Book Review: A Wizard of Mars

In case some people missed it, I made a post earlier about how I'm having to change up my schedule again so this is going to be the last book review for a while. But I'm glad I'm ending on a book I really liked and it was also the perfect book for me to read write before NaNoWriMo, something I loved and that made me want to try and write something just as good.

Quick note before the review though, since I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing, I complained in the previous volume that the characters acted much too old for their age and I was confused how they were still so young. It appears I had the timeline wrong and that's why I was confused by their ages and Kit and Nita acted much more like 14 or 15 year olds in this volume but the age thing still bothers me, almost moreso since there's a weird dissonance between this volume and the previous volume in the series now.

A Wizard of Mars by Diane Duane

 The cover fits in very well with the covers in the rest of the series with showing a few of the characters (I believe here we see Ronan, Kit, and Darryl) silhouetted against a colorful scene from the book. I think they're even still using the same font for the covers so I like this continuity.

Summary: Set a few months after Wizards at War, it's summer vacation time and Kit has a new project to work on, Mars. He's been obsessing over it for months, which has everyone teasing him over it, and it looks like there is finally something happening up on the surface of the red planet. Nita meanwhile is developing her visionary talent and still acting as a mediator between her father and her sister and it's those distractions that keep her from immediately noticing that something isn't right with Kit these days.....

The Good: It was nice to see old side characters appear in W@W and some who only had a few scenes got more time here which was very nice and added some continuity to the series. Carmela, Kit's sister who many people are quick to label as a Mary Sue, seems to have her role better defined in this book and has some of the better "ordinary life meets magic" moments (which are my favorite part of the series by far). The book also manages to still feel like a strange mish-mash of fantasy and science fiction (magic is clearly fantasy but the setting, the characters and even the magic itself seems more like sci-fi) and the new world building introduced was rather neat. And again, Nita is one of my favorite protagonists because she thinks the way I do which is always fun to read, although that brings up the age issue again since I'm more than a bit older than her at this point.

The Bad: After the high stakes in the previous book this book felt a little, quiet which was off-putting. Yes there was adventure and high stakes but the stakes just never felt that high so I just felt confused when reading parts of it. I had also heard that the book was a great deconstruction of the "invasion from Mars" sub-genre of science-fiction, which I'll admit I'm not too familiar with, but the book didn't feel like a deconstruction of anything, maybe it pointed out how silly the outfits writers thought that Martians would wear were but I don't feel like that needed pointing out. I also felt like several things in the book didn't happen early enough in order to create the conflict and that also bothered me, restricting some of the characters so others can make dumb mistakes feels like a reverse deus ex machina and I just didn't like it.

I really did enjoy this book and it got me pumped for doing NaNo, don't get me wrong there, but I don't think it was one of the strongest entries in the series (my favorite is the fourth book, A Wizard Abroad, where Nita spent a month in Ireland, I could probably do a whole blog post on the resurgence of Ireland in YA fantasy actually). The next book, Games Wizards Play, I believe is due out next year and a compilation of short stories (that you can choose to buy e-book versions of first, a new one each month for a year) should also be out next year so hopefully I'll like those a bit more. 

Book Review: Wizards at War

There's a bit of a funny story behind this book, Diane Duane was one of my two favorite authors when I was in middle school/early high school (the other being Tamora Pierce) but I almost forgot about her in recent years since she just wasn't writing that much. This is the second most recent entry in the Young Wizard series, one that started a good half decade before I was even born (1984) and it's from 2005 but I think I didn't read it until 2006 or 10th grade. I believe that on my to-read list I had listed the sequel to this, A Wizard of Mars, under "will read if it ever comes out" and only discovered early this summer that it had in fact finally come out, last year. After feeling a little ashamed for not realizing that sooner I eventually found time to get a copy of this book out of the local library to reread first. Some might think it's crazy that I would reread a 500+ page book before reading another book of equal size but I was really afraid that some parts of this book would be important later on and that I'd be lost.
Speaking of which, the Young Wizards series is unusual for me because it doesn't have an overarching plot that connects all the individual books (each of them is pretty self-contained) but, looking back on the series, I do see a myth arc of sorts that is starting to show just why these adventures of our protagonists are important enough to focus on. So if you want to read this series you should start at the beginning (the proper place to start with any story), although I am hesitant to recommend a nine book series series since I bet that so many people will simply be scared off by the length.

Wizards at War by Diane Duane

   This cover amazingly enough actually looks and feels like the other covers in the series (erm, some of the newer ones, this series has had tons of covers) and I'm impressed. Gives away a little bit of the plot (warning, giant bugs involved) but it's not a huge spoiler so I'm okay with it.

Summary: Continuing with the same characters from the previous book, A Wizard's Holiday, the characters discover the reason for some character's mysterious absence in the previous book, dark matter is expanding across the universe faster than ever and threatens to destroy everything, including people's belief in their wizardy. The gang is sent across the galaxy chasing a mysterious clue that might be the key to stopping this problem and it might have an even greater affect on the whole universe. 

The Good: While the story is fantasy, the fact that the word wizard is in nearly every title is a good clue, it's a strange science-fiction-fantasy hybrid because of the setting (a good half of the cast in this book are aliens and the magic always feels rather precise and scientific) which I like and I've never found another book quite like it. That I had remembered over the years but I was pleasently surprised at just how much I still loved the characters (especially the leads, Kit and Nita) and how much I still connected with them. They act and react the way I would, have very human faults without having too many faults and they are witty without being overwritten. The story didn't have as many "mundane situation with a wizardly twist" moments as some of the other books have, some of which are my favorite scenes of all time* but this was a more serious book overall so I'm sure there will be more of those moments in future books.

The Bad: One problem I do have with the characters is that they are apparently way younger than I remembered, I believe Kit and Nita are only 14 (with Darine at 13, not sure of Carmela and Rohan's ages) and it reminds me of an old pet peeve, which I don't see as often these days, where the characters act like mature, older teens who are just about to become young adults, except they're barely teenagers. I could have misread but honestly in my mind I've simply aged the characters up a few years anyway (also, almost three years have passed in-story since the beginning which means that Kit and Nita would have to be closer to 15 anyway based on what earlier ages I remember). Also, I am starting to get worried about how long this series will run since the longest YA series I've ever read was 10 books long (Pendragon) yet this series seems to be aiming for even more, will this series be able to have a good, conclusive ending if it's structured like this?

So, despite my worries for the series as a whole, I really do enjoy all the books in it, I love to see how the characters and their dynamics have grown over time and I'm pretty eager to be reading the next book with a tenth on the way.

*specifically Kit's arguments with his DVD player/remote at the beginning of the sixth book, hell anything to do with his tv is hilarious.