{"id":170,"date":"2002-10-11T21:12:16","date_gmt":"2002-10-12T01:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=170"},"modified":"2002-10-11T21:12:16","modified_gmt":"2002-10-12T01:12:16","slug":"duane_diane_106","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2002\/10\/duane_diane_106\/","title":{"rendered":"Duane, Diane: (106) A Wizard Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

A Wizard Alone<\/cite> is the latest book in Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series<\/strong>, and a welcome return to form after the disappointing The Wizard’s Dilemma<\/cite>. That book suffered from the “A Plot, B Plot” problem; what’s more, both of the plots seem, to my memory now, to not cohere very well even to themselves. The author has stated that it was the beginning of a larger plot arc, which is quite evident in A Wizard Alone<\/cite>. This doesn’t retroactively make The Wizard’s Dilemma<\/cite> a better book, unfortunately, but at least it wasn’t in vain.<\/p>\n

[ As an aside, I wonder if the series was originally meant to be a trilogy? The first three are much more of a set, to my mind; the stakes and questions steadily ramp up throughout, and the end of High Wizardry<\/cite>, the third and my favorite, really feels like it could be an end to the series. The fourth book, A Wizard Abroad<\/cite>, seems quite slight in comparison, more an Ireland book than a Wizardry book, and then we have this new story arc starting up after it.<\/p>\n

*pauses to mourn her copy of High Wizardry<\/cite>, temporarily buried in a box somewhere inaccessible* ]<\/p>\n

In this book, there is no “A Plot, B Plot” problem, though Kit and Nita start out trying to address different situations. These initial problems turn out to be related, and with the effects of last book quite clear, we get a really interesting exploration of the question, why would a person with autism be offered wizardry?—particularly since wizardry is inherently outward-directed: the fight against entropy, on behalf of the universe and everything in it. What problem is there, that this person is the answer to?<\/p>\n

Some of the threads begun in the last book aren’t yet complete, but this book ends in a much more satisfactory place than the last. There’s one piece of the worldbuilding that I have a problem with, specifically that Order of Being we learn about; I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Surely the One could have come up with a less perilous arrangement . . . ” Beyond that, though, I quite enjoyed this book; it’s not the best book of the series, but it’s a solid entry all the same.<\/p>\n

[ Oh yes: the offer on the house was accepted, so barring disaster, we’re buying a house . . . ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Wizard Alone is the latest book in Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, and a welcome return to form after the disappointing The Wizard’s Dilemma. That book suffered from the “A Plot, B Plot” problem; what’s more, both of the plots seem, to my memory now, to not cohere very well even to themselves. The … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Duane, Diane: (106) A Wizard Alone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,15,37],"tags":[196],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-sf-and-fantasy","category-young-wizards","tag-duane-diane"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}