From archive (archive) Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!microsoft!ellene From: ellene@microsoft.UUCP (Ellen EADES) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: HIGH WIZARDRY by Diane Duane is out at last!! Keywords: spoilers herein Message-ID: <53884@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 30 Mar 90 20:05:04 GMT Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 46 Boy, am I *gullible*. Or something. Having gotten a phone machine message that HIGH WIZARDRY is out in hardback, I phoned every bookstore in Seattle I could think might conceivably have gotten this book yet. After half an hour of phone calls, I realized I was going to have to go back to Bellevue -- the only copy in the greater Seattle area resided in University Books Bellevue. I then got caught in a traffic jam as the 520 bridge sat at a dead stop at 8 PM while a stalled car got pushed to the other side by a helpful pickup truck. I got the book at 8:45 and got home around 9:05 PM to read it. It was worth it. Spoilers follow: ^L This book focuses on Nita's little sister Dairine, who takes the Oath without even thinking about it hard, and is promptly dumped into a confrontation with the Lone Power. Nita and Kit go haring off across the universe to save her, but Dairine is doing pretty darn well on her own. As Kit said to Nita three-fourths of the way through the book, "If It hasn't killed her by now, she's winning." Well, before she does, she manages to get a computer to clone itself, gets chased through an alien airport, hides in a non-human restroom, meets a planet which is actually a giant semiconductor, gets her wizard's manual to teach it binary, and then magic, and creates a new race of beings (who become the judges in her debate with the Lone Power for control of the planet's destiny). The kid is smart. I have one nit to pick with Diane: she either didn't research her computers, or she really believes that Bill Gates and Jon Sculley are going to sit down and break bread together one day in the future, because her Apple computer runs MS-DOS. As a Microsoft employee, this strikes me as slightly unlikely ... :-) :-) :-) The book feels a lot more like SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD than like DEEP WIZARDRY -- lots of quick scene changes, lots of bizarre creatures, lots of in-jokes (although I'm still wondering who the fair-haired man in the bar who saves Dairine is. He can't be a Star Wars character, or she'd have recognized him. Any suggestions?), lots of humor, lots of Duane's personal religious philosophy (which, don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of). A great romp. I finished it around eleven. Lots of fun. Ellen Eades (uunet!microsoft!ellene) From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 3 12:24:34 1993 Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: croaker@highlite.gotham.com (Francis A. Ney) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: _A Wizard Abroad_ by Diane Duane *SPOILERS* Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Organization: Gotham Communications Research Message-ID: <1993Oct15.022716.25181@highlite.uucp> Date: 02 Nov 93 01:14:45 GMT Lines: 111 Diane Duane's fourth book in her Young-Adult 'Wizards' series, _A Wizard Abroad_, has been eagerly awaited in some circles -- not all of whom could be considered 'Young Adult,' including myself. It is unfortunate that Ms. Duane could not publish this book in North America (at least as of this writing), because this review is going to cause a bit of angst among those who must still wait for it. My thanks go to the people at Poison Pen Press, of New York City, for the opportunity to purchase the last copy they had in stock of this U.K. edition. In the first three books (_So You Want To Be A Wizard?_, _Deep Wizardry_, and _High Wizardry_), we are introduced to Nita and Kit, two children on the verge of teenhood who have discovered that the universe is much larger and more complex than they ever imagined. We follow them on a series of adventures pitting their strong but inexperienced magical ability against a powerful devil-figure, 'The Lone Power,' first stealing a magic tome from it, then recreating a powerful sealing spell off the coast of Long Island in defiance of its wishes. In _High Wizardry_, we discover that Nita's younger sister, Darine, has become one of the most powerful wizards in the universe at the tender age of nine with the help of a Mac 'N Trash laptop (OK, so I'm an IBM bigot, sue me). Nita and Kit help out on Darine's trial-by-fire, keeping a brand new civilization she created from the influence of The Lone Power. _A Wizard Abroad_ takes place a bit over a year later. Nita, now fourteen, is causing her parents some concern with her involvement in magic and with her partner, Kit. Despite her protestations of a completely platonic relationship, it is decided that Nita will spend the last six weeks of her summer break in Ireland with her father's sister. It turns out that Nita's parents may not have been the free agents they believe they were in making that decision, as Nita is quickly returned to active status. She discovers that in Ireland, the craft is a much different affair than it is in the states. That's it for the spoilers -- ask Ms. Duane who to scream at for US publication if you want to know more -- on to the review! I made a pleasant discovery when I read the first three books as a SFBC 3-in-1 edition: Ms. Duane can write for youngsters and old farts like me at the same time. _A Wizard Abroad_ is no exception: there is enough to make everyone happy. She is developing her main characters nicely, and I am having as much fun watching them grow up as my teen cousin is growing up with them. Senior Prom Night will be interesting to watch. I personally would like to see family supporting characters developed a bit further than they are thus far. Nita's parents still give me the impression of a hen and rooster who have unwittingly hatched a set of ducklings, and I hear of Kit's family only in passing. These are not rebellious teenagers: by their very nature they can't be, so family ties should be a more important facet of their characters than I have seen thus far. The plots and sub-plots were good enough to keep everyone interested. Ms. Duane does a superb job placing a fantasy story in a 'real-world' background with a minimum of strain to reality. My only question is, are things going to get better or worse for Nita and Kit? As they themselves pointed out, their reward for doing a tough job is getting a tougher one. At this rate, they're both going to be Senior Wizards before they graduate High School, though I wager Darine will be the youngest Senior this millenium, if the brat can behave herself. Overall, _A Wizard Abroad_ is a well-crafted story. It hangs together well with the previous three books, aside from a few continuity problems than even I recognize as too A-R to mention. It also has enough of a background review to exist as a story in its own right: the mark, in my opinion, of a good book. If you're looking for something to give a young lady as a break from horse books (or horses, for that matter), or something to keep that young man out of your Tom Swift or Doc Smith collection, this is a good choice. Keep a set for yourself, too. One thing I feel I have to mention, in reaction to some of my contemporaries turning their noses up at anything written by Diane Duane. They complain that she, among other female SF authors, can't write anything without 'four pages of diatribe, castrating males in general and male homo sapiens in particular.' Well, either they are confusing her with another author, I am clueless, or I am abnormally thick-skinned, because I fail to see where this has been done. Not in any Trek book by her I have seen, not in her StarCops series (with her husband, Peter Morwood), and certainly not here. Enough said. %T A Wizard Abroad %A Duane, Diane %D September 1993 %G ISBN 0-552-52744-0 %I Corgi Books %K Young Adult, Fantasy %P 281 (11pt Plantin font) %O L2.99 + L1.00 shipping (L2.00 if overseas) %O Transworld Publishers Ltd %O Cash Sales Department %O PO Box 11, Falmouth, Cornwall TR10 9EN, UK %O No Series Title known, but related books are: %O So You Want To Be A Wizard ISBN 0-552-52645-2 %O Deep Wizardry ISBN 0-552-52646-0 %O High Wizardry ISBN 0-552-52651-7 %O All three also published as a SFBC 3-in-1 edition called %O Support Your Local Wizard -- "Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician wasn't regarded as _mallum in se_, and was _mallum prohibitorum_ only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved." - H. Beam Piper, "A Planet For Texans/Lone Star Planet" From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jan 20 17:36:23 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:468 rec.arts.sf.written:46621 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!uunet!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Diane Duane's "Wizard" Series Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Message-ID: Date: 19 Jan 94 13:57:59 GMT Lines: 174 Diane Duane's "Wizard" series is now up to four books, and all are worth reading. If you've read "The Door into Fire", or its sequels, the Wizard books deal with much the same themes, pitched to a younger audience: Eons ago, when the universe was being created, one Power stood aloof from the creation -- and then meddled maliciously, introducing death, both personal and entropic. This story is told all over the universe, in one form or another. Wizardry was created as the first line of battle against this Lone Power, and Wizards do what they can to encourage life and to postpone the heat death of the universe. This is explained, at greater length, in the Wizards Manual. "So You Want to Be a Wizard" (**** on a four-point scale) begins with thirteen-year-old Nita Callahan ducking into the children's library to avoid getting beaten up by classmates, and getting caught up (in more ways than one) in a book titled "So You Want to Be a Wizard", which is actually a genuine wizards manual. (These manuals -- readers of the 'Door' series may recognize the name of their author, though Duane changes it in a subsequent book -- find their way into the right hands. Someone else looking at the manual will think it's just a children's book. So if you read Duane's book and think it's just an excellent work of fiction, it may mean that *you* don't have what it takes to be a Wizard! :-) When Nita takes the Wizards Oath included at the front of the manual (the Oath reccurs from book to book, though the wording keeps changing) she is invested with magic powers. Soon, while practicing these powers, she meets another new Wizard -- Kit. Together they attempt a complex spell and swiftly find themselves *way* over their heads, as the working out of that spell leads them into direct conflict with the Lone Power itself. Despite the seriousness of the themes which motivate the novel, the writing is delightfully silly, with dragons under the streets of New York, yellow cabs that haunt the streets looking for victims, carnivorous fire hydrants, and a white hole with the hiccups, combining with a unique vision of wizardry to create one of the half-dozen best juvenile fantasies in existence. (The book owes a considerable debt to L'Engle's "A Wind in the Door", but is more fun to read.) "...We'll have to call a regional Advisories' meeting." Fred hiccuped again, and the explosion left behind it a year's back issues of TV Guide. "Later," Carl said. "The situation here looks like it's deteriorating." "Deep Wizardry" (****-) begins later the same summer, on the sea shore, when Nita and Kit save the life of a cetacean wizard. Once again they find themselves in conflict with the Lone Power, this time in its manifestation as the Serpent that brought death to the sea and was subsequently bound there. Unfortunately, that binding is coming loose -- and if it gives, the conversion of the East Coast to the East Shoals will be the least of the mischief that results. Nita and Kit volunteer to help reenact the Song of the Twelve -- the ritual that keeps the Serpent bound -- without fully realizing what they've volunteered for. As if this isn't trouble enough, it's getting harder and harder to explain their continued absences to Nita's parents -- who assume she and Kit have discovered sex -- or to Dairine -- Nita's too-bright-for-her-own-good younger sister. "Deep Wizardry" is almost as good as "So You Want to Be a Wizard." It deals with more complex and serious themes than the latter, but lacks some of the the light-hearted silliness which made the first book so much fun. The most obvious literary debt this book owes is to Milton. (This points up a difference between adult and juvenile fiction. Some of the kids who read "Deep Wizardry" will one day read "Paradise Lost" and, with delight, recognize the style of speech they first heard from Duane's Serpent. In juvenile fiction, this kind of anticipation of future reading is purely a plus. In adult fiction it counts as lack of originality.) "Ed," she said, slowly and carefully, "are you trying to say that you're actually planning to *eat* me sometime soon?" "The day after tomorrow," said the Master-Shark in perfect calm... "High Wizardry" (***+) is Dairine's story. Since finding out about Nita she's wanted wizardry of her own -- and it comes to her in an unexpected guise, when she boots up her parents' new computer. The first sign that something's odd is a minor one: The Apple logo isn't missing the customary bite. When she invokes the 'copy' utility, and it copies the computer, rather than just its files, she begins to realize what she has. As soon as she can get away with it, she goes travelling. To a galaxy far away. This book has wonderful flights of fancy (for some reason I particularly treasure the image of Dairine fleeing for her life through a transport terminal, being asked for her mother's maiden name), but it also has irritating technical flaws. For example, just about all of the astronomical details in the book are wrong. (This happens so often and so consistently that I'm still not sure whether it's supposed to be an obscure joke.) The computer element which looms so large in this book is at a level chosen for its familiarity. (I don't claim that implementing an online wizards manual in Basic, to run under DOS on an Apple computer, makes more or less sense than any other configuration. I'm just saying that it grates.) Readers who are familiar with computers are also likely to be uncomfortable with Dairine's interactions with the sentient planet. ("It only knows unary." "Well teach it binary.") A satisfying book, in sum, but with warts. "I'm sorry if I said something to offend you, but please, I need some help getting my bearings---" Dairine was so preoccupied that she bumped right into something on the other side of the street -- and then yipped in terror. Towering over her was one of the first things to get out of the car, a creature seven feet high at least... The tall creature bleated at her, a shocking sound up so close. "Excuse me," said the computer, translating the bleat into a dry and cultured voice like a BBC announcer's, "but why are you talking to our luggage?" "A Wizard Abroad" (***) is the most recent Wizard novel. For reasons which ostensibly have to do with Nita's spending too much time on her wizardry, and probably have more to do with the amount of time she's spending with Kit, her parents pack her off to spend the rest of her summer vacation with her aunt, in Ireland. Sure enough, there are no coincidences: Ireland needs help. For some reason, the walls between this world and its alternates are wearing thin, and elements which have no business in today's Ireland -- such as extinct or mythical monsters -- are slipping through. Before these walls collapse completely, Nita and other wizards have to find or recreate the greatest treasures of Ireland's legends and use them to refight one of its oldest battles. This book functions primarily as a chapter in the continuing story of Nita's growth as a wizard and as a person. While she and Kit play a key role here, it is as part of a much larger group, not as a couple of kids off on their own adventure. (Dairine also makes a couple of cameo appearances, but she came out of "High Wizardry" with so much power that she's spoiled for any roles but those of plot device or dea cum machina.) On its own terms, as a novel, "A Wizard Abroad" is weaker than its predecessors. It's heavy handed, with every plot twist carefully foreshadowed two chapters in advance, and far too many of the book's pages are devoted to retelling Irish legend. (The incident on the last page is also borrowed from folklore, but it's the sort of borrowing that has its place in juvenile fiction.) And, for some inexplicable reason, Duane *still* manages to pull in some astronomy, and get it wrong. She fell into an imitation of Dairine's high-pitched voice, made even more squeaky by annoyance. '"No, I will *not* move your galaxy...what do you want to move it *for*? It's fine right where it is!"' You'll likely have noticed a pattern: The series is going downhill. It started at a sufficiently high level, however, and is declining slowly enough, that even the weakest book in the series is still a pleasure to read. They're juveniles, but I'd recommend "So You Want to Be a Wizard" even to readers who normally don't care for juveniles. Following that, you'll know whether you wish to seek out the sequels. *I'll* certainly keep reading these books. If nothing else, now that we know how to bridle the nightmare, I want to know *how* many more books it'll be before we find out what one should ask the Transcendent Pig! %A Duane, Diane %T So You Want to Be a Wizard %T Deep Wizardry %T High Wizardry %T A Wizard Abroad %O All four books are available in paperback from Corgi books. %O If you're not in Britain, it gets harder. The first two are %O available in North America in paperback from Dell/Laurel-Leaf, %O the first three are available in hardcover from Delacorte, and %O the only way to get the fourth is to order it from Britain, or %O from a bookstore that can order it from Britain for you. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part, to appreciate the Cardinal Number system. -- "Actual Facts" From rec.arts.sf.written Mon Sep 20 09:17:24 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written From: chris@keris.demon.co.uk (Chris Croughton) Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!uknet!warwick!qmw-dcs!qmw!demon!keris.demon.co.uk!chris Subject: Review: A Wizard Abroad (Diane Duane) Distribution: world Organization: Keristor Systems X-Newsreader: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.21, CC 930606) Lines: 102 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1993 21:01:54 +0000 Message-ID: <747867714snz@keris.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk Yes, I finally got round to reviewing it! I thought about calling it a "Belated Review", but that might have gotten confused with Dani's splendid articles, so I thought perhaps not... WARNING: this contains spoilers for the other "Wizard" books, so I'm including spoiler protection. I'll try not to spoil the plot too much (difficult, when reviewing a new book)... REVIEW: A WIZARD ABROAD by Diane Duane This is the fourth book in Diane's "Wizard" series, which started with "So You Want to be a Wizard" and continued with "Deep Wizardry" and "High Wizardry". The 'wizards' involved through the series are American tenagers Kit and Nita, who become dedicated to defending good against the evil Lone Power (or light against dark, order against chaos - pick your metaphor, they are all valid). They are aided by several adult wizards in the role of mentors or guides, but have to fight their own battles (including their own fears). In the third book Nita's "little sister", Dairine, becomes a wizard as well, aided by an up-to-date manual in the form of a computer (and some of the commands do very interesting things - imagine what a COPY command can do, for instance!), and she has to go through her own testing. Which brings us to the latest book. Nita's parents have become worried that she is growing up, and has been "seeing too much of Kit". In spite of Nita's protests, she is sent on a holiday to Ireland. Irish SF writers' in-joke time - she goes to stay with Aunt Annie, who keeps horses. Sound familiar? After the initial groan and "Diane, you *didn't*!", this didn't spoil the story, though... Although Nita has been sent there in part to get her away from the wizardly stuff, which her (mundane) parents don't understand, it doesn't take long before she is involved in problems with Irish magic. She is joined in this by the local wizards (who don't at first know what she is, and take a time to accept this 'intruder' with American ways) as well as Kit and Dairine. There is a fair amount of suspense - the ending, one knows, will be 'happy' (it's sold as a 'juvenile/young adult'; they always have happy endings!), but the lack of knowledge of how it is to be achieved (and even quite what or who they are fighting) left me wondering until the end. The ending wraps up the story, but is obviously not the end of the series. I gather that the next one (called, I believe, "The Cats of Grand Central" - Diane will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong) is on its way. Diane does explain at the start that she has taken some liberties with the geography of Ireland - I didn't notice them, but no doubt someone more familiar with the area than I am will do so. The Irish have been altering their own geography for artistic effect for centuries, anyway, so she's following in a fine tradition... Rating: I don't like 'absolute' ratings, so I'll compare it to the others in the series. It's very good (as is everything Diane has written, in my opinion), but I think marginally below the first three. My only reason for this is that I felt the story to be slightly rushed, as though Diane was limited by a maximum word count and had to condense slightly from her original story. I can't point to any specific instances, but that was an overall impression. Other people who have read it don't seem to have felt this, though... Publishing data: ~Title: A Wizard Abroad Author: Diane Duane Label: Corgi Books Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd., London, Australia, New Zealand ISBN: 0 552 52744 0 ~Date: 1993 Price: 2.99 Pounds Stirling *********************************************************************** * chris@keris.demon.co.uk * * * chriscr@cix.compulink.co.uk * FIAWOL (Filking Is A Way Of Life) * * 100014.3217@compuserve.com * * *********************************************************************** From rec.arts.sf.written Tue Jan 18 17:45:20 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!tct.com!jade From: jade@tct.COM (Jo Davidsmeyer) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review: _Dark Mirror_, a Trek novel Message-ID: Date: 17 Jan 94 15:25:07 GMT Sender: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu Lines: 64 _Dark Mirror_ - a new Star Trek novel from Pocket Books a review by James Thaggard I hate to admit it in public, but I am old enough that I actually saw my first Star Trek episode when it originally aired on NBC. I looked forward to each Star Trek motion picture and religiously saw them on their opening dates. Yet only in the last year have I read any of the Star Trek novels. Although I consider many of the early paperbacks dumb at best and pronographic at worst, I enjoyed two writers in particular: A. C. Crispin (_Yesterday's Son_) and Diane Duane (_Spock's World_). I approach Star Trek books differently than other novels. I already know these characters: I see them, I hear them, I feel them. In a Trek book I wish to see a three- or four-part episode unfold in my mind as I delve deeper into the rich characterizations of the crews I have grown to consider friends. In Diane Duane's _Dark Mirror_, nearly one hundred years have passed since Kirk, Bones, Uhura, and Scotty beamed aboard the Imperial Enterprise in the classic episode "Mirror, Mirror." Ignoring our Captain Kirk's advice to their Mr. Spock, the Empire has gone on to seek out and kill new life, conquer and subjugate new civilizations, and boldly slaughter where no one had slaughtered before. With no new worlds to add to their Empire, the ISS Enterprise has come to our universe to do the same. ******** MINOR SPOILERS ******** Once onboard the alternate Enterprise, Captain Picard, Deanna Troi, and Geordi LaForge find a dark, distorted reflection of their own universe. The Empire never knew a Q, the Borg, or Data. But the Empire plays host to a resentful Number One, a surly La Forge, a Barclay who is both self-confident and deadly, and a Beverly Crusher who is the Captain's woman. The most disturbing change is in Deanna Troi, who uses her Betazed powers as an all too efficient Imperial Security Officer. The dual Deannas are both the heroine and villainess of the piece. Captain Picard is a voracious reader in both universes. "Our" Picard's browsing through the dark universe's library provides the book's most chilling moments. Glacing through a volume of Shakespeare, Picard reads in horror as The Merchant of Venice's Portia serves not as a defender but as a posecutor. ("The quality of mercy must be earned / And not strewn gratis on the common ground.") ******** END OF SPOILERS ******** So can the brave crew of "our" Enterprise accomplish the impossible and save the universe from this unspeakable threat in just 337 pages? Of course! You may wish you could "warp" through the first third of this novel. The beginning moves distresslingly slow. The cover promises an alternate universe, and I was impatient to get to it. But Ms. Duane inflicts us with intrusive sub-plots involving a friendly, lovable, and unbelievable Federation scientist dolphin, a running discussion of the merits of Klingon and Earth operas, and some dull (but vital) techno- babble about "hyperstrings." But, finally, after about one hundred pages, we're off the see the Empire -- and what a wonderful journey it is. (***) [note: this review appears in the February issue of Strange New Worlds, reprinted here with permission] -- Jo Davidsmeyer - jad@tct.com Publisher, STRANGE NEW WORLDS (a semiprozine) PO Box 223 Tallevast FL 34270 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.kei.com!ub!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!netaxs.com!hlazar From: hlazar@netaxs.com (Henry Lazarus) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Diane Duane _A Wizard Abroad_ Date: 8 May 1995 15:51:29 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider Lines: 39 Message-ID: <3olem1$e4i@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: unix1.netaxs.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Diane Duane _A Wizard Abroad_ Corgi 2.99 pounds Poison Pen Press 627 East 8th St. Brooklyn, NY 11218 $6.50 +2.00 S/H Robert Heinlein use to say that to write juvenile novels, one had to have a teen protagonist, cut back on the sex, and write as well as you could. Diane Duane knows this well. Her wizard series is fun, exciting, and extremely well written. The latest, and fourth, _A Wizard Abroad_ is no exception. The first three novels are now easiest available from the SF Book club, usually as one of their free offers. I still remember reading _So you want to be a Wizard_ which took Nita to an alternate and horrific New York and being amazed at how absorbing and good the story was. In _A Wizard Abroad_ Nita is sent to visit her aunt in Ireland and becomes involved with a recreation of a classic irish myth battle. Diane's Ireland is crowded with wizards and Nita also has her friend and her little sister to come and visit. Also all of celtic myth is mixed in this tale, something that usually would get very crowded. It doesn't. Somehow all this background fits evenly together, even the bard kitten, and the whole thing works. Not only that Nita gets her first boyfriend and her first kiss. The love that Diane Duane has found for the country of Ireland bubbles out in every page. From the low keyed country-side, to the city of Dublin, it must be a marvelous place to live. I recommend the book very highly and hope that eventually more of Nita's adventures will surface. Henry L Lazarus hlazar@netaxs.com Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Harriet Klausner Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: To Visit the Queen by Diane Duane Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 02 Mar 1999 17:49:28 -0500 Organization: Netcom Lines: 35 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2269 TO VISIT THE QUEEN by Diane Duane Review Copyright 1999 Harriet Klausner At Grand Central Station, Rhiow and her feline peers (do not tell Rhiow they are her peers) guard the magical gate that links worlds through time. Because of a malfunction at the London gate, Rhiow and her associates, Urruah and Arhu, travel together to investigate the problem. They quickly learn that a "timeslide" is moving people back and forth through eternity. Someone deliberately caused the time warp. The Lone One wants nuclear weapons introduced into society long before the twentieth century in an attempt to destroy civilization. The cats, accompanied by a young Arthur Conan Doyle, must stop the critical focal point from being changed or the alternate time continuum will replace the current time stream. The foursome must stop the assassinations of the multiple Queen Victorias who populate the endless worlds that make up the current universe. TO VISIT THE QUEEN, the return to that wacky humorous universe of THE BOOK OF NIGHT WITH MOON, is a winner in its own right. The story line contains non-stop action, jocular interactions, and mounting danger as the very fabric of the universe is shredded. The cats seem real and intelligent, not cute. Diane Duane weaves a terrific tale that canine fantasy lovers will cherish. This is a 14-karat gold collar winner for anyone who loves a good book. Harriet Klausner %T TO VISIT THE QUEEN %A Diane Duane %I Aspect %D Apr 1999 %O $14.99 %P 368 pp. %G ISBN 0-446-67318-8