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Feline Wizards #3
The Big Meow
Life's already much too busy for Rhiow and the other cats of the New York City worldgating maintenance teams. The old, cramped Penn Station is being torn apart and relocated into its big new building, which means that the Penn worldgates have had to be moved too. Everyone's nerves are in shreds, and no one's had enough sleep for a human, let alone a Person. So when Rhiow goes staggering home to her litterbox the morning after the job's done and finds it already occupied by another cat -- who then vanishes -- at first she thinks she's hallucinating.
But she's not. When her team is called to Los Angeles to do a minor consult after the city's single worldgate is deranged by a string of earthquakes, Rhiow's "hallucination" reappears bearing a dire message from the past. The messenger, a tom called Hwaith, reveals that similar earthquakes are striking Los Angeles in 1946 -- indicators not only of increasing instability in the San Andreas Fault, but of something far more troubling. Something is trying to subvert the Los Angeles gate to its own purposes. "The Lone Power?" Rhiow asks. "No," Hwaith says. "Something worse. Something from outside."
Rhiow and her team find themselves caught up in ever-deepening peril and mystery as they make the dangerous trip back to post-war Los Angeles. Their intervention plunges them headfirst into the glitzy, murky world of 1946 Hollywood, a smoggy film-noir landscape filled with glamourous starlets, flamboyantly corrupt studio heads, wicked, pampered cats with hidden agendas, unsolved murders, snoopy screenwriters, scheming PR flacks, and a shadowy, celebrity-ridden cult dabbling in knowledge better left alone -- knowledge which could destroy their world's present and doom its future, if the dreadful promise of the Year of the Black Jaguar is fulfilled...
But she's not. When her team is called to Los Angeles to do a minor consult after the city's single worldgate is deranged by a string of earthquakes, Rhiow's "hallucination" reappears bearing a dire message from the past. The messenger, a tom called Hwaith, reveals that similar earthquakes are striking Los Angeles in 1946 -- indicators not only of increasing instability in the San Andreas Fault, but of something far more troubling. Something is trying to subvert the Los Angeles gate to its own purposes. "The Lone Power?" Rhiow asks. "No," Hwaith says. "Something worse. Something from outside."
Rhiow and her team find themselves caught up in ever-deepening peril and mystery as they make the dangerous trip back to post-war Los Angeles. Their intervention plunges them headfirst into the glitzy, murky world of 1946 Hollywood, a smoggy film-noir landscape filled with glamourous starlets, flamboyantly corrupt studio heads, wicked, pampered cats with hidden agendas, unsolved murders, snoopy screenwriters, scheming PR flacks, and a shadowy, celebrity-ridden cult dabbling in knowledge better left alone -- knowledge which could destroy their world's present and doom its future, if the dreadful promise of the Year of the Black Jaguar is fulfilled...
397 pages, ebook
First published February 1, 2011
5 people are currently reading
725 people want to read
About the author
Diane Duane
167 books2,416 followersDiane Duane has been a writer of science fiction, fantasy, TV and film for more than forty years.
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.
She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.
Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."
(From her official website)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
March 6, 2015
As much as I love Diane Duane's wizards series, I love her feline wizards series even more. Not only are there wizards, but we get to see the world from a completely different perspective, that of a cat. Complete with cat words, cat games, and cat only wizardries. Because, you see, only a feline can deal with a gate (a teleportation device), as it has to do with playing with hyperstrings, and who better to deal with untangling (or tangling) string than a cat?
This book is about a gate in L.A. that seems to be birthing a new gate. Our glaring of cats goes there to take a look at it and see what they can do. However, while they're there, they're visited by a cat from the past, who's having worse problems with his own gate. And they've been picked by the Powers to fix it. In his time.
So they go to the past, L.A. in the 40s, taking along with them a human shaman they met along the way. They end up staying with Damon Runyon, who has a cat of his own and who has met one of the beings responsible for messing with the gate. Because of this, they talk to him (normally a forbidden action) and introduce themselves. It turns out that he's met a soul-broken woman prophesying the end of the world in three weeks. She and someone else they run into turn out to be the key to discovering the problem -- a darkness from outside their reality is trying to get in, assuming that the right sacrifices are made. And they've been made. How will the feline wizards thwart this and will they have to work with the Lone Power to do so?
There's also the tale of a cat version of Romeo and Juliet, only less tragic. Everyone dies, but at least they don't kill themselves stupidly. And it's foreshadowing for feline romance! Feline romance, mwroah.
It's a great story and the characters are real, if not all human, and the world-building is intense. A worthy addition to the series as a whole.
This book is about a gate in L.A. that seems to be birthing a new gate. Our glaring of cats goes there to take a look at it and see what they can do. However, while they're there, they're visited by a cat from the past, who's having worse problems with his own gate. And they've been picked by the Powers to fix it. In his time.
So they go to the past, L.A. in the 40s, taking along with them a human shaman they met along the way. They end up staying with Damon Runyon, who has a cat of his own and who has met one of the beings responsible for messing with the gate. Because of this, they talk to him (normally a forbidden action) and introduce themselves. It turns out that he's met a soul-broken woman prophesying the end of the world in three weeks. She and someone else they run into turn out to be the key to discovering the problem -- a darkness from outside their reality is trying to get in, assuming that the right sacrifices are made. And they've been made. How will the feline wizards thwart this and will they have to work with the Lone Power to do so?
There's also the tale of a cat version of Romeo and Juliet, only less tragic. Everyone dies, but at least they don't kill themselves stupidly. And it's foreshadowing for feline romance! Feline romance, mwroah.
It's a great story and the characters are real, if not all human, and the world-building is intense. A worthy addition to the series as a whole.
January 7, 2018
In the third story of the feline wizards, Rhiow and her fellow gate technicians face an innocent-seeming problem that proves to be the first manifestation of a major crisis.
The L.A. worldgate keeps moving around and has never spawned another gate, but now it's acting even stranger than usual. Rhiow and her team, the most skilled gate technicians around, head to L.A. to help the feline wizard responsible for that gate. Things get stranger yet, when Hwaith, the wizard responsible for the gate in the 1940s, timeslides forward to ask for their help in his own time. Their current problems are rooted there, and can't be solved without solving Hwaith's problems.
I freely admit that I love Duane's feline wizards. They're pretty convincing intelligent, talking cats, and I love Rhiow in particular. This is an adventure that blends the wizards, the Powers, Native American beliefs and history, and Hollywood of the 1940s. Damon Runyon is a significant character.
It's probably possible to pick up the story here and just go with it. It's even better if you've read previous installments and know the characters and background. Rhiow in particular has some surprises in store, and there are hints that could be the basis of later stories, if Duane chooses to follow that route.
Recommended.
I bought this book.
The L.A. worldgate keeps moving around and has never spawned another gate, but now it's acting even stranger than usual. Rhiow and her team, the most skilled gate technicians around, head to L.A. to help the feline wizard responsible for that gate. Things get stranger yet, when Hwaith, the wizard responsible for the gate in the 1940s, timeslides forward to ask for their help in his own time. Their current problems are rooted there, and can't be solved without solving Hwaith's problems.
I freely admit that I love Duane's feline wizards. They're pretty convincing intelligent, talking cats, and I love Rhiow in particular. This is an adventure that blends the wizards, the Powers, Native American beliefs and history, and Hollywood of the 1940s. Damon Runyon is a significant character.
It's probably possible to pick up the story here and just go with it. It's even better if you've read previous installments and know the characters and background. Rhiow in particular has some surprises in store, and there are hints that could be the basis of later stories, if Duane chooses to follow that route.
Recommended.
I bought this book.
Want to read
November 26, 2014How do I get this?!? The website hasn't been updated in a long time and I apparently found it much too late to participate in the funding. Does anyone know if it is still available?
February 26, 2018
I expected to like this one a lot more than I did. I did finish it, and parts were enjoyable & fun. The cat-wizards were (sort-of) catty, but I could never keep the made-up names straight. I did like the cat-speaking Chumash wizard policewoman. Other parts were tedious, such as the confused cat-god mysticism. And boy, did this book need a Stern Editor. It goes on and on and on. I did like some of the pseudoscience bafflegab: "a temporospatial claudication with so much energy and mass packed down in it needed careful watching."
It was a frustrating book to read. I'd start getting into the cool 1940s Hollywood setting -- Damon Runyon! -- and along would come a long, tedious God-Queen of the Cats legend, or amazingly overblown save-the-world with feline superpowers action. Sigh. I was happy to be done with it. 2.6 stars.
This is the only one of the Feline Wizards books I've read, and I won't be reading the others.
It was a frustrating book to read. I'd start getting into the cool 1940s Hollywood setting -- Damon Runyon! -- and along would come a long, tedious God-Queen of the Cats legend, or amazingly overblown save-the-world with feline superpowers action. Sigh. I was happy to be done with it. 2.6 stars.
This is the only one of the Feline Wizards books I've read, and I won't be reading the others.
January 8, 2018
'The Big Meow' just didn't land for me, to my disappointment. Some of it are things I might warm up to after some reflection and on rereading; it's another time-travel story, right after the last one, and to a time period (40's Hollywood) that I don't really care one way about. It's also about defeating an entity from outside the universe that's supposed to be worse than the Lone Power, which feels kind of like a narrative cheat at first introduction. What I think will stick with me, though, is that half-way through the book I was thinking that whatever my quibbles with the plot were, at least I was getting to spend more time with Rhiow as a calm, capable leader, and enjoying her wit and detachment from the foibles of humans and the games of toms and queens alike -- and then the story introduces a romance for her, and she becomes flustered and much concerned with how a tom could love her even though she's been spayed. This is entirely my personal issue, but I _liked_ that she maintained a network of close relationships outside of the realm of sex, and indeed this is a plot point of the last book, that she would work with and appreciate and befriend a tom without desiring him, or even desiring to desire him. Here, the idea of a platonic friendship seems to disappear once one side expresses an interest, or the working-in-pride that she has with other wizards. It could be a cat cultural thing, but it's never come up this way before, it doesn't feel necessary, and I just don't like what it does to her character. ... Otherwise, it's a decent book. If Ace representation isn't a sticking point, or if you like that era of Hollywood and would recognize the characters, bump it up a star or two and you'll really enjoy it.
February 11, 2015
I'm not really one to write reviews, but this book was just SO GOOD!
I used to own the other two Feline Wizards books, but I haven't read them in a while. I started reading The Big Meow back when Diane was first posting chapters online. I only read what was free because I didn't want to pay the subscription fee. I believe I only read through chapter 6. Then fast-forward to last summer. I was cleaning out my bookmarks folders, and I came across a link to The Big Meow online. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only was the book still up online, but all of the chapters were available. I immediately started from the beginning and read the whole book. I'm not as big of a fan of the YW/FW universe as I used to be, so at first I was holding this book at a distance, so to speak. However, after surpassing what I had read before, I quickly got sucked in, and I couldn't put it down. I especially loved the ending! I literally was squealing because it made me so happy.
If you've read the other two FW books, I totally recommend this one. Also, if you've only read the YW books (or any of Diane's other books), I would recommend the FW series. You won't regret it!
I used to own the other two Feline Wizards books, but I haven't read them in a while. I started reading The Big Meow back when Diane was first posting chapters online. I only read what was free because I didn't want to pay the subscription fee. I believe I only read through chapter 6. Then fast-forward to last summer. I was cleaning out my bookmarks folders, and I came across a link to The Big Meow online. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only was the book still up online, but all of the chapters were available. I immediately started from the beginning and read the whole book. I'm not as big of a fan of the YW/FW universe as I used to be, so at first I was holding this book at a distance, so to speak. However, after surpassing what I had read before, I quickly got sucked in, and I couldn't put it down. I especially loved the ending! I literally was squealing because it made me so happy.
If you've read the other two FW books, I totally recommend this one. Also, if you've only read the YW books (or any of Diane's other books), I would recommend the FW series. You won't regret it!
April 6, 2023
So: first of all, this is the third book in a trilogy. If you really wanted, you could read this one without having read the others in the series. However, the characters and some of the worldbuilding would be lost on you, and you might need longer than usual for things to start making sense. Plus, there are definite spoilers for the rest of the series. Honestly, if you were interested in the series at all, I'd suggest starting from book one and reading all three. I really enjoyed them all.
The plot is basically "some Power from another reality wants to unmake our universe," and Rhiow and company have to stop it. The reason for the time travel is complicated, and wasn't strictly necessary, but it is at least explained in the text. It is also a convenient way to have the events in book three happen chronologically right after the events of book two, even though there has been a lot of real-world time that passed between. There's no need to update technology in the story if the characters have traveled back in time.
Overall, I really liked this story. I'm glad that I finally got around to reading this conclusion to the trilogy, and I was satisfied with how everything turned out. However, I really want to go back and read the rest of the Young Wizards books now, to see if these characters make cameos in those ones. (I know a few of the YW characters have made cameos here.)
The plot is basically "some Power from another reality wants to unmake our universe," and Rhiow and company have to stop it. The reason for the time travel is complicated, and wasn't strictly necessary, but it is at least explained in the text. It is also a convenient way to have the events in book three happen chronologically right after the events of book two, even though there has been a lot of real-world time that passed between. There's no need to update technology in the story if the characters have traveled back in time.
Overall, I really liked this story. I'm glad that I finally got around to reading this conclusion to the trilogy, and I was satisfied with how everything turned out. However, I really want to go back and read the rest of the Young Wizards books now, to see if these characters make cameos in those ones. (I know a few of the YW characters have made cameos here.)
July 9, 2021
I DON'T CARE I DOn'T CARE CAT WIZARDS VERSUS BETTER-CTHULHU IN POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD ENGRAVE EVERY WORD OF THIS ONTO THE INSIDE OF MY SKULL.
No but seriously this is among the best historical fantasy/sf adventure novels I've read. I think only about half of that is my degree of attachment to Duane's conception of wizardry and cosmogony. Yes, it's from the perspective of a cat, and that seems twee, but this cat is a cranky 30-something NASA-level project manager with coworker conflicts and adolescent trainees to jerk into shape and she's just so extremely relatable, Rhiow, to me, a tired millennial who is 32 and ill and reading about cat wizards so I can have a positive feeling.
Plus: Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, late-Golden Age starlet/studio jockeying, absolute parades of cats, Ith the pastrami-loving not-quite-dinosaur, blending of Mayan and Aztec cosmogonies, the astounding sense of place Duane conveys, and the way her dialogue leaps right into your ears.
Masterful.
[I love cats. I love every kind of cat. I just want to hug all of them but I can't hug every cat]
No but seriously this is among the best historical fantasy/sf adventure novels I've read. I think only about half of that is my degree of attachment to Duane's conception of wizardry and cosmogony. Yes, it's from the perspective of a cat, and that seems twee, but this cat is a cranky 30-something NASA-level project manager with coworker conflicts and adolescent trainees to jerk into shape and she's just so extremely relatable, Rhiow, to me, a tired millennial who is 32 and ill and reading about cat wizards so I can have a positive feeling.
Plus: Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, late-Golden Age starlet/studio jockeying, absolute parades of cats, Ith the pastrami-loving not-quite-dinosaur, blending of Mayan and Aztec cosmogonies, the astounding sense of place Duane conveys, and the way her dialogue leaps right into your ears.
Masterful.
[I love cats. I love every kind of cat. I just want to hug all of them but I can't hug every cat]
August 17, 2011
It was a long time coming, but it was worth waiting for. :-)
December 21, 2023
This is certainly my favorite of the trilogy - it has the most interesting and cohesive plot of the three, it tones down the misogyny and odd casual violence of the previous books (it's still there, just not as much), and it introduces us to fantastic side characters like Helen Walks Softly and the Silent Man. Unfortunately... it's phenomenally, disappointingly arophobic. A character repeatedly, calmly saying that she doesn't have romantic feelings towards another character, and who has throughout the trilogy expressed a complete lack of interest in that kind of relationship, ends up realizing that she should just go along with it because it would be denying herself happiness not to make him happy. She's also told that because she thinks other people should have partners, she should have one, too - and accepts this as simple fact. Sigh. I'd forgotten everything about this book except for that detail - that's how mad it made me the first time around.
February 9, 2020
I was one of the fans who signed up to receive this chapter by chapter in, what, 2006? And something went wrong somewhere and I never did read the book, though I have read and reread the first two Feline Wizards books. Finally my daughter installed the Nook app on my phone and we purchased this book and some others that are only available as e-books -- and DD, you should know that you are one of the very few authors for whom I will read the book on my phone! -- and I finally got to read The Big Meow.
This went in directions I didn't expect. Aztec and Chumash culture, postwar Hollywood, and Hrhiow's personal life. Nice!
Might there be another city in the Feline Wizards' future? Perhaps...Montreal?
This went in directions I didn't expect. Aztec and Chumash culture, postwar Hollywood, and Hrhiow's personal life. Nice!
Might there be another city in the Feline Wizards' future? Perhaps...Montreal?
March 3, 2018
This was a totally enjoyable trilogy. So much to love. It took the idea of feline wizards and made it something spectacular.
I totally enjoyed Tad Williams' first novel "Tailchaser's Song" which was also a Fantasy story involving cats. This trilogy though is even more inventive.
A cat-based Fantasy story easily could be cutesy. Not here. This is kind of Fantasy and Science Fiction involving time travel. The characters are well thought out and the plotting is tight. The trilogy also managed to make each book have a deeper threat without loosing itself. Each novel stands up on its own merits. This series could easily be a re-read.
I totally enjoyed Tad Williams' first novel "Tailchaser's Song" which was also a Fantasy story involving cats. This trilogy though is even more inventive.
A cat-based Fantasy story easily could be cutesy. Not here. This is kind of Fantasy and Science Fiction involving time travel. The characters are well thought out and the plotting is tight. The trilogy also managed to make each book have a deeper threat without loosing itself. Each novel stands up on its own merits. This series could easily be a re-read.
February 15, 2021
I waited years to read this, I think because after it got delayed for so many years, I associated it with pretty negative feelings. Now that I have read it, I'm glad. It's a good adventure with fun historical detail. I'm not sure how I feel about the romance plot--I liked having Rhiow be ace and proud of it, and it seems like she still is, but isn't aro? I'm a little unclear on this. Plus the romance feels overly intense for the time frame involved, and I'm kind of meh on romances where a female is pursued by a male, and part of why she gives in is because he persists. I guess it is classic Hollywood though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2018
Finally got the last in the Feline Wizards trilogy by my good friend Diane Duane and it doesn't disappoint. Granted, since my new policy on ratings it doesn't get the five stars I would previously have given, and it's not quite got the magic of the The Book of Night with Moon (part of which was the sense of New) but it's a great book nonetheless.
The magic of Hollywood is present and contrasts with the magic of wizardry and the characters are vivid and memorable, as you'd expect.
Great story, great series. Read it.
The magic of Hollywood is present and contrasts with the magic of wizardry and the characters are vivid and memorable, as you'd expect.
Great story, great series. Read it.
September 23, 2024
Everyone’s favorite time-traveling cat wizards face Hollywood politics, cultists gone awry, and awkward relationships to save the universe again.
I feel like the Feline Wizards really hit their stride in this book. The world-building and technical explanations were set in the first two books and smoothly integrated into this one.
I feel like the Feline Wizards really hit their stride in this book. The world-building and technical explanations were set in the first two books and smoothly integrated into this one.
December 27, 2017
It had been a while since I read the first two in this series, so it took me a while to catch up on who's who and what they experienced before. This is a page turner- kept reading eagerly. Duane's wizardry feels very real. Cats & dinosaurs & time travel Oh my!
June 30, 2020
I finished this at 3am, and I’m crying over wizard cats.
A fun story that turns horrifying and heartbreaking, and then back, as it should be, to hopeful and joyous. That love will find a way, that some things last beyond our life.
A very good ending.
A fun story that turns horrifying and heartbreaking, and then back, as it should be, to hopeful and joyous. That love will find a way, that some things last beyond our life.
A very good ending.
September 17, 2023
The cats go to old-school 1940s Hollywood and solve a mystery with Damon Runyon, the guy who wrote the story "Guys and Dolls" is based on.
Also an epic, tragic romance, and Arhu being adorable sitting on Ith's head.
Also an epic, tragic romance, and Arhu being adorable sitting on Ith's head.
April 16, 2025
I DNF’d this about halfway through. It was alright, but the pacing was like rubbernecking through traffic and I hate that. I’m not interested enough in what happens to Rhiow and the crew to continue torturing myself getting through the slow parts.
January 12, 2018
Fun, and I'm happy I finally found a way to finish it, but not as strong as some of her other work in this universe.
January 22, 2018
More typos than usual and a tendency to get bogged down in the details of the magics, but still a pretty good story.
June 9, 2018
Loved the details of Old Hollywood, and the cats' eye view of the world.
September 11, 2018
Both a lot more grim, and in some respects fluffier than the previous books. Lots of fun in new ways.
July 6, 2019
OMFG THAT LAST LINE!!
January 16, 2020
A wonderful conclusion to this trilogy, and my favorite of the three!
February 10, 2019
I've been waiting for this sequel for nearly 20 years, so it was bound to disappoint. I'm not the same reader I was when I discovered The Book of Night with Moon. But it's also hard to explain how much BoNwM meant to me, and still means to me--it struck such a chord with me as a teenager and I've reread it several times since. All of which means The Big Meow had a lot to live up to... and it really, really couldn't.
It's not that the smug, smarmy, condescending cutesy-ness of this book was entirely unfamiliar; it's not that Duane's fatphobia, racism, and casual misogyny came as a shock; but it all seemed to have been cranked up to 11 compared to my memory of the earlier books in the series. Granted, it's been over a decade since I've reread The Book of Night with Moon, and probably longer since I read the mediocre first sequel, but my memory of those books is more epic-fantasy-with-comedy and less cutesy-tongue-in-cheek-jokes-that-fall-flat-while-endlessly-patronizing-the-reader. But ouch, this book, so much falling flat.
I'd long ago cut book 2 in this series a lot of slack for time travel errors, but I can't do it again. Almost as soon as we find out that The Big Meow is ALSO going to deal in time travel (whyyyy), we get yet another basic logicfail in the explanation of how time travel works. I'm much less tolerant this time--how long has DD been writing science fiction, and she still can't do a feasible description of how time functions??
The pacing dragged, the final arc was underwhelming (and pretty much stolen from book 1), and the personal developments for Rhiow felt tacked-on and forced, despite the foreshadowing in To Visit the Queen which made it plenty clear this was coming.
Much as it pains me to admit it, there was nothing here that worked for me. I can't decide whether I should go back and reread Book of Night with Moon immediately, to see if it's me or the series that's changed... or never, ever read it again so I can at least preserve the memory of it.
It's not that the smug, smarmy, condescending cutesy-ness of this book was entirely unfamiliar; it's not that Duane's fatphobia, racism, and casual misogyny came as a shock; but it all seemed to have been cranked up to 11 compared to my memory of the earlier books in the series. Granted, it's been over a decade since I've reread The Book of Night with Moon, and probably longer since I read the mediocre first sequel, but my memory of those books is more epic-fantasy-with-comedy and less cutesy-tongue-in-cheek-jokes-that-fall-flat-while-endlessly-patronizing-the-reader. But ouch, this book, so much falling flat.
I'd long ago cut book 2 in this series a lot of slack for time travel errors, but I can't do it again. Almost as soon as we find out that The Big Meow is ALSO going to deal in time travel (whyyyy), we get yet another basic logicfail in the explanation of how time travel works. I'm much less tolerant this time--how long has DD been writing science fiction, and she still can't do a feasible description of how time functions??
The pacing dragged, the final arc was underwhelming (and pretty much stolen from book 1), and the personal developments for Rhiow felt tacked-on and forced, despite the foreshadowing in To Visit the Queen which made it plenty clear this was coming.
Much as it pains me to admit it, there was nothing here that worked for me. I can't decide whether I should go back and reread Book of Night with Moon immediately, to see if it's me or the series that's changed... or never, ever read it again so I can at least preserve the memory of it.
January 16, 2018
I'm probably going to have to come back and do an actual review when I'm not still kind of !!!!! from finishing this, but it's lovely and definitely going to go with the first two as multi-reread comfort books (even though every single one of them has at least one spot that's guaranteed to make me sad-cry lmao).
anyway it's great! everyone read the cat wizard books kthxbye
anyway it's great! everyone read the cat wizard books kthxbye
Read
January 25, 2016I started reading this ages ago. DD was releasing it online chapter by chapter. I paid Mom $25 so she could buy it with her credit card (I didn't have my own, that's how young I was). Somehow we stopped getting mailed updates.
Is it done? Is it out? Do I really want to read it now?
Sigh.
Is it done? Is it out? Do I really want to read it now?
Sigh.
March 29, 2014
First read May 2012. Second August 2013. Third March 2014.
August 16, 2012
So deeply sad and so redeeming. Loved the exploration of life, death and beyond. Sacred without feeling religious.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews