Book read in early 00s

[markaeltran]

Hi there,

I have been trying years to find this book, I read it when I was a teenager for English class and it has still remained one of the best fantasy epics I have ever read.

The books are part of a trilogy. To my knowledge, it features a scrawny nerdy kid, a buff bully boy and a girl who leave their bus after school one day and wonder into the forest. The nerdy kid had just gotten bullied by the other boy and ran off into the forest. All three eventually fall down into a hole and end up in a fantasy world.

I think the plot is along the lines of them finding their way home. They encounter a black wizard on the way and a gang of travellers. The black wizard in the first book has a dual personality and turns against them towards the end of the first book.

I also think the end of the third book is along the lines of the nerdy kid meeting a dark lord and finds out that the evil that infests the fantasy land is technology/science and they need the nerdy kid to continue their "evildoings".

I know this is probably vague, but hopefully someone can help me out!

Thanks in advance!

Comments

[zooey_glass]

It's not exactly like, but this sounds like it could be Diane Duane's 'So You Want to Be a Wizard'. That starts with a girl (Nina) who is being severely bullied. She finds a book called 'So You Want to Be a Wizard' and though that ends up becoming a wizard. She then meets a boy called Kit in a forest, who's had a similar experience. She has an affinity for natural magic and he has an affinity for technological magic. There's a dark wizard who is a running antagonist through the books and they end up in a world inhabited mostly by tweisted technology (like sentient cars).

It's the first of a whole series of books so if this is the one you remember then you have some fun reading ahead of you!

[thnidu]

Good, this sounds like a match.

[flexagon]

I'm familiar with this series and it doesn't sound like a match to me, but who knows. Crossing my fingers that it is, for the OP!