So You Want to be a Wizard

[Scifigeek901]

THis book is quite complicated, and all of the complications kind of get in the way of a truly great plot. All in all this is my least favoriate DD book, which still places it above the best offerings of many other authors.

http://scifigeek901.diaryland.com

[Scifigeek901]

THis book is quite complicated, and all of the complications kind of get in the way of a truly great plot. All in all this is my least favoriate DD book, which still places it above the best offerings of many other authors.

http://scifigeek901.diaryland.com

[Moonsong]

*shakes head angrily* How can you say that!? I thought it was one of the best (if not THE best) in the YW series! It's when Nita and Kit first become wizards, it's where everything starts from! I thought everything about it was awesome!

The greatest pain a wizard can have is losing their partner.

[wizardlyone_04]

I agree with the both of u. it was kind of complicated but also one of the best in the series.

[Moonsong]

Complicated is good though. It makes you use your brain, rather than let it turn to mush with simple, stupid stuff such as mindless cartoons *Cough*like Spongebob*cough*

The greatest pain a wizard can have is losing their partner.

[Tanis]

If it wasn't complcated then it wouldn't be worth reading.

*Many have gone and many have stayed but one thing stays the same: Love and Hate they never go away but they can be beaten- Devin
*Many have come to this place and most have left it but let not their life be a mystery- Devin
*Many have come and gone so we need to leave a ripple before this planet is washed away- Devin

[Moonsong]

Devin, I so agree! Complex books are always the best. I mean you get tired of, 'They went to school and got the pen back. Then Fred swallowed it, then they had to face the Lone Power. The end!' I mean, without complexity there's no substance.

The greatest pain a wizard can have is losing their partner.

[Birdhead]

I would have to agree with Devin: the complexity of the book is crucial to the plot. In fact, it is the plot. It's true that sometimes, time travel can distort and confuse a good understanding of the book: but I don't think that is true of SYWTBAW. It's concise and clearly explained: it doesn't dip into the common snags with time paradoxes. (oces? oxi?) I've found, say, Diana Wynne Jones far more confusing: and yet although they're complicated, their purpose is to make you think. (I'm thinking, by the way, of Archer's Goon and Hexwood in particular) The time paradox is an utterly crucial part of the plot because it is a paradox or, actually, not a paradox, but a... can't think of the right word. That's almost what the book's for. Anyway, for SYWTBAW the time travel is completely different: it's a very important part of the book, but not because it's time travel: it's just a plot point, and it's covered really well. SYWTBAW makes you think about other things than time travel, while a large part of thought in, say, Archer's Goon is devoted to figuring out what happened when. That's simply not true of SYWTBAW. They're both different, and they're both good.

Anyway, complexity is fun!

"We are philosophical geniuses [sic] who will one day rule the world!"
--Agent M
Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha!
Still the Typo Queen

<span class="ev_code_PURPLE">In my opinion, the complication just made the book more interesting to read. I like to read complicated books and then when I figure them out I feel satisfied. </span>

[semiramis]

I like complexities, too. Especially the ones that you read in the nth rereading and make you go rifling through the pages again to look for another reference because it suddenly makes sense... alhtough this only works for books that are good in the first place, which SYW is anyway.

...allusions--particularly mytho-historical/theological ones--do that to me, too, but that's something else entirely (which the entire series also has aplenty, for those who care to look).

[Birdhead]

Allusions... *sigh* I LOVE allusions. But I don't get them all. I'm not old enouh, curse it... I can't wait till my generation is writing and I do get all the old TV jokes. And can win at Trivial Pursuit, too.

Pratchett, of course, is king of allusion.

[semiramis]

Naturally, naturally. And self-allusion, too, although most good authors seem to do that if you look closely enough (I think we have a thread hanging around somewhere on DD's, don't we...?)

Meh. I don't get most of the generation-specific allusions either T.T... I just stick to ancient stuff. It's a lot easier for me that way. And I get to annoy my friends about it ^.^v.

[Nerine]

I've found, say, Diana Wynne Jones far more confusing: and yet although they're complicated, their purpose is to make you think.

Does anyone else get [B]really frustrated[B] reading DWJ? I read "Fire and Hemlock" when I was younger and couldn't make head or tail out of it. A few weeks ago I took it out from the library again, thinking, "It can't be all that hard to understand, I probably just wasn't reading closely enough." It was.

I think the main problem with DWJ's writing is not that it's complicated, it's that she makes these huge leaps of logic that are difficult to follow and yet are essential to the plot. I've never been confused reading DD's books (at least not if I read carefully) because she explains her trail of thought well enough that we can follow it.

Nerine

[Quill]

Nerine--I've read "Fire and Hemlock" several times, and I still can't make out parts of it; it doesn't follow well. At the end one is left thinking "but how did they get from there to here?" I only keep it because I collect fairytale/ballad spinoffs, and because I keep hoping that another pass will make it clearer!

[PK]

Birdhead: Maybe you're looking for "causality loop"? (I suggest this in part because I intermittently rant about people calling a causality loop a paradox; I suppose one could make an argument for it still being one, or even for time travel by nature being paradoxical, but people keep trying to say there are contradictions that aren't there. ...Never mind.)

I haven't found DWJ terribly confusing, what I've read of her -- except that I did get rather bogged down in the Dalemark Quartet. Possibly I need to try again. *g*

I didn't think the time travel in SYW was problematic at all, though. It was a tool, and it let us see a couple of things twice, and emphasized early on that wizardry could do some really odd things. And the interlinking of time and entropy comes up later, for that matter....