The Passing of the Techno-Mages Book I: Casting Shadows
By Jeanne Cavelos
Jeanne Cavelos was born in the United States on May 26th, 1960. Inspired by Charlton Heston’s character in Planet of the Apes, she decided to become an astrophysicist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics from Michigan State University in 1982. She taught astrophysics at Michigan State University and Cornell, as well as working with the Astronaut Training Museum, but grew dissatisfied with her work. So she decided to try her hand at writing after getting a Master of Fine Arts from American University.
She worked as a senior editor for Bantam Doubleday Dell but left in 1994 to pursue writing her own books. She would write The Science of Star Wars, coining the phrase " May the 4th be with you” and The Science of the X-Files. She also wrote The Shadow Within, a novel set in the Babylon 5 universe, along with the trilogy Passing of the Techno Mages, and it’s the first book of that series that we’re reviewing today.
The main character of the novel is the Techno-Mage Galen, who never appeared in the main series but was a major character in the short-lived follow-up series, Babylon 5 Crusade. The novel takes place in 2258, during the first season of the television show and before the Techno-Mages' only appearance in the main series, in the episode Geometry of Shadows in season 2. The novel covers the end of Galen's apprenticeship and his progression to being a full Mage, along with the Techno-Mages' discovery of the return of the Shadows and how the Techno-Mages reacted to the Shadows' return.
Galen was the child of a pair of Techno-Mages who died in a fire while he was a child. He was raised and taught by the Techno-Mage Elric, the only Techno-Mage to appear in the television series. That loss is one of the reasons Galen is isolated even from his fellow Techno-Mages. Another reason is that he struggles to really understand people and has a lot of difficulty expressing his emotions.
He is, however, able to form relationships, such as forming a deep relationship with a fellow Techno-Mage student, Isabelle. He also has a distant friendship with Elizar, who is also a Techno-Mage student. Elizar and Galen bonded over shared ambitions but don’t really understand each other. Isabelle, on the other hand, is a very insightful young lady who seems to understand Galen better than he understands himself, which is good given how much Galen struggles to find ways to express himself and his emotions.
This inability to express himself appears in his “spell language,” as we learn that each Techno-Mage has an individual way of visualizing and expressing their spells and powers. Galen’s language is very much like a computer programming language or a series of math equations. Other Mages have spell languages that lend themselves more easily to metaphor and art, allowing them to express themselves in their spells. Galen’s language doesn’t really allow for individual self-expression, but it does allow him to break spells down to their components very easily in order to replicate the spells of other mages.
This ability leads him to trouble, as he can create a spell stripped of everything but a single component. It is a spell made up of a single word, and that word is destruction. This spell lets Galen destroy just about anything or anyone he can see. This power frightens his elders so much that they make him swear an oath to never use the spell, even if the alternative is dying. This spell clearly scares them more than the Shadows do.
The Shadows do, however, frighten the Mages deeply. When an unpopular Mage discovers evidence of the Shadows' return, a faction of the Mages doesn’t want to believe it. So Galen is dispatched with fellow new Mage Isabelle to a remote space port near the rim of known space to find proof of the Shadows’ return. What they find is terrifying.
Because while they don’t know much about the Shadows, the Shadows know a lot about the Techno-Mages, and the Shadows are determined that the Mages will either serve them or be destroyed. Galen and Isebelle will find evidence not just of the Shadows but of secrets within the ranks of the order of Techno-Mages, as well as proof that the Shadows are gathering followers and weapons to plunge the galaxy into a maelstrom of war and destruction. Some of those followers know the Mages all to well.
As Galen and Isebelle struggle not just to gather evidence but to escape alive with everything they learned. Elric, Galen’s teacher, is struggling to keep secrets and politics from tearing the order apart. He is one of the five members of the Circle, the leaders of the Mages. The order is split into factions, each with a different vision of what the Mages and their place in the world should be. On top of that, the one person who can unite these factions is keeping secrets, and his plans to counter the Shadows have already gone awry.
Casting Shadows is a story of misplaced faith and loss. The Techno-Mages will find themselves with ineffective leadership when they need it the most, and, as usual, it’s not the leaders who suffer the heaviest consequences for their failures. It is also a story of how the most unlikely people can do the right thing and rise above themselves if given some faith, some encouragement, and just the right push. So it’s not an entirely grim story, as it does have a bit of hope in it, but as fits with this point in the greater Babylon 5 storyline, it’s a dark story.
This novel tells us a lot about Galen as a person and the Techno-Mages as a group. We learn what motivates Galen, his desire to truly understand what the founders of the Techno-Mages had created, and to do justice to their works while helping people. His trouble with emotions and with really communicating and understanding others also makes him a bit autistic coded in some ways, but I don’t think that was intentional. I think that was more to reflect that Galen is a very repressed person who, due to the early loss of his family, doesn't want to confront or understand his own feelings.
As for the Techno-Mages, while they are a very learned and powerful group of people, they are still very fallible and, for lack of a better term, human. We learn a lot about their history and a fair bit of how their powers work. They were created 1000 years ago by a now extinct alien race, and they use that alien race’s technology as well as cybernetic implants created from that technology to make themselves capable of amazing feats of power and knowledge almost comparable to what individual Vorlons can do. We also learn that much of their magic is just education on how to present things and how to read and communicate to people to get their desired ends, as well as an education in sleight of hand and other skills to enhance the mystery of their abilities.
While the Techno-Mages were honestly a minor part of the overall story of Babylon 5, they are a fascinating part of it. They never fail to draw interest, and Ms. Cavelos does an admirable job of telling a compelling story. It is somewhat constrained, however, by the greater universe. We know Galen and the Techno-Mages will not be able to announce to the galaxy that the Shadows are coming, and we know they will not take part in the war in any great measure. That said, she is able to tell a good story within those constraints.
I can’t help but wonder if the Techno-Mages were able to be their own story, how it would go, but this is a Babylon 5 story. It’s one I greatly enjoyed, and I would recommend. Because of its distance from the main cast and focus of the setting, I think it’s also a novel you can read without having any prior experience with Babylon 5 and still enjoy. I’m giving Casting Shadows a B+; it is a good story, and I think any fantasy or science fiction fan would enjoy it.
