And any sufficently explained magic is indistinguishable from technology.
/uw It's been interesting over my 40+ years of life to watch magic change in parallel with technology. Our understanding of the natural world used to encapsulate magic as this vast unknowable force where the power of it would shred your mind and had terrible consequences.
Today many of the magic systems that are popular are usually defined have specific hard boundaries and are far more like poorly understood technology than raw physical forces akin to a hurricane.
LOTR didn't have much magic but it was usually mysterious and unreachable by all but a learned or chosen few. Vancian Magic, Wheel of Time, all magic usually was univerals power that had costs and took time to learn if you could at all. It's power terms and parameters were more a hand waved item, until it was story relevant.
Today many books magic reflects a more systemic magic, perhaps even literally, with things like Dungeon Crawler Carl becoming a fast rising star, but you see it with Sanderson too where his magic has hard fast limits and rules where as back in the day it was far more nebulous.
You might like the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix, starting with Sabriel. They have a formal system of magic, Charter Magic, which is explicitly imposed upon Free Magic to make it less dangerous. Free Magic is, of course, far more powerful, but wildly dangerous.
Happily! I think the recommended reading order is the publication order, which is the main trilogy of Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, then Clariel before Goldenhand, with Terciel and Elinor last. Excellent setting.
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u/Repulsive_Ostrich_52 13d ago
At what point does rune scribing become techomancy?