katurarifka:

if you want to join in, we (me and setavulos) so far are on DW, and intend to be done with it by the end of the week, but we should slow down afterwords because school. so you have time to catch up!

First off, I haven’t read these books in a loooooooong time.  I think, as I think with a lot of  kidlit, they were wasted on me, because while I was a fast reader I was also impatient and I ended up racing to the end of books and missing a lot.

I definitely missed a lot of the more technological aspects of wizardry. magic is computer science/programming! (and vice versa) the speech is a programming language for the universe! I want a manual.  I can’t remember whether I took the oath or not after I read it, tbh.  XD. I want to say these books incepted me into loving CS but…if they did it was unconscious. It’s better than what actually happened. There’s not as much of it in this one, and DW, though.

I love Kit and Nita, but I’m really excited for Dairine to make more of debut. Teamwork is great, but of course I heart the fangirl. also Spot is clearly best manual (be ready, nick. I will fight you)

FRED. the first victim of the nickname curse. *sniffle*

But the passage that gave me the very most feels was the one at the end, where Nita tries to befriend Joanne.  “a spell always works.” no it’s okay, there’s just a log in my eye. friendship IS magic.  If you reach out and put yourself and try and connect with people( and trees cars whales etc)  it won’t always work immediately or with everyone, but it WILL pay off.

HEY, I POSTED A PERFECTLY GOOD POST FOR YOU TO PUT YOUR FEELS ON. WHAT THE HELL, KATIE.

I on the other hand recently reread them when AWoM came out. So I was more familiar with the details, but it’s always good to take another look at the book. Especially since I think I came from a different angle this time.

This time I couldn’t help but pay attention at the beginning of the book for hints of what was to come. Especially things regarding Fred and the space pen, although I did see things that will matter later on through the read-through.

And regarding Katie’s Spot-is-the-best-manual comment… I cannot deny that Spot is an awesome manual. Especially since he has a mind of his own. But there’s something about the old-fashioned flippability of Nita and Kit’s manuals that is appealing. I mean, if they both started out with computers then how would we have that page number joke? Exactly.

I also agree with you that my current interests really affect my reread of the book as well. Just as you concentrate on the CS aspects, I find myself lost in DD’s descriptions of the Speech and pausing each time the Lone Power is named in a different way. It just makes me think not only about the Lone Power (is it bad to say that I am kind of a fan? I agree that good > evil, but as we see, he’s not all bad. I am itching to get to more serious redemptions.) but about how big names are in this series and the connotations they have. Just as we will probably get to a lot of names in Deep Wizardry, in this book Fred’s name and the way he described things stood out a lot.

At one point his name was described as being a pattern of different flashing colors- the visual translation of his name -which I found very interesting as an alternate means of communicating. Of course, it all makes sense for a star, but trying to understand something like that kind of blows me away. Also, there was the word that he used in the Speech when he called Nita “child”. As DD put it, “‘Child’ wasn’t the precisely the concept it used; Nita got a fleeting impression of a huge volume of gas and dust contracting gradually toward a common center, slow, confused, and nebulous.” Which is exactly how a star would think of a child. But it just amused me so much that Nita could understand what he meant and what he thought of the concept at the same time. I am so interested in the Speech. But then again, language is one of the things that I am really into. So of course on this read-a-round I’ll pay even more attention to it than I did on my first read-through.

Since Katie mentioned the part that got her the most, I guess I need to say mine too. I always choke up when people are in Timeheart. Especially since the scene where Fred blows his quanta wasn’t that far before it. I was kind of stuck holding all my feelings while they were conversing. Of course, it ended on an amusing note, what with Dairine and all, but I had feels there.