A Wizard Alone

Young Wizard Series, Book 6

By: Diane Duane

Narrated by: Christina Moore

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

“A fine fantasy … Beautifully and fully imagined”—sixth in the marvelously magical young adult series from the author of The Wizard’s Dilemma (Booklist).

While Nita Callahan grieves over her mother’s death, Kit Rodriguez tackles a challenge as dangerous as it is strange: Rescue a young wizard who has vanished on his first assignment. This new wizard is unlike any other—he’s autistic and he’s a magical prodigy. His power is enormous.
Now Kit and his dog, Ponch, must track down the missing boy before the Lone Power finds him.

You can listen to Diane Duane's entire Young Wizard series.

©2002 Diane Duane (P)2003 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Duane's characters and plot will quickly draw [listeners] in." (School Library Journal)
"A fine fantasy." (Booklist)

Multiverse

Loved the way the storyline developed. Poncho is my favorite character, even though he’s a dog.

Odd pronunciation in some places

Others have commented on the very dated view of autism so I won’t repeat that. I was put off by Christina Moore’s incorrect pronunciation of some common words, after her pretty much flawless performance otherwise.

Wonderful

This is a timeless story.. you wouldn't know it was written so long ago! I still recommend this to kids and our library!

amazing

yet another amazing story in the young wizards series. now its on to yhe next one for me! :D

Not the best in the series... but still darn good!

Okay, it was time that the quality of this series took a hit. Instead of my normal enthusiastic five starts, this one only gets four.

Some of the narrative is confusing, and some of the facts are wrong. Autism, for example, doesn't suddenly strike eight-year-olds.

Still, there's much good in it, and I really liked the way it followed the events of A WIZARD'S DILEMMA. (No spoilers.)

It sort of feels like an in-between book. I expect that some of the details in this book will come up in the next two.

I've said it before, but the reader for this book is really good. Without launching into a full performance, she keeps the voices separate, and you can feel each character in the voice.

Knowledge shows...

Diane Duane's understanding of Autism is good. She presents a story that could be a very plausible explaination for some forms of the syndrome. I think that reading this novel could help some people understand Autism Spectrum from the point of view of some of the individuals who present with it.

There was also alot of humor in this book. The "awakening" of Kit's dog and the various electronic entities had me laughing out loud several times.

Aging has made it not very PC, try the new ebook.

This book was published in 2002, which is why the way it handled autism is kind of painful to listen to with modern ears. Back when I was a kid, I really loved this book, but the internet, and knowing some autistic people, has made parts of it, especially the ending, kind of not okay for me, which is sad. The book was rewritten recently with this in mind, so I'd recommend giving the Millennium Edition a try. They're currently only out as ebooks, but they'll eventually be published.
Diane Duane is amazing as usual, so the writing is good.
This book is kind of the "mental health" book of the series so far, dealing primarily with depression and autism. The story itself was really interesting, and, as usual, the worldbuilding is wonderful.
I highly recommend it, or the revised ebook.

messy representation but a solid story

the story was good like all of the young wizards novels but the autistic representation was a bit clumsy and done much better in the new millennium edition

Another excellent entry*

A good half of this book deals with depression. Nita and her family show different presentations of depression that I didn’t understand the first time I read this book in middle school. But now, having been dealing with depression for a while myself, I think the representation was handled well.

The other half of the book sees Kit attempting to communicate with an autistic child. People with a modern knowledge of autism, especially those who know autistic people and possibly autistic people themselves, may feel uncomfortable with this version of the book. This was first published in 2002, and we’ve learned a lot more about autism since then. This book received some major rewrites in the New Millennium Edition, and it might be a good idea to check out that version as well.

Christina Moore’s performance was stellar, as always. I never get tired of her narration and she has a beautiful speaking voice.