I had great fun with a young wizard blowing things up a lot. Takes time to learn this stuff. :)
(In SPIRAL PATH.)
@KatKimbriel And then there's the much grimmer outcomes for undertrained/incompetent sorcerers in @graydon 's "A Succession of Bad Days" … (rule one of magic: try not to do anything with the side-effect of setting your brain on fire!)
Yeah, back in the first novel about this wizard, they learn that the small but crucial differences between four herbs are life and death.
There are some rules they give apprentices, but they warn them when they think the lesson will "take." So you don't just memorize a list and fail to REALLY learn the lesson....