#Young Wizards books

[dduane]

This sucks.

[ediesgraveyard]

I have a contribution: if lily/regulus were taking shots at a party, James would 110% come up to them and say “need a chaser?”

that’s it, that’s the post.

[betterpatroclus]

*screaming in the distance*

Sirius: Was that a peacock?

Remus: How do you know what a peacock sounds like?

Sirius: You don’t?!

[thetokentrans]

I read the first 3 Young Wizard books dozens of times when I was a kid. It was one of those series where I'd finish (what I thought was) the last book, I'd start over again.

Today I learned that not only are there more books in that series (8 more books, in fact) but she also has a series set in the same world about CAT WIZARDS

And a short story in the same world, about adult wizards.

As well as another fantasy series that, according to Wikipedia, isn't in the same world as Young Wizards. And. So. Many. Other. Things.

Sooooo I need to read all the things. Holy cowm

This author is one of the authors that made me want to write when I was a kid.

I wonder if the audio books are any good. 🤔

[oldinterneticons]

Top icons posted to @oldinterneticons in July 2023

[semiotomatics]

i meant to make some big well-written post abt it but unfortunately my brain was otherwise occupied experiencing The Horrors so instead, have some wordvomit

this past monday marked twenty years since i went on a field trip to the library and ran my hand along a bookshelf in the children's fiction section and found a book called So You Want To Be A Wizard* and brought it home and read it cover to cover in like. a day. and i couldn't even begin to explain how that day has shaped my life but i do just wanna acknowledge it and say that i'm so glad my friend let me borrow her library card (cause i didn't have my own yet) so i could bring the book home and i'm so glad my mum special ordered the rest of the series from the local independent bookstore almost immediately after i finished it and i'm so glad i discovered the forums and i'm so glad i found so many cousins on tumblr—including my best friend and platonic soulmate @astraldepths—and i'm so glad i got to help plan and execute crossingscon (twice!!) and that i got to meet so many of you in person—INCLUDING DD HERSELF—and i'm just. so glad i discovered this series

i have like twelve copies of SYW but i think my favourite is the twentieth anniversary edition (which is now, itself, twenty years old—wild), because it contains both the short story Uptown Local, which i adore, and an afterword by DD, which i have read entirely too many times. anyway, i wanna share a quote from that afterword, bc it seems fitting:

Wizardry, too, changes with the times, because its practitioners do...and indeed it must change, to keep up with the Lone Power, Itself never averse to using new means to Its old end. Even the Wizard's Oath will seem to change from time to time, altering its appearance according to species, age, cast of mind, and (sometimes) simply according to where you're standing, in time and space, when you examine it. But beyond that, as the series continues, I can promise that some things will always stay the same—the knowledge of a partner's dependable friendship; a shared go-for-broke determination to get it right when the Universe is watching; and the glad adrenaline rush caused by the sudden incursion of the unexpected...as when you run your hand down a row of books on a library shelf and one of them catches your finger.

so yeah. in lieu of a more coherent post abt it, i just wanna say. thank you @dduane. for everything 💚

[moonyfr]

The amount of fics I want to re-read, the amount of fics I want to finish reading, and the amount of fics I want to start reading is very impractical atm

[kiragecko]

After months of posts by Diane Duane (@dianeduane) showing up on my dash, I read 'So You Want To Be A Wizard'.

After one chapter, I restarted it so I could read it with my son.

I am SO GLAD I found it right now.

NQ is turning 13 in a few months. He's autistic, and finally starting to enjoy his childhood as he's also observing the first signs of puberty. He's terrified of growing up. He's terrified of loss and death. He thanks me weekly for telling him he's allowed to consider himself a child for as long as he wants to. He's obsessed with bugs, and space, and alternate realities.

'So You Want To Be A Wizard' is all about the beauty and magic of life. The wonder of natural life and mechanical creations. I don't KNOW that an inspiration was 'all fantasy seems to be set in natural landscapes, someone should explore the magic of cities in the same way', but I sure felt that way while reading it.

It's also about the fact that losing things is hard, but we can survive it. That there is more than this world, and so death isn't the end.

The main characters befriend a white hole. They talk to rocks; and trees; and many, many built objects. They travel realities. They choose to love and see value in hateful things and people, and by doing so give those things another chance. They're bullied, and they learn to protect themselves, while also changing in ways that make bullying less effective. They move on.

My son needed this so much. My son needed to read about the Timeheart. My son needed to see grieving where the death didn't get undone, but the being still wasn't lost. My son needed to see situations that couldn't be fixed, but help still being offered and maybe improving things a little.

Finding ways to support a kid's growth when they were suicidal at 10 is ... a balancing act. He doesn't need to be stretched in the usual sense - 'exposed to the real world'. He sees enough darkness all on his own. He needs to find ways to reconcile with that darkness, to find hope.

'So You Want To Be A Wizard' was perfect. I'm so grateful. Thank you, Diane Duane.

[coffeekoe]

[book-connoisseur]

Sejanus, Percy, James: Do you think we’re friends in every universe?

Coriolanus, Luke, Peter: …

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[dduane]

I just finished the audible version of High Wizardry. As per usual, the books are great. I especially enjoyed your interview at the end of the book. I loved how you talked about your friend from the navy who came to love Master Shark Ed'Rashtekaresket by the end of Deep Wizardry.

I'm so glad you've been enjoying the Audible versions! Christina Moore does such an amazing job.

For those who might be curious: my friend in the Navy (well, it had been a while since he was in the Navy) was Robert A. Heinlein. He was quite straightforward with me after he finished Deep Wizardry. "I'm a Navy man," he said. "We don't like sharks. You made me like that shark. ...That was a dirty trick!"

...I restrained myself from any kind of overt gloating until after he hung up. :)

[starchaserdreams]

I am a *very specific person* with *very specific priorities* so yes I went to Disney this weekend, but no I did not skip ATYD book club, I carved out an hour in the middle of the day to sit in the shade and talk on discord about my little Harry Potter fanfic and chatted until it was time for my Space Mountain fast pass.

[book--brackets]

Round 1, Poll 13: Young Wizards vs Ella Enchanted

Now, I'll always be a Gail Carson Levine stan, but I have to admit that So You Want to Be a Wizard occupied a unique space in my brain for many years; thank god I'm not voting

Remember to reblog for a bigger sample size!

[rosabeetroot]

You can tell a lot about a person from there marauders kinnie

who do you Kin

[fiction-quotes]

Even before she'd been a wizard, waiting had been tough for her. Nothing happens fast enough – that had been the most basic motto of her short life. When she'd become a wizard, at first Dairine had thought that that would be the end of waiting, at last – that everything would begin happening at a speed that would suit her, and that the world would finally start working. Now, looking back at that early time, she had to laugh at herself. Dairine had discovered the hard way that even becoming a practitioner of the Art that sourced its power from the magic at the heart of the universe was not guarantee of protection against bureaucracy, accident, or failed expectations. Entropy was running, and in an environment conditioned by the never-ending battle against that ancient enemy and its inventor, not even wizardry could necessarily make your wishes come true.

There were other compensations, of course. On her Ordeal and after it, she had seen things that few other human beings have been privileged to see. She had watched the Sun rise through Saturn's rings, heard spring thunder in Jupiter's atmosphere, watched distant galaxies rise over alien landscapes; she had even officiated at the birth of a species. But none of these experiences had gone very far to make her any more patient. Maybe when I'm older, she thought. By the time I'm twenty I'll probably have it licked.

  —  Wizard’s Holiday (Diane Duane)