Sorry about that - I forgot to put it all back into the original font.
to say magic is a must to solve some issue
I wasn't saying that exactly, I was saying that magic can be used to better explore an issue. It can be explored in other ways equally well, but in the case of Macleod, where the magical substance aether is what starts the industrial revolution, rather than coal, the fact that it isn't something we know in a way makes it more relevant - it is no longer limited to simply one allegory, but can be applied more universally because of it, and it actually makes you pay attention to the issue, as it's something that hasn't been done before, whereas, if you write a novel set in a pseudo-Victorian England without this element of magic, why is the novel any more relevant than Dickens. Magic certainly isn't a necessity, but it can be used to improve a novel. Of course, many authors don't use magic sensibly and it worsens their novels, but for some novels taking out the magic would reduce the novel. Take for example Graham Joyce's the Tooth Fairy. It's relatively low magic, but if you remove the magic that is present in it, the novel suddenly loses most of its power. But for other fantasy novels, the lack of magic helps the reader to focus on the other aspects - eg Gormenghast has pretty much no magic in it at all and it is better for that, because magic wouldn't fit to its setting or further any aspects of it. The relevance of magic has to be examined on an individual basis. There's no simple answer to the question "Does magic satisfy mature readers?" because it is all down to how it is used by the author, and in some cases, clearly it doesn't, in others, clearly it does, and for reasons more than pure escapism.
Cant comment on Macleod, but it is rather severe to say magic is a must to solve some issue. Is that really the case? I've never thought of magic, its use or lack of, as necessity...
