The Book Of Night With Moon (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
I realise that this makes me very late to the table, but I hadn't read this book until just a few days ago. I enjoyed the Young Wizards books when I was a teenager, but somehow never ran into this one - though I had heard of it.A friend heard about this grievous error and gave us a second-hand copy for Christmas, which was excellent.I thought it was very cool. A tale of wizards, who happen to be cats, saving the world from the forces of entropy.I think The Book of Night With Moon is aimed at more mature readers than the early Young Wizards books because of some of the complexity of language used, but not by a great deal.One thing I should note is that I am definitely a cat person, so books like this are bound to appeal to me - providing that they feel like actual cats, and generally that was successful here. I certainly plan to explain the idiosyncratic things that cats do - batting at nothing on walls, for example - as magic designed to keep the world going to any small children I wind up having, or otherwise spending time around.If you're not a cat person, perhaps this book won't work as well? That's one of those unknowns it's hard to speculate about from Inside the Zone.The cat creation-myth ties into the cyclical mythology of the rest of the Wizards series, and I found elements of how everything unfolds to be a delightful surprise.It does start slowly, but not unreasonably so. The only issue I had with the book was that a lot of the strife faced in the early sections of the book is down to - essentially - a mystical teenager with an attitude problem who won't listen.It's an archetype that's done well here, but one I'm less patient with at the moment - probably due its proximity to other stuff I've read over the last while than anything of Diane Duane's doing.(Fortunately, he wasn't the protagonist - although if he was the protagonist, I trust that Diane Duane would have done something interesting with the concept.)Anyway, as noted, I had fun. It feels very much like a good fit for the Cat: a little game about little heroes RPG, so anyone who enjoyed Book of Night With Moon will probably enjoy it, and vice versa. The other bonus is that I had no idea there were more books in the feline-wizards series, so I'll have to try checking them out. The characters are good and have good voices, the authorial tone is fun, and the story is by turns funny, touching, sad, and epic.
This is set in the same universe as the Young Wizards books, but is more adult-oriented, so decided to give it a try.It's about the secret lives of cats. Which also happen to be wizards. Which also happen to be continuously saving the world O_o. With random sci-fi elements thrown in for no apparent reason.It's hard to even decide if it's good or not, though. It tries to pluck strings, which is annoying. It has some strange approaches to magic, which is meh. It has some curious approaches to cat-dom, which is mostly good.So in general, if this was a book about the secret lives of cats, with all the magic and the world-saving and the occasional pointless cameos of characters from other books stripped out, I would have probably given it a solid A+. As is, it's something closer to the B range.But here are a few of the more interesting quotes: [there are practically no non-feline characters present][in annoyance at a youngster]"You just lick that look out of your whiskers, sonny boy," he said. "I knew you when you didn't know where your balls were yet, let alone how many of them to expect."[after watching a performance by one of the Three Tenors, which was impressive even to a cat]"I can see why they'll need all these fences," Rhiow said as they got up and strolled away. "The she-[humans] would be all over him afterward, I'd think. Probably wear him out for any more singing."
What do You think about The Book Of Night With Moon (1999)?
I'd been putting off reading this, even though I am an avid fan of Diane Duane's Young Wizards universe, and a sucker for fantasy novels set in New York. I have never been a fan of having talking animals as characters. So I let that put me off.And boy, was I wrong. This was lovely. The cats worked as fully realized animal characters, with well crafted personalities. Point of view stays mainly in Rhiow's head- she's a house cat and a wizard. As a cat lover myself, I found her meditations on human bonds versus independence very interesting. Rhiow and her wizardly associates, both cats and people, worked well for me as personalities. (And as a fan of the Young Wizards books, I was delighted to see cameos from familiar humans.)I may put off reading the second book, as a treat for later, but I'll look forward to it.I'm very, very picky about fantasy, and this one worked beautifully.
—E
just re-read this after finding it in B's room...amazing what books rotate into his room and off the main bookshelves...I was looking for a Terry Pratchett book and that is always a good place to find them. After reading this book again I recognize how I miss having cats in the house - yes, this book is better if you have lived with cats. And you'll never look at them the same way again. Not my favorite Diane Duane, but still a good read - and a continuation of the Young Wizards trilogy although written for adults. Good vs. Evil. Choosing the light. Cats and human and dinosaurs. You get the picture....
—Claudia
It's hard to explain why I like this book so much without giving away a lot of the plot. I could just take the easy way out and say it's because it's by Diane Duane, and because the series is called "Feline Wizards" (which could honestly be enough for me to love it), but it's more because of the nature of wizardry in Duane's books. There are multiple good explanations of that nature that I could quote, but I feel like reading them before reading the book would spoil it a bit, because the plot is so closely tied to it. Wizards in her books are very different from wizards in the Harry Potter series (just to pick one example); instead of using magic for their own benefit, to make their lives easier, they are tasked with slowing the spread of chaos in the universe. Basically, it's magic + physics + mythology. Awesome.
—Mandi
