I don't much appreciate being introduced to blood-soaked scenes so early in a book. The excuse that Nita didn't find the time to pack a 'less-lethal' and less grotesque spell than one which bursts cell membranes is not reasonable. Why DIDN'T she? Whatever she expected to encounter, she shouldn't have felt the need for such a vile, abhorrent thing. She makes no attempt at ALL to negotiate. The Wild Hunt is a fearsome thing, no doubt. But even authors with a potent commitment to violence have managed it a little less disgustingly than that.It's possible, of course, that Nita had already been infected by the random violence that's said to permeate Ireland: a violence so pervasive that even the most peaceful can't seem to escape any further than to try to make peace AFTER violence. If so, she should have been warned. The danger is great, the warnings should be as intense.I didn't care at all for the introduction of a boyfriend. I found him totally uninteresting. And I also didn't like the depiction of a landscape with few to no trees. Prehistoric Ireland was heavily forested. Any remedy for millennia of abuse should include trying to to restore that lost forest. It may be a lost cause (it probably is in Iceland, for example). But a treeless landscape can't be called 'beautiful' in my idiom, which DEFINES beauty largely by the trees. If an added incentive is needed, it might help end the drought to reintroduce the trees. Large forests generate their own rain, by absorbing water with their leaves and roots, using some of it in photosynthesis, and evaporating it through transpiration, to travel downwind as vapor, so that one rain becomes four or five by the time it reaches the sea.Several times, the wizard Nita comments that she finds Ireland more alien than truly alien civilizations. There's an obvious reason for this, and it has to do with why many 'Westerners' find native Polish music tooth-edgingly cacophonous. With music that's obviously based on different principles, it's possible to decide not to judge it by the same standards. Native Polish music, however, sounds as if it IS trying to do the same things--and failing drastically. It's not, of course. The musicians (if they're skilled) are achieving what they set out to. The music IS alien--but doesn't sound like it is to initiates of another creed.This cultural relativism, however, doesn't justify the relentless, depersonalizing murder and destruction that's depicted in the otherworld. The fact is, this annhiliatory violence is OUR tradition, not the Irish norm. Traditional Irish folklore generally involved 'battles' that were contests between INDIVIDUALS. The 'Fomori' were real people, with lives and histories--and the contests were often heroic labors ('digging rivers' is one that's mentioned in passing in this book), judged by onlookers, with 'victory' going to the most skilled and beneficial, not to the 'brute-force' violence depicted herein. It's more akin to 'warfare' on the North American Great Plains, where 'counting coup' was a LOT more honorable than bloody, 'no quarter' murder, maiming, and torture. The cat-bard's satire is more along the lines of traditional lore--except that it's used to facilitate violence.The wizards in this series are supposedly defending 'life'--yet they do so by repeatedly DESTROYING life. The notion that violence is somehow less culpable (or worse yet, enjoyable) if you're doing it for 'the right side' is oxymoronic. And the confusion becomes an excuse for inexcusable behavior. Several wizards are injured (possibly even killed) by 'friendly fire'.I once subscribed to the notion of 'righteous anger', though I'd decided at the age of six not to indulge the violence that my anger was chaining me to (Fortunately, a six-year old can't throw a 26-inch bicycle very far or very hard. I might've KILLED the child I threw the thing at.) But eventually I was forced to realize that 'righteous' anger is every bit as destructive and corrosive as any other sort. After all, what is it 'liberating'? 'Righteous' anger is used to 'free' people from the bounds of compassion and compunction--to 'free' them from taking personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions--in other words, from their conscience. And it doesn't help to say that the wizards are putting their own lives in danger. So are the Fomori--and a lot more of them suffer and die than of the wizards.A good basic rule for determining whether actions are justified is to view the situation with no knowledge whatever of motives. If you can't tell the heroes from the villains with the sound turned down, what makes you so sure there IS a difference? The glossaries and encyclopedic materials at the end of these books is often more useful and fun than the books themselves. It might be worth collecting these sorts of maps, glossaries, etc into an anthology. For example, the first entry in the glossary in this book is 'Amadaun', which is not in my 'unabridged' dictionary, and goes a long way toward explaining why the characters in James White's The Silent Stars Go By repeatedly insult themselves and others with the epithet 'amadan'. The glossary could be improved, however, by not arguing that (for example) 'pookas' were almost always after a death. Compare, for example, the 'pooka' in Andre Norton's The Shadows of Albion, which was purchased from the Fair Folk for the purposes of rapid transit. Norton was perfectly capable of recognizing the inherent ambiguity of such creatures, though she herself was an advocate of ruthless violence, too often.Chronology note: I tend to forget that this is the fourth book in the series, and to pick up The Book of Night with Moon before this one. For those trying to read the series in order, The Book of Night with Moon is fifth, after this one.
I think the first half of this book worked much better than the second half. It was interesting to see an American perspective on Ireland, although as an English person I think it told me more about America than Ireland. Obviously this is based on the author's real-life experience, which makes it feel authentic.The series has already established that cars are "alive" (in a way) so it makes sense to say that planes are too. However, this made me feel uneasy: "Nita had to smile a little in spite of everything, wondering how much the pilots really thought they had to do with the process of flight. The plane had its own ideas." What does that imply about the planes which crashed into the World Trade Center? This novel was originally published in 1993, but that text is still present in the New Millennium Edition (published in 2013).Speaking of the NME edition, there's an old tech reference that slipped through the net: on page 167, Dairine's computer "made a soft disk-drive thinking noise, which amused Nita, since she could see that its drives were both empty." I assume that originally referred to floppy drives, which don't even exist on modern laptops. There are also several typos in this ebook (like the other NMEs), which is a pity.As for the ending, I lost track of what was going on. It reminds me of the mega-crossovers that you see in superhero comics, e.g. "Secret Invasion" at Marvel. If you only read one comic then its storyline will be disrupted by the big events that are going on, and you'll only see a small part of the overall picture. That may be good in a way, so that we can empathise better with Kit and Nita, but it's not a very fulfilling reading experience.Finally, there's the issue of Ronan. (view spoiler)[Once Nita discovered that he had a Power hiding inside him, this raised a dilemma: he would need to channel that Power to throw the spear, but once he did that his own identity would be obliterated in the process. So, would he be willing to make that sacrifice? As it turned out, he did throw the spear, then went back to business as usual. The "sacrifice averted" has come up in previous books (usually with someone else saving Nita), but it seemed even more futile here. When Elisa Hansen reviewed the Twilight books, she summed them up by saying: "Oh no, what's that? Oh, wait, never mind." This book falls into the same trap, which is a pity. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about A Wizard Abroad (2005)?
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1531540.htmlThis was an early entry on my list of sf and fantasy set in Ireland, since when I've got to know its author from various sf conventions; with slight embarrassment I admit that this is the first of Diane's novels that I have actually read. It's the fourth in sequence of her successful 'Young Wizards' series, and takes her protagonist Nita Callahan to Ireland from her home in the USA to do battle with the evil Lone Power by reuniting the four ancient treasures of Ireland; there's also some relationship tension between her usual partner Kit and local boy Ronan. The author had lived long enough in Ireland by the time she wrote it to avoid the kind of Oirishry that infects most of the books on my checklist, and local readers will accept her apology for messing with the geography of County Wicklow and feel pleased that she caught the mood of the early 90s rather well. I guess the whole series now can be seen as an ancestor of both Buffy and Harry Potter, an earlyish example of the urban fantasy sub-genre.
—Nicholas Whyte
Yet another brilliantly executed novel in the Young Wizards series, this is another of the series that makes my "top" list.After having saved the world several times, and following her little sister's harrowing but triumphment Ordeal, Nita Callahan is looking forward to a quiet summer hanging out with her wizard partner and best friend Kit. But her parents upset her plans: misunderstanding her relationship with Kit, they've arranged for her to spend the summer with her aunt in Ireland and take some "time away" from him.But Ireland is, and always has been, at the heart of wizardly business, as Nita soon discovers. The realm of Irish fable is drifting closer to reality, sometimes overlapping with it in terryfying ways. And a wizard is always on call...even if she's on vacation in a foreign country.Teaming up with a host of Irish wizards, including the handsome and enignmatic Ronan, as well as Kit and her sister Dairine, who can't be kept out of the action for long, Nita will face an explosive battle between fantasy and reality, as well as a search for four elemental weapons from Celtic lore. Duane uses her own Irish knowledge to craft realistic people and events, utilizing all of Ireland's rich mythology and history. An incredible addition to the series.
—Victoria
Book 4 of 9 in my reread. I don't really have much to say about A Wizard Abroad. I certainly love the Irish setting and the Irish mythology used in the book. I adore Tualha, even though she's not a major character (I have a soft spot for both bards and cats), and the story was solid enough. A lot of the plot felt secondary to Nita learning to love the island-- less something to pull us through to the end and more something to support an otherwise beautifully written travel diary. That's not real
—Shaina
