The Wizard of Time - G.L. Breedon

    2011; 291 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) of The Wizard of Time series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Time-Travel; Fantasy, YA, Coming of Age.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    13-year-old Gabriel Salvador has dreams.  Strange ones.  Bad ones.  Frightening ones.  And the worst part is, they always come true, usually within 24 hours.

    Of course, Gabriel has learned not to tell anyone about the dreams.  His friends would think he’s weird.  His parents think he’s just making up stories after something’s happened.  A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.  The shrink would think he’s just looking for attention.

    But today’s dream has him scared out of his wits.  It had a new theme – drowning.  And if it follows the pattern and comes true within 24 hours, there’s only one conclusion he can arrive at.

    In less than a day, Gabriel Salvador will be dead.

What’s To Like...

    If you like your time-travel books to visit oodles of new locales and eras, then you’re gonna love The Wizard of Time.  G.L. Breedon is obviously a history buff, and so am I.  The story starts in present-day Great Britain, and Gabriel (and the reader) get to go jumping to all sorts of places/times, including: Cretaceous Era (dinosaurs!), Scotland (at several points in history), Venice, Samos (300 BC), Beijing (12,000 BC), the Battle of Gaugamela (Alexander the Great), the Grand Canyon, and World War 2.  I was in history bliss!

    The storyline grabs your attention immediately – see the introduction teaser, above.  There are 27 chapters covering 291 pages, which means they are relatively short.  The book’s tone had a “Harry Potter-esque” feel to it for me:  a young boy is the chosen one, and lots of people around him want to control or kill him.  It’s also a coming-of-age tale with only a smattering of mild cussing.  There’s no sex, and I don’t recall any booze or drugs, so I’d also put this in the YA genre.  Vocabulary-wise, it’s an easy read.

    I chuckled at the title of the one book considered essential to Gabriel’s study: The Time-Traveler’s Pocket Guide To History.  It makes sense.  If you’re gonna go chrono-hopping, you’d best be knowing what sort of sh*t you’re getting into.  I also liked the nod to Thus Spake Zarathustra, the book by Nietzsche, not the music by Richard Strauss.  The Fantasy genre takes a backseat here.  There’s plenty of magic (more on that in a bit), but the only otherworldly critter we meet is a lone dragon.  But I have a feeling that the fantasy element may get amped up as this series progresses.

    G.L. Breedon’s two favorite words in The Wizard of Time are “concatenate” ("linking") and “bifurcation” ("a branching off into two parts").  The latter refers to the Quantum Physics hypothesis of multiverses, and here it is something that the good guys try to avoid at all costs, though I never did figure out why.

    The Wizard of Time is a standalone story, as well as the first book in an already completed trilogy.  Some Amazon reviewers apparently have issues with a 13-year-old repeatedly thinking like an adult.  The criticism is valid, but it didn’t bother me.  I'll cut Gabriel some slack since he is, by definition, the Chosen One.  You probably grow up fast when that sort of thing's thrust upon you.  The ending is not very twisty, but it's suitably climactic, and is sufficient to set up the next book in the series.

Kewlest New Word...

Matryoska Doll (n.) : a part of a set of Russian nesting dolls. (*)

Excerpts...

    “Dinner was my favorite time.  Everyone there all at once.  All the voices all at once.  My Grandfather and his big booming voice, swearing in Spanish for quiet and my mom insisting that everyone speak English at the dinner table.  And my youngest brother wanting to know if it was okay to swear in English at the dinner table.”   (loc. 532)

    “The branch must be severed within thirty-seven hours of its creation.  Preferably by the hand that created it.”

    “Why thirty-seven hours?” Gabriel asked.

     “Who knows, who know?” Akikane said with a wide grin.  “There are people who like to make theories to explain it, but I prefer to think that it is simply the way it is.  Why is the universe here at all?  Why is time travel even possible?  Why is the speed of light exactly what it is, never slower or faster?  Some people question too much.  It is as it is.”  (loc. 2156)

Kindle Details...

    The Wizard of Time sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other two e-books in the series sell for the same price.  They are also available as a bundle, for $4.99, which is quite a good deal.  G.L. Breedon has four other e-books available, including the starts for two more series, ranging from $2.99 to $4.99.

“How do you manage to turn every triumph into an excuse for drinking?”  (loc. 4417)

    The issues are negligible.  The magic system is rather convoluted and the author spends considerable time detailing how it works.  I recognize this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” sort of thing, but for me, the mystical minutiae got tedious, and that made for some slow spots.

    I only have two other nits to pick.  First, there was a huge info dump in Chapter 9 about Aztec civilization, and halfway through the lecture, even I was ready to get back to the plotline.  Second, Nefferati’s ancestry seemed ambiguous.  When introduced, she’s said to be from the Euphrates (16%).  But later on, she’s described as being African (54%).  Sorry, those aren't synonymous terms.  I'm also a geography buff.

    But I quibble.  Time-Travel is one of my favorite genres, and G.L. Breedon’s The Wizard of Time is a worthy entry in this field.  I’d been going through time-travel withdrawals, and this book satisfied my craving just fine.

    7½ Stars.  (*) We’ll close with a trivia question, and leave the answer in the comments section: What's the record for the most Matryoska dolls nested within each other in a single set?

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

1987; 254 pages. Book #3 in the Discworld Series. Genre : Comedic Fantasy. Overall Rating : B-.

.

There are two immutable truths in Discworld : 1.) Wizards are men, and 2.) Witches are women. That is, until a dying wizard bequeaths his magic staff to the about-to-be-born eighth son of an eighth son (which we all know will become a sourceror), and that son instead turns out to be a first daughter. The village witch, Granny Weatherwax, tries to set things right again, but eventually has to admit that it will take some assistance from the stuffy old wizards at the Unseen University.

.

What's To Like...

The realms of witches and wizards are introduced into the Discworld saga. There are also some great new "concepts", such as Borrowing (where a witch enters the body of an animal such as a bird, and uses it for a time while coexisting with the animal's mind), and Headology (wherein, if you act like a witch, talk like a witch, and dress like a witch; people will see you as a witch without you having to perform any witchcraft). Finally, Pratchett adopts a new strategy - writing stories with themes and object lessons.

.

Where's Waldo?

Waldo isn't here. Neither are Rincewind, Twoflower, the Luggage, and Cohen the Barbarian. All of whom were major characters in the first two books. There are dwarves and humans here, but no golems, werewolves, dragons, or vampires. This is also before any of the Night Watch show up, and there's no sign of the Patrician.

.

Granny Weatherwax becomes a major character, and the banana-loving librarian is here. But the two other major figures in Equal Rites - Eskarina and Simon - are once and done. And ANAICT, the major lesson here (Equal Rights) doesn't stick either. In subsequent books the wizards are all men, and the witches are all women.

.

New/Kewl Words...

Pratchett books are always vocabulary-builders.

Inglenook : a corner by the fireplace. Jollop : a strong liquor or medicine. Tannoy : a type of public-address system. Heterodyne : having alternating currents of two different frequencies that combine to make two new frequencies. Alembic : an obsolete piece of labware that once was used for distillations. Souk : the open-air market in an Arabian city. Incunable : Ancient books produced in the earliest days of printing. Topiaric : concerning the art of clipping trees or shrubbery into recognizable shapes, such as animals. Pillion : the seat behind the rider of a horse or motorbike (or in this case, a broomstick). Cowin : Some sort of term of familiarity. Evidently a Pratchettism, as googling it didn't help.

.

Excerpt...

She let the animal go and looked out at the scenery again for a long time - the barge was passing between high orange cliffs now, banded with so many colours of rock it looked as though some hungry God had made the all-time record club sandwich - and tried to avoid the next thought. But it persisted, arriving in her mind like the unexpected limbo dancer under the lavatory door of Life. (pg. 103)

.

"There's no such thing as a female wizard!"

Equal Rites seems like both a once-only tangent and a pivotal book in the Discworld series. Most of the characters won't be seen again. Yet there is direction here - Pratchett seems to be saying the focus will be on Discworld itself, not on a particular character, such as, say, Rand al'Thor in the Wheel Of Time saga. And the zaniness already present will be supplemented by themes and morals.

.

Equal Rites will probably never be anyone's favorite Discworld volume, and I don't suggest it as the first-read for anyone new to the series. But it's still an entertaining read. We'll give it a "B-", and recommend it to all geeky readers (such as me) who like to watch the Discworld universe as it gradually adds new personalities, places, and species.

Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett

2009, 400 pages. The latest book (#37) in the Discworld series. Genre : Fantasy, Comedy. Overall Rating : B.

.

Per some fine print tied to a sizable financial donation to their University, Ankh-Morpork's wizards find themselves forced to learn the plebeian sport of foot-the-ball. Or football to you Old Worlders. Or soccer to us Yanks.

.

Meanwhile, the University's night kitchen has a new scullery maid, Juliet. A naive girl, slow of wit, but with looks that make even celibate Wizards turn sweaty. And from those two plot starting points, all mayhem eventuates.

.

What's To Like...

If you like new characters, there's lots of them. Glenda, Trev, Juliet, Pepe, Nutt, and more. If you don't like new characters, a lot of your old favorites - including Rincewind, the Luggage, and Sam Vimes - are here, at least making cameo appearances. And, "ook!", the librarian's back as well. There's even a new ...er... species introduced.

.

Pratchett's themes this time are football. hooligans, fashion models, cooking, (as usual) racial prejudice, and the esoteric "crab bucket philosophy". For the ladies, there's even some romance.

.

Unseen Academicals is not as uproariously funny as the early Discworld books. Yet it's still full of wit, and Pratchett deftly weaves all those themes and a bunch of plotlines into a cohesive tale. One of my favorite characters, the benevolent tyrant Vetinari, plays a larger-than-usual role here. Some critics say he's "differently portrayed", but I see it as "character development". My only personal quibble is that 95% of the story takes place within the walls of Ankh-Morpork. It's a great city, but I always enjoy visiting other parts of Discworld.

.

New Words...

There were a bunch of them : Concomitant (occurring the same time as another related event); Catenary (the natural curve of something flexible hung between two fixed points); Eventuate (to ultimately result (in)); Abseil (to descend by rope); Chatelaine (a chain worn around the waist, which holds all the castle's keys); Louche (of questionable taste and/or morality); Turbot (a European flatfish); Reticule (a lady's drawstring purse); and last but not least, Bledlow, which is some sort of chap that even Google and the Internet can't define. Perhaps Pratchett made this last one up.

.

Excerpts...

"Oh he was quite healthy," said the Archchancellor. "Just dead. Quite healthy for a dead man."

"He was a pile of dust, Archchancellor!"

"That's not the same as being ill, exactly," said Ridcully, who believed in never giving in. "Broadly speaking, it's stable." (pg. 30)

.

Sator Square was where the city went when it was upset, baffled, or fearful. People who had no real idea why they were doing so congregated to listen to other people who also did not know anything, on the basis that ignorance shared is ignorance doubled. (pg. 250)

.

Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not". They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana." (pg. 76)

.

Is this Pratchett's Swan Song?

In 2007, Pratchett posted online that he had been diagnosed as having a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Naturally, every reader of Unseen Academicals has an opinion as to how much this affected the book. My 2-cents is, "not very much". It is an excellently penned book.

.

However, there is a touching scene at the end, where Nutt asks his mentor, Lady Margolotta, "do I have worth?" She assures him he does. To which he replies, "Thank you. But I am learning that worth is something that must be continuously accumulated."

.

He then asks her, "Have I become?", and she tells him he has "become" as well. Both questions have to do with whether the world is now a (slightly) better place because of one's having existed in it. And although the person in question here is Nutt, I wonder if perhaps this isn't Terry Pratchett self-reflecting about his time in this world, and whether Unseen Academicals is perhaps the swan song of the Discworld series and his writing career.

.

If so, all I can say is, "Terry, you have worth. Terry, you have become. The world is a better place for you having passed through it."