High Wizardry by Diane Duane

[meganbmoore]

In general, this book seems to be the least popular of Duane’s Young Wizards series. In some ways, I can understand that. Not only is the main character, Dairine, smarter and more powerful than the main characters of the series, but she comes into her powers more quickly, gets a solo adventure, a different type of magic, etc. Despite this, I still liked it, and Dairine.

While Dairine already had Sooper Speshul written all over her before, but…but…she’s a compulsive reader obsessed with knowing as much as possible! Who thinks the only way to keep up with the world is to know as much as she can! I can’t help but like her! Granted, she’s more than a bit of a know-it-all. But then again, she’s twelve.

But then there’s the form her Ordeal takes. Now, computers and I don’t get along. Or rather, they don’t like me. Unless you’re a computer geek, I think reading books focusing on computers or computer-based magic is either going to draw you in because they’re already strange and mysterious as it is, or repel you out of boredom or confusion. It can go wither way for me. On the one hand, when Dairine knew what she was doing, I was lost. However, when she was trying to figure things out, I was happy I wasn’t the only one scrambling, and trying to figure them out with her.

I’m not sure how I feel about how powerful she is, though. On the one hand, I want to sigh and say that having someone hopping to other planets and galaxies and around black holes and such is just too much. I don’t really think it’s a problem with Dairine being too powerful, though, but of everyone being too powerful. Kit and Nita visited and alternate dimension and can change into sea life. That was already pretty powerful. However, in Deep Wizardry, a huge deal was made about one brief jaunt to the moon. Here, they talk about the moon like it’s where they go to chat and think. It’s like their tree house. A little much power floating around in general, IMO. It just stands out more with Dairine.

This is probably one of the most obviously YMMV books I’ve read, at least recently, but I liked it, though not as much as So You Want To Be A Wizard? 

Comments

[booster17.livejournal.com]

The general rule of thumb is younger = more powerful. So Darine can get away with things like that more. To me, it's still playing by the verse's own rules, so I happily go along with it.

Looking forward to seeing your take on The Book of Night With Moon which is same universe, different characters.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it fits with how she's written things so far, so I'm not really bothered by it, outside of the fact that characters in general are extremely powerful, here.

[troisroyaumes]

I liked Dairine a lot too, despite her prodigy status. I guess I sympathized with her tendency to brattiness; I was a brat too at that age. ^_^

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

She's bratty, but in an easy-to-understand way, and not ususually so.

[rhap-chan.livejournal.com]

It's actually quite interesting to see as Dairine becomes less powerful over time (since this book sets up that youth = power I hope that's not really a spoiler for you). She has a lot of trouble dealing with it, really, and it causes a lot of problems. So the first go-round I didn't like it much either, but viewing it from the (current) end of the series it makes more sense.