W@W Group Discussion

[illiriam]

Well, I figured that I would at least create this thread for anyone who does not have their AWOM book yet, and is continuing with reading the series through.
I personally have been slacking in my reading and have only just started W@W.
We can still talk about things from W@W and maybe include WH in here too, since we missed the discussion for it, and since I feel like WH and W@W are like, two parts of the same story arc.
So, anyone in?

[Birdhead]

How many times can I use the word 'epic' in this post?

Yep, I'll play along! except, er, I feel like I've aired all my (very positive!) feelings about W@W in previous posts. What to say, what to say. Yeah, although W@W really scales up from WH, they definitely work together - WH is the only one that I would say has an ending that really forces you into the next novel (although not quite a cliffhanger.) However, as many people have noted, W@W also goes with several of the other books, working to wrap up threads that have been in play since TWD. (This works rather neatly on my bookshelf, actually: I have the first four books in the old Corgi editions, and the next four books in the Magic Carpet paperbacks. My Mars hardback will, I guess, be the beginning of a new visual era!)

OK, here's something, maybe not too original: W@W works on a scale that I think is quite distinct from any of the other books. In fact, in a way it's the culmination of the series' increasingly varied points of view and willingness to handle multiple storylines. It begins in HW, of course, when Dairine first gets a shot at POV, but the storyline is really the same and in fact even when POVs are divided, Nita and Kit are literally recapitulating what Dairine does. Rather than multiple POVs doing multiple things at the same time , in HW the POV switches from person to person as the action switches from place to place. Only one story is being told. Abroad is back to Nita (another reason it tends to be less beloved?) Dilemma spends some time with Nita and Kit gets a bit of a sub-story with Ponch, but Nita's mom is what's driving the plot still - Kit is really in a holding pattern, the time he spends with Ponch is fascinating but it doesn't drive the plot or even have much of a plot itself. Alone is the same thing but in reverse - for the bulk of the novel Kit in his POV is driving the plot, while Nita is grieving (when Nita does take back the plot, she mostly takes back POV, too.) WH ramps it up - two distinct POVs, two distinct plots.

And then W@W is almost... sprawling, to my mind the most ambitious of all the books and definitely the only one that I would have any trouble summarising. ('There are wizards! And all the adult wizards go away so they have to do it themselves! And first they trip all over the universe getting their [expletive] together and we get a trillion cameos and it's awesome! And then there's a complicated plot involving getting dressed up as giant alien bugs and finding the un-fallen Lone Power! And then there's an epic battle on the moon! And it's EPIC, ok EPIC, and there's a god/dog joke! And wizardry starts talking to Nita and Carmela is epic! OK, look, just read it, will you?')

Nita, Kit, and Dairine all get POV and, while they're all contributing to a main plot, they are all doing such massively different things - in a way, this book reminds me a little bit of a final or penultimate book in an epic fantasy series, where everyone who has previously been in the quest party breaks up into smaller parties and goes about doing important things that have to be done before the Awesome Moment of Crowning or w/e. Little tributary plots to the main plot river. It is very cool and I loooooove it, but it is also sort of exhausting and I'm a little bit hoping that Mars, or maybe after Mars since it seems to be pretty epic, the scale gets brought back down a little bit. You can only turn the volume up to 11 for so long, you know?

Erm. What else. OK, I did re-read this relatively recently and there was a whole lot of stuff I forgot. Erm... I love the couple of little low-key conversations Nita and Kit have in this book - it's like there's so much drama going on and then they're this little oasis of calm and snarking about Carmela. <3 Carmela in this book is, of course, the last word in epic. Seriously, you look up epic in the dictionary and there's a picture of 'Mela in hot pink cargo pants waving a bar of chocolate and a laser disassociator around.

Quoting! Who doesn't like quoting? These are all from Operational Pause, for no reason other than it's a chapter with a lot of those quiet low-key moments that aren't memorable by comparison, but still hit me as being awesome on the re-read.

"Look," Kit said, "don't say anything if you don't want to; I guess it's not really important--"
"You're eavesdropping on my brains again," Nita said.
Her tone was resigned. "No," Kit said, and blushed. "I just overheard-- You know how it is. More a feeling than a thought."
"Yeah," Nita said. "I know how it is."
The look she gave him left Kit embarassed enough to want to glance away; but he didn't.

SEE AWW LOOK AT THEM WITH THEIR CUTE LITTLE SHOUT-OUT TO HW AND ABROAD. *squishes them*

Dairine and Roshaun looked up around them at the interior of the cave. Dairine's hands were also holding some spell that fizzed and glittered as whitely blinding as a Fourth of July sparkler. Roshaun was holding ready in one hand what might have been a meter-long gilded rod, except for the hot, orange-golden, sunlike light that writhed and coiled inside it. Down on the floor between them, Spot crouched, glowing a soft and dangerous blue.

Er yes HELLO BADASSES.

[SilveredBlue]

lol. So you like it then, Tui?

I do TOO. W@W was one of the very few and far between books where I teared up. (I think the standing count is 4, currently.) The scene with Dair and Roshaun and Spot, then Ponch, howling in sadness, and Kit, and then what Ponch says...ohhh I love it. And I double love the bit where DD drops (lifts?) into epic style for a sentence, something like, "Then the great dark shape took the Wolf that Ate the Moon by the throat, and threw him yelping down onto the floor of Heaven..." (sorry, too lazy to get my copy out.)

There's so many references to mythology and pop culture and even anime. (The he-saw-me-in-a-state-of-more-or-less-undress thing with D. and R., for example- how many shoujo anime use that? Like, every single one. Except this one has a nice lil twist. And the he-fell-on-top-of-me thing, except with a Rirhait! )

And the Churchill quote, and the visit to the Motherboard, and the way the chapter titles are military...

..and Carmela. And. The. Chocolate. One of the most fantastic scenes EVER.

And then, of course, is my Ngyuet/Darryl 'ship. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease let that happen, Powers That Be... Because it would be awesome.

*hugs cute, fat little W@W paperback* This book is awesome.

You know, that wasn't much of a discussion...

[illiriam]

Yes, I do really like this book as well. It just seems like such a great addition to the characters and their growth and adventures. Oh gosh I love it!
So I have only been able to read when I take breaks from schoolwork, and something popped into my head.
What happens to older wizards on planets that don't hide wizardry? I mean, I get that Tom and Carl lose their wizardry and forget that they ever were wizards or that there was such a thing as wizardry. But is that because Earth wizards have to keep it a secret? If an older wizard was on a planet, like say, Wellakh or Rirhath B, where wizards are "out" and are acknowledged by others, would they forget about wizardry as well, or would they retain the memories and knowledge but simply lose the power.
This thought came to me as Dairine and Roshaun were going to meet his father, and Dairine makes the not-so-tactful joke about his not keeping his wizardry much longer.
What would be worse? Forgetting that it was real completely and thus forgetting an entire part of your life, or remembering everything but just losing the power?

[illiriam]

So I was finishing up W@W, and a thought occurred to me.
(Yes, yes, double post, but they are 4 days apart, so I don't count it)

Ronan took in the sea on his Ordeal.

Can you take in the Sun? (Just a thought that I had regarding Roshaun.)

And... it has to mean something that Nita was the only one to experience the peridexis. And find her words and dreams coming true. I have my awesome explanation for that whole thing, but I am fairly sure that it is just plain hogwash and idealistic dreaming on my part.

Anddddd..... I really wish that DD had explained how Nita and Kit's side of the world was messing up everyone's statistical averages. I mean, what does that mean? Does the rest of the world not succeed in their wizardries that often?

Okay, one more "and" : I started looking at several of the situations in the book from a sociological level, and the Yaldiv and wizards in particular are quite interesting. Maybe when I can form a coherent thought I will create a thread discussing them, like that lovely thread that examines Wellakh.

[Cait]

Whooo, I found the reply button

But it took me a second. I think reading all day actually makes me stupider, and not smarter, where some things are concerned.

I saw what Silveredblue said about W@W being one of the few books that ever made her tear up- I didn't do that til the third or fourth time I read it, and there were extenuating circumstances. I read it without even thinking, about 2 months after our dog had died, and wow, just couldn't emotionally handle that whole thing with Ponch. I just cried and cried.

But the first time I read it, when Roshaun just disappeared, I went, "????" and then I think, "!!!!!!", followed closely by, "Did I read that correctly?" after which I reread it, decided I'd read it correctly, and read the rest in record time going, "What in the /world/ is going on here?". I kind of still do that a little, like I actually think the book will have changed since the last time I read it. Yeah, not in /this/ universe. No, I wasn't in a state of denial at all. Which, you know, is pretty funny. I mean, at least this time I didn't chuck the book across the room. My nice hardback copy of Order of the Phoenix has a bent corner from me chucking down at the floor of the car in a fit of irritation. Heh. Let no one accuse me of not thoroughly reading books, right?

I was listening to the radio this morning, and apparently there was some world wide survey about if people think aliens are real? And some people in the world, most notably in certain countries, pretty much figure they're here and in disguise, and the DJ's then went on to come up with a lot of silly reasons why any alien would want to invade Earth, and I thought, Well, they're after the chocolate, of course! :P Actually, if anyone's interested, the US is somewhere in the middle- people think there is intelligent life out there, but don't think there's been any contact. I dunno where the real results are.

I really have nothing especially clever to contribute to this conversation, but WH/W@W and Abroad are my favorites, so you know, I had to contribute SOMETHING. I can't even quote, cause my copy is at home and I'm a whole ocean away. Plus I'd end up quoting almost the whole book.