{"id":4304,"date":"2017-09-05T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2017-09-03T12:16:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-03T19:16:07","slug":"mark-reads-a-wizard-of-mars-chapter-14-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2017\/09\/mark-reads-a-wizard-of-mars-chapter-14-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘A Wizard of Mars’: Chapter 14, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first half of the fourteenth chapter of A Wizard of Mars<\/i>, hell hath no fury like a Nita scorned. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I am in awe<\/i>. NITA, YOU ARE INCREDIBLE, THIS IS SUCH AN AMAZING DEVELOPMENT FOR HER CHARACTER. I love it! I love the emotional catharsis that comes from Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refusal to play Aurilelde\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game and her mastery of a spell that is, frankly, a little terrifying. But it has<\/i> to be. We have<\/i> to see the power that Nita can wield, we have to understand that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s escalating this, we have to know that finally, definitively, Nita Callahan is becoming an adult wizard. As many times as she has had to make highly emotional and risky decisions in every book of this series, this chapter presents the culmination of it all. Now I understand why Duane invoked adulthood earlier when Nita was having that internal debate about whether or not to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on Kit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s manual. This<\/i> is where she is at now, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never be able to turn back from it.<\/p>\n

I feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m making this sound dire as hell, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good<\/i> point of no return. You know, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always a decisive moment in which a person becomes an adult. I mean, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that if I was to examine my own life, it was the day I got kicked out of the house. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an externality; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an outside force that required<\/i> me to become an adult. Emotionally, however\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 yeah, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pin that down. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to think about that for quite some time, to be honest with y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, because I still<\/i> don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t frequently feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m adult. (THANKS, ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION.)<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier with Nita because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m viewing it from the outside, and to me, this feels like a precipice. Nita sees that massive wave coming from her, discovers that Aurilelde has blocked all shielding and transit wizardries, and adapts<\/i>. That in itself is impressive to me, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what she decides to adapt with<\/i> that really blew me away. As she had realized earlier in the book, adult wizardry is often composed of making decisions that hinge on complicated costs, and pulling off the Gibraltar Passthrough Wizardry, designed by one of the greatest hydromages to ever exist, is exactly that.<\/p>\n

But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the physical or energy cost that made this so important. Here, Nita chooses to take her anger and fury at this entire situation, and she channels it into a harrowing and mystifying display of power. In short, I believed Nita when she said this:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d better believe me when I tell you that if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t answer my challenge right now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to instruct one of the two ends of this wizardry to terminate right there in that room with you, and the other to terminate over the City of the Shamaska, and then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tell both of them to emit the same volume of water as you just dropped on me, with approximately a hundred times the force. The City will be destroyed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing but a bluff, yet I think Nita had<\/i> to believe that there was a part of her that would really do this, at least because she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow these beings to repopulate Mars and violently change this solar system. And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the personal aspect to it: she wants to get back at the people who manipulated Kit and tried to bury him within Khretef.<\/p>\n

Oh, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait for the confrontation. I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T WAIT.<\/p>\n

Kit<\/b><\/p>\n

Nita pulled Kit out of the trap he fell in. IT WAS NITA. And I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget that, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget that the image of Nita in that room, surrounded by the Shamaska, who look upon her with terror and fear and anger, and THIS IS WHAT HELPS KIT PULL HIMSELF OUT OF THE NOTHINGNESS WHERE KHRETEF SENT HIM. That, and Nita being hot, because WHAT BETTER TIME TO OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF YOUR BEST FRIEND THAN WHEN YOU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE TRAPPED WITHIN YOUR OWN BODY BY A MAGICAL FORCE THAT ALLOWS SOMEONE ELSE TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOU.<\/p>\n

Highly relatable content, my friends.<\/p>\n

But y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: before Khretef admits that there may not be a way to stop what he started, was he close<\/i> to admitting that he was wrong? That Kit was right about how this is all a disaster??? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153long, unhappy silence,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and THAT IS BASICALLY AN ADMISSION, IS IT NOT???<\/p>\n

Oh god, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not ready.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/y007I2O2Q3o<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

-\u00c2\u00a0Please visit my new site for all announcements<\/a>. If you’d rather not have to rely on checking a website regularly, sign up for my newsletter instead<\/a>! This will cover all news for Mark Reads, Mark Watches, and my fiction releases.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"