In the second half of the eleventh chapter of\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Abroad<\/i>, the wizards find their battle. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of warfare, blood, gore.<\/b><\/p>\n
At the same time, the remainder of this chapter is not enough and too much. AT THE SAME TIME. I expected a bigger battle, only to find out that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being pushed into the last chapter. Yet this is still a visceral and frightening experience, and one of the things Duane relies on here is the disconnect the audience might feel from the action. Up to this point, aside from the sole appearance of the drows in Bray, most of the action has been hinted at. Yes, Nita has slipped sideways a few times, but the battle itself has always been an idea. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had the myth passed along to us, we know why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to the history of Ireland, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re well aware of the stakes. I never once disbelieved any of it.<\/p>\n
However, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to feel detached from the reality of this struggle because we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the enemy. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t conceptualize what this battle will be like. And once the wizards make it to this specific world, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dark, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frightening, and EVERYTHING IS AN UNKNOWN. When the first wave of Fomori hits, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tense\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 for like a paragraph or two. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a feint, surely, yet even with such an attack, Duane reminds us how real this is:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, no,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kit said softly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not already.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
She looked where he was looking. Off to their left a young woman was lying, loose-limbed and pale, like a broken doll thrown down. There were several drows lying in pieces by her, but it was no consolation, seeing they were spattered with that shade of red so bright even in this dim light that it looked fake. Nita shuddered, for experience had shown her over time that that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fake look\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a sure sign it was the real thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pervasive theme across this book and specifically in this chapter about the concept of realness. We saw it before when Nita and Kit visited the queen of the Sidhe, and indeed, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d argue that Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early experiences with the sideways shifts were a deconstruction of what she considered real. But here, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating to see how Duane takes us out of the action once the second wave hits. The first time, the narration was limited to Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s direct and present experience. But the second wave sees this happening:<\/p>\n
Nita had a great deal of difficulty remembering the fighting later.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And then, in the next paragraph:<\/p>\n
The other problem was the screaming. At the time it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother Nita particularly; later on she found herself wondering whether there was something to the claim that people got inured to violence by watching too much TV. Everything seemed remote, like something in the crowd scene from a movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Nita and Duane detach. They view things from outside themselves or outside the text. And I get it! This battle felt so much more\u00c2\u00a0violent<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0than what I was used to in these books, so it made sense to me that Nita would experience it differently. The injuries she witnesses on other wizards \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quote here just because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so gory \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are what snap her back to battle itself. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real to her\u00c2\u00a0now<\/i>, and I thought that was an effective technique on Duane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part.<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to suggest that this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel fantastical; the combination of the varied wizardries and the amazing appearance of the Sidhe still keeps this within the realm of fantasy. But Duane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fantasy has a gritty edge to it (which is not the same as grim, for the record), so I appreciate that her books contain moments of reflection like this. The same goes for the break before the last charge towards the Lone One. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, people in this series\u00c2\u00a0talk<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to each other. They consult each other about techniques, about the realities of doing wizardry in a world that heightens their powers but drains their energies, and about the sheer terror of THE GIANT PATCH OF DARKNESS THEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE HEADING INTO. Plus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance for them to talk logistics. How can they possibly stop the Lone Power if they have no energy? Is it worth it to use the Cup and the Sword and the Stone\u00c2\u00a0now<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to stop the waves of Fomori so they can give Ronan the chance to fight Balor? Or will that be too premature? AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO RONAN??? (On Ronan, I suspect that the presence of the Champion will protect him.)<\/p>\n
The appearance of the Dark Ride of the Sidhe, the Sluagh Ron, is pretty damn majestic. But I was pleased that this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an easy solution for Duane to use to wrap up the action. I might have been momentarily frustrated by where the chapter ended, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very pleased with it. The Sidhe aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t here to solve things for the wizards, just to help. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still up to Ronan in the end. OR MAYBE NOT? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SCARED.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AEgIL2zoBrc<\/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>
\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":"In the second half of the eleventh chapter of\u00c2\u00a0A Wizard Abroad, the wizards find their battle. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Young Wizards.<\/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-3944","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":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}