NGC 2403 In Camelopardalis

Young Wizards will always be the best YA series because you’ll fall in love with and cry about sentient tears in spacetime, sharks, amalgamations of spheres, computers, gods, macaws, and most importantly you’ll begin to believe fiercely in the beauty and heartbreak of the universe.

I want to talk about the things I love about Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, and buckle up because I have a lot of feelings. Also, spoilers.

First off, the whole philosophy of wizardry as a force for good and protection is so great. The Oath lays it out for us: “In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life’s service alone. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way…etc.” Capital L, Life, as though it’s something holy. And that Life is people, and animals, and aliens, and plants, and artificial intelligence, and white holes, and sometimes inanimate objects, because, in a sort of animism viewpoint, everything has some aspect of Life to it and is worth being protected. Nita initially seeks out wizardry as a way to protect herself, and then when  she uses it to scare and intimidate her bullies, she realizes it feels wrong…because that’s not what wizardry is for. 

In almost every book we usually see wizardry being used in combat to fight the Lone Power or defend somebody, and even then sometimes it’s less of causing physical violence and has more of an emotional or psychological aspect to it and is about making the right choice or convincing someone else to, like in the Song of Twelve - yes, they did some fighting, but the whole thing hinged on Nita’s sacrifice. This combat happens sometimes, because sometimes you have to fight in order to protect Life, but it only happens occasionally. Most of the day-to-day wizardry we see is like, mediating arguments between angry trees, or stopping earthquakes, or relocating endangered species to new planets. Because you don’t just encourage growth and ease pain by fighting bad guys, you do it in everyday things. One thing that really stood out to me was in Games Wizards Play when Nita was mad at Penn and she wanted to yell at him and punch him, but she reminded herself that that would increase entropy and thus went against her duty as a wizard. It was super interesting to see that philosophy of wizardry being involved in her mindset when interacting with other people, and is maybe something more people should adapt into our real lives - taking a moment to think about if our actions will increase negativity in the world when there are better actions to choose. 

And that’s what makes Kit and Penn’s duel so irresponsible. Not only is it reckless and immature to fight someone over a girl at a party with a bunch of intergalactic dignitaries present, but the fact that they allowed their anger and jealousy to cause them to deliberately attempt to use their wizardry to potentially cause harm and distress to each other, even with Ronan making sure everything went down safely? For such a frivolous reason? Irina was right to be furious, because that’s not what wizards do. 

And then I really like how The Powers That Be are simultaneously incarnations of every religious figure ever, and sometimes not religious, and every interpretation is real and valid. The Lone Power is the same as Betty Callahan’s Devil and Ireland’s Balor. The Winged Defender is Michael, and Thor, and Athene (and Peach!). Mernahz is a wizard who acts at the behest of The Powers That Be, and yet is also a devout Muslim who regularly prays to Allah. With all the diversity in general - gay wizards, autistic wizards, asexual wizards, deaf wizards, whale wizards, alien wizards, robot wizards - we get this incredible sense of simultaneously having diversity and unity. They all took the same Oath, even if they have different versions of the Manual, and they all call each other “cousin” because they’re united in their place in the Universe (or multiverse?) to protect Life. 

The science! The blending of magic with science and science fiction feels so natural. Of course if you’re going to use magic to act on the universe, you have to understand how the universe works and how your spell’s going to interact with it, because the universe on most days can’t break the laws of science, and you have to work with those laws. Science does not falter in the face of magic; they coexist. Heck, the entropy that the wizards work to slow is a scientific concept in itself. And of course if you’re a wizard you can go to other planets and meet aliens, and of course some of those aliens might be wizards. And the fact that the wizard’s duel requires them to physically take the form of elements and use their scientific knowledge rather than just hurling flashy spells at each other. And then the whole explanation of how the planets’ form of intimacy is to resonate through time and space, and it was a whole physics-based description but somehow still romantic and powerful? Love it.

Carmela! She’s such a great character, and not just because she’s entertaining. She taught herself the Speech because she thought her brother’s wizard shenanigans seemed interesting and wanted to get involved but doesn’t want to be a wizard herself (and you know, I’d love to know why). She acts not only as a teasing big sister to Kit, but also as sort of an honorary big sister and older female mentor to Nita in her mother’s absence. She loves fashion and shopping, and is also a genius at linguistics and started her own possibly-slightly-illegal intergalactic chocolate trading empire.

There’s a lot more I could talk about, like the Speech and the method for writing spells, and the more fun-and-games side of wizardry, and the repeated concept of Choice (I would willingly write a whole paper on that), and that whole bit about making politicians look at the Earth from the Moon until they understand what they’ve signed up for. But I’m going to end by talking about the transformation of Harry Callahan. Shortly after I read Games Wizards Play, I lent my friend the first book. She texted me going, “wow her dad’s such a jerk, he has such a temper and he gets mad at her for not fighting the bullies instead of being sympathetic” and I got whiplash. I had completely forgotten that he was like that in the first few books - getting angry, yelling, Nita calling him “sir” - because the Harry Callahan of the more recent books - comforting a distressed tree alien, sitting in a lawn chair on the Moon to cheer on his daughter’s mentee, just overall being softer and more supportive and understanding - is practically a different person. It’s been a long time since I read A Wizard’s Dilemma and A Wizard Alone, but I would guess that the change happens somewhere in there, as he suddenly finds himself a single parent of two teenage wizards. It might be that the loss and the shouldering of more responsibility changed him; on a meta level, it might be that we got to see him develop more because we get to see more of him in Betty’s absence. It could be both, and even be partially due to his exposure to the philosophy of wizardry and the growth and responsibility of his children. Either way it’s a drastic transition for the better that happens so naturally and seamlessly that I didn’t even notice. 

These are such wonderful books, such a beautiful celebration of life and science and choice and kindness and existence, and I’m so glad that they exist.

Celestial Monsters by Chris Keegan

The thrill of outer space is that we really just have no goddamned clue what’s out there. Aliens? Sentient planets? Intergalactic space police? Probably all of these, plus unfathomably more bizarre creations we couldn’t possibly produce with our earthly imaginations. Chris Keegan took a pretty good stab at it though, manipulating images from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory of floating space debris and vast, lightyears-spanning nebule into dark and majestic forms, surely just an echo of the monolithic entities just beyond our telescopic grasp…

Artist: Website (via: Wired / io9)

One of Fred’s shyer relatives breaks cover…

(via Black Hole Discovered Which Emits Brilliant Light)

Cosmic Dance: Creation of Supermassive Black Holes

Evolution of two equal sized galaxies colliding and forming a massive cloud of gas that will collapse into black hole.

Credit: Ohio State University