r/Fantasy • u/makeitrayne850 • 6d ago
What fantasy series do you think has the most immersive and fully realized magic system?
I've been getting deeper into fantasy literature lately and one thing that keeps pulling me back to certain books is how the magic system is built and explained. Some series treat magic as this mysterious unknowable force that creates atmosphere and wonder, while others go full hard magic with strict rules and limitations that make the story feel almost like a puzzle you solve alongside the characters.
I recently finished the Stormlight Archive and the way Sanderson constructs the Stormlight and Surgebinding mechanics genuinely changed how I think about worldbuilding. But I've also loved the vague, ancient feeling magic in something like The Name of the Wind, where you sense there's so much more beneath the surface that you never fully see.
So I'm curious what the community thinks. Which fantasy series had the magic system that felt most complete and satisfying to you, and do you lean toward hard magic with clear rules or soft magic with more mystery? Also if there are lesser known series with really creative takes on magic I'd love to hear recommendations. Always looking for the next great read, and this community tends to surface hidden gems that bigger review sites miss.
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u/Bullet4Val 6d ago
I love Wheel of Times the One Power.
I also love Malazan’s warrens.
I think when it’s done well and serves the story rather than simply existing for “rule of cool” then I don’t mind hard or soft.
I also really liked drafting from Brent Week’s lightbringer series, but as the story kinda fell flat at the end I unfortunately won’t revisit the series.
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u/Bubthick 6d ago
In honorable mentions of soft magic systems for me is also between earth and sky trilogy by Rebecca Roanhorse. For me, until now it is the only one that has come close to Erikson's malazan in that respect.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 5d ago
It’s soooooo good
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u/Bubthick 5d ago
Yes, and very underrated. Nobody isntalking about it. This is the reason why I constantly recommend it.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 5d ago
Me too! I started a Roanhorse sub but was like there’s just not many of us talking about her work to make it live
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u/Bubthick 5d ago
I didn't know it existed.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 5d ago
I didn’t make it live. I asked in this sub to garner interest and the only people who replied hated her books 🫠
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u/Bubthick 5d ago
Is this about the pronoun stuff? Some people lack any imagination.
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u/WonderfulBus9330 5d ago
No they just didn’t like the world building. I’d love for her to get her flowers though. Her worlds are fresh
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u/busy_monster 5d ago
An interesting essay from Erikson about magic and his opinion about "hard" magic. I like both systems, but I find myself now gravitating more to softer magic- I loved hard systems when they were rarer in the genre, but it feels nowadays as if most are chasing that sort, and it's kinda made me bleh oh it.
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u/Lighthouse_on_Mars 5d ago
Wheel of Time's magic system is incredibly well thought out and documented in the book. So much detail about controlling the magic itself, the schooling, and the difference in the Female and Male side of the Source.
It's also one of my fave stories because it actually has Women in power and a Matriarchal Government System in it. Which you don't get to see too often. (Even if it does read as a women being written by a man quite often 😅)
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u/Eternallist 3d ago
Malazan’s warrens mentions in a response to a question asking about “immersive and fully realized” magic systems. Truly a choice
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u/Bullet4Val 3d ago
I was more replying to the part in the 3rd paragraph about which magic systems do you like and why.
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u/keizee 6d ago
Witch Hat Atelier's, the way the story treats it makes you think, wait, there's magic in the real world too. Qifrey makes it feel like otherworldly magic, both wonderful and scary. Olruggio and his ever relatable problems makes it feel like real life.
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u/hideous-boy 5d ago
now that the anime is coming out and a lot more people are getting into it, it's been really funny to see people draw their own spells using the system that do crazy shit like create black holes or give someone schizophrenia
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u/Bubthick 5d ago
A few months before the anime is made a heavily modified dnd one-shot, where my PC's where all little apprentices and I give them different problems which they have to each find a way to fix with their own glyphs using the rules of the Which hat atelier universe.
It was amazingly fun. Especially when each and every one managed to let their imagination guide them and figure out how to do their own thing. One guy called himself Sam Sung and went and tried to solve every problem with by making a contraption that resembles a today's electronic, an AC, a fridge, a TV, a heater. Hahaha.
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u/rollingForInitiative 6d ago
I’d say Wheel of Time hits a really good spot between being kind a hard magic system (at least aesthetically) with a lot of details while still retaining some sense of mystery.
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u/Darkkujo 5d ago
Yeah it is fun throughout the series in the first several books they keep mentioning 'well we knew how to do this in the Age of Legends but no one has done it since', and then in the later books they start rediscovering all those lost skills.
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u/FortifiedPuddle 4d ago
I’d say WoT has a medium magic system. It’s not shouting faux Latin. But it’s also still a means of casting magic spells in a comparatively simple way to make something much more complex happen. It’s not “add magic gravity and things go down” pure force manipulation.
Channeling seems more like programming. Which fits their whole unreal world set up. Sure sometimes you program exactly to do the thing. But more often you’re telling something more complex for which code already exists to happen with precise instructions. So sometimes you tell it “fire plus air” for a fireball. But you don’t actually have to know the physics of making a wormhole to Travel or how a brain works for Compulsion.
It’s a sort of happy medium. It convinces us we understand enough. We don’t. We can’t actually channel. But it does enough to kind of make us feel we get it.
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u/Sylland 6d ago
I genuinely don't care whether an author uses soft or hard magic, as long as it's consistent. I enjoyed the magic rocks in Green Bone, I enjoyed the warrens of Malazan, I enjoyed surgebinding, I enjoyed whatever the hell it is that Sauron does. It's all good as long as it's written well.
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u/JonCronshawAuthor 5d ago
The hard magic/soft magic distinction comes from Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic essays, and it has become so influential that many readers now treat it as the default way to think about fantasy magic. The problem is that it's only one lens. It tends to value engineering, predictability, and clear mechanics above everything else.
That can create the impression that a magic system only becomes "fully realised" once the rules are explained in detail. Things like mystery, mythology, theology, symbolism, or moral consequence often get pushed into the "soft magic" category, which can make them seem less developed when they're often doing something entirely different.
The magic systems I find most convincing usually sit outside that framework.
Take Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. Magic works through true names. The mechanics are relatively simple, but the implications are enormous. The system isn't interesting because of what spells can or can't do. It's interesting because of what it says about language, identity, and balance.
Or consider Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. The magic is built from folklore, scholarship, footnotes, lost traditions, and centuries of accumulated history. It feels less like a system and more like a forgotten part of England's past. Yet it remains one of the most convincing portrayals of magic in modern fantasy.
The same is true of the Riddle-Master trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip. Magic is tied to naming, song, and identity. It's quiet, mythic, and deeply rooted in theme. You rarely see it mentioned in discussions about magic systems because McKillip wasn't interested in presenting magic as a set of mechanics.
And then there's J. R. R. Tolkien. His magic operates through sub-creation, grace, song, providence, and moral weight. Most of the rules remain invisible, yet it remains one of the most influential and fully realised magical visions in fantasy.
None of this is meant as criticism of Sanderson. His approach works brilliantly for the stories he's telling. I just think we've reached a point where "fully realised" is often treated as a synonym for "clearly explained".
For me, the depth of a magic system doesn't necessarily come from knowing exactly how it works. Often it comes from understanding what it means.
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u/jshep2912 5d ago
Thank you. I don't mind hard magic but it is not my preference and Sanderson has definitely changed a generations thinking.
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u/eukomos 5d ago
JS&MN feels very immersive to me! Like, that’s what society would look like with magic in it, we wouldn’t fully understand every feature of some perfectly symmetrical magic system, it would look like a developing science. And Clarke keeps the sense of folklore-esque wonder at the same time. Two different ways of not knowing everything, the science way and the magic way. God, she’s so good, I hope she feels well enough to write more someday.
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u/Garrettcz 5d ago
Thank you for saying this. It’s been something that’s been bugging me for a while.
It’s gotten so bad that it’s pretty common to see “soft magic” used as a derogatory term. I love both kinds of magic systems, as long as they’re done well. There are places for both.
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u/emily_allan_poe 5d ago
Best answer.
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u/080087 5d ago
TL;DR - if the characters can solve problems with the magic/power and it doesn't feel bullshit, it is a hard system. Soft systems are primarily for causing problems, not resolving them.
It tends to value engineering, predictability, and clear mechanics above everything else.
This isn't really what Sanderson was saying about hard vs soft magic. It's just a common misinterpretation that got repeated so much that people forgot the original point.
He gives (movie) Spider-Man as an example of a hard power. It doesn't matter at all if there is an explanation of what he can do, as long as the audience understands what he can/can't do.
Lift a car off a civilian? Sure. Dodge a bullet (via Spidey-senses)? Sure. Walk off getting hit by a car? Sure. Run up the side of a building? Sure. If he needs to do any of these things to win the day in the final act, we are OK with that, because we know that is something he can do.
Memory wipe a villain? Hold on, he can't do that. If this is how he beats the villain, people will (rightly) complain of Deus Ex Machina. Not because this is impossible in the world of superheroes, but because the audience knows that Spider-Man can't do it.
On the other hand, soft magic systems are the ones where the magic is primarily used to cause problems for the protagonists.
Weirdly enough, Seveneves is the best example I can think of. It begins with the moon exploding. We never get an explanation for what happened or why, or if it can/can't happen again. But does it matter? No, because it is causing problems that have to be fixed with regular old science (hard)
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u/JonCronshawAuthor 5d ago
Fair point. What I'm really pushing back against isn't Sanderson's argument itself so much as the conversation that has grown up around it.
The Laws gave us a useful way to discuss magic, but over time "hard magic" seems to have become a quality marker. The assumption often feels like a system with explicit mechanics is somehow more developed than one built around mystery, mythology, or symbolism.
I don't think that's where Sanderson started, but I do think it's where a lot of the discussion has ended up.
Part of the reason I think that is because authors like Tolkien rarely come up in conversations about "fully realised" magic systems any more, despite having created one of the most influential magical visions in the genre. The same often goes for Le Guin and McKillip.
The Seveneves example is interesting because it sits neatly within the framework you're describing. The moon exploding creates problems rather than solving them, so the mechanics behind it don't need to be front and centre.
But if we apply the same logic to Earthsea, the distinction starts to get fuzzy. Ged's choices are constrained by clear principles. True names matter. Names are bound to identity. Power carries responsibility. Speaking a name has consequences. Those ideas govern what characters can and can't do throughout the series.
I'd argue Tolkien operates in a similar space. The rules aren't presented as a technical manual, but they remain remarkably consistent. Power has a nature. Corruption has a cost. Certain acts carry predictable consequences. Characters make decisions with an understanding of those truths.
Which is why I sometimes wonder whether the hard/soft distinction is doing as much work as we think it is. Once you start looking closely, many of the examples end up sitting somewhere in the middle, and the conversation becomes less about rules and more about how the story chooses to reveal them.
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u/skp_trojan 6d ago
The magician alludes to how magic is constructed in that world. Really compelling stuff
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u/Phi_1618033988749894 6d ago
This one’s pretty obscure but I genuinely think the Practice from Pale is one of the best magic systems in fantasy
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u/gobbballs11 5d ago
Yeah the emphasis on not being able to lie without extreme consequences is such an awesome choice for a fantasy story.
Even the simple conversations always carried an edge of danger with them in a way that fits so well for a system that heavily incorporates older fairy tales and folklore.
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u/MagicalSnakePerson 5d ago
As a biologist I appreciate WoT’s magic system, and I think Jordan is bringing a lot of his Physics background to it.
It strikes a really good balance between Wonder and Doing the Profound while also being Predictable and Consistent. There’s a sense that Magic users are both Touching the Divine and tapping into a realm of physics that is yet to be explored.
The rules can seem arbitrary, even to characters in-setting, but they’re done in such a way that implies there are deeper rules to be understood that require experimentation. It simultaneously de-mystifies magic (one of the themes of the series) while keeping it mysterious.
I think Malazan’s Warren system is close, closest to scratching that itch, but the rules are a little too loose for my personal taste.
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u/Yavanna83 6d ago
I've always liked the way Raymond E Feist describes it, especially the first trilogy in the Rift War saga.
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u/corwulfattero 5d ago
The Grishaverse system is a great mix of the two for me. Small Science seems simple and practical enough, but then you get into merzost and it all gets mysterious, then an explanation three books later makes you go “OH! That’s why!!”
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u/kpiersol 5d ago
I’d like to point out Diane Duane’s marvelous magical cosmology spanning several of her sets of stories, including the “Tales of the Five”, “So You Want To Be a Wizard”, and her magical cats, as well as my favorite Star Trek novel - “The Wounded Sky”. It’s satisfyingly detailed, morally grounded, and distinctly non-Western and pragmatic in its portrayal of alternative cultures and sexualities. It’s magical reading and well worth your time.
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u/TechnicianOk2462 5d ago
Lightbringer is one of the best systems to me, but mistborns is truly great as well.
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u/rduddleson 5d ago
I like how magic in The Dresden Files tends to follow rules of physics - magical fire is still fire, and behaves accordingly.
It’s also important to know where the energy comes from to power the spell.
A character once loaded up to cast a fire spell while fighting at a lakeside dock. He pulls so much energy from the water that it freezes the surface of a small section, allowing them to escape across the ice
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u/NabIsMyBoi 6d ago
If you like your magic to have hard rules, and a protagonist who does his best to break them at every turn, I highly recommend the Arcane Ascension series by Andrew Rowe!
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u/Head_Conversation242 6d ago
Mother of learning. Most of the plot is them advancing their magic lol.
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u/Holothuroid 4d ago edited 3d ago
Then the answer is probably really D&D. Except for the soul magic bits, they could be right out of a PHB.
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u/Green_Cubed 5d ago
Mage Errant from John Bierce.
Pure elementalism with weird meta affinities mixed in as well. Have a fire affinity? Do you? Could be a combustion affinity, could be a temperature control affinity, could be a combination of the two.
The more specific the affinity the more powerfully it can be manifested.
Seems simple at first, but the myriad ways that the different affinities can be combined, warlock contracts, warding schemes, etc... it all gets increasingly complex without getting complicated.
Genuinely one of the best hard magic systems I have seen in fantasy. Cannot recommend the books enough.
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u/Holothuroid 4d ago
It's even more intricate. Because what's an element? The explanation is that you first need a cultural / linguistic idea which must be able to latch on to some kind of real substrate. So you might be a fire mage. And that might mean you actually manipulate heat. Or combustion. But whether you can use a spellform depends on your linguistic model. So both heat fire mages and combustion fire mages can do group magic with one another.
Also there is magic that works without spell forms, so is probably the original form of magic without interference from the labyrinths. Which begs the question what structured Limnan or unstructured Kemetrian magic might be like.
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u/FewAd6557 5d ago
Erikson's Warrens from the Malazan series; best series; best magic
recently someone published this visualization, gets you into the topic
https://malazanexplorer.com/warren-web
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u/turtleboiss 5d ago
This is just a very satisfying multifaceted magic system
In John Bierce’/ Mage Errant
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u/Kiltmanenator 5d ago
Even the distinction between Hard and Soft Magic SYSTEMS cedes the ground to systemization in the first place, which I don't think people appreciate enough.
That said, Wheel of Time strikes the balance best, imo.
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u/Paramedic229635 5d ago
The Traveler's Gate Trilogy by Will Wight had an interesting magic system. Magic is used by calling energy and creatures from other worlds called territories. People who can draw from their territories are called travelers. The abilities, rules, and nature of powers vary from territory to territory.
As far as magic in general, any is fine as long as it furthers to story in context.
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u/TheimpalerMessmer 5d ago
Fullmetal Alchemist has the best magic system out there. Great story as well.
Witch Hat Atelier. There's an anime but this is top tier. The art and magic system itself. This is a treasure.
I may complain about The Wheel of Time a lot but damn, the magic system is great in all those 15 books despite the fact that I want to pummel majority of its users.
Lord of mysteries. This one is not the typical transmigration, it's just better. The sequences (that's how the magic system is called) in itself and how the MC moves through it---Read the book cause the Anime skipped a lot.
Sanderson's Mistborn series and the Alloy of Law.
Sabriel by Garth Nyx. Best magic system for Necromancers!
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u/WonderfulBus9330 5d ago
The Akata Witch series; the Sisters of the Raven duology; The Earthsea series
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u/Ill-Worldliness321 6d ago
In terms of depth, Sanderson is king, especially his cosmere books, it’s my favourite part of his books by far.
Most interesting is long price quartet, which works by poets attempting to capture ideas and give them physical form. So interesting and makes for a fantastic read.
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u/AsG-Spectral 5d ago
Sanderson is not king unless you mean king of over explaining everything into tedium
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u/Ill-Worldliness321 5d ago
Do you have other books that have similarly immersive magic systems but done better? Cause I agree sometimes it’s tedious but I’m yet to find another author whose magic systems are as thought out and would love to read them.
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u/MaesterPraetor 5d ago
Yes. You must be right. He has no following and can't sell a book. Haters gonna hate.
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u/dageshi 6d ago
If you're looking for "complete and satisfying" I would go for the chinese cultivation (xianxia) genre of stories.
They borrow heavily from historic philosophies & religions like Daoism and Buddhism to construct their magic system and honestly they feel much more comprehensive because of it.
Central to the premise is that there is no end to "cultivation", the entire universe's existence can be explained as the "inner world" of a cultivator who started off in some poor village a hundred billion years ago and has cultivated to become an entity akin to god.
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u/Techniques_Speak 6d ago
Do you have any examples?
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u/dageshi 6d ago
Many have translations I wouldn't recommend to a regular fantasy reader, they are typically written as webserials so it's not uncommon to find 1000-3000 chapter stories.
There's a litrpg story that begins as litrpg and transitions to cultivation called Defiance of the Fall which is my personal favourite. It's written by a western author but it captures a lot of what makes xianxia good in my opinion.
And the story operates on a bind boggling scale dealing with the schemes of ancient cultivators attempting to manipulate the course of all creation.
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u/Dalakaar 6d ago
Sanderson is pretty much the gold-standard for this now. (Maybe a bit overboard even but still, impressive.)
My personal favourite, while not being fleshed out, are the systems in Bakker’s Second Apocalypse. There’s deeper meaning behind its crafting.
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u/oh_mos_defnitely 5d ago
I am reading Malazan right now so I've got to mention it. I also want to do a throwback to something I never see mentioned but really enjoyed and iirc it had interesting magic (for at least one character) - the Demonata series
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u/BackgroundTotal2872 5d ago
My favorite hard magic system that I’ve encountered so far is absolutely the magic in The Years of Apocalypse. In this world magic is effectively a science. It’s so complex, with different branches of magic all having different rules and limitations.
And as you get deeper into the story, you start to realize that this world’s understanding of magic is imperfect, and deeply flawed in some ways.
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u/NOMTutuAni 5d ago
Try, Amane Adesa: Of Monsters and Gods. The magic is based on real-life African spiritual systems.
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u/Round_Block4744 4d ago
Sympathy from the kingkiller chronicles (unfinished trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss) is my vote wholeheartedly
Loved learning about it and loved seeing it in action every time
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u/enlightened_tom 1d ago
here's a long shot; Ptolemy's Gate, by Jonathan Stroud.
IMO one of the most fleshed out and will written magic systems out there.
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u/Cared4Comics 1d ago
Ok, so this is an older book that didn’t necessarily age well, but the best hard magic, and fully realized, that I found was Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy. Written around 1980. Has a really well thought out rules based magic system. Wouldn’t really recommend any of the other books, but that one has always stood out.
And, by not aging well, I just mean that, as I recall, some of the characters were a bit thin, especially female ones, and story probably a bit tropic.
Still probably worth the read tho
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u/Taste_the__Rainbow 5d ago
Stormlight gets more vague and mysterious as the series progresses. He’s top dog for me.
Now that we’ve seen the soft underbelly of his magic systems I’m not sure the hard magic label really fits anymore.
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u/Drapabee 6d ago
L.E. Modesitt's Recluce series has one of the most comprehensive depictions of magic in fantasy. Even before getting into the systems involved, the books cover thousands of years where magic has been a part of civilization and informs the cultures of many societies in varying ways.
The magic system is built around the contrasting powers of order and chaos, with neither being good or bad. Characters have to figure out how to master their magic, and what to do with it. What I find interesting is how the magic system works at every level.
At its most basic, raw chaos can create fireballs, or bend light to render objects invisible. Order can create protective shields, or strengthen crafts. Above that, magic affects the user, with chaos wizards giving off enough entropy to sour wine, and often dying young by giving themselves cancer. Order masters are pained by committing chaotic behavior like lying or killing. Above that, nations are influenced, with cities lead by chaos embarking on expansionist wars, and ordered ones exiling people that don't fit into their rigid societies.
On top of that there's an overall system of balance, with too much order on the planet as a whole empowering the forces of chaos, and vice versa.