The Magic Battery

The sixteenth century is a time of change. Luther has challenged the Church’s authority; Copernicus has revolutionized astronomy. Mages — by law, all male and Christian — have a profitable, tightly controlled trade, but Thomas Lorenz is about to change that. He faces many opponents: the legal establishment, the Guild of Mages, and most dangerous of all, Heinrich Gottesmann, a lawyer crusading across Saxony against the “improper” use of magic.

“The Magic Battery rises to the level of a new classic on the themes of reason versus dogma, science versus faith, and human courage and hope versus terror of the unknown.” — Walter Donway, The Savvy Street

But Thomas has strong allies as well. As an apprentice, he receives rigorous training from master mage Albrecht Ritter. Later on, his visionary wife Frieda and the Jewish financier Yonah David stand by him. And he has received training from a man going by the name of Johan Brandt, whose real name is feared and admired throughout the German lands.

Brilliant as Thomas is, he can’t prevail by magic alone. But he has something greater: the power of an idea whose time has come.

The Magic Battery is available as an e-book through Smashwords for $2.99 and as a paperback from Amazon.

If you’d like to know more about the history of magic in Thomas’s world, here are some spoiler-free supplementary historical notes.

If you enjoyed the novel and want more, here’s a free story, “To Gain the Whole World.” Hans Sachs offers Nikolas Fest a great opportunity, but it drives Nikolas to question his choices.

Here’s another, “Snares of Satan.” This one takes place before Thomas’s time and presents an important incident in European history with a magical twist.

Other ways to order The Magic Battery:

My discount codes don’t work through these channels, and I can’t guarantee they’re DRM-free. (I requested DRM-free from Amazon, so it should be.) I recommend buying through Smashwords if you can, but these alternatives are available.

You can help to get the word out about my book by liking its Facebook page.

I’ve recorded a set of three songs presenting the viewpoints of characters in the story: “Frieda’s Quest,” “Gottesmann’s Warning,” and “Faust’s Flight.”
Here’s a reading from the start of the story:

And here’s a chapter which I translated into German. I don’t claim it’s professional-quality work.

Special note, January 18, 2023: Most of the characters in the book have ordinary German names which they doubtless share with a lot of real people. Today I learned that the name of the antagonist, Heinrich Gottesmann, belonged to a man who died at Auschwitz in 1944. A blessing — or whatever the right word is, coming from an atheist — on his memory to whoever still remembers him.