What do you want to see?

[Diane Duane]

I'm presently busy blocking out the next three books in the group.

So I thought I'd ask -- just out of curiosity:

What are the issues raised in previous YW books that you'd most like to see dealt with / explored / handled / resolved?

No guarantees that anything anyone suggests will necessarily be dealt with. But I thought I'd ask.

[lilearzya]

not really sure what I want....

....but i know i want to see something with dairine and the sunstone

[Phrediosa]

In "So you want to be a wizard" I most enjoyed the part about the white hole's death in fighting the Lone Power and Nita and Kit seeing it in Timeheart later. Made me cry all night (I was much younger).

[kk]

Well, one of the things is the overlays in Ireland. I don't think it ever says, in the books, that the wizards did anything about them. I know that it's probably impossible for the wizards to do anything about them, but a way to make them...safer...is a good thing.

The awkwardness between Nita and Kit on page #262 of W@W is another one... Ahahaha... I'm sorry. I find that page very...amusing.

[alla]

Wow, it feels so special that we've been asked. Thanks DD!

I always find it interesting to see how wizards in other countries work, or finding out more about some of the other specialties.

[Stormwind]

Hummm... that requires thought...

I would like to know more of Roshaun's world, and what happened to him(if at all possible, I know how muses work, they add what they want sometimes.) I'd like to see something more between his parents and Dari. Is it possible for "Late" onset of Wizardry? Someone not in their teens? Just one question that's been banging around in my head.

[Hanineal]

I want DD to finish "The Big Meow"

It has been over 2 1/2 years (April 2006) since DD started to write the final book in the Feline Wizards series.

We subscribers received chapters quickly at first, but then they slowed down with the sixth released in January, 2007. Due to illness, family loss, and other commitments, it was July, 2008 before we received the seventh chapter. Since then, no communication on progress on the book. Finally, I received the notification of movement of the Forums, but still no news of this book.

Please finish this book soon. I still have hopes of reading the last volumes of The Feline Wizards and The Tale of the Five before I die, but time grows short.

Thanks, Dan

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

*mind boggles, then goes blank*

Umm... about the only thing I can think of at the moment is that it would be fun to see an interaction with the NY Gating Team from Kit and Nita's' point of view.

*brain kicks back into gear*

I wouldn't mind seeing Nita explore the difference between the peridexis, the way the Irish wizards perceive their manual, and the Whispering.

[Birdhead]

I'm with Alla - some of my favourite side-details are learning more about wizardry on this planet (and on others) - different ways of doing wizardry in different countries, different ways wizardry is structured, maybe learning some more about wizardly hierarchies, what "general business" looks like for wizards like Nita and Kit (or Tom & Carl) when they're not saving the multiverse, that kind of thing. I loved the passages on the moon where all the different wizards interacted. Especially how wizards respond to aging; I'd like to see more about how good and elegant use of language can make up for firepower, and how much it can't.

The other thing I would love, well actually it's twofold: more Nita and the peridexis, and more Dairine and the Motherboard. <3 I love them.

Happy holidays, by the way, DD!

[meteorite]

I have visions of Nita and Kit having to do an intervention to keep the Chinese long horn beetles from eating all the hardwoods east of the Appalachians:

"Why are you concerned about how accurate your Chinese accent is? You're going to be using the Speech!"
"Yeah, but I worked really hard on getting it down correctly. I don't want to ask for a preserved date and be handed a roll of toilet paper instead."

(ETA: Yes, I know those are two different things, even phonetically, but my grasp of Chinese is minimal. Please bear with me. )

I have been waiting for over a decade for the last book in the Tale of the Five; I even have one of the first books that declares there will be five in the series. Best laid plans, and all that, but I would love to wrap up the series that actually have a desired finishing point. To take some of the weight off of DD, I wouldn't mind seeing a collection of some of the other more obscure stories, either Kingdoms or Wizardry; you know, reprint the ones that are hard to find.

[Zirsta]

Well, I wold like to have some more underwater stuff with S'reee. Maybe they could do something with the deep sea? I was watching this TV thing that was partially about how people are fishing in the deep sea, when they don't even know what's down there. It said the way they were fishing was destroying a huge amount of the ocean floor, and killing plants and animals scientists don't even know about. Of course, I don't know how old the program was, but maybe you could consider it...?

[Frivs]

Roshaun.

Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top???

I think I'll go nuts if I don't know where he is And you know me, I would love to know anything and everything possible about Wellakh xD But there's a plot there! Like will Roshaun be making some major changes to the way things are run, like he alluded to in A Wizard's Holiday? If so, how will that shake things up? Will all the royals agree with him? ^_^ See, that's three books of material right there XD

I would also love to know more about Tom and Carl. I know that revealing anything about their relationship one way or the other is probably out of the question, but I would still love to hear some details about their families, how they met, etc. I think they're such dynamic characters, they deserve that. For example, when Carl seemed so distraught during that beach conversation with Nita in Deep Wizardry...come on now, we know there's something to be discussed there lol.


...but Ro dearest is still my first pick

<3 For even giving us the chance to speak DD, you are awesome

[Kathy Li]

Well, if I'm not getting Door Into Starlight ....

I'd love to see some sort of resolution/mention to the "Wizards on Call" story (poor Carina, never getting her story told) you/we started on Fanlib. Not to mention: raptor wizards. Really liked the idea of raptor wizards.

[Septimus]

i don't know if i'm alone on this i usualy am with most things, but i thought it would be cool if kit and nita finnaly like got serious or somthn i mean i'm on book 7 and most series' the main charcters confess their devote love to eachother by then. sometimes it makes me ache seeing how close they get... but i guess thats just an authors trick and i would like to learn more aqbout tom and carl like their ordeal and stuff although i guess that wouldn't really fit in with the series.

[Taran]

What's it like to be a wizard and an adult?

Nita and Kit have taken on a lot of adult responsibilities, but the biggest one waiting for them is holding on to who they each are as they become adults.

My bet is wizardry works even better with finesse, despite the loss of raw power, but the sheer confusion of the adult social world, the competing certainties and ideologies and frameworks of meaning, the psychological pressures of taking on adult roles, the loss of the safety net of parents ... there is a lot to face here. Adult society is partly built on polite lies and bullying that the victims can't really talk about. Wizardry requires honesty. Adulthood requires diplomacy. Add in distance and relationships and dependency and heartbreak and the grind of facing the world every day, and the lure of safe harbors and oblivion: we've seen some of this first and second hand in Nita and Kit and their parents, but I long to see how Wizardry helps with, and is limited by, these everyday human problems. Anomie. Fanaticism. Depression. Idealism. Bureaucracy. Established prejudice. The pain of life in so much of the world without secure food and shelter and with slavery and tyranny. Surely wizards face this as well as threats to the entire universe.

Some authors punt at this point: Harry Potter ends at graduation. Others bring in a new young person the earlier characters can mentor, like Ursula Le Guin did in the first three Earthsea books. Others follow their characters into early adulthood and then shift to the next generation: That has been Tamora Pierce's pattern in the Tortall books, although in the Circle of Magic books she is actually following her characters as they age further. (Mercedes Lacky has done something similar with Valdemar.)

Youth in Western societies lasts a long time now. You can be a student for a decade after high school, or someone who does odd jobs while working on music or art. I think the books could follow Nita and Kit through college or work and perhaps into raising Wizardly children (together or separately.)

The problem is how to win the interest of new younger readers and hold the interest of older readers.

Because these really are books about Nita + Kit + friends, I think Dianne has let the main characters grow up and follow them into their twenties within a few more books. I think it can work. Buffy went to college, and viewers followed her there.

I know Dianne can do it. The Tales of the Five are wonderful. The Wizardry books don't lead there, but where they do lead will have something in common with those books, I think.