Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2017-09-03 04:15 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2017-09-03 04:15 pm
[ SECRET POST #3896 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3896 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
__________________________________________________
02.
[Me Before You (film/novel)]
__________________________________________________
03.
[Star Trek TOS]
__________________________________________________
04.
[Persona 5]
__________________________________________________
05.
[Andy Brennan and Lucy Moran from Twin Peaks]
__________________________________________________
06.
[David Bowie, "The Man Who Fell to Earth"]
__________________________________________________
07.
[Broadchurch]
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #557.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
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?
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
(Anonymous) 2017-09-03 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)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.
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
Also I guess I enjoy stories about training and learning new arts, and it was weird to have them just suddenly be amazing.
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
(Anonymous) 2017-09-03 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
(Anonymous) 2017-09-04 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)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.
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
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.
Re: Book club - August discussion post - So You Want to Be a Wizard
(Anonymous) 2017-09-04 06:12 pm (UTC)(link)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).