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labellementeuse... which, you know, just about KILLED ME with the AWESOME. I actually ran around my house squeeing for a little bit, causing my flatmates to look at me with apprehension, but well, they just don't get it. Naturally, I have now (9:30 the next morning) read both of them. However, this is just going to be about Mars because I really don't have that much to say about Conspiracy of Kings but I could squee for ever about WoM.
However, there are a few things I do want to say.
ETA: I can't believe I forgot this, and moving it right up to the front:
I thought the dedication was really lovely. (The second part, the dedication to the late Peter Murray. Obviously the first part was cute.) Really appropriate, really nice, I teared up a little bit. It also got me started on one reason I feel frustrated when people disparage the reality of the connections we make with people on the internet. At the time when Peter died I hadn't been spending a lot of time on the forums, but I had, and have, clear memories of discussions with him and many others when the chat programme was still running. He spent a lot of time on the forums and I believe that he was really influential for many of the much younger children there - a reliable and listening ear. I consider that to be a real, valuable, and tremendous contribution to the lives of many young people. And it purely makes me angry that some people would not understand that as a real thing.
OK, enough sentimentality, onto the book! Start with the negative, why not: like others, the jealously plotline kind of made me roll my eyes.
...OK, that's all the negative. What do I LOVE about this book?
- Holy crap, the shippiness. OTP <33333333333
- and yet somehow I also want SCADS of buddyslash for this book. Kit/Ronan, Kit/Ronan/Darryl... OK, Darryl is like, not very old. Future!Darryl/Ronan or Darryl/Kit, I guess. OK, I am right now publically committing to finishing that damn Kit/Ronan fic that I've been working on since Yuletide.
- MAMVISH AND IRINA. OH MY GOSH. Oh, love them so much, they are both just. FABULOUS.
- I've heard theories that Irina's baby is really the Earth's kernel and Nita does comment on the baby being a bit weird sometimes, but I still really hope this isn't true - a wizard who carries her baby around with her in a sling while she fights the LP is way, way cooler than a wizard who turned the kernel into a baby (weiiiird metaphor) and fights the LP.
- "Those are your strawberries" -- fling -- "over there! These are my strawberries" -- fling -- "over here!" OH TOM ♥ How desperately cute. If you can't beat the slugs, you... give them their own personal strawberry patch. Gosh, that could get inefficient, but it's so funny I don't care.
- Mr. Mack is pretty cool this book, but then again he was pretty cool the last time we saw him, too. (War? it must have been War, right?)
- Carmela. OK, I know it's getting ridiculous to totally fangirl Carmela every book and be surprised by how awesome she is. I LOVE the steganographic gift, and it really didn't come out of nowhere or feel gratuitous - I remember discussions about her facility with language, and the Speech, way back in Holiday. My verdict on her becoming a wizard: still strikes me as unlikely, although I think DD did mean to tease us mentioning Angela Pellegrino as being 'almost out of latency when her Ordeal came along.' Latency = childhood, of course, so this would be around Carmela's age, perhaps a little older. So anything is possible. However, I like her as a Badass Normal, and I'm betting DD does too.
- Really no Carl at all in this book. Tom's gardening and hassling Nita at the beginning, Tom grounds Kit, and Tom does all the talking in the wind-up scene. That makes me kinda sad?
- How how HOW can Dairine still be 11?
- I feel like I'm the only person in the world who didn't really care about Dairine on Wellakh? Like, cute, but I'm sort of skeeved by the whole ~~~~Destined to Be Together Same Colour Hair as Dad ~~~~~ thing. She's eleven (apparently)! I did like Nita's solution to the monitoring problem, but I seriously thought Harry was a dick putting it all on Nita. My brother has gone through patches like Dairine did and there's just nothing anyone could do about it - and it would have been seriously unfair for my parents to blame me. So I feel some lingering unease about that.
- Speaking of dicks, I get that Kit was infected by this thing (and seriously, Tom and Carl must be getting tired of keeping on having to ground him and having him COMPLETELY IGNORE THEM. This is exactly like Alone in how it happened, and for the same reason. STICK TO NITA, KIT, because you are seriously low-functioning without her and you haven't even got Ponch around to look out for you anymore.
- Speaking of Ponch. I loved him showing up a little bit.
- And HELENA. How hilarious is Helena. LOVE it. I especially love the contrast between Helena and Carmela - like, Carmela appears frivolous and silly, but she is actually incredible savvy and really onto everything and, as Kit says, when she babbles she's usually saying something (even if it pisses Kit off. Get over it, buddy.)
- We saw a really wide range of women and female non-human characters in this book, which is its greatest strength and, I think, what saved the "Aurilelde is a jealous, out-of-control bitch" scenes for me. YMMV. Mamvish, Helena, Irina, Dairine, Nita, Kit's Mama whose name I struggle to remember, Aurilelde, S'reee, the Daughters and their Red Rede.
- I worried about the Seer thing becoming too highly gendered for my tastes, but I think it was in Aurilelde partly because of the necessary resonance with Nita (or... Kit hooks up with Nita way back in SYWTBAW partly because of her resonance with Aurilelde in the back of his mind? This is a really weird and complicated and INTERESTING outcome of the book's ending, IMO.) So yeah, boys can still be Seers (actually, I suppose Druvah from Holiday counts.) And some of the koi are boys?
- This was all-round a more teen-y book than many of the others, and I don't think that necessarily means more mature or more adult (although it might appeal more to slightly older readers), what with the romance and the dammits!
That might be it for now. I'm sure I will have MORE THOUGHTS though.
ETA: OH WAIT.
OH HELLS YES. Nita is a BAMF. And MAGNIFICENT BAMF.
However, there are a few things I do want to say.
ETA: I can't believe I forgot this, and moving it right up to the front:
I thought the dedication was really lovely. (The second part, the dedication to the late Peter Murray. Obviously the first part was cute.) Really appropriate, really nice, I teared up a little bit. It also got me started on one reason I feel frustrated when people disparage the reality of the connections we make with people on the internet. At the time when Peter died I hadn't been spending a lot of time on the forums, but I had, and have, clear memories of discussions with him and many others when the chat programme was still running. He spent a lot of time on the forums and I believe that he was really influential for many of the much younger children there - a reliable and listening ear. I consider that to be a real, valuable, and tremendous contribution to the lives of many young people. And it purely makes me angry that some people would not understand that as a real thing.
OK, enough sentimentality, onto the book! Start with the negative, why not: like others, the jealously plotline kind of made me roll my eyes.
...OK, that's all the negative. What do I LOVE about this book?
- Holy crap, the shippiness. OTP <33333333333
- and yet somehow I also want SCADS of buddyslash for this book. Kit/Ronan, Kit/Ronan/Darryl... OK, Darryl is like, not very old. Future!Darryl/Ronan or Darryl/Kit, I guess. OK, I am right now publically committing to finishing that damn Kit/Ronan fic that I've been working on since Yuletide.
- MAMVISH AND IRINA. OH MY GOSH. Oh, love them so much, they are both just. FABULOUS.
- I've heard theories that Irina's baby is really the Earth's kernel and Nita does comment on the baby being a bit weird sometimes, but I still really hope this isn't true - a wizard who carries her baby around with her in a sling while she fights the LP is way, way cooler than a wizard who turned the kernel into a baby (weiiiird metaphor) and fights the LP.
- "Those are your strawberries" -- fling -- "over there! These are my strawberries" -- fling -- "over here!" OH TOM ♥ How desperately cute. If you can't beat the slugs, you... give them their own personal strawberry patch. Gosh, that could get inefficient, but it's so funny I don't care.
- Mr. Mack is pretty cool this book, but then again he was pretty cool the last time we saw him, too. (War? it must have been War, right?)
- Carmela. OK, I know it's getting ridiculous to totally fangirl Carmela every book and be surprised by how awesome she is. I LOVE the steganographic gift, and it really didn't come out of nowhere or feel gratuitous - I remember discussions about her facility with language, and the Speech, way back in Holiday. My verdict on her becoming a wizard: still strikes me as unlikely, although I think DD did mean to tease us mentioning Angela Pellegrino as being 'almost out of latency when her Ordeal came along.' Latency = childhood, of course, so this would be around Carmela's age, perhaps a little older. So anything is possible. However, I like her as a Badass Normal, and I'm betting DD does too.
- Really no Carl at all in this book. Tom's gardening and hassling Nita at the beginning, Tom grounds Kit, and Tom does all the talking in the wind-up scene. That makes me kinda sad?
- How how HOW can Dairine still be 11?
- I feel like I'm the only person in the world who didn't really care about Dairine on Wellakh? Like, cute, but I'm sort of skeeved by the whole ~~~~Destined to Be Together Same Colour Hair as Dad ~~~~~ thing. She's eleven (apparently)! I did like Nita's solution to the monitoring problem, but I seriously thought Harry was a dick putting it all on Nita. My brother has gone through patches like Dairine did and there's just nothing anyone could do about it - and it would have been seriously unfair for my parents to blame me. So I feel some lingering unease about that.
- Speaking of dicks, I get that Kit was infected by this thing (and seriously, Tom and Carl must be getting tired of keeping on having to ground him and having him COMPLETELY IGNORE THEM. This is exactly like Alone in how it happened, and for the same reason. STICK TO NITA, KIT, because you are seriously low-functioning without her and you haven't even got Ponch around to look out for you anymore.
- Speaking of Ponch. I loved him showing up a little bit.
- And HELENA. How hilarious is Helena. LOVE it. I especially love the contrast between Helena and Carmela - like, Carmela appears frivolous and silly, but she is actually incredible savvy and really onto everything and, as Kit says, when she babbles she's usually saying something (even if it pisses Kit off. Get over it, buddy.)
- We saw a really wide range of women and female non-human characters in this book, which is its greatest strength and, I think, what saved the "Aurilelde is a jealous, out-of-control bitch" scenes for me. YMMV. Mamvish, Helena, Irina, Dairine, Nita, Kit's Mama whose name I struggle to remember, Aurilelde, S'reee, the Daughters and their Red Rede.
- I worried about the Seer thing becoming too highly gendered for my tastes, but I think it was in Aurilelde partly because of the necessary resonance with Nita (or... Kit hooks up with Nita way back in SYWTBAW partly because of her resonance with Aurilelde in the back of his mind? This is a really weird and complicated and INTERESTING outcome of the book's ending, IMO.) So yeah, boys can still be Seers (actually, I suppose Druvah from Holiday counts.) And some of the koi are boys?
- This was all-round a more teen-y book than many of the others, and I don't think that necessarily means more mature or more adult (although it might appeal more to slightly older readers), what with the romance and the dammits!
That might be it for now. I'm sure I will have MORE THOUGHTS though.
ETA: OH WAIT.
But the sight of her there, looking deadly - and extremely competent and wizardly and pissed off and, well, frankly, kind of magnificent --
OH HELLS YES. Nita is a BAMF. And MAGNIFICENT BAMF.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 10:42 pm (UTC)...I have an entire huge essay on this subject that I need to write one day but ANYWAY the gist of it is that sometimes kids honestly have more agency than their parents, in which case I think it's justifiable to give them more responsibility in situations where their ability to get stuff done is greater. The same principle applies for a generational education gap, I guess--like, if the children are literate and the parents aren't, say--but my situation is the fluency/accent one, so it's the one I thought of first. I mean, it hadn't been so bad for me because both my parents are literate, educated professionals, but I know some kids whose parents actually had comprehension issues in English, and they were taking on a lot of responsibilities that aren't generally expected from kids. Like I had a friend whose mother had no English at all, and her father was often away for long periods of time because of his job; so a lot of the time, she was the one dealing with her younger brother's teachers and school. It's certainly not ideal for a child to be taking that much responsibility, particularly over a sibling; but sometimes it's the only way things can get done at all.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 11:41 pm (UTC)...actually, I want more supporting cast in general. I LOVE meeting the other human Earth wizards, and I wish they got more time in the series--Irina was FAB but even just the mentions of the girl Irish wizard and the German guy who found the egg made me want to see them "on-screen".
And I didn't really get any kind of slash vibe from the Three Amigos--it is probably one of those YMMV things--I did get a hilarious buddy epic road trip vibe that I hope we see more of.
I am a little disappointed at the lack of David Bowie jokes, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 12:19 am (UTC)Also, the "Carmela is too young for Ronan" thing weirded me, because Carmela's at least the same age as Nita, if not older... since she's at least a year older than Kit, as Nita is, and Ronan's 16...
I wish the age thing would be fixed. I want to see them grow up properly, too...
no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 12:34 am (UTC)A Wizard of Mars = ♥ ♥ ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 01:29 pm (UTC)Kit's mama is named Marina, which I guess you'll just forget again but yeah.
I have never been very interested in the Roshaun-Wellakh development.
And yes, Kit does not seem to do too well by himself! :-) Remember how the very first time we see him, he's trying to do a spell and the manual is telling him he's "missing an element?" Yeah.
Wouldn't worry about the seer-gender thing. Resonance was required. And DD continues to make a good strong move away from the Nature Girl/Machine Boy dichotomy of the early books.
The last time we saw Mr. Mack was Wizard's Dilemma, which just goes to show how much time has passed. :sigh: The bebbies are growing up.