Discord
Okay so immediately I was surprised by the beginning, which spends several pages describing the wizard Kit having trouble getting his TV's DVD player working, since it and his remote control, which are both magically sentient, are refusing to work together.
"Kit's mama came drifting in and looked over Kit's shoulder as he continued to speak passionately to the remote and the DVD player about the importance of cooperation and teamwork, the need not to feel diminished by acting, however briefly, as part of whole. But the remote refused to do anything further, and the whole screen stayed blue."
They eventually make up.
The story also takes place in New York, roughly modern times I think, and is actually the 6th book in a series, which I didn't realize before getting it. So there's a lot of context I don't have, but honestly I don't feel that confused or like there are things going over my head. I think whatever series the book is in is of the more 'episodic' kind, where each book contains a full narrative that gets resolved by the end, the next one having the same characters and setting but a new plot, rather than each book being part of the same continuous story. The other books probably went into detail about the place of magic in the modern world, and why inanimate objects (and also animals) can talk, but I can glean most of that information from how things are described in this book (Like, when a travel spell makes Kit's ears pop, and he alters it by taking the 'spell-chain' and changing the 'mass-displacement variable', that tells me that this setting uses a hard magic system with rules and limitations, as opposed to a soft one, where what characters can do with magic is more mystical and unquantified).
I like how the story makes good humorous use of the modern fantasy setting, with wizards trying to fix technological problems as above. (and also this:
"We're expert enough to change the laws of physics temporarily," Carl muttered. "How hard can wiring be?"
With a clunk! all the lights in the house went out.) There's just a lot of good untapped potential in such a setting.
Although he's probably a well-established character by this point in the series, the story also made me like Kit as a character quite quickly. There was this moment of internal reflection he had, while considering Nita (whose mother had recently died, probably in the events of the previous book I'd guess), where he regrets how he can't do anything to help her with her grief, and how all he can say are platitudes that sound stupid and heartless, and how annoyingly embarrassed he feels to show sadness. It just lent a lot of depth to the character in a short amount of words.
That was all just chapter 1 so far. In terms of plot, Kit was called by his wizard mentor, told about this kid Darryl McAllister who's been on an ordeal for 3 months, and asked to investigate. Not really that interesting do far tbh, but at least it's getting right to the plot from the get-go.
"Kit's mama came drifting in and looked over Kit's shoulder as he continued to speak passionately to the remote and the DVD player about the importance of cooperation and teamwork, the need not to feel diminished by acting, however briefly, as part of whole. But the remote refused to do anything further, and the whole screen stayed blue."
They eventually make up.
The story also takes place in New York, roughly modern times I think, and is actually the 6th book in a series, which I didn't realize before getting it. So there's a lot of context I don't have, but honestly I don't feel that confused or like there are things going over my head. I think whatever series the book is in is of the more 'episodic' kind, where each book contains a full narrative that gets resolved by the end, the next one having the same characters and setting but a new plot, rather than each book being part of the same continuous story. The other books probably went into detail about the place of magic in the modern world, and why inanimate objects (and also animals) can talk, but I can glean most of that information from how things are described in this book (Like, when a travel spell makes Kit's ears pop, and he alters it by taking the 'spell-chain' and changing the 'mass-displacement variable', that tells me that this setting uses a hard magic system with rules and limitations, as opposed to a soft one, where what characters can do with magic is more mystical and unquantified).
I like how the story makes good humorous use of the modern fantasy setting, with wizards trying to fix technological problems as above. (and also this:
"We're expert enough to change the laws of physics temporarily," Carl muttered. "How hard can wiring be?"
With a clunk! all the lights in the house went out.) There's just a lot of good untapped potential in such a setting.
Although he's probably a well-established character by this point in the series, the story also made me like Kit as a character quite quickly. There was this moment of internal reflection he had, while considering Nita (whose mother had recently died, probably in the events of the previous book I'd guess), where he regrets how he can't do anything to help her with her grief, and how all he can say are platitudes that sound stupid and heartless, and how annoyingly embarrassed he feels to show sadness. It just lent a lot of depth to the character in a short amount of words.
That was all just chapter 1 so far. In terms of plot, Kit was called by his wizard mentor, told about this kid Darryl McAllister who's been on an ordeal for 3 months, and asked to investigate. Not really that interesting do far tbh, but at least it's getting right to the plot from the get-go.
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