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Fantasy. Fiction. Traveling back in time to 1874 London to prevent an assassination plot against Queen Victoria, the feline wizards of Grand Central Station — leader Rhiow and her able partners Urrah and Arhu — must summon their powers to avert disaster in Victorian England, or else their archenemy, the evil Lone One, will warp time and trigger Armageddon. Teamed with a young Arthur Conan Doyle, Queen Victoria herself, and other historical figures, the feline wizards set out to find the show more forgotten magic that will rewrite history — or the cats who can save mankind will never have existed. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a sequel to The Book of Night with Moon, and to be honest, I liked this one better. It may have had something to do with the fact that I've gotten used to the cats' language being present in the text. I also thought the plot of this one was easier to follow. The first book focused a lot on the abstract concepts of worldgate technology and on mythology that featured so many different names for each character it was nearly impossible to keep them straight. This one seems to assume you know that stuff for the most part already, only briefly glancing over it as necessary, and as a result, it was much easier to understand.
Nice. All the Wizard books have a strong philosophy bent - this one expresses more strongly than many "nothing happens by accident". Who's doing the meaning may vary, but everything is meant... The story itself is a little awkward, as more and more bits come out and the possibilities get worse and worse - and the politics between the two teams get more and more tangled. Poor Huff - and poor Auhlae, too. I hope she did change her mind in time. That whole sequence came out, pretty much, of nowhere for me - every time I read it, it surprises me. I know it's coming, but it's not really foreshadowed for me. Bits and pieces - Patel, at least, gets rounded off. He started it, and he ends it (or it's ended for him). But the bit with the Queen, show more the bit with Wallis Budge, the bit(s) with Artie...the number of humans they end up talking to... Black Jack, Humphrey, the Ravens, the Moon - this and that and the other thing, popping up randomly (apparently randomly. See previous note about "no accidents"), all piling up into a story. And Arhu and Siffha'h, of course - that's more of a beginning of a story than an end (and the part that applies to this story kind of gets slid over), but it's very rich. I cry every time at that part. I enjoy the story, I like the views of London, and it's very rich and strong - but it doesn't quite appeal to me the way The Book of Night with Moon does. Which means it's only great, not spectacular. I do love the Feline Wizards. show less
I've read the first two in this series already, but I don't remember them so I want to re-read.
2020 Update: I really enjoyed this second book in the series. I loved getting to spend more time with the main cats from the first book, and we got to meet new cats for this one who were fun to get to know as well. I had forgotten the sad turn of events at the end, but none of the plot points should have been surprising if I was looking for them. (I wasn't looking. I was just enjoying the read and letting it go where it would.)
2020 Update: I really enjoyed this second book in the series. I loved getting to spend more time with the main cats from the first book, and we got to meet new cats for this one who were fun to get to know as well. I had forgotten the sad turn of events at the end, but none of the plot points should have been surprising if I was looking for them. (I wasn't looking. I was just enjoying the read and letting it go where it would.)
Sequel to Book of Night with Moon
A comfortable favorite.
fantasy and science fiction, children's and young adult fiction
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ThingScore 75
Duane presents her usual felicitous mix of magical high adventure and humor, avoiding much of the preciousness that can infect anthropomorphic fantasy. Even those who don't fancy felines should enjoy this purr of a tale.
added by JalenV
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Author Information
132+ Works 35,948 Members
Author Diane Duane was born in New York City on May 18, 1952, and grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island. She is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Duane studied nursing in college and became a psychiatric nurse. She began writing full time in 1980 and has published numerous novels, including several with her husband, Peter Morwood. She show more also writes screenplays, served as senior writer for the BBC-TV education series "Science Challenge," and writes scripts for CD-ROM computer games. Her "Young Wizards" series won a special commendation in the Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize in Children's Literature, 2003. She currently lives in County Wicklow, Ireland. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Diane Duane is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Some Editions
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- To Visit the Queen
- Original title
- On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service
- Original publication date
- 1998
- People/Characters
- Rhiow; Urruah; Arhu; Siff'hah; Ith; Wallis Budge (show all 9); Arthur Conan Doyle; Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom; Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
- Important places
- New York, New York, USA; London, England, UK
- Epigraph
- Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
- Traditional children's rhyme
In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life's service alone. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way, nor wil... (show all)l I change any creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will ever put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is fitting to do so - looking always toward the Heart of Time, where all our sundered times are one, and all our myriad worlds lie whole, in That from Which they proceeded.
- THE WIZARD'S OATH, SPECIES-NONSPECIFIC RECENSION - Dedication
- For Mike Hodel
- First words
- Rajesh Patel went slowly up the gray concrete stairs to the elevated Docklands Light Railway Station at Island Gardens. He took them one at a time, rather than two or three at once as he usually did. (prologue)
At just before five P.M. on a weekday, the upper-track level of Grand Central Terminal looks much as it does at any other time of day: a striped gray landscape of long concrete islands stretching away from you into a dry, iro... (show all)n-smelling night, under the relentless fluorescent glow of the long lines of overhead lighting. - Quotations
- But when he and his wife and new family moved up to the country, later in his life, Patel was never easy about being in any wooded place in the wintertime, at dusk. The naked limbs of the trees, all held out stiff against the... (show all) falling night and moving, moving slightly, would speak to some buried memory that would leave him silent and shaking for hours. Nor was he ever able to explain, to Sasha, or to his parents, or anyone else, exactly what had happened to his copy of Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. Mostly his family and friends thought he had been robbed and assaulted, perhaps indecently; they left the matter alone. They were right, though as regarded the nature of the indecency, they could not have been more wrong.
Bong, said the clock: and clearly audible through it, through the voices and the diesel thunder and the sound of the slightly desperate-sounding train announcer, a small, clear voice spoke. "These endless dumb drills,"... (show all) it said, "lick butt."
"It still licks butt."
WHAM!
Rhiow closed her eyes and wondered where she and Urruah would ever find enough patience for this job. Inside her, some annoyed part of her mind was mocking the Meditation: I will ... (show all)meet the terminally clueless today, it said piously: idiots, and those with hairballs for brains, and those whose ears need a good shredding before you can even get their attention. I do not have to be like them, even though I would dearly love to hit them hard enough to make the empty places in their heads echo...
"It's weird," he said. "I can't see what would happen. Or, I mean, I can see two ways it would go."
"What? You mean, if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather?" Urruah had said. "Well, one way, if you're sti... (show all)ll there afterwards, it means you're a by-blow. A bastard, as the ehhif would say. But then how else would you describe someone who would go back in time and kill their own grandfather? I ask you. And if you go the other way, and you succeed, then you're not there at all. And serves you right for being a bastard." - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Behind him, whiskers went forward: and Rhiow went back to fetch her team, with its new part-time member, and go home.
- Original language
- English
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- Popularity
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- Reviews
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- Rating
- (3.98)
- Languages
- English
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- ISBNs
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- ASINs
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