In the second half of the twelfth chapter of\u00c2\u00a0Deep Wizardry<\/i>, I WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T READY. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wow.\u00c2\u00a0Wow<\/i>. I almost wish I could get away with writing a review that was just that because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s honestly the most succinct way of describing this experience. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incredible to me that Duane was able to handle so much chaos in a manner that\u00c2\u00a0felt<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0effortless to me. (And now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing lots of fiction writing, I know it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually effortless most of the time.)<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the Song.<\/p>\n
The Untouched<\/b><\/p>\n
Duane cycles through the three parts of the Song itself without ever losing me. Initially, we go through the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153easiest\u00e2\u20ac\u009d part first: the Untouched, the three whales who all reject what the Lone Power offers them. I understood why she spent less time on these three than the other six singers. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the most uninteresting, technically, because while they all struggle with rejecting temptation, none of them break from the tradition of the Song. We do get a hint for how powerful that temptation is, given how shaky the singers are in their rejection.<\/p>\n
The Betrayed<\/b><\/p>\n
Which brings us to the other scary part of the Song: the three whales who all succumb to temptation as the whales did in the original Song. Like with the Untouched, Duane didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go into much detail with them. She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0need<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to; each of them fell before the Lone Power, and they made way for the hardest, most challenging aspect of the Song.<\/p>\n
The Undecided<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fitting to me that within the Undecided, Duane finds a way to deliver the most horrifying curveball imaginable. It was creepy to think that these three whales \u00e2\u20ac\u201c T!h!ki, Fluke, and Areinnye \u00e2\u20ac\u201c were all chosen because their own desires and interests closely matched what the Lone Power would tempt them with. For T!h!ki, the Lone Power offered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all the hidden knowledge of the great deeps.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fluke was offered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the power to hear everything that transpired in the Sea, from the random thoughts of new-hatched fry to the secret ponderings of the continental plates,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which is TOTALLY UNREAL. (And think more on that\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that the Lone Power couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually deliver on the promise. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure they would. But I imagine there wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a world left if they disrupted the Song, you know?<\/p>\n
Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Areinnye, who represented chaos and an untrustworthy variable before, at least for a moment. Here, though, the Lone Power shocks everyone (AND ME. ME SO MUCH) by BREAKING FROM THE SONG. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know you\u00c2\u00a0could<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0do that, but they ruin everything by offering Areinnye REVENGE:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take up my Gift and take a life for life, The Lone Power exploits exactly what we all worried of Areinnye and compels her to attack the only \u00e2\u20ac\u0153human\u00e2\u20ac\u009d near her, Nita. From this point onwards, this chapter is pure chaos. Once Areinnye breaks from the circle, protocol is thrown to the wind. The whales must rely on desperation and creativity not only to survive, but to find a way to complete the Song before it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too late. But what prevents them from doing this? OH, YOU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE GETTING A LIST BECAUSE THERE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO MUCH HERE AND I JUST WANT TO DEMONSTRATE HOW MANY SINGLE ACTS OCCUR WITHIN THE SPAN OF THIS CHAPTER:<\/p>\n Ed took Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s place, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I ever could have guessed this outcome, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to quote the text again because this is honestly how I feel:<\/p>\n Aching all over, impossibly tired, Nita hung there for several minutes, simply not knowing what to do. She hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t planned to live this long.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Because\u00c2\u00a0RIGHT<\/i>? I was so overwhelmed by this chapter that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to react to. I felt sad that Ed was now gone, relieved that Nita was alive, overjoyed that Kit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sark did not reject him, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all so much.\u00c2\u00a0It<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all so much.<\/i><\/p>\n I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe they did it. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly expecting a negative end, but Duane constructed this finale to make it pretty impossible for me to see a conclusion that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t involve Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m\u00c2\u00a0spent<\/i>.<\/p>\n Incurred:\u00c2\u00a0<\/i> Paid:<\/i> IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TOO SAD AND TOO HAPPY ALL AT THE SAME TIME.<\/p>\n Diane Duane is still offering a massive discount on the first 9 books in the\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0series just to this community, so please take advantage of this deal while you still can:<\/b><\/p>\n http:\/\/bit.ly\/markreadsYW<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CHAM1Z3_4IU<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>. In the second half of the twelfth chapter of\u00c2\u00a0Deep Wizardry, I WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T READY. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[515,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-3845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-wizardry","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nas it was done of old\u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
\n5\/25\/08<\/i><\/p>\n
\n7\/15\/08, by willing substitution.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"