{"id":232,"date":"2003-09-07T20:53:23","date_gmt":"2003-09-08T00:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=232"},"modified":"2003-09-07T20:53:23","modified_gmt":"2003-09-08T00:53:23","slug":"doyle_debra_and_5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2003\/09\/doyle_debra_and_5\/","title":{"rendered":"Doyle, Debra, and James D. Macdonald: Circle of Magic series"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

When I got back from vacation, I didn’t feel like reading anything lengthy, so I picked up Debra Doyle and James Macdonald’s Circle of Magic<\/cite> series<\/strong>, six books that were recently re-published, some under different names:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. School of Wizardry<\/cite><\/li>\n
  2. Secret of the Tower<\/cite> (formerly Tournament and Tower<\/cite>)<\/li>\n
  3. The Wizard’s Statute<\/cite> (formerly City by the Sea<\/cite>)<\/li>\n
  4. Danger in the Palace<\/cite> (formerly The Prince’s Players<\/cite>)<\/li>\n
  5. The Wizard’s Castle<\/cite> (formerly The Prisoners of Bell Castle)<\/cite><\/li>\n
  6. The High King’s Daughter<\/cite><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Reprinted in 2000-01 with new covers, the publisher was clearly hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the Harry Potter books: the protagonist is about fifteen for the bulk of the series, and the old covers (I have the third in an old edition) show him as a teen. The new ones, on the other hand, have a pre-adolescent boy on most of the covers. I like the old titles better, by and large, as less generic, but if it helped them sell, I shall not fuss.<\/p>\n

    [ Speaking of clearly hoping to capitalize on Harry Potter: I spotted a twenty-anniversary edition of Diane Duane’s So You Want To Be A Wizard<\/cite> that, well, take a look at this pastel cover<\/a> for yourself. Fortunately the paperbacks’ covers have not been changed. ]<\/p>\n

    I don’t know the technical term for this format, but the physical books are slightly taller than a standard mass-market paperback and all about 140 pages. They’re clearly written for a fairly young audience, and after the first book, I was afraid that they were written at too<\/em> young a level, as I found it rather predictable. I have faith in Doyle and Macdonald, however (and these each take me about twenty minutes to read), so I persevered, and I was rewarded: these do get more complex and interesting as they go. The series leans very heavily on conservation of characters—I think as many may re-appear, as only appear once—and this allows the authors to play with expectations and to show multiple sides of characters. It also helps tie the individual book-episodes together into more of a continuing story.<\/p>\n

    These were good solid storytelling, just as I expect from Doyle and Macdonald. If you know young Harry Potter fans, you could do worse than to give them these books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When I got back from vacation, I didn’t feel like reading anything lengthy, so I picked up Debra Doyle and James Macdonald’s Circle of Magic series, six books that were recently re-published, some under different names: School of Wizardry Secret of the Tower (formerly Tournament and Tower) The Wizard’s Statute (formerly City by the Sea) … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Doyle, Debra, and James D. Macdonald: Circle of Magic series”<\/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],"tags":[194,300],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-sf-and-fantasy","tag-doyle-debra","tag-macdonald-james-d"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","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=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}