“Wizards at War” by Diane Duane

Just finished the seventh book in the Young Wizards series (check out the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh books I wrote about previously). This is also the last book that I read as a teen, and I kind of assumed it was the series finale for a while. It definitely feels like one for sure with the way it opens.

Nita and Kit have just returned from their little exchange program thing, and the other aliens are still over at the Callahans’ as well. Tom and Carl stop by to give some sad news, there’s a Pullulus, or a giant thing of dark matter, dramatically speeding up the expansion of the universe. It’s impacting wizardry in a way where spells aren’t working as well because they can’t update the metrics of the space in time, and it’s causing people to become disconnected, more irritable, and eventually will cause the adult wizards to lose their wizardry. So in essence, this is a warning that Nita and Kit are about to be promoted to Senior wizards.

Filif, Sker’ret, and Roshaun agree to stick around a help out, plus Kit calls Ronan over from Ireland. Ronan’s ability to channel one of the Powers That Be has given him some insider information about a potential weapon. Most of them head off with Ponch (after checking in with some old friends like Sree and Darryl on the moon with other recently promoted wizards) to try and find this weapon. Meanwhile, Dairine and Roshaun first update Roshaun’s parents and then go to see Dairine’s bot children. The bots manage to extract more information from Dairine that she didn’t know was there, and she learns that this “weapon” is a version of the Lone One (the Power that created death) that never turned evil. This is called the Hesper, and Dairine takes off to find Nita and the others. Nita meanwhile has gone home to try and check in on her dad, and learns that Tom and Carl have lost their wizardry. Sker’ret goes with her and they end up fighting off mercenaries on Sker’s home planet where they run into Carmela who has fled Earth to find them.

While Nita’s gone, the group disguises themselves as the giant bugs that inhabit the planet Ponch brings them to and the start poking around. Ponch though ends up bringing the Hesper to them where they chat about how life on this planet is around the collective, there are no “I”s and no individuality. Nita returns with Carmela and they talk to the Hesper, learning that her name is Memeki. They get found out and brought before the king bug that’s inhabited by the Lone One. Carmela ends up blowing it apart after the Lone One dismantles wizardry from working (she has a hair curler that doubles as a blaster). The Lone One manifests and starts being vicious, so Ronan sacrifices himself to release the Power from him. This triggers Memeki into becoming the Hesper, she cleanses the planet in the process. Ronan is dragged back from death and they head home. Filif breaks off in the process to check on his home planet as well.

The others book it back to Earth where the Pullulus has become a big problem. Multiple things are tried that fail, including Roshaun disappearing after blasting it with some sun power. Kit tells Ponch to take Carmela home and save their parents, Ponch refuses and then turns into a gigantic dog-shadow that rises up and fights the Pullulus. It gets revealed that Ponch is a sort of god-dog now, leading his species to further enlightenment. They head home and learn that they still need to go to school tomorrow, so there’s that to look forward to.

There is so much that happens in this book. Like truly so much, the narration jumps between Nita, Kit, and Dairine depending on who is doing what and there are many new concepts introduced. My favorite part though is that so many characters return and make another appearance which not only cuts down on the novelty a little but also shows the extent of this issue. Sree represents the Senior Wizard for like a whole ocean now, and Darryl helps to give advice. We get to catch up with Gigo and Logo on Dairine’s planet of wizard computers too. I really like that Ronan gets to come back though since we spend the most time with him and hearing about how he’s doing when Nita checks in on him. But there’s also how the world gets expanded, such as returning to the Crossings with Sker’ret and hearing about Sker’s relationship to his family, or seeing Dairine on Roshaun’s world talking to his parents. It hits a very good mix of old and new content. And not to bring this up again, but the fact that this powerful being isn’t on Earth is so great and so non-humanoid/Earth centric.

Now I’m sure that this was on purpose, but it is a little confusing to me that we do not get a great sense of what the Hesper even is by the end of the book. Yes they’re a Lone Power that never fell, but what does that mean beyond the Good Guys getting another warrior? In theory all of the other Powers work towards supporting life so it cannot be that different of a job. And part of this is likely because just so much of the Powers is outside our comprehension, they all exist outside of time and usually outside of space so really what hope is there for us to understand that? I hope it comes back in later books though because I would love an explanation.

Then there’s Ponch becoming the dog god. What a good boy. It is interesting that there are cat wizards and whale wizards, but no dog wizards. Ponch was probably the closest but apparently that’s being a god or something. I wonder if this means there can now be dog wizards or something? At the very end of the book it talks about Kit’s grief over this, over not having Ponch as a pet anymore. But before it gets too far into it, Ponch is revealed to be part of every dog ever and talks to Kit through a random sheepdog. Which is really sweet, as a dog person I was crying a little.

This is such an excellent book. It incorporates so much work from the previous books in the series, ups the ante considerably, and goes in some cool new directions. It’s a lot of what I like about this series all in one book. I’m excited to keep reading and get to books that I did not read in my youth as well though!