Duane, Diane - So You Want to Be a Wizard

[oyceter]

Nita keeps being beat up by the mean girls at school, so one day, she runs into the library to try and escape them. And there, among all the other So You Want to Be... career books for kids, she finds So You Want to Be a Wizard. She eventually makes friends with Kit, who is also being picked on at school and who also found a copy of the book. Together, they fight crime the evil forces of the universe!

I never read these as a kid, so it's interesting coming to them as an adult. There are a lot of cool bits in this book, from the importance of books and reading and language to being able to talk to trees. Some of the cool bits are fairly standard ones that didn't excite me (magic via Speech, talking to trees), but others were pretty nifty (a burping white hole, talking to machines).

You can clearly see the Tolkein and L'Engle influences on this book, and while I think the Gollum-take is a shoutout to Tolkein, many of the L'Engle influences look more like fic with the numbers filed off than shoutouts, just because so much of the plot is out of A Wind Through the Doors. I didn't mind in the beginning, but the similarities ended up throwing me out of what should have been the main emotional climax of the book.

That said, what makes this book stand apart from the hordes of other "kids discover secret powers and save the world" books is its sense of place. Duane loves New York City, and it shows.

Also, yay for Kit being Hispanic! I am not sure if Nita is or not; her first name is "Juanita," but I think her last name is "Callahan."

I was a little irked at the more traditional male/female split of talents between Kit and Nita; Kit (the boy) leans more toward talking with mechanical objects like cars and trains, while Nita (the girl) has more abilities to talk to plants.

But it was still a fun and fast read, and despite the L'Engle bits, there's enough of Duane's own neat ideas that I may go through the series.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Nita's not Hispanic, though the "Juanita" thing briefly made me wonder as well. We see more of Kit's family in later books. He has a cool sister.

I don't think traditional gender roles occur much in the series overall; book two takes place mostly underwater and thus involves neither plants nor machines, and the third book, which stars Nita's sister, is all about (outdated, unfortunately) computers.

I love the first and second books; the rest of the series is uneven.

I really like Duane's series for adults, the "Door" books which I mentioned. (Three so far.) They have kick-ass women, and everyone is bisexual or possibly pan-sexual.

[octopedingenue]

Yeah, I love book one and like book two and fell out at three. Nita's sister makes my Mary Sue senses tingle, gender roles or no gender roles. But Nita and Kit still kick underrepresented fantasy protagonist ass, and the subtle ongoing gay couple (Tom and...the other guy) are a great touch also.

I read the first Door book and didn't realize it was a series! I will have to check it out; I liked the pansexuality of it and the obvious Fred-prototype. Duane's Spider-Man novelizations also are surprisingly awesome fanfiction, although with now-queasymaking actionplot of bombs on the World Trade Center. (The WTC shows up later in Duane's Stealing the Elf-King's Roses which I anti-rec with waving flags and no more WTC in your books Duane la la thank you oww.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Carl is the other guy.

Duane is an uneven writer; Stealing the Elf King's Roses is awful, but I love her Star Trek books, especially Spock's World, which has freaking brilliant flashback sections of ancient Vulcan, and The Wounded Sky, which has the glass spider physicist.

Her Enterprise is full of all sorts of aliens and humans from all sorts of cultures, and it's full of lovely details on how much effort it takes, and how much it's worth it, to accomodate everyone and make everyone as happy as possible. I think it's Spock's World that has the party planning for a party that will have attendees who require everything from personal anti-gravity units to perches, and the appetizers range from guacamole to engine oil.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

(The petroleum appetizers were definitely in the Young Wizards books; I remember that bit vividly, and I haven't read her Trek stuff.)

[cofax7]

I think I finished "Elf-King's Roses", but I've never been as disappointed in a writer I love as with that book.

I love her Trek, generally, (I adore Ael t'Realllhoweverit'sspelled), but I was pretty disappointed by the final volume in the Rihannsu series she just released. It was all battles and strategy, not nearly enough character, and it didn't have the love of the characters and the setting that all the rest of her Trek fiction did. Plus the ending just went flat.

But yes, her Enterprise is marvelous, and the characters are funny and smart and just as you think they must be, if rather more shiny than likely. I adore Wounded Sky and My Enemy, My Ally.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The third book freaked me the hell out, because being under water where your sight stretches off into the distance and danger can come at you from all six directions and the deeps are unknowable ... major AH GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE PANIC PANIC PANIC

[oyceter]

I remember you reccing the Door series!

I mostly picked this one up so I could read that Yuletide fic you recced. I mean, I started it, but I think it'll make a lot more sense now that I actually know who Tom and Carl are.