Games Wizards Play by Diane Duane

[lightreads]

Games Wizards Play

3/5. Most recent Young Wizards book. Kit and Nita are working on this dating thing, and also mentoring a personally unpleasant competitor in a wizarding competition.

I feel kind of grumpy about this book and I’m not sure why? Like, I can manufacture reasons, but none are quite right. E.g., the wizard technology with the not!Apple logo on it was cute in the 80’s, but now seems desperate and grasping after relevance. Or e.g., for a book about how some people are just difficult sometimes, and how wizards are also people who need to grow and learn and change, this book sure did excuse a lot of sexist shit in an extremely convenient way that had nothing to do with anyone actually rethinking their beliefs.

IDK. Ultimately, this book is about the lacuna. The empty space at the center. And I’m starting to feel that the series has a lacuna where it used to have something warm and delightful. I can see where that was, but now everything moves around that space.

Three stars for nostalgia and for little bits, here and there, that almost made me feel it again.

Comments

[cyprinella]

Fun fact: I won a cameo in the book but failed to turn in any descriptive information about myself on time. So that bit where there's my IRL name in there is supposed to be me. So for me it was meh plus a bit of cringe for being a failbot.