Young Wizards


Young Wizards is a series of novels by Diane Duane.
The Young Wizards series presently consists of eleven books, focusing on the adventures of two young wizards named Nita and Kit. Each novel pits Nita and Kit against the "Lone Power", an entity ultimately bent on the destruction of the entire universe. The series began in 1983 with the book So You Want to Be a Wizard, which told the story of their first experiences with wizardry. In 1997, Duane began a spin-off, the [|Feline Wizards] series, which takes place in the same universe, but with different protagonists.
This series incorporates elements of fantasy, science fiction, and religion. The series deals with issues such as death, sacrifice, and redemption.

Books

Young Wizards

A short story within the same universe, "Uptown Local", was originally published as part of Jane Yolen's Dragons and Dreams anthology; it has also been included in the 20th anniversary edition of So You Want to Be a Wizard and as part of an ebook, Uptown Local and Other Interventions.
Interim Errantry is a collection of three stories set between A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play: The Hallowe'en novella "Not on My Patch," the Christmas novelette "How Lovely Are Thy Branches," and the novel Lifeboats.
A short story "Not on My Patch" was released in October 2011. The story was scheduled to be published together with other short stories in late 2012 in a one-story-per-month anthology entitled The Wizards’ Year.
On February 2, 2016, Duane released the tenth novel in the series, Games Wizards Play, involving a tournament called "The Invitational", where hundreds of wizards compete all-out for a year long apprenticeship under Earth's Planetary Wizard.
Three other books within the Young Wizards universe are On Ordeal: Roshaun ke Nelaid,
On Ordeal: Mamvish fsh Wimsih,
and On Ordeal: [|Ronan] Nolan Jnr.
Each book focuses on a wizard and their first trial against the Lone Power. The first book's subject is a humanoid prince who first appeared in Wizard's Holiday; the second's is a saurian Species Archivist who first appeared in A Wizard of Mars; and the third is about Ronan, a young human wizard whom Nita meets during the events of A Wizard Abroad.
All three are part of the Interim Errantry: On Ordeal series, and have since been published digitally as a single volume titled Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal.
A special extra Young Wizards novella was released by Duane on December 2, 2020, entitled Owl Be Home for Christmas, telling the story of a magical owl that wants to reclaim its home tree that was chopped down to become the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic happening that year.
The official title of book 12 has yet to be released, but in a 2012 interview with GeekDads, Diane Duane used the working title, Wizardry in Shadow.

Feline wizards

Three other books are not strictly in the Young Wizards series, but take place in the same setting:
  1. The Book of Night with Moon
  2. To Visit the Queen , published in the UK as On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service
  3. The Big Meow pre-edited version published online; ebook version
All three were released as eBooks available from Diane Duane's web store in December 2017.

Adult wizards

Short stories about adult wizards in the same setting.
  • "Theobroma", published in the anthology Wizards, Inc., edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Loren L. Coleman
  • ''Short Circuit''

    Concepts

The Powers That Be

The series shows the influence of many religious and mythological tropes from around the world, and the traits of traditional angels and various gods or heroes of ancient mythology are united in semi-divine, demiurgic beings referred to as the Powers that Be. The Powers exist outside of mortal time, capable of manifesting themselves anywhere in the universe, at any point in time. They were created by a being known only as "the One" and are portrayed as Its active assistants in the business of creating and maintaining the universe.
During the process of Creation, one of the Powers that Be—originally described as the greatest and most glorious of Powers, second only to the One—went apart from the others and invented the "gift" of death turning it loose in the universe and thus corrupting or subverting much work done by the other Powers. This rebellious being became known as the Lone Power, and as a result of Its destructive behavior was cast out of the creative order by the One. It has since manifested in many avatars or alternate forms throughout the universe. Its incarnations roam the multiverse, seeking new species to trick into accepting Its "gift". When a species becomes sentient, a process called "The Choice" begins, during which the Lone Power appears and offers the species the opportunity to support a lifestyle or course of action which may seem tempting but ultimately serves entropy. However, the species also has the opportunity to reject the offered "gift" and choose to fight against entropic behavior—but that does not mean that the species has necessarily chosen to fight against pain, death, and evil. The Lone Power is conniving and devious, so to make the right Choice is difficult. Rejecting the Choice outright can sometimes lead to suffering for the entire species.
Humanity's Choice appears to have ties to the Biblical story of creation involving Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with the Lone Power being "behind" the purported actions of the serpent.
When involved in a Choice, the Lone Power tends to work subtly, controlling minds or events to result in its "gift" being accepted. It sometimes appears physically when becoming involved in the Choice process, though almost always in some kind of disguise.
One of the central themes of the series, however, is the idea that the Lone Power truly wants to return to the light, and in some senses already has due to events in the third book, "High Wizardry". However, because the Powers primarily exist outside of time the reconciliation of the single "projection" of the Lone Power does nothing to change other projections of the Lone Power created throughout the eons, leading to further conflict.

Wizardry

To combat the Lone Power, the One created wizards. Wizards manifest their power through The Speech, which allows them to describe the desired effects of the wizardry exactly. "It is the language of the Universe." Non-wizards can learn the Speech, but cannot effect change using it.
The Powers that Be choose individuals who have the potential to become wizards. The selection is often motivated by the need for a particular individual to solve a particular problem. Once a person has been offered the opportunity to become a wizard, if he or she decides to accept it, that person will be offered the "Wizard's Oath"—a pledge to fight entropy wherever it may be found.
If the potential wizard takes the Oath, the event is immediately followed by an Ordeal—a period during which the wizard may combat the Lone Power directly, or perform some other difficult task. The Ordeal is typically when a Wizard is at the peak of his or her power. The younger they are when they take the Oath the more power they will possess and the greater their Ordeal will be. They will slowly lose power as they get older, though they will gain experience and finesse in return. Not all Ordeals are successful, however, and the result of being unprepared or careless during Ordeal is often death. Even if the Ordeal is successful, it may involve the new Wizard giving their life to stop the Lone Power, saving a species or planet.
Every wizard has access to the Wizard's Manual, a book written in the Speech that gives the reader as much information about the business of wizardry and spells as he or she requires or is capable of handling. The Manual can take many forms and is often tailored to the race and personality of the wizard in question. Water-dwelling wizards, such as dolphins and whales, use the Sea itself as their Manual, drawing answers for their questions out of the songs of the ocean, aka the "Heart of the Sea". Cat wizards have a similar method of accessing the Manual called "The Whispering". Human wizards tend to use books as the Manual, although some hear voices like the cats and whales, and Irish wizards memorize the information. Recent advances in technology have allowed some wizards to use digital versions of the Manual, such as laptops and, more recently, iPod variations.

Main characters

Nita

Juanita Louise "Nita" Callahan begins the series in junior high school as a typical "book-nerd" who is often bullied by stronger girls. As the series goes on, she deals with such issues as parents, romance, death, sex, and social bullying. She lives at home with her parents and her genius kid sister Dairine. She is often called "Neets." She loves horse books and listens to Journey. Her wizardly specialty initially seems to be the art of dealing with plants and the living world, but later on shifts more toward wizardly theory and manipulation of kernels—cores of energy found at the center of every person, planet and universe that act as replicable centers for major wizardries. Recent events have suggested that Nita may be switching specialties again, this time into precognition and oracular dreaming, also developing a connection with water.
The third book, High Wizardry, briefly deals with the possibility that Nita and Kit have feelings for each other. In the 9th installment, A Wizard of Mars, Nita admits that she may be jealous of Aurilelde, a female alien that Kit seems to be attracted to. Later, in the heat of the moment, while fighting with the alien princess, she calls Kit her "boyfriend," though she and Kit are not officially "together" until the end of the novel. In the process, she learns that Kit was not attracted to Aurilelde, but her, in a complicated series of events.
Nita has a brief relationship with the Irish wizard Ronan in A Wizard Abroad, although when he reappears in Wizards at War, there isn't any sort of tension.