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Title:Arcana Caelestia
Notice:Directory listings are in topic 2
Moderator:NETRIX::thomas
Created:Thu Dec 08 1983
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1300
Total number of notes:18728

1207.0. "Diane Duane's Wizard Series" by VERGA::KLAES (Quo vadimus?) Thu Jan 20 1994 15:21

Article: 482
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Diane Duane's "Wizard" Series
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 19 Jan 94 13:57:59 GMT
 
Diane Duane's "Wizard" series is now up to four books, and all are worth
reading.  If you've read "The Door into Fire", or its sequels, the Wizard
books deal with much the same themes, pitched to a younger audience:
 
Eons ago, when the universe was being created, one Power stood aloof from
the creation -- and then meddled maliciously, introducing death, both
personal and entropic.  This story is told all over the universe, in one
form or another.  Wizardry was created as the first line of battle against
this Lone Power, and Wizards do what they can to encourage life and to
postpone the heat death of the universe.  This is explained, at greater
length, in the Wizards Manual.
 
"So You Want to Be a Wizard" (**** on a four-point scale) begins with
thirteen-year-old Nita Callahan ducking into the children's library to
avoid getting beaten up by classmates, and getting caught up (in more ways
than one) in a book titled "So You Want to Be a Wizard", which is actually
a genuine wizards manual.  (These manuals -- readers of the 'Door' series
may recognize the name of their author, though Duane changes it in a
subsequent book -- find their way into the right hands.  Someone else
looking at the manual will think it's just a children's book.  So if you
read Duane's book and think it's just an excellent work of fiction, it may
mean that *you* don't have what it takes to be a Wizard! :-)  
 
When Nita takes the Wizards Oath included at the front of the manual (the
Oath reccurs from book to book, though the wording keeps changing) she is
invested with magic powers.  Soon, while practicing these powers, she
meets another new Wizard -- Kit.  Together they attempt a complex spell
and swiftly find themselves *way* over their heads, as the working out of
that spell leads them into direct conflict with the Lone Power itself.
 
Despite the seriousness of the themes which motivate the novel, the
writing is delightfully silly, with dragons under the streets of New York,
yellow cabs that haunt the streets looking for victims, carnivorous fire
hydrants, and a white hole with the hiccups, combining with a unique
vision of wizardry to create one of the half-dozen best juvenile fantasies
in existence.  (The book owes a considerable debt to L'Engle's "A Wind in
the Door", but is more fun to read.)
 
	"...We'll have to call a regional Advisories' meeting."
 
	Fred hiccuped again, and the explosion left behind it a 
	year's back issues of TV Guide.
 
	"Later," Carl said. "The situation here looks like it's
	deteriorating."
 
 
"Deep Wizardry" (****-) begins later the same summer, on the sea shore,
when Nita and Kit save the life of a cetacean wizard.  Once again they
find themselves in conflict with the Lone Power, this time in its
manifestation as the Serpent that brought death to the sea and was
subsequently bound there.  Unfortunately, that binding is coming loose --
and if it gives, the conversion of the East Coast to the East Shoals will
be the least of the mischief that results.  Nita and Kit volunteer to help
reenact the Song of the Twelve -- the ritual that keeps the Serpent bound
-- without fully realizing what they've volunteered for.  As if this isn't
trouble enough, it's getting harder and harder to explain their continued
absences to Nita's parents -- who assume she and Kit have discovered sex --
or to Dairine -- Nita's too-bright-for-her-own-good younger sister.
 
"Deep Wizardry" is almost as good as "So You Want to Be a Wizard."  It
deals with more complex and serious themes than the latter, but lacks some
of the the light-hearted silliness which made the first book so much fun.
The most obvious literary debt this book owes is to Milton.  (This points
up a difference between adult and juvenile fiction.  Some of the kids who
read "Deep Wizardry" will one day read "Paradise Lost" and, with delight,
recognize the style of speech they first heard from Duane's Serpent.  In
juvenile fiction, this kind of anticipation of future reading is purely a
plus.  In adult fiction it counts as lack of originality.)
 
	"Ed," she said, slowly and carefully, "are you trying to
	say that you're actually planning to *eat* me sometime soon?"
 
	"The day after tomorrow," said the Master-Shark in perfect calm...
 
 
"High Wizardry" (***+) is Dairine's story.  Since finding out about Nita
she's wanted wizardry of her own -- and it comes to her in an unexpected 
guise, when she boots up her parents' new computer.  The first sign that
something's odd is a minor one:  The Apple logo isn't missing the customary
bite.  When she invokes the 'copy' utility, and it copies the computer,
rather than just its files, she begins to realize what she has.  As soon
as she can get away with it, she goes travelling.  To a galaxy far away.
 
This book has wonderful flights of fancy (for some reason I particularly
treasure the image of Dairine fleeing for her life through a transport
terminal, being asked for her mother's maiden name), but it also has
irritating technical flaws.  For example, just about all of the astronomical
details in the book are wrong.  (This happens so often and so consistently
that I'm still not sure whether it's supposed to be an obscure joke.)  The
computer element which looms so large in this book is at a level chosen for
its familiarity.  (I don't claim that implementing an online wizards manual
in Basic, to run under DOS on an Apple computer, makes more or less sense
than any other configuration.  I'm just saying that it grates.)  Readers
who are familiar with computers are also likely to be uncomfortable with
Dairine's interactions with the sentient planet.  ("It only knows unary." 
"Well teach it binary.")  A satisfying book, in sum, but with warts.
 
	"I'm sorry if I said something to offend you, but please, I
	need some help getting my bearings---"
 
	Dairine was so preoccupied that she bumped right into something
	on the other side of the street -- and then yipped in terror.
	Towering over her was one of the first things to get out of the
	car, a creature seven feet high at least...
 
	The tall creature bleated at her, a shocking sound up so close.
	"Excuse me," said the computer, translating the bleat into a
	dry and cultured voice like a BBC announcer's, "but why are you
	talking to our luggage?"
 
 
"A Wizard Abroad" (***) is the most recent Wizard novel.  For reasons
which ostensibly have to do with Nita's spending too much time on her
wizardry, and probably have more to do with the amount of time she's
spending with Kit, her parents pack her off to spend the rest of her
summer vacation with her aunt, in Ireland.  Sure enough, there are no
coincidences:  Ireland needs help.  For some reason, the walls between
this world and its alternates are wearing thin, and elements which have no
business in today's Ireland -- such as extinct or mythical monsters -- are
slipping through.  Before these walls collapse completely, Nita and other
wizards have to find or recreate the greatest treasures of Ireland's
legends and use them to refight one of its oldest battles. 
 
This book functions primarily as a chapter in the continuing story of
Nita's growth as a wizard and as a person.  While she and Kit play a key
role here, it is as part of a much larger group, not as a couple of kids
off on their own adventure.  (Dairine also makes a couple of cameo
appearances, but she came out of "High Wizardry" with so much power that
she's spoiled for any roles but those of plot device or dea cum machina.)
On its own terms, as a novel, "A Wizard Abroad" is weaker than its
predecessors.  It's heavy handed, with every plot twist carefully
foreshadowed two chapters in advance, and far too many of the book's pages
are devoted to retelling Irish legend.  (The incident on the last page is
also borrowed from folklore, but it's the sort of borrowing that has its
place in juvenile fiction.)  And, for some inexplicable reason, Duane
*still* manages to pull in some astronomy, and get it wrong.  
 
	She fell into an imitation of Dairine's high-pitched
	voice, made even more squeaky by annoyance.  '"No, I
	will *not* move your galaxy...what do you want to move
	it *for*?  It's fine right where it is!"'
 
 
You'll likely have noticed a pattern:  The series is going downhill.  It
started at a sufficiently high level, however, and is declining slowly
enough, that even the weakest book in the series is still a pleasure to
read.  They're juveniles, but I'd recommend "So You Want to Be a Wizard"
even to readers who normally don't care for juveniles.  Following that,
you'll know whether you wish to seek out the sequels.
 
*I'll* certainly keep reading these books.  If nothing else, now that we
know how to bridle the nightmare, I want to know *how* many more books
it'll be before we find out what one should ask the Transcendent Pig! 
 
%A  Duane, Diane
%T  So You Want to Be a Wizard
%T  Deep Wizardry
%T  High Wizardry
%T  A Wizard Abroad
 
%O  All four books are available in paperback from Corgi books. 
%O  If you're not in Britain, it gets harder.  The first two are 
%O  available in North America in paperback from Dell/Laurel-Leaf, 
%O  the first three are available in hardcover from Delacorte, and 
%O  the only way to get the fourth is to order it from Britain, or 
%O  from a bookstore that can order it from Britain for you.
 
-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com
 
   The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part,
    to appreciate the Cardinal Number system. -- "Actual Facts"

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