Temporal Setting
Time in the Young Wizard series does not progress in a straightforward manner, and in fact there is some disagreement among fans as to the chronology of events in the series. For example, in So You Want to Be a Wizard, Carmela is fifteen, Nita is thirteen, Kit twelve, and Dairine eleven. By Wizard's Holiday, they should have all aged two years, since two summer vacations (Deep Wizardry and A Wizard Abroad) have passed. However, Nita progresses only one grade from High Wizardry to The Wizard's Dilemma, which means that either Deep Wizardry and A Wizard Abroad take place in the same summer, or Nita and the other characters got held back in school. Also, in A Wizard Alone Nita mentions that she has "a couple of years' more of experience" at wizardry than Dairine, which would imply that Nita had already been a wizard for two years before Dairine took her Oath. In Wizard's Holiday, Dairine says she and Spot have been "working together" for a couple years. Wizards at War puts Nita's age at fourteen. In High Wizardry, Dairine is eleven. In the latest book, A Wizard of Mars, Dairine's dad says about her, "She's only eleven!"
The books, however, are always set in the year of publication. Few dates are ever given, but Deep Wizardry explicitly says that the events occur in 1985 while High Wizardry, set two months later, gives the eleven-year-old Dairine a 1978 birthdate. The discrepancy in time is particularly noticeable when it comes to computers; in High Wizardry Nita's family obtains a brand new "Apple IIIc+," apparently modelled on the Apple IIc+ of 1988, while less than a year or two later in Wizard's Holiday Dairine's computer Spot is apparently imitating an Apple Titanium PowerBook.
Even more obviously, in the 2005 podcast version of the 1986 short story "Uptown Local," Duane changes a line so that one minor character is using an iPod, and in Wizards at War a fellow wizard shows off his specialized manual known as a WizPod. In the same book, Nita thinks about the Manhattan skyline when someone refers to recent troubles, signifying that it takes place after 9/11. Also in "Wizards at War", the Lone Power refers to "a tower or two crumbling" in his gloating speech. The sliding scale is similar to those used in the James Bond films and Marvel comics.
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