In the second half of the third chapter of\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Abroad,\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>Nita does more exploring, and then EVERYTHING IS RUINED. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was only eight miles, and through extremely pretty countryside.<\/p>\n
My love of walking came from a very specific place: I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed out of the house as a kid, and once I finally got free, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a car. So I walked\u00c2\u00a0everywhere<\/i>. I remember that first brutal walk from the friends\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 house I was staying at to the Galleria at Tyler, a mall a few miles to the south. Back in those days, it became a miniature tragedy if your Walkman ran out of batteries. I desperately needed socks and underwear after running away from home, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d left those behind in order to maximize the space in my duffel bag. The batteries ran out ten minutes into that walk, so I had to bear the heat and the traffic without music to accompany me. But that walk was the first of many I took, almost always by myself, almost always distances that seemed absurd and impossible.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never lost my taste for it. As long as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the time, I often choose to walk when a train or a car would get me there faster. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something magical about discovering a neighborhood on foot, to traversing a route entirely with the power of my own body. I have an endurance built up from years of long distance running, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the privilege of being able-bodied enough to withstand walking, so I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to acknowledge that. When Nita resolved herself to the eight mile walk home, I felt a kinship with her. That is\u00c2\u00a0absolutely<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0something I would do. Would? Who am I kidding! I\u00c2\u00a0have<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0done something like this in practically every place I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve traveled to. Just recently, I got an ugly tank top tan while walking around Amarillo. (True story: so I could conquer every Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Go gym I could find. Not sorry at all.) I walked an ungodly amount in Europe and the UK, and it was one of my favorite parts of exploring all the cities I went to. I CANNOT WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN THIS SUMMER.<\/p>\n
The importance of all this, though, is that Duane grounds\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Abroad\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>in an Ireland that feels\u00c2\u00a0extremely<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0real. Part of that is her descriptions of the geography, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also due to the economic pall that settled over Ireland, some of which I discussed with Duane herself when I met her last summer. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always fascinating to me when writers choose to do this with fantasy or science fiction because it can inform the story in different ways. Here, we are put in a world that feels realistic and familiar (to different people, of course) so that when Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world is twisted away from her, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a billion times more jarring.<\/p>\n
Initially, she twists the world on her own without any wizardry done on her part. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a cool thing to read until Nita realizes why that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly a good phenomenon. It should\u00c2\u00a0not<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0be that easy for a wizard to slip into a sideways world, and yet there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something in Ireland that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s making this possible. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the main conflict at this point, and it frustrates Nita because the Powers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly forthcoming about their idea of how Nita is supposed to stop this from happening. Not only that, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a\u00c2\u00a0reason<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that Nita had to be separated from Kit. I mean, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it, but I have faith in Nita, you know???<\/p>\n
I was pleased that No Foxes Were Harmed During The Fox Hunt. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I like my fiction: conscious of how much I care about pretty much all animals. I also wish to be best friends with all these animals. Well, maybe not all of them. For Diane Duane reaches far into the past \u00e2\u20ac\u201c impossibly far \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to close this chapter with a glimpse of terror. Kit had suggested that this sideways flashing was worse than Nita thought it was, but HOLY SHIT, I was not ready for a demonstration of that. Somehow, the sideways jump that Nita experiences is thousands upon thousands of years old. At least, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the theory I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got. Never before had she glimpsed a world so\u00c2\u00a0old<\/i>, and yet, what am I supposed to think??? An old Irish elk that had been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extinct since the ice came down\u00e2\u20ac\u009d appears before Nita, runs past her, and is followed by a pack of dire wolves. DIRE WOLVES.<\/p>\n
Now, this might have been creepy or disconcerting all by itself, but one of the wolves breaks through Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shield spell. I honestly do not understand how this is possible. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. If her self-defense magic (which lends itself to one of the most violent scenes I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever read) can work, why not her shield??? Were the dire wolves more powerful than her? How can they interact with her in such a physical way? The same goes for her healing of the Irish elk. It\u00c2\u00a0shouldn<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0be happening unless\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, unless Nita is physically traveling to these locations. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing is happening here. Shit, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. But that scene was scary, and odds are that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only going to get worse and worse.<\/p>\n
DAMN IT.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t0E6F4RiPxg<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards.<\/b> In the second half of the third chapter of\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Abroad,\u00c2\u00a0Nita does more exploring, and then EVERYTHING IS RUINED. 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":[518,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-3916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-wizard-abroad","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916","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=3916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\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 have been announced here.<\/a>
\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":"