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    Games Wizards Play
    Games Wizards Play
    Games Wizards Play
    Audiobook15 hours

    Games Wizards Play

    Written by Diane Duane

    Narrated by Christina Moore

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Every eleven years, Earth's senior wizards hold the Invitational: an intensive three-week event where the planet's newest, sharpest young wizards show off their best and hottest spells. Wizardly partners Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan, and Nita's sister, former wizard-prodigy Dairine Callahan, are drafted in to mentor two brilliant and difficult cases: for Nita and Kit, there's Penn Shao-Feng, a would-be sun technician with a dangerous new take on managing solar weather; and for Dairine, there's shy young Mehrnaz Farrahi, an Iranian wizard-girl trying to specialize in defusing earthquakes while struggling with a toxic extended wizardly family that demands she perform to their expectations. Together they're plunged into a whirlwind of cutthroat competition and ruthless judging. Penn's egotistical attitude toward his mentors complicates matters as the pair tries to negotiate their burgeoning romance. Meanwhile, Dairine struggles to stabilize her hero-worshipping, insecure protegee against the interference of powerful relatives using her to further their own tangled agendas. When both candidates make it through to the finals stage on the dark side of the Moon, they and their mentors are flung into a final conflict that could change the solar system for the better or damage Earth beyond even wizardly repair.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 2, 2016
    ISBN9781501939655
    Author

    Diane Duane

    DIANE DUANE is the author of nearly fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, including ten books in the Young Wizards series. Four of her Star Trek novels have been New York Times bestsellers, including Spock's World. She lives with her husband in rural Ireland. Visit her online at www.DianeDuane.com and www.youngwizards.com.

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    Reviews for Games Wizards Play

    4/5

    55 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I only meant to set it up, and then go to bed - Duane sucked me in again, and I couldn't pull away for hours. And then I woke up next morning and read the rest straight through. Lovely to see Kit and Nita, and Dairine, and....everybody back in action; and I agree with Irina, at the very least they should be _expecting_ something like this whenever they hook Nita and Kit into something. I'm surprised there's been no mention of the Invitational (not as a reader, but in-universe) before; though I suppose the story hasn't really gone eleven years yet, so the last one was before So You Want to Be a Wizard. There's a lot of focus on sex (not active, just...thinking) and relationships; Nita's backbrain points this out, in case she, or you-the-reader, hadn't noticed. At least one homosexual couple and one asexual character - and in both cases, Nita's response is mild embarrassment that she hadn't realized it before. Like Lissa, I greatly appreciate that. Penn is utterly obnoxious, and I'm not sure what part the Simurgh played in that - Ronan didn't seem to change tremendously when he lost his outrider. But at least Penn apologized; we'll have to see, eventually, if it sticks for more than a few days. Mehrnaz is great, and I'm glad she (is beginning to) learns to stand up for herself; hope she can stick to it. I don't really understand what happened at the climax - the "looking at you across the board" bit. Did that get Penn out of the fire so Nina could reach him? Not sure. And I guess the scariest of the scary dreams were on the other side of the knife-edge - if Penn had not acted, that is. Or they're still to come - the I Ching piece in the front had me nervous. There is a _lot_ going on in this story - I can see where people say it's setting up future events, but there's plenty happening here too. If nothing else, the biggest puzzle and sorrow for several books gets resolved. Enjoyable - of course, it's a Duane and a Young Wizards - very rich and complex, some _fascinating_ new characters and some new lights on old ones. This will be worth rereading, definitely. I'm only sorry it took me so long to get to it in the first place.
    • 4/5
      Super cozy - wizard conference!
    • 4/5
      Big book. Worth sticking with it. Lots of exposition, and the climax/resolution is jump up and hurrah good.I learned a couple of excellent words - spinney and 'making dua.'Nita's interactions with the Lone One are minor in this book, but they stand out as companionable instead of adversarial. Interesting!Best line ever?: "Sorry." Irina said. "If you are going to routinely be a force for good, you'd better get used to the paperwork."
    • 4/5
      Games Wizards Play is the tenth book in the Young Wizards series, which starts with So You Want to Be a Wizard. I generally really like this series, but I think this installment has structural issues. If I had to guess, I’d say that a lot of Games Wizards Play is setting up for a future book.Games Wizards Play centers around the Invitational, a planet wide event where young wizards compete in what’s essentially a magical science fair. Nita, Kit, and Dairine are all invited to be mentors to students in the competition. Nita and Kit are given Penn Shao-Feng, who’s working on a solar spell and who’s also a complete jerk. Dairine is assigned Mehrnaz Farrahi, a shy fourteen year old Iranian girl with a plan to stop earthquakes in their tracks and a whole heap of problems from her wizardly family. The book shifts between the perspectives of Nita, Kit, and Dairine.My largest problem with Games Wizards Play is that it felt anti-climatic. There were essentially four sources of tension in the book: Nita and Kit dealing with that sexist jerk Penn, Dairine trying to figure out what was going on with Mehrnaz, Nita having creepy prophetic dreams, and this underlying thread of awkwardness and confusion about the change in Nita and Kit’s relationship status. None of them were pulled off in an entirely satisfactory manner, although the Mehrnaz subplot came the closest. The resolution to the Penn plot line was definitely unsatisfactory, and I don’t feel like he had the character growth I was expecting or really saw any sort of consequences for his behavior.It felt like Games Wizards Play was relying on the prophetic dreams for a large source of its tension, but I don’t think they actually had anything to do with the climax (or if they did, I don’t get how). This is what makes me think that it’s setting up for a future book.Something else that might play into the “future book” syndrome is that there were a number of newer characters who were being treated like something the readers should care about when we’re not actually given any reason to care about them. Foremost among these is Lissa who had a number of bit scenes but didn’t really do anything. It’s possible that the scene were she tells Nita she’s asexual might have been part of some greater theme Duane was working with in regards to the whole Nita/Kit thing? It’s hard for me to tell – full confession, I didn’t want them to become girlfriend/boyfriend. Also, when I heard there was going to be an asexual character, I was sort of assuming that they’d be relevant to the book? What I got was way less exciting. Anyway, I saw Duane say on tumblr that Lissa would be important “later” so I’m guessing that was the primary reason for her inclusion. It’s possible that I will like her once she becomes plot relevant.Given that I spent the last three paragraphs talking about everything I didn’t like about the book, I should point out that I still enjoyed reading it, despite my problems with the ending. I still love all the central characters, there some humorous moments, and the magic remains inventive. I ended up reading this six hundred page book in less than twenty-four hours.While I can’t shake the feeling that Games Wizards Play is set up for things to come, I am glad that I read it.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.