• Jayjader@jlai.luEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    Diane Duane’s “So you want to be a wizard?” series makes almost the exact opposite in creative choices as Rowling does for Harry Potter:

    • female protagonist with male best friend and partner-in-training
    • becoming a wizard is something that you choose, not something you are born into
    • being a wizard means upholding a certain responsibility towards the rest of the world, specifically that of slowing the progression of entropy and of the universe reaching heat death
    • as part of their initiation, each wizard personally confronts and is tempted by an embodiment of entropy - a sort of reverse pact-with-the-fel
    • Wizards learn their magic through their personal magic guide book, not some boarding school. The book automatically updates it’s content according to what the wizard is currently interested in learning about.
    • magic is not incompatible with technology. although the main character is more into “nature” magic at the start of the series, her best friend is very mechanically inclined and his brand of magic follows suit. There is also a young wizard-in-training in a later book whose “personal magic guide book” takes the form of a laptop.

    The author seems to have pretty decent views. Notably, she heavily rewrote one of the books that features an autistic wizard kid after getting feedback on how ablist she had written it the first time. (Which means if you’re interested in picking them up, do really try to get a more recent printing).

    There’s also a book in the series that deals with having a parent losing the battle against cancer.

    All in all, while they never gave me similar feelings of whimsy and quirk as Harry Potter, I loved these books just as deeply while growing up.

  • kusttra@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    I really like the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage (as well as the follow on trilogy, the Todd-Hunter Moon series). They aren’t too much alike in content (other than both being about wizards), but the fun, whimsical, magical feel is very similar, imo.

    • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
      51·
      4 days ago

      HPMoR author is an AI techbro with some real bad opinions. and unlike jk, they are apparent in the book on a first read.

    • Blaze (he/him)@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      4·
      4 days ago

      Omg, can you stop with this?

      This is the second post made about this topic on the community today. Seems relevant due to JKR latest declarations.

      I just noticed there was a third post (https://slrpnk.net/post/23014087), but my instance blocks advocate.com for some reason (just messaged the admin about this).

      I want to be able to enjoy the series without constantly people reminding me how bad the author is. I know.

      I follow HP news regularly, but wasn’t aware about the author latest moves. Other people are probably in that case as well.

      Thank you for the recommendations. I really enjoyed His Dark Materials, but it still feels different due to the different tone. HDM is much more mature and serious, and less whimsical than HP, especially with the lack of the daily life at Hogwarts. Not sure if any other series has a similar setting while still being distinct rather than a complete copy-paste, hence this thread.