fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3896 ]

[ SECRET POST #3896 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3896 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Me Before You (film/novel)]

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[Star Trek TOS]

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[Persona 5]

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[Andy Brennan and Lucy Moran from Twin Peaks]

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[David Bowie, "The Man Who Fell to Earth"]

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[Broadchurch]

Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey guys! Time for our August discussion! I will post my thoughts in a reply! Feel free to chime in with any thoughts, questions, or responses that you have :)

Edited 2017-09-03 20:55 (UTC)

So...unfortunately, I was not super impressed with this book. I still read it all because it was an easy read, though.

It was pretty clearly a kids’ book. It reads to me like it’s marketed towards the age group of the protag, so pre-teens or early teens. I’m not a huge fan of reading books in this style unless they’re either really really good, or nostalgia trips. Kids books aren't all terrible, and honestly I feel like I would have really enjoyed it if I'd been in middle school when I'd read it, but there was really nothing spectacular about it to me as an adult. It was mediocre and very, very tropey.

The characters were mostly boring. The main trio was all pretty boring. Joanne was boring and extremely typical. Nita's parents really pissed me off - seriously, that's how you respond to your kid getting bullied? I wanted to smack them. The only characters that really interested me were Tom and Carl; I liked the image of the typical suburban family with all the trappings, except they were both wizards and did wizardy stuff on the side. I liked their animals too. Also, is this a gay couple in a kids' book written in the 1980s? Really did not expect that, but cool!

The system of magic is interesting but not really developed with any detail, sadly. The way of describing it throughout the book was very purple-prosey which grated on me. The Big Magic Workings were also very vague. The specific powers behind them weren't really discussed, just a whole bunch of "and then they were swept up in this power and it worked!".

Some specific nitpicks -

It bothered me that the two most powerful objects in the universe (apparently) were just SO EASY for two kids to find and sneak in and get. Like there’s no way. Whatever their system of wizardry is, I didn’t love that two pre-teens were able to figure out as much as they did within a month or a week of starting. Also, I kind of hated how they did all that shit in one day without getting exhausted. Like it SAID they were exhausted, but they just kept going and going and then DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY CRASH WHEN THEY GOT HOME LIKE what. They didn’t even get fuzzy-headed. They just kept...going as they had early that morning.

Also: the constant capitalization of "sun". Why???

Some details I did like:
-the predator helicopter and the nest of copterlings
-the description of the Big Bad (though I still think it was silly that they faced down the Big Bad themselves, two kids, in the first short book) and his horse
-Fred's hiccups were kind of funny, especially the powder-blue Mercedes
-I really did like the big metal horse

I was disappointed that Nita and Kit didn’t go back and talk to Tom and Carl at the very end. That’s what I was really looking forward to - the two of them hearing the story of what had happened and their reactions. Maybe for some adult perspective? Maybe for some narrative unwinding and worldbuilding? I got kind of tired of the constant “AND THEN GREAT DARKNESS AND GREAT LIGHT” that went on for like, half the book. The worldbuilding was honestly very lackluster, it felt like it was made to be only just barely what it needed to be to support the plot. I remember going to finish it and thinking "well they'll go to Tom and Carl and we'll get some more explanations!" and then that didn't even come close to happening.

It wasn't the worst book I've read, but really nothing about it stood out. What did you think? Did anyone find it more compelling? If so, why? What were your thoughts on the characters and the system of magic in this book?

Anon from below & I think most of this is pretty fair. I mean, at the end of the day, it is a kid's book. I did want to respond to one thing though

It bothered me that the two most powerful objects in the universe (apparently) were just SO EASY for two kids to find and sneak in and get. Like there’s no way. Whatever their system of wizardry is, I didn’t love that two pre-teens were able to figure out as much as they did within a month or a week of starting.
though I still think it was silly that they faced down the Big Bad themselves, two kids, in the first short book

The sense that I always got - and I might have been making this up, or it might be literally wrong, or I might be hazily remembering something from later books in the series - was that a lot of this stuff is just how magic works, and how the world of magic works, in the universe of the story. When you become a wizard, you are immediately a wizard, and wizards are enormously smart and powerful. When you become a wizard, you are immediately committed to fighting entropy, and you're just as committed and just as important in that fight as any other wizard. Every wizard is important in stopping the lone power.

And that's not just in the fiction - I think it's also directly connected to the message of the book, and what made the book so powerful to me as a kid, and what's so deeply life-affirming about it. Each of us has as much to do, in regards to helping life grow and fighting empathy and loving and caring, as any other. Allowing the kids to go right into real-deal stuff that way makes that message really strong. It's really about these characters, as kids, who you can relate to as a kid, being put directly into contact with the extent of human possibility and the big moral choices of human existence. And that's really powerful and really good to me.

I dunno that's just how I thought about it.

I guess I can see that! It's not that I think they're unimportant to me, but I wasn't expecting them to be suddenly super competent wizards with zero training or experience. They even confirmed Nita's status as a novice in the directory at the beginning.

Also I guess I enjoy stories about training and learning new arts, and it was weird to have them just suddenly be amazing.

No, I totally get that! I can definitely see why someone would expect it to be about magical training and learning new arts, and it's definitely not really an expectation the book fulfills.

It was a major favourite as a child/teen, so I cannot agree with much of this. I loved the philosophy and approach to magic - the Universe as sentient and the endless battle against entropy moved me deeply, and I think the Oath is a wondrous thing - I can't remember if I ever dared speak it myself. I know I wanted to find my Manual more than I ever wanted my letter to Hogwarts....

Fred is a bit cutesy and the first book is not quite my favourite by itself, but rather as the opening of the original trilogy including Deep and High Wizardry. But I love the system of magic so much, it made me regret not being more into science in school - it feels very logical and creative, like they are code-writing patches into the rules of physics and operating within the logical parameters - ie. you're gonna need oxygen, radation shielding, gravity modifiers.... etc if you're gonna try teleporting to the moon... That stuff really appeals to me.

The "scrappy novices take on Ultimate Evil and win on their very first adventure??" theme is kinda dealt with, there's the idea of a multiverse and Time bending weirdly throughout that allows for thousands of iterations of such confrontations (choice and free will and acceptance of mortality vs the evil corruptor avatar) to be ever-playing out - I mean, Nita and Kit meet the Lone Power itself again several times and he is no less of a threat for all that was genuinely accomplished in their Ordeal. Which really is the universe throwing stuff at your maximum level of competency to deal with, and you are supposed to be the tool for that job, so....

Tom and Carl remain mentors and friends throughout the series, btw, and everything gets more subtle and complex.

I definitely understand that, and as I said I think if I'd read this book as a kid I would have really liked it and nostalgia would have colored any re-read. It's just hard to get into as an adult, at least from my perspective.

I really like the concept of the magic system here but felt it wasn't expanded on enough to be really interesting to me. That's part of what I meant when I talked about the worldbuilding being fairly lackluster. Most of the specifics, other than the list of items Kit and Nita needed for their major spellworking, were rather vague. Same thing with the multiverse-and-thousands-of-iterations thing - I didn't really pick up on that at all from the first book; it makes a lot of sense to frame it that way but the book didn't really talk about it.

In all honesty I suppose I can't really defend some of those points on the basis of the first book as standalone, because I am a big fan of the ensuing series and that 'verse in general and, as I said, it gets more subtle and terrible and intricate and moving as the characters grow and face other challenges.

That being said I am still behind on the latest books, and oddly reluctant to acquire them and get updates on the characters and the wider world created, because I just had those first three as absolutely beloved and re-re-re-read beaten-up paperbacks as a teen that were pretty formative (you can find scribbles of self-insert fanfic in my old notebooks....); recent installations in the series I do enjoy very very much and appreciate the cleverness but there's certainly less immediate and utter taking-to-heart, as an adult, and the expanded world is not so familar and beloved to me (though arguably the recent books are better and less tropey fantasy/sci-fi for a first-time adult reader at this point).

I read this book as a child and absolutely loved it, so it's hard for me to react to it in a way that isn't influenced by that. But reading it again, I still liked it, and it was easy to see why I loved it as a kid. The things it does well, it is really fantastic at.

For one thing, I found the characters really likable and relatable - looking back, some of them are relatable to an extent that seems forced, with how excessively bullied they are, but it worked for me as a kid. It was so easy when I was a kid to get drawn into caring about Nita or Kit. And Tom and Carl were very likabkle and wonderful, and Fred was fantastic, both as a concept and a character.

And all the stuff with magic and wizards - first of all, it's very clever. Second, it's very appealing and clever - especially the stuff with the initiation and how you become a wizard. When I was a kid, that was a much more appealing fantasy initiation process than Harry Potter's ever was. By simply noticing this book and saying the oath, you become a wizard. And then you're part of this secret world.

And something I noticed about the magic reading it again this time is how directly and immediately literate all the magic is. The way that Nita discovers magic is by haunting a library, skill at magic is basically a combination of bookishness and empathy, and the way that magic is depicted can so easily be read as a celebration of imagination and literacy and curiosity for kids. The idea that those things make you special and are important and good qualities is really powerful when you're a kid, and I think it's a good concept.

The last thing that I wanted to note about the book is how deeply empathetic it is. This is something that's present in the magic system as well which is one of the things that works about the magic system for me. But it really suffuses the whole book - a powerful sense of the virtue and importance of compassion and empathy and understanding. It's a deeply humane and loving book and that is something that influenced me a lot as a kid as well. It is a warm book.

Anyway those are just some scattershot thoughts, I didn't really plan this in advance so it's a bit all over the place. But I liked the book as a kid and I see a lot to like about it now, even if I can't really evaluate it fairly as to writing and stuff like that.

I'm anon from below and want to thank you for writing this. I tried to read it through the eyes of a child and just couldn't. (My failing, not the book.) It was specifically because I just really didn't like this book that I was trying to get an idea of what a child would think of it and you've done that for me.

I'm really glad you found happiness in this book as a kid and still can as an adult. Those are the best books!

I'm glad to hear that!

It's definitely a book that's stuck with me, maybe more than I realized.

This is all very fair, and a lot of those are reasons I think I also would really have liked it as a kid.

The rest is just a matter of preference, I suppose. ^^; I didn't think the characters were interesting, but kids don't see the tropiness as much. I didn't love the system of wizardry, but that's just a matter of opinion.

Yeah, it's definitely really tropey. It would be hard to deny that. But it worked for me as a kid so I can't criticize it too much.

It was an interesting choice for book to read - something like Book Of Night With Moon might possibly have worked better, but I wasn't the one who nominated this one so idk what whoever's reasoning might have been.

I was very underwhelmed by this and didn't finish. I tried to imagine reading it through my son's eyes when he was 8 and I think he would have found some of it interesting but mostly too unbelievable. Everything about how the adults responded to Nita being bullied was ridiculous. As a kid I would have laughed at the book and as an adult I'm amazed anyone thought that was worth publishing.

But the breaking point for me was when Nita and Kit met and then five minutes later performed a very complex spell. The spell itself was boring to read, the descriptions were all over the place and hard to follow, and the very premise was just too ridiculous for me. Perfect characters are boring. I expected a book about kids being introduced to magic, not a book about kids discovering that they're the most magically gifted wizards ever.

I don't know if I would take my criticisms quite that far in every regard, but also you make some points I hadn't really thought of. Like Nita and Kit being "perfect". They were not nuanced at all.

Is there anything you did enjoy about it?

I actually quite enjoyed Nita hiding in the children's section of the library. The reason aside, it was great remembering how kids feel about it when they graduate to the adult section. There's disdain but also missing it and still loving a lot of what you found there even though you've grown out of it. But if anyone asked, you'd say it's for babies and promptly grab the thickest book you could find in the adult section even though you don't have a hope of understanding most of it. I say you but I mean me. And I think a lot of other kids, too.

Aw, that is cute! Sadly I stopped going to the library on the reg after I graduated from the kids section, I think. :(

I need to reread this one. I don't remember how old I was when I first read it, but certainly at least in my mid teens, maybe late teens, and I still liked it enough to read several of the series.

One of the world building bits that comes up (probably in later books) is that the younger the wizard when they discover magic, the more powerful they are--and the longer they stay powerful. By the time wizards are done growing (physically), the amount of raw power they have access to will have dropped significantly, and they usually replace power with finesse by picking an area of study to specialize in. Human wizards are powerful for longer than most other species because they spend longer growing to physical maturity, and in a later book, they run into a whale wizard, one of the few other species with a long childhood.

My favorite of the series was High Wizardry, for one of the coolest takes on a computer I've ever seen--one that I feel sure must have been used by an adult sci-fi writer at some point, but I've never seen in any other books or media.

Oooh, that's really cool that other animals can be wizards.

What was the computer like? I really like magic/sci-fi fusion things!

.... High Wizardry might just be exactly your jam for sci-fi magic and technomancy!

(Diane Duane wrote a bunch of excellent officila Star Trek novels too - she does hard sci-fi with a heart very very well).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3896 ]

Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard

Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard