Ran Van: Magic Nation

RanVan #3

by Diana Wieler

In the final volume in the RanVan trilogy, Rhan Van begins his adult life after the death of his grandmother in the hopes that his training at the Institute of Technology will help him achieve his career goals.

Genres: Young Adult

Hardcover

First published April 1, 1998

About the author

Diana Wieler was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1961. She moved to Calgary as a teenager and, after high school, took the Television, Stage, and Radio Arts Program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Working in radio in Calgary, and then for a newspaper in Saskatoon, proved to be valuable training for a writing career, which she now pursues full time.

Diana's first published short stories: A Dog On His Own, (Prairie Publishing Company), To the Mountains by Morning, was published in a third grade reader (Nelson Canada) and was the winner of the CBC Literary Competition in 1984; The Boy Who Walked Backwards (Coteau Books) was published in the Prairie Jungle Anthology and won the Vickey Metcalf Award in 1985; The Finder, (Houghton Mifflin) and The Scream were both published in The Canadian Children's Annual.

Diana's most recent works include Last Chance Summer (Western Producer, Parie Books), a winner of the Ebel Memorial Reward; Bad Boy is the winner of the Governor General's Literary Reward for Children's Literature in 1989 and the Ruth Schwartz Foundation Reward for Excellence, the Canadian Library Association for Young Adult Book of the Year in 1990 and also optioned for Canadian Film Rights; Ran Van the Defender, which won the Mr. Christie's Book Award; and Ran Van: A Worthy Opponent, which were published by Groundwood Books.

She has also ventured into screenwriting and is working on the script of Ran Van: the Defender for O'Meara Productions Ltd. A picture book edition of her story To the Mountains by Morning was published by Groundwood books in October 1995.

Diana Wieler is currently living in Winnipeg, Canada, with her husband and her son, Ben.

Reviews

[Mike Fabick · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing, i wish these books had gained the following they deserved, and had more sequels

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you tried to sum up this book in a few words, it would seem completely over the top. Aids! Neo-Nazis! Spouse abuse and child abuse! oh, and superpowers! Add to this a couple of friendly neighborhood Wiccans, college kids at drunken parties, money laundering - oh, and superpowers! And fights, and murder attempts, and explosions, and visions and dreams! It seems as though it ought to be an impossible mess. But it's one of the smartest, most well-crafted, most believable fantasies I've ever read.

Rhan, 18 going on 19, has found his weapon. He is about to start his adult life at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary. With a video camera in his hand, Rhan can defeat evil and speak truth to power. But, as one of his professors tells him, a camera is also power. People believe what they see. Rhan therefore has a responsibility to tell the truth, for he can shape peoples' views of reality. That's truly a superpower, and, at key points, Rhan has to decide what he'll do with it.

This is one of the two best novels I've read on what it actually feels like to be starting out in college, making adult decisions for the first time in your life (the other is "Tam Lin" by Pamela Dean). As is true throughout the series, the characters are wonderfully real. We experience Rhan's first semester with him, understand his thinking when he makes bad decisions, and cheer him on when he decides to face the consequences and keep fighting. In addition to being a story about a young knight defeating the bad guys, this is a story of a young man healing from loss and finding home and family. The ending is very touching.

The RanVan series won't appeal to everyone, but all older teens and adults with any taste at all for urban fantasy should read these books. Highly, highly recommended.