The Wizard’s Dilemma by Diane Duane – Review

The power of the Sea, loss, separation, the ability to use words to change reality, an apprentice wizard who happens to be a dog, koans spoken by koi; and a Transcendent Pig–these are just some of the magical things in store for you when you read The Wizard’s Dilemma, the fifth novel in Diane Duane’s “Young Wizards” series from Magic Carpet Books. This time, the Devil-like “Lone Power” has taken his battle to a whole new and very personal level –inside of teen wizard Nita Callahan’s Mom. The warning signs were there, but no one recognized that they signaled cancer. Separated from her friend, Kit, and knowing that her younger sister, Dairine, can’t use her formidable powers of wizardry to help effect a cure, will Nita be able to succeed on her own in curing her Mom or is this finally one battle she can’t win?

The Wizard’s Dilemma ups the ante when it comes to Nita and Kit having to deal with the often serious situations and ramifications that arise from their use of the Speech, the language of wizardry. This novel was originally published in 2001–Diane Duane now has the ninth “Young Wizards,” book, A Wizard of Mars, out in hardback–but, I’m playing a game of catch-up and have been reading & reviewing all of the previous novels in this excellent series. Though there are still a lot of cool magical moments in this novel, it focuses on Nita’s relationship with her Mom much more than any of the preceding novels, and Nita’s having to face the terrifying prospect that her Mom is dying and that there might not be anything she can do about it.

I’ve mentioned in at least one past review of a novel in this series that some of the themes of the “young Wizards,” series reminds me somewhat of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. This is no exception, in that it includes Christian imagery, such as the Lone One’s attempts to tempt Nita into sacrificing her powers and betraying her Wizard’s Oath in return for curing her Mom. This is one of the dilemmas Nita faces, and for which she has to make a decision.  Another is whether she’ll try to use the Speech she’s learned from her manual to kill the cancer viruses infiltrating her Mom’s body. Doing so would run counter to her Oath as it would mean she would have to harm and kill other life forms–the viruses.  Instead of killing them, she decides to figure out how to communicate with them and hopes she can convince them to go against their very nature and not to reproduce. She asks her the local Senior Wizards friends, Tom and Carl, for advice because the task will not be an easy one and it might end up disastrously–possibly in her own death. For any type of wizardry a cost must be paid and for the more difficult types a higher cost is involved, sometimes in blood, or even the sacrificing of one’s own life for the survival of others.

She has intense training ahead of her, in alternate universes, where she can practice altering the basic laws of physics of those universes. She has only a very little time left, because her Mom is in the hospital scheduled for surgery to remove a tumor from her brain. Each of the universes she encounters are described very well, and I especially liked reading about the version of New York City she goes to in one chapter where the parts of the skyscrapers look like pyramids. The alien wizards she encounters, like five blue ball-shaped beings who speak with different voices but think of themselves as one organism, are pretty cool, too.

Meanwhile, Kit has had a falling out with Nita because he criticized a spell she’d created to help S’reee, a whale wizard, deal with the pollution in the ocean that has been an on-going problem for them and all the other sea life. He tells her he believes she has made her spell overly complex and that a simpler one would work better. He is not very tactful, even though he is right, and Nita’s feelings are hurt. She transports herself back to her house via wizardry.

Kit and Nita have been partners in wizardry since the first book of the series, So You Want to Be a Wizard. In the fourth book, A Wizard Abroad, Nita’s parents send her off to Ireland for the last month of summer because Nita’s Mom thinks it would be good for her and Kit to be apart for awhile. This does not stop Kit from traveling through wizardry to visit Nita there and aid her in preventing any further inter-dimensional leakage, which results in things like the monstrous creatures from Ireland’s legends and myths suddenly appearing in the streets of Dublin and causing havoc.  The rift between them in this book is worse, in that neither thinks the fight was his/her fault and neither wants to apologize. They both are growing up and have fears and thoughts that maybe they are getting too close to each other and that their relationship might one day become more than being partners in wizardry. Nita doesn’t tell Kit, at first, about her Mom’s illness, and her lack of response to messages he sends her via the manual he takes as her being stubborn and angry with him. She knows she should contact him, but it gets put on the back burner of things that she should do, because she is either at the hospital, in an alternate universe preparing herself, or at school.

I really liked reading the fun and imaginative chapters about what Kit is doing while he is unaware of what Nita and her family are going through. In them, his dog, Ponch, has found an amazing sort of place like an alternate reality or universe he can go to and he takes Kit there because he wants to share his enthusiasm about his discovery with his master. Ponch, it seems, by hanging around Kit, is also gaining certain powers. I hope his relationship and adventures with Kit are continued in the subsequent novels of the series.  When Ponch takes Kit there the first time, Kit is afraid, because the place is entirely pitch black. There is no light, no sound, and he feels incapable of movement. It reminds him of his old nightmares and fear of the dark.  When Ponch then thinks into reality his perfect world, with green grass, tall trees, and gray squirrels everywhere, just begging to be chased, Kit starts to realize how remarkable the place Ponch has discovered really is, and how malleable. With a thought, an entirely new universe can be created there. The many different universes Kit imagines and calls into reality are fascinating to read about, and his and Ponch’s sheer pleasure at Ponch’s find adds some light-heartedness to the book.

I have enjoyed reading the “Young Wizards” series immensely, including The Wizard’s Dilemma. It’s a more serious novel, in a way, than the first four, but all of the novels include situations and ordeals that Nita, Dairine, and Kit are challenged by that potentially could result in their deaths. Having dealt with the deaths of both of my parents (I was an adult, unlike Nita, but still, of course, felt and feel the pain of their passing), my father from lung cancer, I confess that parts of the novel brought tears to my eyes. The ability of an author to evoke strong emotions from readers is one sign of how greatness and this fifth book displays the range of Diane Duane’s talent. It’s not necessary to have read the first four books to enjoy this one, but it is something I’d recommend you do if you haven’t already, because they’re all very good novels combining elements of Fantasy and SF. Check it out today!