But that's never how magic is depicted - it always takes decades of knowledge and learning or powerful enchanted artifacts forged from rare minerals and materials, and rituals which always name a price.

Modern magic can do all those things - if you have the right artifacts, likewise made of precious metals forged by lightning and etched with beams of sunfire and inlaid with gemstones from beyond the sea, fuelled by the ichor alchemically distilled from the remnants of ancient forests and carefully assembled by entire courts of white-robed magi who have each spent decades perfecting their deep knowledge of ritual and arcane lore.

With these artifacts, I can incinerate an entire room with a twitch of my finger upon a staff of fire summoning, read minds with a helm of probing, lightning people with a tiny wand of stunning, and conjure familiar from across the world to do my bidding on my black mirror for the small sacrifice of tiny particles of lightning in a distant runestone.

• Fireball? We have rocket launchers.
• Lightning people? We have tasers.
• Mind reading? Ok, I'll give you that.
• Conjure familiars? Buy a dish washer or cleaner service or whatever.

Many of the fantasy powers can be done. It isn't a question of capability but of economics. The economics are ignored in most stories, no matter if it's fantasy or a real world thriller.