and I thought Rowling’s world building was superb, I didn’t think the way magic worked in that world was especially believable. For the others, I would go with the Newford books by Charles de Lint. It isn’t really a series so much as an interconnected group of novels, novellas, and short story collections, but I think the way magic works in those books is extremely believable. I also think there’s a great, and believable system of magic in Tamora Pierce’s books, especially the series that she set in Tortall and the surrounding lands.
I really enjoyed the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.
I voted for Otherworld, October Daye, and ‘other’ for the Allie Beckstrom series. It’s not one of my favorites, but paying small/large prices for magic depending on how much power you’re using just makes a weird kind of sense.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher & Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling I think.
I chose Mercedes Thompson because that world building is just great and the way magic is included is subtle and believable, the Valdemar series because that was one of the first fantasy series I ever read and I LOVE it. A chosen few able to wield special powers and held to a higher standard is awesome! Last was the Belgariad, even though I haven’t read it in a long time it’s another series I fell in love with and I remember the magic being believable with costs. Nothing like were the hell did that come from?! lol
Kresley Cole’s IAD series is chock full of magic and fantasy.
love me some Jane Yellowrock. One of the things that I love so much about the series is that her world and the magic in it are based on myths and legends so it’s all very believable.
I picked
1. Valdermar by Mercedes Lackey
2. Ohterworld by Kelly Armstrong
3. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
I voted for Ilona Andrew’s magic, Kelly Armstrong otherworld, and Patricia Briggs’s Mercy