Your least favorite book

[SilveredBlue]

aww. Everyone's slamming my (sort of) favorites: DW, WD, and AWAl. (Actually, W@W has the top spot, just 'cause it's the newest one...)

I think the reason that no one likes these three books as much is because they are a departure from the adventure-and-fun gung-ho tones of the some of the others. They deal with big, sad, painful issues, and that pain cause a sympathetic reponse that can be uncomfortable- who wants to know that they will die, to truely know that it will happen tommorow?

And it is hard to read sometimes- the scene in DW where Nita is desprately asking Carl for a way out and there is none is very difficult. But I love WD and DW (Hey, they're anagrams!) for the sheer beauty of the settings. The kernel-worlds? The Playroom? The hairy football alien and Pont? Incredible. And the songs of the whales.

AWAl I like very much because I am interested in autism- I think I said a while ago that I did a big report on it. And the mind-worlds seem so dreamlike and yet so real.

Hey, I figured out the common theme! (As I was cross-analyzing subconcious reactions to a fantasy book. :P ) I like the strange worlds! Huh, I never realized that before.

[Birdhead]

On the other hand, 42 % of forumgoers agree that DW is the best YW book and in 2006 long-time forumer Caitlin noted in post 9 of this thread that 'most of the replies to [topics about favourite YW books] are usually from the DW camp', an anecdotal observation with which I concur. This poll has many fewer respondents and W@W is winning, but DW comes second - and as you noted, W@W has an advantage because it is the most recent book and these tend to be fresh in readers' minds (because they're refreshing after re-reading all the others a million times!) It also features prominently in this thread, although I haven't gone through and counted them off.

My impromptu literature review of forum favourite posts suggest that DW is overly represented in favourites! This gels with my opinion that DW is possibly the most beautifully crafted of the books, although I don't know that it's my all-time fave (which might go to SYWTBAW.) Anyhow, I think DW is a fave for some of the same reasons you mention - it deals with a big, sad, painful issue (I'm going to go ahead and . However, I also wonder if the dramatic tension in that Nita herself is directly threatened for much of the book makes a difference, and is satisfactorily resolved in an incredibly moving sacrifice of a character who is nevertheless a one-shot. (In a way, it's a very sophisticated book with a very unsophisticated LP - unless you consider Ed a direct incarnation of the LP, the evil snaky thing at the end is the only real direct confrontation.)

[Trialia]

I think if we're doing favourites, Abroad or HW would be mine. I love Dairine, but I also love Ireland. *g*

[SilveredBlue]

Ooh, very good observation about the issue of Nita and the tension, Birdhead! I admit, it was one of the few books where I actually believed the character might die. In most kid's fantasy novels, you KNOW the hero won't die, even in dire straights, because then the story would be over without the villain being defeated, etc, etc, and the villian can't really kill the good guy. But DW was different...possibly because Ed wasn't a true villian and because Nita was going to give herself up.

Anyway....BTW, I'm not sure if the 42% figure is quite right. When the poll has only three choices, some responders are unwilling to pick a straight-forward 'no' (after all, a lot of fans hold ALL the YW books dear), and 'yes' is at the top of the poll....who scrolls down to the third choice?

Well, I'm partly kidding, but the second poll seems to be inclined more to accuracy. There! Now I'm knocking down my own protest that DW was the best. :P

My painful-issues thesis stands for WD, though. NO-one seems to love it. I don't know why death-suspense would work for making DW the favorite and not WD....but possibly it's because it deals with the death of a loved one and unfortunately that's all too close to many readers. Maybe, though, it's because Nita didn't die in DW after all, but Betty did. DW has a U-shaped plot: happy, sad, happy- while WD has the opposite: sad, (after the cancer is discovered) happy-ish, (when Nita thinks she can cure it) sad.

[Birdhead]

Whereas I think it's because a) Nita and Kit are split up for most of the book and you just want to SMACK THEM and tell them to get over their issues and b) WD has no resolution - which is really the same as your 'sad-happy-sad', except I think it's more like 'sad-happy-triumphant-haha, fooled you, have some emotional confusion!' Betty doesn't, actually, die in WD. In fact, nothing much at all happens in WD - it's actually one of my personal favourites, mind you. Oh, except Pralaya dies. The only event that has a narratively significant impact outside the practice/metaphor universes is Pralaya dying, which in a way I think is pretty rotten for him, because his death hasn't remotely the emotional resonance of, say, Fred, Ed, Peach, or even Biddy's. It's also the book with probably the smallest scale and the lowest stakes, even though it has the highest personal stakes for Nita. But neither the world nor the universe nor even Long Island is threatened, and no-one gets to blow anything up. (They do get to make it rain, though. My favourite scene is Nita making it rain in New York, which I think is a joyful, exhilarating scene.)

I think there are a lot of things about it that are very realistic, including the fact that it is fairly unresolved, which is why it is one of my favourites, but I also think some people find that unappealing. YMMV.

[SilveredBlue]

Yes....indeed. I agree with those reasons....

Although Nita did help the bird-wizard-girl-thing resolve her planet's tetonic problems, so that was a little hint there of "bigger-issues" stuff.

Yeah, I love the rain scene too. I especially like the part where Nita changes how electricity works, and it goes climbing up the rain....gorgeous. The Playroom was very fun too, and I actually dreamed about the city that Nita has to work through when she meets Pralaya, it was so vivid...the abandoned golden-hued city, simple yet cut with unimaginably complex technology...

So, I guess you could draw a few Avatar parallels (though YW is MUCH BETTER): lovely scenery and world(s), but not a ton of significant action. (Avatar's action is very forgettable- that's why I'm stretching the parallel here.)

It's really an internal novel, about choices and working through some great catastrophe.

...thus the "Dilemma" in the title! *smacks head* Note to self: don't explain the obvious, Blue!

[Birdhead]

Kkirl! Right, I totally forgot Kkirl, but my point stands - the novel of Kkirl's life has a lot more satisfying resolution than Nita's does at this point.

It's really an internal novel, about choices and working through some great catastrophe.

Right, exactly. Although then again, A Wizard Alone is much the same and seems more popular? Hm. My Theory of Happenings is breaking down a little at this point, sigh.

[dorotheia]

Like you said, WD has very little resolution. AWAl has a "solution," even though the beginning is depressed and opressive. Neets gets back on her feet and Darryl is saved! So it ends with a very strong note. WD's ending is conflicted, even if it was also positive; it's bittersweet, because although the ending is right, Nita knows she can't have what she wants. And that's right. But Nita doesn't like it, and neither does the reader. So fewer like WD.
And the bright scenes make it all worth it, for me. That's why I don't like DW as much. Not as bright and shiny (characters, setting) to pique my curiosity; what happens is more symbolic and, um, ordinary. And I was distressed about the ending. But of course that had to happen, I don't want Nita or Kit to die! So I was squashed into accepting it. It's uncomfortable to be squashed.

[SapphireWizardry]

A Wizard Abroad was probably my least favorite. I found that I had to force myself to continue reading at times (something I didn't have to do with any of the other books) and the whole "ghosts" thing kind of threw me for a loop. It felt a bit different than all the other books, but thats probably because Wizardry is practiced differently in Ireland.

[anotherBob]

My least favorite books were WD and WAbroad.

My problem with WD was that I felt that the character of Nita was not the same as her character in the other books. I just didn't see her as willing to do what she did in order to save her mother's life.

In WAbroad, it was more of a letdown of what I was expecting. I love the idea of going into Irish mythology, but it was as if she just danced around it instead of plunging more into it.

Bob

[wizard2009]

my least favorite was a wizard abroad idk it seems when i get to number 4 in book series it hard for me to keep reading. ( as i am having trouble on book 4 of the kim harrison series that im reading right now)

[96bookworms]

I sorta have to agree with all the others: AWA, and DW, and possibly WD are definitely my least favorites. DW was just sorta dull for me, and the oceans never really caught my interest.I was just bored, I guess..same with AWA. Ireland is cool, but I think DD might have stuffed too much information about Ireland into the book. I mean, all the books give a lot of information, but I think there was too much new information about Ireland in the book that didn't necessarily contribute to the plot.

For WD, I think it just affected me too much at first. When I first read it, my mom had just gotten over breast cancer, and she was fine. I think that even when she was sick I didn't take it quite as seriously as I could have, and the book sorta scared me...I guess it was just too close. I didn't reread it for a long time, and when I did I think I got to appreciate the good parts of the book a lot more. I love Ponch in that book, especially the universe of squirrels! Ponch really developed a lot in that book...

Now...I have to say that AWAl is one of my favorites...I am also really interested in autism...maybe I get it from my dad, who's a psychologist...

[SpacePen]

dilemma?

On the one hand, I liked seeing Nita learn about kernels, and Kit discovering Ponch's Creator ability, but no one likes to deal with the immanent death of your mother at a young age. Also, the Kernel/Creator ideas are developed further in the following books, AND the real issue of dealing with grief is only hinted at, not resolved, in Dilemma. So it's almost like Dilemma is a "middle" book in that it's story arcs reach (or sprout new branches) much more over to the next book than story arcs did in the first several books.

[Ryuusei]

Hmmm... I would have to say that A Wizard Alone is my least favorite due to the pacing of the plot being very 'stop-go,' at least to me. It was like Kit in action crossing universes and trying too hard to find any solution contrasting with Nita living trapped like a fly in a piece of amber, frozen, trapped in a moment.

Originally I would have said Wizards Dilemma but after some time (and a little growing up) it kinda grew on me.

I love all of them for different reasons but my top three (in no particular order) are as follows: High Wizardry, Wizard's Holiday, and a tie between So You Want to be a Wizard and Wizards at War.

I'm reserving judgment on A Wizard of Mars until I get a second or third re-read in.

[SpacePen]

dilemma again

your aside about gaining some maturity made me think... I once had to play in an orchestra that was accompanying a singer who was performing a cycle of Mahler songs that were all about the death of children. The music was depressing and I didn't like it. Until it occurred to me that, given the fact that children do die, is it not better to have a channel for grief in art than to simply ignore their death and never perform such music?

Perhaps "dilemma" and "alone" are both of that kind of art which improves upon realizing that grief must be borne by us; and given that fact, it should also be portrayed in art.