Diane Duane Books, was Re: new to Club

[Brooks A. Rowlett]

No: HPFGUIDX 464

> A Wizard Abroad 

In which Nita is sent by her parents to Ireland to visit her Aunt Anne,
to get her away from all this dangerous wizarding stuff.  Aunt Anne, is
a nice portrait of Anne McCaffrey - although not explicitly stated, it
is pretty obvious if you know anything about AM, who lives in Ireland
and raises horses and has been a mentor to Diane Duane.  "Aunt Anne" is,
of course, a wizard herself.  She & Nita are trying to conceal the fact
of their wizardry from each other when in truth they need to co-operate.
 Lots of Irish legend incorporated in the story.


>The Book of Night (I think)  <---  full title is The Book of Night With Moon
>To Visit the Queen

Diane Duane also wrote the 'Door' title trilogy, called the "The Tale of
the Five": 
The Door Into Fire
The Door Into Shadow
The Door Into Sunset

which have a VERY Unusual setting.
In this universe & Society:
*The Supreme Being is a three-fold Goddess, with Mother, Lover, Crone aspects
*There was a fourth, male, apparently, who allowed Death to be part of
Creation, and is cast out from the others and delights in (1) his
solitude and (2) messing up things.
(The theme of the enemy of the forces of light, who put entropy/death as
his part of creation, is also in the kid Wizards books (First three
collected by SFBC as _Support Your Local Wizard_ - and the purpose of
Wizards is to slow down the death of the universe by fighting death and entropy.)
*The Commandments for people:
**You can have a straight or a gay lifetime relationship as you wish, no
condemnation of either, but you MUST produce a minumum of one child (to
replace yourself).  More than one is neither forbidden nor encouraged.
**Everybody who lives to adulthood gets to make love with a physical
manifestation of the Lover aspect of the Three once before he or she
dies.  And you know it once it happens.)
  (Surprisingly there are still atheists in this universe, even though
they had the experience!)
*Most Wizards are female - the quest of the first book is that main
character is likely the first man in several generations to have enough
potential magic to summon mystic fire, and he needs to go on the quest
to win that power.

Duane is either love it or hate it though.  To me they have a strong
positive emotional effect, so I like them, even if logically i do find
them a bit strange.

-Brooks