- Hardcover: 551 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P (Oct 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0152047727
- ISBN-13: 978-0152047726
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 14.8 x 3.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,571,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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IN THE BRIGHT LIGHT of an early spring morning, a teenage girl in faded blue jeans and a cropped white T-shirt stood in her downstairs bathroom, brushing her teeth and examining herself with a critical eye. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
IN THE BRIGHT LIGHT of an early spring morning, a teenage girl in faded blue jeans and a cropped white T-shirt stood in her downstairs bathroom, brushing her teeth and examining herself with a critical eye. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have been following Duane's series of books since the Nineties when they first appeared when I was a teenager. I was relieved- even estatic when they were published once more and sequels were written. She has developed Nita and Kit's relationship wonderfully- and Dairine has matured at last. In the phenomena of Harry Potter, books on wizardry and magic are always going to be popular - and although she published long before Rowling did, it is nice to see Duane benefiting from this upsurge.
She writes the books as if they were for a television show- they are aimed for teenagers of the Buffy/Charmed - perhaps even Star Trek genre. In recent years she has been focussing on their ventures into space and spacial time - and Wizard's at War is no different. It takes off where Wizards on Holiday left off- dark matter is spreading at an unstoppable rate and notably, to Nita and Kit, in the areas of the Universe who trouble the Dark One most. She brings back previous characters- Ronan for one. She portrays the pure chaos of it all very well - the children pulling themselves together when they realise that the adults are no longer capable of instructing them. There is a hint of a future plot of Nita's growing abilities - and a hint that she is something more. I recommend you to buy it if you are a fan of the series- but if you are just starting out, it'd be best to start with So, You want to be a Wizard, otherwise this will just confuse you.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
22 reviews
70 of 71 people found the following review helpful
So this is the first review, huh? :)
15 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
I've been waiting for someone to review this book for a while now, but I broke down and bought it so maybe I'm going to have to start the ball rolling.
First of all, this is a series book so I'd better give a little background.
Nita Callahan hid in a library once when she was thirteen and found a special book there...a manual of wizardry. For the Powers that created life, the Powers that Be, sometimes enlist a little help in preserving and defending life against the Lone Power that brought entropy and death into the universe. And that is why there are wizards. Together, Nita and her fellow-wizard Kit Rodriguez passed the ordeal that made them wizards. Somehow, they've survived underwater adventures, the cataclysmic Ordeal of Nita's sister, Dairine, wizardry on assignment in Ireland, losing the fight for Nita's mother's life, the depths of grief, and dealing with the Power that almost destroyed the paradise Nita and Kit went on a vacation in.
No sooner do they get back to earth, though, then the local Seniors, Tom and Carl, stop by to drop the biggest bomb ever: something is splitting the universe apart at the seams, wizardry itself is failing, and Nita, Kit, and a few selected others are (for the time-being) in charge of keeping the Earth running! Now even the youngest and most powerful wizards have only a few weeks to find a fix for the problem. It's up to Nita, Kit, Dairine, and the new friends visiting the Callahans' house on exchange to scour the ends of the universe for the answers. They will follow any clue, risk any danger, and pay any price to beat the odds against them, because all of existence as they know it depends on it...
If there's another book in the series this reminds me most of, it's High Wizardry. And this book has all of what makes this series worth reading. A few highlights:
-Irish wizard Ronan Nolan reappears
-Carmela's mail-order package comes in very handy :)
-Dairine meets the parents
-Nita talks to wizardry itself and creates a new spell
-Ponch talks to a big, big bug
-Chocolate (Read it. You'll understand!)
-The Crossings invaded and taken
-Enchanted cell-phones and Wiz-pods
-Kit at a loss for words at least three or four different times, all for different reasons
and...
-The secret of the strange wizardry leakage at Kit's home is revealed...but only at a haunting price.
I laughed, I cried, and I loved it. Maybe you will too!
First of all, this is a series book so I'd better give a little background.
Nita Callahan hid in a library once when she was thirteen and found a special book there...a manual of wizardry. For the Powers that created life, the Powers that Be, sometimes enlist a little help in preserving and defending life against the Lone Power that brought entropy and death into the universe. And that is why there are wizards. Together, Nita and her fellow-wizard Kit Rodriguez passed the ordeal that made them wizards. Somehow, they've survived underwater adventures, the cataclysmic Ordeal of Nita's sister, Dairine, wizardry on assignment in Ireland, losing the fight for Nita's mother's life, the depths of grief, and dealing with the Power that almost destroyed the paradise Nita and Kit went on a vacation in.
No sooner do they get back to earth, though, then the local Seniors, Tom and Carl, stop by to drop the biggest bomb ever: something is splitting the universe apart at the seams, wizardry itself is failing, and Nita, Kit, and a few selected others are (for the time-being) in charge of keeping the Earth running! Now even the youngest and most powerful wizards have only a few weeks to find a fix for the problem. It's up to Nita, Kit, Dairine, and the new friends visiting the Callahans' house on exchange to scour the ends of the universe for the answers. They will follow any clue, risk any danger, and pay any price to beat the odds against them, because all of existence as they know it depends on it...
If there's another book in the series this reminds me most of, it's High Wizardry. And this book has all of what makes this series worth reading. A few highlights:
-Irish wizard Ronan Nolan reappears
-Carmela's mail-order package comes in very handy :)
-Dairine meets the parents
-Nita talks to wizardry itself and creates a new spell
-Ponch talks to a big, big bug
-Chocolate (Read it. You'll understand!)
-The Crossings invaded and taken
-Enchanted cell-phones and Wiz-pods
-Kit at a loss for words at least three or four different times, all for different reasons
and...
-The secret of the strange wizardry leakage at Kit's home is revealed...but only at a haunting price.
I laughed, I cried, and I loved it. Maybe you will too!
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
A parent's view of Wizards at War
25 Oct 2005
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm a teen's mom. I've read the other books in this series as my teen son did. This book brings in characters from earlier books, so I would NOT recommend that this book be the first read in the series. This book, along with the earlier books involves ethics. This is all too rare in teen's choices in reading. Each wizard, sometime as a child, was offered an opportunity to take the Wizard's Oath, then submit to an ordeal. This is when a wizard has the most raw power available - untempered yet by experience and need for control. Adults are brought into the books as Senior Wizards, mentors for the children. It is a wonderful way of explaining why the children are asked to save or mend parts of the universe when adults cannot. In this book, the stakes are even higher. The adults forget their magic in an evolving crisis with the whole universe at stake. All young wizards, from earth and far away galaxies, as well as other species such as cats and whales get involved. Some of the characters that were important in earlier books are prepared to give their lives for this battle. Some do, some are transformed in some very interesting twists. As each book ended, I wondered how the author could top that book. And then, I was delighted by the next book written, as was true this time.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Don't compare this with Harry Potter; it's completely different.
19 Nov 2005
Format:Hardcover
Just because there is 'magic' involved, this series has been compared with that of J. K. Rowling's <u>Harry Potter</u>. That is too simplistic a comparison (rather like comparing Bram Stoker's <u>Dracula</u> to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's <u>le Comte de Saint-Germain</u>).
Though both series have magic as a force extant in the real world, how it is used is completely different.
Ms Rowling's characters use it mostly as a convenience, while for Ms Duane's characters it is more of a tool to accomplish very difficult tasks that (hopefully) slow down the progression of entropy.
Big difference there.
I won't try to summarize this book, don't want to put in spoilers. It has more subplot than its predeccessors, with relationships between the various characters becoming more complex. The original Kit/Nita dynamic, while strong as ever, moves upstage a bit, making way for the newer, sometimes spiky combinations of Dairine/Roshaun, Kit/Ponch, Kit/Carmela, Ronan/'Michael', Carmela/Ronan, and Nita as reluctant, inadvertant sporadic 'foreteller' and Greek chorus.
There is the expected (at least for me) laugh-out-loud scenes that come without warning when Ms. Duane turns things on their ear, as well as the shivers-and-tears-in-the-eyes scenes that aren't necessarily sad. There is loss. There is joy. There is growth, and redemption, and surprise, and determination...and there is also more than a hint that there will be another story in this series.
Though both series have magic as a force extant in the real world, how it is used is completely different.
Ms Rowling's characters use it mostly as a convenience, while for Ms Duane's characters it is more of a tool to accomplish very difficult tasks that (hopefully) slow down the progression of entropy.
Big difference there.
I won't try to summarize this book, don't want to put in spoilers. It has more subplot than its predeccessors, with relationships between the various characters becoming more complex. The original Kit/Nita dynamic, while strong as ever, moves upstage a bit, making way for the newer, sometimes spiky combinations of Dairine/Roshaun, Kit/Ponch, Kit/Carmela, Ronan/'Michael', Carmela/Ronan, and Nita as reluctant, inadvertant sporadic 'foreteller' and Greek chorus.
There is the expected (at least for me) laugh-out-loud scenes that come without warning when Ms. Duane turns things on their ear, as well as the shivers-and-tears-in-the-eyes scenes that aren't necessarily sad. There is loss. There is joy. There is growth, and redemption, and surprise, and determination...and there is also more than a hint that there will be another story in this series.
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