Off the Bookshelf: THE WIZARDS OF ONCE: TWICE MAGIC, by Cressida Cowell

 

Audiobook

Narrated by David Tennant

Xar is a boy wizard, Wish is a girl warrior. They're friends, but wizards and warriors aren't supposed to be friends. They're supposed to hate and fight and kill each other. However ... Xar has broken a few important magical rules, and he's a trial to his father, the king of the wizards. Wish has a magic eye and has the power of magic that affects iron, which is supposed to be able to fight magic. She's clumsy and messy and accident-prone, and an embarrassment to her perfect, regal, icy mother, the queen of the warriors.

Naturally, the two misfit children would find each other and cause all sorts of havoc. That was in the previous book. Now they're both in trouble, locked up one way or another to protect them and try to straighten them out. Xar escapes an inescapable prison against all logic, and breaks into the warrior fortress to fetch Wish to help him on a mission to destroy the witches that have returned to the Badwoods. Hunted by witch sniffers and warriors and Droods and angry wizards and all sorts of nasty creatures who want to steal Xar and Wish's magic, the children are on a quest to get the magical ingredients for a spell that will save their world. If their parents will let them.

Delicious fun and silliness. It sounds like a cast of thousands, but this is only the amazing vocal range of David Tennant playing all the characters, creating sound effects, and even singing some extremely silly songs.

Thank goodness there's another book  in the series waiting in the queue!

Off the Bookshelf: THE WIZARDS OF ONCE, by Cressida Cowell

Audible book. A new series by the author who brought us How to Train Your Dragon.

Major fun. Inspired silliness. Captivating action sequences. Sly humor. Can I say I'm hoping they make this into an animated movie/TV series too?

Basic story line: There are wizards and there are warriors. Wizards are magic, warriors want to wipe out magic. Along comes our misfit heroes, who as you might guess, clash in a big way. First there's Xar, the son of the wizard leader, whose magic hasn't "come in" yet -- he's a troublemaker and kind of stupidly arrogant, but in an endearing way -- and he's determined to find some way to steal magic, because his older brother is a self-righteous pain in several portions of his anatomy. Then there's Wish, the youngest daughter of the warrior queen, with an eye patch and a bad leg, who's always messy and disappointing her beautiful, cold mother. And her assistant bodyguard/friend, Bodkin, who's trying to keep her out of trouble. Magic and magical items are forbidden, and the warriors are armed with iron, which should cancel out magic Funny thing: Wish has a new friend/pet -- an iron spoon that's come alive. When the spoon runs away, after Bodkin says they have to turn it in to the queen to have its magic removed, Wish goes after the spoon. Bodkin goes with Wish to keep her out of trouble. They run into Xar and his band of assorted magical creatures, out to capture a witch (not what you think -- it's got feathers and it's part feline and it's dang nasty, with poison blood) to extract its magic, to make Xar magic. Doesn't matter that witches are supposed to be extinct, and to run into one is usually fatal. Maybe.

I'm not going to tell you any more. You have to hear this to believe it.

Trust me, get the audio version, because David Tennant (one of the many Drs. Who) is the narrator and he's brilliant and funny, with all the voices he creates, adding up to an audio feast.