A Wizard of Mars

NIta and Kit are maturing, which means deeper training as wizards but also a decrease in their innate powers. Kit has been involved in a project to explore Mars, which seems to lack a planetary kernel. When a mysterious object is discovered carefully concealed he becomes obsessed with it, disobeying orders from Senior wizards to return alone. Meanwhile Nita is developing powers as a seer, yet is sill uncertain how to distinguish true visions from false. When Kit gets in trouble on Mars Nita must decide whether the means she is tempted to use to aid him are a legitimate use of her powers or a temptation from the Lone Power to misuse them. The problem is compounded by a growing suspicion that she is beginning to see Kit as a boyfriend show more rather than merely a friend who is a boy. While the magic that Duane posits as the base for her series continues to be the over-the-top fantasy variety, she does involve her characters in genuine moral and ethical dilemmas. show less

I waited a long time for this book, and it didn't disappoint. Once again Diane Duane proves herself capable of adding to and expanding upon this amazing world she's created, in poignant and sweeping style.

Mars, the red planet that has captured Earth's imagination for centuries. And it's also got its hooks into a certain handful of wizards, who are investigating the history of the planet, which is mysterious even by their standards.

But when Kit, involved heart and soul in the Mars project, unwittingly wakes up the dormant message-in-a-bottle that's been waiting for millenia, he will become tied to Mars in ways he could never have imagined. And as usual, there's only one wizard who knows him well enough to follow him down the dangerous show more path he's embarked on...Nita.

This book was one of the slower paced installments, but I know and love the series well enough by now to fully appreciate both the sci-fi and magical action as well as the quieter character-driven parts. Duane handles all the aspects masterfully as usual, keeping each familiar face true to themselves as well as expanding on the changing parts of their feelings and personalities. And there are a few fun newcomers as well, each already well on their way to becoming a full-fledged denizen of this series, which is already populated with an almost unfair number of brilliant characters.

New spells, new rules, new relationships, and new histories are introduced, bent, broken, and forged. I loved how Duane connected so much of Mars to Earth perceptions, both playing with them and subverting them. The constructs of Martian stereotypes experienced by the wizards were especially clever cameos, and provided both action and some surprising and great humor (think War of the Worlds invasion and a certain Looney Toons Martian!)

I really hope the next installment doesn't take as long to publish as this one did...there's so much left to be explained. In particular, I hope (as I think many others readers of this series do too) to see Dairine's education and search for Roshaun take a bigger role, if not the main one, in the next book. Like Dairine, I miss my stuck-up Wellakhit prince.

As my official 1000th book recorded here, I'm proud it was this one. :) show less

I loved this one. I'm not a space nut, not even a real sci-fi fan, but this book just really, really worked for me. The combination of space, and magic, and physics, and human and alien conflict, sprinkled with a bit of time line technicalities? Yeah, more, please.

Kit has been obsessed with Mars lately, and has been spending a lot of time there. Often that time is with Ronan and Darryl, because Nita doesn't share his fascination with the red planet. Yet there's a real wizardly mystery on Mars: its kernal is missing. This could have real and unpredictable consequences, and there's also the question of why there aren't any Martians. So the boys aren't there alone; quite a few other wizards, including Earth's Planetary, Irina, and the regional Species Archivist, the saurian Mamvish, are also studying Mars.

Meanwhile, Nita is juggling her own set of issues. Younger sister Dairine is spending most of her time on Welkath, studying star management, and their father wants Dairine to at least check in more show more regularly. Since he can't follow her and bring her back for meals, chores, and the last few days of the school year, Nita has to.

She's also juggling her own changing feelings for Kit, and since she has no idea whether he will feel the same way, or whether it will just mess up their wizardly partnership, she's just as glad to not be spending too much time with him right now.

When Kit finds an apparently ancient, and wizardly, artifact on Mars, though, things start to change. Despite a formal decision by Irina and Mamvish to leave the artifact be while there's more study and analysis, Kit and his buddies go back to take another look on their own, and Kit stumbles onto the means of opening it--and things start to happen on Mars.

A whole lost civilization, and species, has been in stasis on Mars for over half a million years, waiting for a chance to come back and restore Mars to habitability for themselves. They need Mars' missing kernal, though, and to retrieve it, they need Kit's help.

It isn't at all clear that this is good for Kit, or for humans generally, or even for Mars.

Meanwhile, Kit's sister Carmela, who is not a wizard, is using her unintended introduction to wizardry and to galactic civilization to pursue a career as a galactic personal shopper, and their other sister, Helena, who thinks Kit has made a deal with the devil, is returning home unexpectedly quickly after the end of her college term.

Everything is spiraling toward about fifty different kinds of disaster

This is another great Young Wizards romp, well worth your time if you've enjoyed previous installments. Recommended.

I bought this book. show less

This is probably my least favorite of the Young Wizards. I'm reading them in order, so I hope it's just a poor match and that Duane hasn't lost her edge. The guys and the girls separation schtick worked well, but the overly long and involved Burrough's fantasy was tiresome. Not happy that Kit got a free pass for breaking the rules. That's just not up to code. Still, I loved spending time with all, and very glad that Carmela is in the thick of it now.

Diane Duane's Young Wizards series reaches its ninth entry in A Wizard of Mars. Kit and Nita are back, struggling with the last week or so of school while also exploring the fascinating Fourth Planet, Mars, in their free time. Well, Nita's not all that interested, but Kit is very keen indeed, especially when he and a couple of wizardly friends find an artifact on the planet, a device that Kit unwittingly sets off, setting in motion a string of events that will bring back the Martian population. But are they really Martians? And what is their interest in the Third Planet?....The Young Wizards series has always been marketed as YA, but I've found that to be more and more of a mis-categorization as the series grows. Sure, Kit and Nita are show more mid-teens, and Nita's sister Dairine an even younger 11, and some of the story in each book involves coming to grips with relationships in a teenage world, but much of the story concerns grown-up, sophisticated ideas and problems. Of course, as wizards the series would be considered fantasy, though I find it closer to adult science fiction than anything else; as Arthur C. Clarke put it, at a certain level, technology becomes indistinguishable from magic, and I think that's what Duane is showing in this series. Highly recommended, but if you haven't read the previous books, you'll need to go back and start at the very beginning; this is not a series one can simply dip into at any point, you really need the background first! show less

I really enjoyed this installment. The kids are getting older (although for the first time they're significantly younger than me), and sparks are starting to fly between Kit and Nita. Carmela gets more of a role, and we see some older characters again--S'ree, Ronan.

I did feel like this dragged at the start and rushed a little at the end; I would probably benefit from a reread. But I really like the themes of (enforced) destiny, and Kit's growing tendency to lose himself in wizardry is getting more and more worrisome/interesting.