Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Amity Public Library | TEEN FIC DUANE Cat Wizards #1 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Willamina Public Library | YA DUANE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Rhiow seems a perfectly ordinary New York City cat. Or so her humans think--but she is much more than she appears. With her partners Saash and Urruah, she collaborates with human wizards, protecting the earth from dark forces and helping to maintain the network of magical gateways between different realities.
Author Notes
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 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)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The secret lives of cats are revealed as modestly heroic in this enchanting blend of epic fantasy, horror and SF set in contemporary Manhattan. Reprising concepts from her young-adult Wizard trilogy (High Wizardry, etc.), Duane, best known for her Star Trek and other media tie-in novels, chronicles the adventures of an elite corps of human and animal sorcerers in league against the Lone Power, ruler of a dark dimension known as Downside. When worldgates in the subway system malfunction and threaten our world with an invasion of Downside's saurian monsters, four feline musketeerseven-tempered Rhiow, streetwise Saash, aging Urruah and impish young Arhuinfiltrate the Lone Power's realm to find the renegade wizard responsible for the mayhem. The cats' magical experience give Duane an opportunity to elaborate the complex structure of a secret cat civilization, which includes a detailed rationale for their nine lives and even a distinct language. The feline philosophy gets a bit thick at times, but Duane punctuates long stretches of exposition with over-the-top action scenes, including a memorable Central Park concert invaded by Downside dinosaurs who put the bite on Pavarotti in mid-solo. The novel's most enjoyable interludes, however, are those in which the heroes ponder the differences between human and cat cultures. Part quest adventure in the tradition of Watership Down and part comic commentary in the style of the Morris the Cat commercials, Duane's tale purrs with charms that even ailurophobes will find irresistible. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Fantasy set in the universe Duane created in a YA series (Deep Wizardry, 1990, etc.). Cats are intelligent and have their own language, Ailurin; feline wizards with their human counterparts keep transit gates open and the world safe from disasters and invasions. Three New York wizards, house pet Rhiow, neurotic Saash, and dumpster resident Urruah, are detailed by the Powers That Be to repair a malfunctioning gate beneath Grand Central Station before a train accidentally gets hurled into another dimension. In the train tunnel the three battle hordes of rats and rescue a kitten, Arhu, who, though resentful and hostile, is destined to become a wizard, too. Next, the trio must travel into an alternate world of the past, Downside, to locate the gate's power source--but the locals are dinosaurs, and very belligerent. Then the investigators' human Area Advisory vanishes; they discover a magic spell written in Ailurin on an ancient Egyptian papyrus; Arhu develops a talent for seeing the future; and it becomes clear that they're being opposed by a dinosaur wizard backed by the evil Lone Power. Often intriguing, with a well-worked backdrop, but it's hard to find a logical or emotional connection between cats and dinosaurs. Still, fantasy-loving ailurophiles will curl up and purr.