Rating: 
Summary: Best of the Wizardy Series
Review: I'm a big fan of Diane Duane's wizardry series, and A Wizard Abroad is my favorite in the series. While most of the series takes place in odd, uncommon places(under the ocean, far away galaxies), this one takes place in Ireland(with a few side trips to the land of the Sidhe.) When Nita's parents decide she needs a vacation from her magic and her friend Kit, they ship her off to Ireland to visit her Aunt. Her magic(and the Powers that Be), however, has other ideas. Nita manages to get mixed up in yet another battle with the Lone Power--this one, however, parallels Celtic mythology, probably one of the reasons I found this one so fascinating. NIta and Kit are here, along with some new, very interesting characters--including a cat bard. It's a fast-paced, enjoyable book that I highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Opinion of an avid reader
Review: I've read all of the Wizard series by Diane Duane, and this is definitely the best yet. According to Nita(Juanita)'s parents, she and and her wizardry partner, Kit (Christopher), have been spending way too much time together. Her parents just can't understand that there's NOTHING going on between them, just magic. Nonetheless, Juanita is packed up and sent to live with her aunt in Ireland for six weeks until school starts. Grudgingly, Nita settles in with her aunt, and even starts enjoying a little break from magic, but it's not too long until she realizes how much trouble Ireland is really in, and how one little shift of power in the wrong direction could destroy it. It's up to Nita, Kit, and a few new characters to gather the tools they need and re-enact an ancient battle, or accept their fates. The story is set with Duane's typical magic, melded together with Irish lore to make one of the most creative and thrilling fantasy books of today.
Rating: 
Summary: An exciting modern trip into Irish legends and magic
Review: In the fourth installment of Diane Duane's "Young Wizards" series, chronicling the adventures of modern day teens who are professional wizards in a world-wide organization, our fourteen-year-old heroine Nita Callahan again travels to a new location to do battle with the fearsome Lone Power. She's been to the bottom of the Ocean and the far reaches of the universe, but this time she's going someplace even stranger: Ireland.Ireland for a wizard is a dangerous place; it's steeped in magical powers, creatures, gateways to other worlds, and dangerously overlapping areas of old spells. And it seems that Ireland has become the center of a growing disturbance that will consume the whole world unless Nita and the other wizards of the area can come together and awaken the powers of country's sacred magic objects. And to think that Nita's parents were just sending her here for summer vacation! A wizard's work is never done. After a bit of a dip in quality in the previous book, "High Wizardry," Diane Duane bounces back in this wonderful trip through the mythology of Ireland. Duane lives in Ireland and has extensive knowledge of the land and its legends, and she helps to create a vivid, living picture of the Emerald Isle as seen through Nita's eyes. As usual with this series, the story walks a thin line between ancient magic and modern attitude. Imagine what our world would be like if Celtic gods suddenly jumped into the middle of our cities, and you have something approaching Diane Duane's style in this book. This is, however, the most traditionally high fantasy novel of the series, with less focus on the pseudo-scientific magic background that dominates the earlier books. We're on familiar medieval fantasy ground here with the gods and spirits of Ireland (and there's a glossary to help out), and people who loved the scientific aspects of the first three novels may not enjoy this one as much. In general, however, this is one the quickest moving of all the books and the scene setting is superb. Nita takes center stage; her sister Dairene and wizard partner Kit only appear in certain sections. Nita has grown a lot since the series started, and for the first time she faces the possibility of genuine romance with a boy -- a handsome Irish wizard named Ronan. Unfortunately for both of them, Ronan's part in the adventure might be larger than they guess. For anyone who has enjoyed the Harry Potter novels, the entire "Young Wizards" series is highly recommended (it starts with "So You Want to Be a Wizard.") Be warned, however, that this is definitely a different kind of reading experience, and you may be hooked.
Rating:
Summary: Young Wizards Abroad
Review: In this book Diane Duane returns from the heavily science fiction influenced "High Wizardry" to a book influenced by the legends of Ireland. 14-year-old Juanita (Nita) Callahan is sent to Ireland by her parents thinking that the relationship between her and her best friend Christopher (Kit) Rodriguez is getting too serious. Further her parents want her to take a break from wizardry. Little do her parents know that the aunt they send Nita to visit is a wizard herself, and the Emerald Isle is filled with the residue of thousands of magical events. In this book Diane Duane mixes the story of wizardry that began in "So You Want to Be a Wizard" with myths and legends of Ireland in an effective and intriguing way. An ancient ritual must be re-enacted to return the land to rest. In order to perform the ritual certain artifacts must be recovered. However, some of the artifacts have gone missing, perhaps forever. How can they be recovered in time to perform the necessary ritual? Along the way Nita must visit dangerous parallel worlds where she can easily become killed, and where ultimately many of those who are part of the ancient ritual will become killed. I prefer this fourth book in the series over the first three. There is a chance to explore Nita's character in more depth along with her maturity into womanhood. The mixture of her newly created Young Wizards mythology with the mythology of Ireland is interesting and fascinating. The story is complex, and thus occasionally confusing to the unfocused reader, but a reader captivated by the story will be well rewarded with Diane Duane's best story in this series to date. Well worth five stars. This story stands reasonably well by itself. However, I recommend reading at least the first story in the series, "So You Want to Be a Wizard," and preferably the second story, "Deep Wizardry," prior to reading this book. Reading the third book in the series, "High Wizardry," adds little background information other than reinforcing the relationship between Nita and Kit.
Rating:
Summary: Young Wizards Abroad
Review: In this book Diane Duane returns from the heavily science fiction influenced "High Wizardry" to a book influenced by the legends of Ireland. 14-year-old Juanita (Nita) Callahan is sent to Ireland by her parents thinking that the relationship between her and her best friend Christopher (Kit) Rodriguez is getting too serious. Further her parents want her to take a break from wizardry. Little do her parents know that the aunt they send Nita to visit is a wizard herself, and the Emerald Isle is filled with the residue of thousands of magical events. In this book Diane Duane mixes the story of wizardry that began in "So You Want to Be a Wizard" with myths and legends of Ireland in an effective and intriguing way. An ancient ritual must be re-enacted to return the land to rest. In order to perform the ritual certain artifacts must be recovered. However, some of the artifacts have gone missing, perhaps forever. How can they be recovered in time to perform the necessary ritual? Along the way Nita must visit dangerous parallel worlds where she can easily become killed, and where ultimately many of those who are part of the ancient ritual will become killed. I prefer this fourth book in the series over the first three. There is a chance to explore Nita's character in more depth along with her maturity into womanhood. The mixture of her newly created Young Wizards mythology with the mythology of Ireland is interesting and fascinating. The story is complex, and thus occasionally confusing to the unfocused reader, but a reader captivated by the story will be well rewarded with Diane Duane's best story in this series to date. Well worth five stars. This story stands reasonably well by itself. However, I recommend reading at least the first story in the series, "So You Want to Be a Wizard," and preferably the second story, "Deep Wizardry," prior to reading this book. Reading the third book in the series, "High Wizardry," adds little background information other than reinforcing the relationship between Nita and Kit.
Rating:
Summary: grrrreat
Review: love it if you want a good book about wizardry this is it my mom likes it to its good for grown ups too i was in a like state where nothing could break me from it and i play like i am nita some times what she does with the lone power is incredible
Rating:
Summary: Diane Duane does it again!
Review: Ms. Duane has quickly become one of my favorite authors, mostly due to her magnificent books about the two young wizards (and the books recently out about their fellow wizards...who are cats). I hope no one who loves cats, Ireland, or magical doings skips her books!
Rating:
Summary: best book ever
Review: My favourite book so far I'm in grade 9 and I'v read it 4 times so far and gonna read it again as soon as I'v forgot enough of it =)
Rating:
Summary: What's a young wizard to do?
Review: Nita Callahan isn't quite 15, and she's a wizard. She and her friend and partner, Kit Rodriguez, have already saved the world at least three times (see the previous books in this excellent series, and my review of "A Box of Wizadry"). Unfortunately, her parents are mundane, and they don't understand. Whether or not they really think she and Kit are up to hanky-panky, as Nita is sure they do, they're determined to get her away from "all that." So they send her to County Wicklow to stay with her aunt, Annie Callahan, for six weeks. What they don't realize is that Ireland is top-heavy with old magic--there's hardly a square foot of it that isn't overlaid with the residue of enchantments and workings reaching back thousands of years--or that Annie is herself a wizard. Nita soon discovers that the Powers That Be *want* her to be there--along with Kit and kid sister Dairine, whose powers are even more impressive than Nita's but who at least doesn't have a male partner--to once again beat off the incursions of the renegade Lone Power. And she even meets an Irish boy with whom she shares a first kiss. Duane's great gift is to blend the "weirdness" of magic so perfectly with everyday life that it seems utterly acceptable, even though her magic tends to be highly technical--the reverse of Arthur C. Clarke's famous dictum, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Nita fights off a pack of dire wolves, calls the Faery-Folk to cope with an invasion of drows, and eventually imports Dairine to help recreate the Spear of Victory, one of the great magical treasures of Ireland, by literally reaching back in time for iron plasma from the heart of a star! Duane herself, if memory serves, lives in Ireland, and obviously enjoyed putting her home into her work. An excellent addition to a superior YA series which can be equally well appreciated by adults.
Rating:
Summary: What's a young wizard to do?
Review: Nita Callahan isn't quite 15, and she's a wizard. She and her friend and partner, Kit Rodriguez, have already saved the world at least three times (see the previous books in this excellent series, and my review of "A Box of Wizadry"). Unfortunately, her parents are mundane, and they don't understand. Whether or not they really think she and Kit are up to hanky-panky, as Nita is sure they do, they're determined to get her away from "all that." So they send her to County Wicklow to stay with her aunt, Annie Callahan, for six weeks. What they don't realize is that Ireland is top-heavy with old magic--there's hardly a square foot of it that isn't overlaid with the residue of enchantments and workings reaching back thousands of years--or that Annie is herself a wizard. Nita soon discovers that the Powers That Be *want* her to be there--along with Kit and kid sister Dairine, whose powers are even more impressive than Nita's but who at least doesn't have a male partner--to once again beat off the incursions of the renegade Lone Power. And she even meets an Irish boy with whom she shares a first kiss. Duane's great gift is to blend the "weirdness" of magic so perfectly with everyday life that it seems utterly acceptable, even though her magic tends to be highly technical--the reverse of Arthur C. Clarke's famous dictum, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Nita fights off a pack of dire wolves, calls the Faery-Folk to cope with an invasion of drows, and eventually imports Dairine to help recreate the Spear of Victory, one of the great magical treasures of Ireland, by literally reaching back in time for iron plasma from the heart of a star! Duane herself, if memory serves, lives in Ireland, and obviously enjoyed putting her home into her work. An excellent addition to a superior YA series which can be equally well appreciated by adults.
|
