The Wizard's Dilemma

[Gretchen]

I read this book for the first time i think 2 years ago. we were visiting a college and i wanted a book to read on the ride home. I had just finished a wizard abroad so i bought the wizard's dilemma. for some reason i really didnt like it. i'm not sure why cuz i really cant remember the plot except for you know the basics. anyone else not like this one?

i'm giving it a second chance now since i only own it and wizard's holiday (which i swear i've read a thousand times)

[Arti'cili'k]

That was actually the first YW book I read, I didn't realize it was a series at the time. I actually really enjoyed it, although I admit that it was bit harder to process some of the technical aspects of "kernel searching", for lack of a better word.

[Gretchen]

Yeah this series is very technical for me, I skip most of it.

I'm on page 195 and I actually do enjoy it more than before. I found out where Nita got her charm bracelet. And I thought Ponch started the worlds in WA but it's actually this one! Who woulda thought?

[Dragon Writer]

i didn't skip any of it, and loved all of it. *STill holds to the oppinion that it's my favorite book due to the power it held within its pages, soaked in every word* sad, but VERY powerful...and it also introduced the kernals. which are very important later

[Gretchen]

they are? when do the kernals show up again?

[Rhi]

*smacks forehead at sight of one-liner* Gretchen, we have a bit of a, well, really an obsession , over one-liners as they increase costs for maintaining this site. Try to keep it over 1 or 2 lines, okay?

The kernals show up in the very next book-A Wizard Alone, make a comeback in Wizard's Holiday, and if I remember correctly Memiki uses hers in Wizards at War. Wizard's Dilemma (thank you Spell Check, I didn't know dilemma had 2 m's ) definitely has a lot more with the kernals than any other book, but they pop up here and there throughout the rest of the series.

Okay, and now to address the "like it or not" question...This one is really hard for me to read because it's so deep, with Nita having to deal with trying to save her mom and then losing her. I cry pretty much every time I read it, and it raises those questions "What if my mom dies? What if someone else of my family dies..." which kind of make me depressed. I don't really like being depressed, but I still think the book is very good. And that ability to make me squirm is probably another good thing about the book; ouch is a good reaction, or so I've heard

[Dragon Writer]

i think any book that can be so HORRIDLY sad, and still hold on to the readers enough to force them to keep on reading, is a VERY GOOD book. and the kernals are ALSO important because of the fact that there's a really cool discussion of them on the forum, which we wouldn't have otherwise. :P

[Gretchen]

i didnt think it was a one liner because it was questions.

Oh I guess I missed it in all those other books.

I agree that it's so sad, but so good.

[Dragon Writer]

basically, the only things that DON"T count as one liners, are when you're answering a question about something involving the site. for example, you can't do a one liner asking who wishes they were a wizard, but you CAN do a one liner telling someone that one liners are not allowed. (kind of ironic when you think about it, but there you go. :P) *thinks of something book related to see* um...uh....so, who wants to be a wizzard? (kidding) and it's kind of easy to miss i suppose. i personally read wizard alone before wizard dillema, which SHOULD have ruined it all for me, but the book was good enough to hold me anyways....

[Kathy Li]

... but you CAN do a one liner telling someone that one liners are not allowed.

No you can't.

Darn. It would be funnier to just leave it there, but I guess I should explain. The overriding reason for no-one-liners is that they are typically very low on substance. USENET oldtimers used to call it "signal to noise ratio".

Is your post actually worth the cost it took to store it? Are you going to read it again? Is it something other people can respond to? Is it contributing to the discussion? Or just a waste of space. Obviously, since wizardry is about using your resources wisely, we'd prefer as little wastage as possible.

The problem is that a lot of younger posts who are new to boards and the net can't figure out what constitutes substance or not, so having a simpler rule of no-one-liners is easier. But that doesn't mean you say one line of stuff, and then just jam whatever else you can think of onto the end of it to make it "ok."

If you can't think of anything to make a one-liner ok, reconsider posting at all, until you can.
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Now, to get back on-topic, I never had a problem liking The Wizard's Dilemma, but it is heartrending and comes much closer to home, as it were, than some of the other books in the series, and I can see how it could be a least-favorite of some readers.

I liked the kernels and didn't see it as any more overtly technical than, say, Dairine's use of computers in HW.

[Dragon Writer]

the idea isn't that hard to understand...it's just the dna of the world that wizards are capable of editing.....the only time it gets complex is if you start to ponder how all this messing around with the dna of various worlds will eventually go on to effect the universe as a whole...

[christmas]

I really liked this book, because it is very emotional, and in my opinion, the goal of a writer is to make your reader feel some emotion. If one reader crys when they read a book (providing of course that it's supposed to be sad) then the author has accomplished her goal (or his goal, I guess). But yeah, I thought that TWD was very well written, and it's really the turning point of the series, where Kit and Nita go from wizards who are just starting out to wizards who are wiser and who better understand their art and the way it works. Kit and Nita learn a lot about life, death, the universe, and their relationship with each other, and because of the fight they have at the beginning, they really begin to realize how much they need each other and how close they really are, but they also learn how to work separate from each other and be okay with it. TWD is definately a book of character development for Kit and Nita, and of course, it introduces some things that are important later on, such as kernals, the Transcendant Pig, and Ponch's ability to create worlds (Incidentally, Ponch was my favorite character. The books ar going to be really different without him).