A Wizard of Mars Recap
So, I just finished A Wizard of Mars in one seriously nonstop sitting, and as promised, have chronicled my reactions. I tried to keep them organized, but kind of lost the thread somewhere around chapter 3, so forgive me for a lot of squeeing, capslock, and lulzing.
I also did google earth screencaps of all the places that they visited (or at least that I remembered to do. Umm, I am sure that I missed some.)
THERE ARE SERIOUS SPOILERS HERE. LIKE, VERY LEGIT, PLOT-IMPORTANT SPOILERS. IF YOU DON'T CARE, READ AHEAD, BUT IF YOU DO CARE, MY SQUEEING IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT. GO READ THE BOOK. I PROMISE IT WILL BE A BETTER READ.
CHAPTER ONE
Oh, Kit and your textbook mimicking wizard’s manual. HAHA SUCH A SLACKER I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THAT!
Also, keeping his mechanical specialty. And he uses it to fix an AC system. (DEAR KIT: ILU)
Incidentally, is this the first time we’ve seen them in class?
Kit’s got a named friend! Raoul Eschemeling!
DEAR KIT: ILU AND YOUR SEXY MARTIAN PRINCESS FANTASIES
(ALSO: NERDY HISTORY TEACHER. <333333333333333)
“If a historian needs anything it’s imagination. The dates, the place names, the battles… they’re not what’s most important. What matters is thinking yourself into those people’s heads. Imagine how the world looked to them - their sky, their sea. Their tools. Their houses. Their troubles. That’s how what they did starts to make sense. Along with what we do in the same situations…” (17)
Wizards manuals: getting more and more like iPhones every day
CHAPTER TWO
ONE OF THE KOI IS NAMED DOITSU. I don’t care if it probably refers to the word for “who”. IT’S A GERMANY FISH. (Is it black orange and red? CAUSE THAT WOULD BE COOLEST)
Haha, no, he’s silver. /just looked back
“You try again. Assuming you haven’t blown up the world or something in the meantime…” Sound advice there.
Carmela is my hero. Going on a jaunt across the universe, then doing fantastic on her PSAT and getting goaded into going to an ivy league school. (I bet she doesn’t go.)
I THINK TOM MIGHT BE THE BESTEST GUIDE IN THE UNIVERSE. (senioooor power!) Go look it up yourself indeed. (ALSO, EEEE, FIRST MENTION OF ROSHAUN. Kay I’ll not fangirl myself.)
TOMATOES, OH MY GOODNESS A BAG OF TOMATOES
Carmela just plops over to Nita’s house randomly to mess with the TV? (<333)
YW universe has vampires. Also, HELENA! (I have been wanting to meet her since FOREVER.)
Wanjaxing. Another to add to the list of alien things we shall likely never have explained to us.
RIRHATH HAS A SHOPPING MALL. (I so called that one.) And Carmela’s reward for saving the universe is a shopping spree there!
I’ve been watching too much anime. PROBABLY THE BEST RESPONSE TO THINKING YOU SEE BLUE HAIRED PEOPLE EVER.
(Also, I spy foreshadowing!)
“Powers that Be in a bucket!”
Nita never looked up swear words in the Speech. OH GIRL GO LOOK THEM UP NOW. (I should not be encouraging. I’m bettin’ Carmela knows them.)
“Tomatoes are just happiest on earth…” (CAUSE THEY’VE GOT SPAIN AND ITALY TO LOVE THEM. I mean, uhh… cough. DEAR HETALIA: GET OUT OF MY BRAIN.)
THE CATALYST FOR THIS ENTIRE VENTURE IS TOMATOES. (I AM APPROVE.)
LOL There’s mostly dead, and then there’s all dead. (I know I’m misquoting that.)
The Planetary Wizard for Earth is a mom who wears a floppy straw hat and takes her baby and parakeet to Mars with her. (DEAR IRINA: IT MAY SEEM LIKE I <3 YOU FROM FIRST APPEARANCE, AND YOU WOULD BE CORRECT TO THINK SO)
CHAPTER THREE
THE LONE POWER PLAYED FREAKING HOOKEY ON MAMVISH’S ORDEAL (BAD. ASS.)
WELLAKH YUSSSSS~. (Don’t pretend like this isn’t the reason we’re all reading this book. I mean, uhh /cough)
Oh, DAIRINE.
Looks like I need to revise my Wellakh essay now. (LOL I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THE NUMBER OF WIZARDS. BUT COMPLETELY RIGHT ON SOME OTHER THINGS) LOL DIANE DUANE, MAKING IT SUPER OBVIOUS ABOUT THE NAMING THING. (Did she read my essay and my griping? :3)
DID DAIRINE JUST TAKE TO WELLAKH’S FASHION??!! (<333333) BB IS POLITICALLY SAVVY
Dairine’s and Nelaid’s hair is exactly the same? UHH YEAH THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES (she was meant to live on Wellakh, I’d say. /shipping pings)
T-T Nelaid’s brother. And his reactions! (Soooo repressed but so obvious. YOUR SON WILL BE BACK, BB. IF ONLY SO HE CAN MACK ON DAIRINE.)
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS IS WHAT SHE WAS PRACTICING. GEEZ, NITA!
Wizardry runs Twitter feeds now. (TEXT MESSAGE ALERTS. WHAT IS THIS??!!)
Lacrosse on crack. Just sayin’.
KIT’S BROMANCE WITH RONAN AND DARRYL, TIS EPIC. I LOVE IT.
Also, gobsmacked is a good choice of words. (RONAN DOESN”T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS HOT LADY ALMOST JUMPING HIS BONES. HE AIN’T GOT NO IDEA. Also, lol, subtle Roshaun reference there.)
RONAN YOU ARE SUCH A DORK. (AVIATORS: HOT)
Also also, Kit and his hormones. <3333
PEEAACCHHHHH~ (Hot damn girl, if your prophecies are still working around now. HAHA THIS COULD BE TOTAL RETCON AND YET I LOVE IT THE MOST?)
LOL WIZARD TWITTER. (Really, no matter what fancy words you give it like Secondary spin, it’s still Wizard Twitter) OH AND GOOGLE EARTH (with a suuuuper-high zoom level) Y’HEAR THAT GOOGLE? GET IN ON THIS.
“He’s used to having people jump when he says, not the other way around.” Which is just another way of saying he likes Dairine and wants her family to like him too. (DADDY APPROVES, APPARENTLY.)
Elemental affinities, hmm? I’d like to hear more about this. (It’s too obvious to not be brought up again. Chekhov’s Wizardry and everything.)
NO, THEY WON’T STOP WITH THE DATING REFERENCE. BECAUSE IT’S TRUE! ALSO: S’REEE BOYFRIEND, FORTHEWIN.
‘Keep Out: Male Bonding Field Trip’ (TOTAL BROMANCE. I want fic of those three just hangin around now. Y’KNOW, BEIN BROS.)
Carmela: Only Girl On The Planet With Her Own Crossings Gate (and So Flippant About It)
LOL THIS BOOK. (WAY TO UP THE SWEAR WORD QUOTIENT, DD.)
The Louise Skylight. (LOL CARMELA, YOU CANNOT LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.)
I will probably never, ever get over that WizPod thing. (I WANT ONE.)
Lol Darryl, Ronan has been using a lot worse language than “bugger off”, you know. <3
Nita’s on the “Pluto’s a planet” side of the debate. I AM OCCASIONALLY INCLINED TO AGREE. (Why can’t they all the little dwarf-planets be planets?)
I am hella envious of Carmela’s steganographic gift. ALSO SPOILER ALERT: THE BOOK IS NOT EVEN ABOUT MARTIANS. Though I’m not sure about her translating - either she understands syntax and can translate syntactic grammar really well, or the spell was helping her along, or the not-Martians had grammatic-structure very similar to English. (I am betting choice two.) Because it sounded like she was translating as she went, which very rarely comes out in fully formed sentences. (Uhh at least in languages with super-different structure, as I imagine Not-Martianese would be.)
“You don’t need a social life later. You need one now.” (BRO BONDING TIME. I LOVE IT.)
WAR OF THE WORLDS ON MARS (I knew the machines on the front looked familiar. Obviously, they are NOT the scorpion things.) I SEE WHUT YOU DID THAR WITH THE COVER.
STEPHEN FREAKING HAWKING. ARE THERE NO NERDY REFERENCES YOU WILL NOT MAKE?
KIT ACTUALLY MEETS HIS MARTIAN PRINCESS! BRB LOLING FOREVER NOW. (Does he get some action now too? Nita got some in book four, it’s only fair.)
THAT IS THREE DAMMITS NOW. I SHOULD CHRONICLE THESE.
Also: GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN??!! That is totally Nita’s ringtone for Carmela. (OK, that fanmix from a few months ago? HOW MUCH DID YOU TOTALLY NAIL IT??!! SO MUCH!)
OH KIT YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH NITA, LOTS MORE THAN YOU WANNA DO WITH THE MARTIAN PRINCESS. (SQUEEEEEEE~)
Princess Girl (uhh, Aurileld?) is a seer? Hrmmm. I’m wondering if this is a reference to Nita’s gift.
MARVIN??!! MARVIN THE MARTIAN IS IN THIS? (Dear book: ILU more than you can imagine.)
LOL NITA SO JEALOUS
Aaaaand we get to meet Helena! (YAAAAAY!)
The manual is like a wizardly wiki. Only, y’know, universe-wide. (That is kind of fantastic.)
SHE IS CONSIDERING THE WORD BOYFREIND, OMG. NITA, BB, KIT TOTES WANTS YOU AS A GIRLFRIEND. BE THE BFFOTP THAT YOU WERE ALWAAAAYS MEANT TO!
“Mi closet, su closet.”
OK, WIZARD ALIEN ROMEO AND JULIET. (And there was the death knell of my fic. I am not actually that sad. I am actually feeling kinda proud of myself at the moment.)
“Dammit Count”: four
UMM YES NITA IS RIDICULOUSLY HOT WITH HER SUPERPOWERED JETS OF WATER PUTTING THE SMACKDOWN ON MISS PRINCESS. (OH BABY OH BABY.)
“war’s the easy way out of conflict” OHMYGOODNESS, THAT LINE.
Does the Dammit Counter work when it’s “damn it”?
MY BOYFRIEND. HOLYSHIT SHE TOTALLY SAID “MY BOYFRIEND”. ALSO, NITA LAYING THE SMACKDOWN ABOUT HOW LOVE WORKS ON AURILELDE? TOTALLY AWESOME.
I FEEL IT NECESSARY TO SAY THAT I LOVE IRINA AND ANYTHING SHE DOES. I THINK I MAY LOVE HER THE BEST??!! (Well, except for everybody else who is my most favorite also.)
I ALSO FEEL IT NECESSARY TO SAY THAT I LOVE HELENA AND HER COMIC-BOOK LOVING OBTUSE WAYS
Ohdear, time travel in this series. I love it.
POOOOOOONNNNNNCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Took you long enough.” LIKE EIGHT BOOKS TOO LONG! (OMG, SQUEEE, BOYFRIEEENNNDDDDDDD~ JUST THAT ONE WORD AND HFAJDKFL;NBGB)
Final thoughts:
SO THIS TOTALLY SCRAPS MY WHOLE WIZARDS OF THE SKY FIC. Considering the entire premise of that was to take the Romeo and Juliet story and basically subvert it like this book does, only MUCH LESS AWESOME. I feel a little proud that I managed to pick up on that though, forserious.
Irina is probably one of the most fantastic people and I love her for all time. Also, MAMVISH.
Wow, Diane Duane totally upped the swearing quotient in this book. (Like seriously, how many times was that?)
The story was super fantastic and I loved it and wow, it all pulled together. WAW is probably still my favorite of the series, but OH MAN THIS WAS EPIC TO THE CORE.
ALSO: BOOOYYYFFRRIIIEEENNNDDDDDDD (that may be one of the most perfect things i have ever read in my life, that last conversation.)
NOW FOR CAPS
OHAITHAR MARS. LOOK AT THAT BAMF PLANET.
And here is Indonesia, Earth. Though it'd be cool if it was Mars. But is is instead Indonesia. But it's got komodo dragons and an alien dinosaur, so that should MORE than make up for it.
The Syrtis Major Planum, aka, where they found the superegg.
A CLOSE UP
And Nilli Pateria. LOOKIT THOSE SWEET DUNES.
(One of those could be hiding a superegg right now and we wouldn't even know.)
Elysium Mons, KIT'S FAVE TRANSPORT SPOT
Stokes Crater, site of Darryl's test
"Sounds like one of Ronan's Irish swear words."
AND ANOTHER CRATER
(What was the importance of this one? I don't remember. I AM SURE KIT COULD TELL YOU, THE DORK.)
GUSEV CRATER: SITE OF WAR OF THE WORLDS ON MARS
(Also, there's Spirit. Hi, little buddy!)
AAAND, THE INFAMOUS HUTTON CRATER: SITE OF ALIEN CONTACT WITH SKIMPILY CLAD MARTIAN PRINCESSES
Argyre Planitia: SITE OF EPIC SHOWDOWS FOR THE FATE OF THE PLANET, AND NITA'S SUPER AWESOMENESS
WAHOOOOOOO~
(OK, I know they didn't quite go there. Shut up.)
IN ADDENDUM: THIS is a lovely picture of the area around the Spirit Rover, with a very good image of Gusev Plain. Go check it out and imagine some tripod aliens!
I also did google earth screencaps of all the places that they visited (or at least that I remembered to do. Umm, I am sure that I missed some.)
THERE ARE SERIOUS SPOILERS HERE. LIKE, VERY LEGIT, PLOT-IMPORTANT SPOILERS. IF YOU DON'T CARE, READ AHEAD, BUT IF YOU DO CARE, MY SQUEEING IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT. GO READ THE BOOK. I PROMISE IT WILL BE A BETTER READ.
CHAPTER ONE
Oh, Kit and your textbook mimicking wizard’s manual. HAHA SUCH A SLACKER I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THAT!
Also, keeping his mechanical specialty. And he uses it to fix an AC system. (DEAR KIT: ILU)
Incidentally, is this the first time we’ve seen them in class?
Kit’s got a named friend! Raoul Eschemeling!
DEAR KIT: ILU AND YOUR SEXY MARTIAN PRINCESS FANTASIES
(ALSO: NERDY HISTORY TEACHER. <333333333333333)
“If a historian needs anything it’s imagination. The dates, the place names, the battles… they’re not what’s most important. What matters is thinking yourself into those people’s heads. Imagine how the world looked to them - their sky, their sea. Their tools. Their houses. Their troubles. That’s how what they did starts to make sense. Along with what we do in the same situations…” (17)
Wizards manuals: getting more and more like iPhones every day
CHAPTER TWO
ONE OF THE KOI IS NAMED DOITSU. I don’t care if it probably refers to the word for “who”. IT’S A GERMANY FISH. (Is it black orange and red? CAUSE THAT WOULD BE COOLEST)
Haha, no, he’s silver. /just looked back
“You try again. Assuming you haven’t blown up the world or something in the meantime…” Sound advice there.
Carmela is my hero. Going on a jaunt across the universe, then doing fantastic on her PSAT and getting goaded into going to an ivy league school. (I bet she doesn’t go.)
I THINK TOM MIGHT BE THE BESTEST GUIDE IN THE UNIVERSE. (senioooor power!) Go look it up yourself indeed. (ALSO, EEEE, FIRST MENTION OF ROSHAUN. Kay I’ll not fangirl myself.)
TOMATOES, OH MY GOODNESS A BAG OF TOMATOES
Carmela just plops over to Nita’s house randomly to mess with the TV? (<333)
YW universe has vampires. Also, HELENA! (I have been wanting to meet her since FOREVER.)
Wanjaxing. Another to add to the list of alien things we shall likely never have explained to us.
RIRHATH HAS A SHOPPING MALL. (I so called that one.) And Carmela’s reward for saving the universe is a shopping spree there!
I’ve been watching too much anime. PROBABLY THE BEST RESPONSE TO THINKING YOU SEE BLUE HAIRED PEOPLE EVER.
(Also, I spy foreshadowing!)
“Powers that Be in a bucket!”
Nita never looked up swear words in the Speech. OH GIRL GO LOOK THEM UP NOW. (I should not be encouraging. I’m bettin’ Carmela knows them.)
“Tomatoes are just happiest on earth…” (CAUSE THEY’VE GOT SPAIN AND ITALY TO LOVE THEM. I mean, uhh… cough. DEAR HETALIA: GET OUT OF MY BRAIN.)
THE CATALYST FOR THIS ENTIRE VENTURE IS TOMATOES. (I AM APPROVE.)
LOL There’s mostly dead, and then there’s all dead. (I know I’m misquoting that.)
The Planetary Wizard for Earth is a mom who wears a floppy straw hat and takes her baby and parakeet to Mars with her. (DEAR IRINA: IT MAY SEEM LIKE I <3 YOU FROM FIRST APPEARANCE, AND YOU WOULD BE CORRECT TO THINK SO)
CHAPTER THREE
THE LONE POWER PLAYED FREAKING HOOKEY ON MAMVISH’S ORDEAL (BAD. ASS.)
WELLAKH YUSSSSS~. (Don’t pretend like this isn’t the reason we’re all reading this book. I mean, uhh /cough)
Oh, DAIRINE.
Looks like I need to revise my Wellakh essay now. (LOL I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THE NUMBER OF WIZARDS. BUT COMPLETELY RIGHT ON SOME OTHER THINGS) LOL DIANE DUANE, MAKING IT SUPER OBVIOUS ABOUT THE NAMING THING. (Did she read my essay and my griping? :3)
DID DAIRINE JUST TAKE TO WELLAKH’S FASHION??!! (<333333) BB IS POLITICALLY SAVVY
Dairine’s and Nelaid’s hair is exactly the same? UHH YEAH THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES (she was meant to live on Wellakh, I’d say. /shipping pings)
T-T Nelaid’s brother. And his reactions! (Soooo repressed but so obvious. YOUR SON WILL BE BACK, BB. IF ONLY SO HE CAN MACK ON DAIRINE.)
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS IS WHAT SHE WAS PRACTICING. GEEZ, NITA!
Wizardry runs Twitter feeds now. (TEXT MESSAGE ALERTS. WHAT IS THIS??!!)
Lacrosse on crack. Just sayin’.
KIT’S BROMANCE WITH RONAN AND DARRYL, TIS EPIC. I LOVE IT.
Also, gobsmacked is a good choice of words. (RONAN DOESN”T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS HOT LADY ALMOST JUMPING HIS BONES. HE AIN’T GOT NO IDEA. Also, lol, subtle Roshaun reference there.)
RONAN YOU ARE SUCH A DORK. (AVIATORS: HOT)
Also also, Kit and his hormones. <3333
PEEAACCHHHHH~ (Hot damn girl, if your prophecies are still working around now. HAHA THIS COULD BE TOTAL RETCON AND YET I LOVE IT THE MOST?)
LOL WIZARD TWITTER. (Really, no matter what fancy words you give it like Secondary spin, it’s still Wizard Twitter) OH AND GOOGLE EARTH (with a suuuuper-high zoom level) Y’HEAR THAT GOOGLE? GET IN ON THIS.
“He’s used to having people jump when he says, not the other way around.” Which is just another way of saying he likes Dairine and wants her family to like him too. (DADDY APPROVES, APPARENTLY.)
Elemental affinities, hmm? I’d like to hear more about this. (It’s too obvious to not be brought up again. Chekhov’s Wizardry and everything.)
NO, THEY WON’T STOP WITH THE DATING REFERENCE. BECAUSE IT’S TRUE! ALSO: S’REEE BOYFRIEND, FORTHEWIN.
‘Keep Out: Male Bonding Field Trip’ (TOTAL BROMANCE. I want fic of those three just hangin around now. Y’KNOW, BEIN BROS.)
Carmela: Only Girl On The Planet With Her Own Crossings Gate (and So Flippant About It)
LOL THIS BOOK. (WAY TO UP THE SWEAR WORD QUOTIENT, DD.)
The Louise Skylight. (LOL CARMELA, YOU CANNOT LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.)
I will probably never, ever get over that WizPod thing. (I WANT ONE.)
Lol Darryl, Ronan has been using a lot worse language than “bugger off”, you know. <3
Nita’s on the “Pluto’s a planet” side of the debate. I AM OCCASIONALLY INCLINED TO AGREE. (Why can’t they all the little dwarf-planets be planets?)
I am hella envious of Carmela’s steganographic gift. ALSO SPOILER ALERT: THE BOOK IS NOT EVEN ABOUT MARTIANS. Though I’m not sure about her translating - either she understands syntax and can translate syntactic grammar really well, or the spell was helping her along, or the not-Martians had grammatic-structure very similar to English. (I am betting choice two.) Because it sounded like she was translating as she went, which very rarely comes out in fully formed sentences. (Uhh at least in languages with super-different structure, as I imagine Not-Martianese would be.)
“You don’t need a social life later. You need one now.” (BRO BONDING TIME. I LOVE IT.)
WAR OF THE WORLDS ON MARS (I knew the machines on the front looked familiar. Obviously, they are NOT the scorpion things.) I SEE WHUT YOU DID THAR WITH THE COVER.
STEPHEN FREAKING HAWKING. ARE THERE NO NERDY REFERENCES YOU WILL NOT MAKE?
KIT ACTUALLY MEETS HIS MARTIAN PRINCESS! BRB LOLING FOREVER NOW. (Does he get some action now too? Nita got some in book four, it’s only fair.)
THAT IS THREE DAMMITS NOW. I SHOULD CHRONICLE THESE.
Also: GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN??!! That is totally Nita’s ringtone for Carmela. (OK, that fanmix from a few months ago? HOW MUCH DID YOU TOTALLY NAIL IT??!! SO MUCH!)
OH KIT YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH NITA, LOTS MORE THAN YOU WANNA DO WITH THE MARTIAN PRINCESS. (SQUEEEEEEE~)
Princess Girl (uhh, Aurileld?) is a seer? Hrmmm. I’m wondering if this is a reference to Nita’s gift.
MARVIN??!! MARVIN THE MARTIAN IS IN THIS? (Dear book: ILU more than you can imagine.)
LOL NITA SO JEALOUS
Aaaaand we get to meet Helena! (YAAAAAY!)
The manual is like a wizardly wiki. Only, y’know, universe-wide. (That is kind of fantastic.)
SHE IS CONSIDERING THE WORD BOYFREIND, OMG. NITA, BB, KIT TOTES WANTS YOU AS A GIRLFRIEND. BE THE BFFOTP THAT YOU WERE ALWAAAAYS MEANT TO!
“Mi closet, su closet.”
OK, WIZARD ALIEN ROMEO AND JULIET. (And there was the death knell of my fic. I am not actually that sad. I am actually feeling kinda proud of myself at the moment.)
“Dammit Count”: four
UMM YES NITA IS RIDICULOUSLY HOT WITH HER SUPERPOWERED JETS OF WATER PUTTING THE SMACKDOWN ON MISS PRINCESS. (OH BABY OH BABY.)
“war’s the easy way out of conflict” OHMYGOODNESS, THAT LINE.
Does the Dammit Counter work when it’s “damn it”?
MY BOYFRIEND. HOLYSHIT SHE TOTALLY SAID “MY BOYFRIEND”. ALSO, NITA LAYING THE SMACKDOWN ABOUT HOW LOVE WORKS ON AURILELDE? TOTALLY AWESOME.
I FEEL IT NECESSARY TO SAY THAT I LOVE IRINA AND ANYTHING SHE DOES. I THINK I MAY LOVE HER THE BEST??!! (Well, except for everybody else who is my most favorite also.)
I ALSO FEEL IT NECESSARY TO SAY THAT I LOVE HELENA AND HER COMIC-BOOK LOVING OBTUSE WAYS
Ohdear, time travel in this series. I love it.
POOOOOOONNNNNNCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Took you long enough.” LIKE EIGHT BOOKS TOO LONG! (OMG, SQUEEE, BOYFRIEEENNNDDDDDDD~ JUST THAT ONE WORD AND HFAJDKFL;NBGB)
Final thoughts:
SO THIS TOTALLY SCRAPS MY WHOLE WIZARDS OF THE SKY FIC. Considering the entire premise of that was to take the Romeo and Juliet story and basically subvert it like this book does, only MUCH LESS AWESOME. I feel a little proud that I managed to pick up on that though, forserious.
Irina is probably one of the most fantastic people and I love her for all time. Also, MAMVISH.
Wow, Diane Duane totally upped the swearing quotient in this book. (Like seriously, how many times was that?)
The story was super fantastic and I loved it and wow, it all pulled together. WAW is probably still my favorite of the series, but OH MAN THIS WAS EPIC TO THE CORE.
ALSO: BOOOYYYFFRRIIIEEENNNDDDDDDD (that may be one of the most perfect things i have ever read in my life, that last conversation.)
NOW FOR CAPS
OHAITHAR MARS. LOOK AT THAT BAMF PLANET.
And here is Indonesia, Earth. Though it'd be cool if it was Mars. But is is instead Indonesia. But it's got komodo dragons and an alien dinosaur, so that should MORE than make up for it.
The Syrtis Major Planum, aka, where they found the superegg.
A CLOSE UP
And Nilli Pateria. LOOKIT THOSE SWEET DUNES.
(One of those could be hiding a superegg right now and we wouldn't even know.)
Elysium Mons, KIT'S FAVE TRANSPORT SPOT
Stokes Crater, site of Darryl's test
"Sounds like one of Ronan's Irish swear words."
AND ANOTHER CRATER
(What was the importance of this one? I don't remember. I AM SURE KIT COULD TELL YOU, THE DORK.)
GUSEV CRATER: SITE OF WAR OF THE WORLDS ON MARS
(Also, there's Spirit. Hi, little buddy!)
AAAND, THE INFAMOUS HUTTON CRATER: SITE OF ALIEN CONTACT WITH SKIMPILY CLAD MARTIAN PRINCESSES
Argyre Planitia: SITE OF EPIC SHOWDOWS FOR THE FATE OF THE PLANET, AND NITA'S SUPER AWESOMENESS
WAHOOOOOOO~
(OK, I know they didn't quite go there. Shut up.)
IN ADDENDUM: THIS is a lovely picture of the area around the Spirit Rover, with a very good image of Gusev Plain. Go check it out and imagine some tripod aliens!