So You Want to be a Wizard
Cover art for So You Want to Be a Wizard
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| Author | Diane Duane |
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| Cover artist | Cliff Nielsen |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Young Wizards |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Harcourt Trade Publishers |
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Publication date
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1983 (first printing by Delacorte Press, reprinted 1996 by Harcourt) |
| Media type | Print (Mass market paperback) |
| Pages | 400 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 45835466 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | Deep Wizardry |
So You Want To Be a Wizard is the first book in the Young Wizards series currently consisting of eleven books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published in the next year. In 2012 a revised "New Millennium Edition" was published. The plot follows Nita Callahan, a thirteen-year-old girl who discovers a book titled So You Want to Be a Wizard while hiding from bullies in a library. She brings the book home with her and discovers that it is about the art of wizardry. She does not completely trust the book's claim that she can become a wizard if she takes the Wizard Oath, but she takes it nonetheless. The next day when she is out trying to do her first spell she meets Kit Rodriguez, another wizard. After they successfully complete a spell together, Nita's doubts are gone: she is a wizard.
Nita Callahan, taking refuge in the library from bullies, checks out a book found in the children's section with the provocative title So You Want To Be a Wizard. On the way home, the bullies corner her, beat her up, and take a space pen given to her by her uncle. Before Nita goes to sleep, she takes the Wizard's Oath. The next morning she looks at her manual and sees her name in the wizards list.
She goes to a quiet place to work a pen retrieval spell, and meets Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, also a new wizard. Kit is making a spell intended to surround him with an aura of fearlessness. Combining their intentions, they create a new spell, which presents a vision of an alternate Manhattan: polluted, lightless, and frightening. A terrible being composed of pure desire reaches up to consume them, and to escape, they open their minds to the universe - which ends up bringing an intelligent white hole from space. Translated into English and simplified, the white hole's name is "Fred".
The next day at school Fred and Nita attempt to retrieve Nita's pen from her bullies, but Fred miscalculates the gravity required to lift the pen from the bullies' possession, and instead accidentally swallows it. This makes Fred hiccup objects, including a television, a blue Mercedes, and a LearJet. After school, they seek help from the local Advisory Wizards. Fred's problem is fixed, but Nita's pen is not recovered. In order to retrieve it, they must link Fred to a worldgate in Grand Central Station and pull the pen out of Fred.
Fred also has some alarming news: a crucial book has gone missing. Called the Naming of Lights, it is a compendium of information that describes the true nature of everything that has or will exist. It is also known as The Book of Night with Moon because it can only be read by moonlight. Its shadow, The Book Which is Not Named, contains descriptions that are twisted out of their true patterns. If the Lone Power - the being of desire and hate sensed by Nita and Kit - were to read the shadow Book without the bright Book being read, the cosmos would be irreparably skewed.
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Wikipedia