{"id":4074,"date":"2017-01-18T05:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4074"},"modified":"2017-01-15T07:36:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T15:36:58","slug":"mark-reads-a-wizard-alone-chapter-8-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2017\/01\/mark-reads-a-wizard-alone-chapter-8-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘A Wizard Alone’: Chapter 8, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second half of the eighth chapter of\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Alone<\/i>, Nita and Dairine rush to find Kit. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Wow, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. This is such a beautifully tense set of scenes, and I always appreciate it when an author is able to affect the reader like this. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not easy! I have a sequence in the middle of my book and another at the end that were\u00c2\u00a0terrifying<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to write. Not in the sense that they scared me, but because I was concerned I\u00c2\u00a0couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0pull of tension. (I am happy to report that three readers\/editors cried over them I DRINK YOUR TEARS.) Tension is a nasty thing to accomplish because it involves the unknown. The reader can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the conclusion; they have to be so immersed in the world you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built or the story you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve told that they, like the characters, cannot see the outcome. (There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also another form of it: when the audience knows everything, but the character does not, and the character is racing to the horrible inevitability ahead of them. I LOVE THAT, TOO.)<\/p>\n

Duane has accomplished it here with style and grace. We knew Kit had walked into Darryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s next world, the next trap set for the Lone One. We knew that the link had pulled Kit in, and we knew that Ponch had luckily managed to get the Leash at the last second. But Nita is faced with an unreal task: locate Kit in her dreams in the middle of the afternoon without using a wizardry to fall asleep, and the whole thing is limited to about six Earth dimension hours, which comes out to like half an hour in Darryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. YOU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE WELCOME, NITA. And the sheer implausibility of this task is what lends itself to the tension. How the hell is Nita going to accomplish this?<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a time constraint on all of this, and WE DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS. This is such a unique situation that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally no guide to how long Kit has before it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too late and they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t assist him any longer. LOOK, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M STRESSED OUT ALREADY, AND ALL I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M DOING IS\u00c2\u00a0DESCRIBING<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0THE SCENARIO. I was so thankful for Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dad in this section, though, because he provides exactly the kind of support she needed. Obviously, he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t assist like Dairine can. (Bless Dairine, too, and I hope she comes to realize how important she is.) But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a non-wizard way he helps her, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to remind her of\u00c2\u00a0survival<\/i>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to think about how resilient humans are on a personal level because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re caught up in some shit, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to see the forest for the trees.<\/p>\n

Nita has survived\u00c2\u00a0so much<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0already. Her Ordeal. The Lone Power multiple times. NEARLY DROWNING DEEP IN THE OCEAN. Other planets! Her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tragic death.\u00c2\u00a0She is still alive<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I have to remind myself of during the difficult periods of my own life: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made it this far, even when I thought I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. \u00c2\u00a0Carl more or less tells her the same thing, urging her to take things one at a time instead of getting overwhelmed by the whole of it. I LOVE POSITIVE ADULT FIGURES IN YOUNG ADULT BOOKS.<\/p>\n

So let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about Nita falling asleep. Like her, I also cannot fall asleep during the daytime. I have repeatedly tried to take naps as a way of resting or building energy, and I cannot do it. I have only done it a few times\u00c2\u00a0ever<\/i>, and it was always out of pure exhaustion. Like when I flew from San Francisco to Oslo in 2015 and COULD NOT SLEEP ON THE FLIGHT. I passed because I\u00c2\u00a0had<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to. Here, Nita does not have the luxury of exhaustion, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also tormented by the anxiety of it all. So when she finally does exhaust herself to sleep, I was worried that she was too late.<\/p>\n

My worries changed fairly quickly in Darryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world, though. Look, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most powerful wizard in this entire series thus far, and I should have expected that Nita would have a nightmare of a time locating Kit. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just in terms of obstacles, though; the sheer\u00c2\u00a0distance<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0she has to cover is most of what wastes her time. That has to be intentional! Darryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worlds are designed to waste the power and energy of the Lone One, so by comparison, it makes perfect sense to me that these worlds would be even more difficult for Nita to manage. Even after she finds the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wall\u00e2\u20ac\u009d erected in her path to Kit, she expends an absurd amount of energy trying to blast her way past it, only to discover that her expenditure did NOTHING AT ALL. Not a scratch or dent or scrape or\u00c2\u00a0anything<\/i>.<\/p>\n

How the hell do you contend with\u00c2\u00a0that<\/i>?<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0Fgui9qVxvA<\/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. I POST A LOT OF CUTE PHOTOS, OKAY. Think of it like a private Tumblr blog that only SPECIAL PEOPLE get to read.<\/b>
\n– I have updated my list of conventions and events for the remainder of the year and much of next year.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00a0 Mark 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":"