I only meant to set it up, and then go to bed - Duane sucked me in again, and I couldn't pull away for hours. And then I woke up next morning and read the rest straight through. Lovely to see Kit and Nita, and Dairine, and....everybody back in action; and I agree with Irina, at the very least they should be _expecting_ something like this whenever they hook Nita and Kit into something. I'm surprised there's been no mention of the Invitational (not as a reader, but in-universe) before; though I suppose the story hasn't really gone eleven years yet, so the last one was before So You Want to Be a Wizard. There's a lot of focus on sex (not active, just...thinking) and relationships; Nita's backbrain points this out, in case she, or you-the-reader, hadn't noticed. At least one homosexual couple and one asexual character - and in both cases, Nita's response is mild embarrassment that she hadn't realized it before. Like Lissa, I greatly appreciate that. Penn is utterly obnoxious, and I'm not sure what part the Simurgh played in that - Ronan didn't seem to change tremendously when he lost his outrider. But at least Penn apologized; we'll have to see, eventually, if it sticks for more than a few days. Mehrnaz is great, and I'm glad she (is beginning to) learns to stand up for herself; hope she can stick to it. I don't really understand what happened at the climax - the "looking at you across the board" bit. Did that get Penn out of the fire so Nina could reach him? Not sure. And I guess the scariest of the scary dreams were on the other side of the knife-edge - if Penn had not acted, that is. Or they're still to come - the I Ching piece in the front had me nervous. There is a _lot_ going on in this story - I can see where people say it's setting up future events, but there's plenty happening here too. If nothing else, the biggest puzzle and sorrow for several books gets resolved. Enjoyable - of course, it's a Duane and a Young Wizards - very rich and complex, some _fascinating_ new characters and some new lights on old ones. This will be worth rereading, definitely. I'm only sorry it took me so long to get to it in the first place. ( )

I really enjoyed this one, and rather look forward to at least a couple of the characters' returns. ( )

I really enjoyed the concept of the wizard's Invitational. It was fun to read about a competition that felt a little more low-stakes than the usual world-saving fare that our heroes are normally up to, especially since this book focused largely on the relationships between characters (Kit and Nita's, in particular). I thought that Penn and Mehrnaz were great characters (maybe not likable, in Penn's case, but good from a writing perspective) and I enjoyed watching their relationships develop with their respective mentors.

My main complaint with this one was that not enough was built up with Penn's whole situation. There's a scene where he is placed in a certain situation face-to-face and gets freaked out, and Nita and Kit discuss how this will become a problem and that they will need to address it before it comes up in the competition, but we never really see a scene where it gets addressed by them or worked on at all.

I also didn't think that there was enough build-up to what ended up happening in the end with Penn's character. I understand that there was an amount of foreshadowing build into the story for it, but it still felt like it came a bit out of left field for me. I wanted slightly more information presented ahead of time about the situation so that things would feel more clear and a little more like the natural progression of events.

In addition, I thought that Kit's whole gaming group came together without enough proper introduction. Multiple new wizards who I don't believe we've ever seen "onscreen" before are featured from the very beginning of this novel, but they are presented as familiar to us because Kit already knows them. The whole thing is a bit disorienting because I felt like I was supposed to remember meeting them all but they were complete strangers to me. I wished that the beginning could be rewritten as a little more of a slow introduction to those characters for the reader, especially considering the gaming group itself isn't really a significant part of the story (though the individual characters pop up and contribute here and there).

Aside from that, it was a good book and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next one brings. ( )

Super cozy - wizard conference! ( )

Big book. Worth sticking with it. Lots of exposition, and the climax/resolution is jump up and hurrah good.

I learned a couple of excellent words - spinney and 'making dua.'

Nita's interactions with the Lone One are minor in this book, but they stand out as companionable instead of adversarial. Interesting!

Best line ever?: "Sorry." Irina said. "If you are going to routinely be a force for good, you'd better get used to the paperwork." ( )