Could someone please post a (long) summary of TBONWM?

l8r...
and I just finished the door into shadow--i'm not really sure which i liked better. i think shadow was more exciting at the end but fire caught my attention faster.

le
and
the white cat
and speckles--don't forget speckles.
and of course
my pillow.

[bassethoundbeagle]

Borders and amazon.com dont sell the Door Into Fire. It's out of print.

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[Jaru]

A clarification about the various "Doors" books, which seem to have some people confused.

The Door into Fire and The Door into Shadow, which are the first two in the series, were reprinted in 2002 in one omnibus volume, under the title The Tale of the Five: The Sword and the Dragon.

The third in the series, The Door into Sunset, is supposed to be combined with the fourth and final one (listed on DD's blog under "What I've worked on today" as The Door into Starlight), and issued under "The Tale of the Five" with a different sub-title. Judging from the focus of Sunset, my guess is for ":The Lion and the..." something, depending on what the primary focus of Starlight turns out to be. The publisher's website Meisha Merlin says that they will put up their "Forthcoming" notice as soon as Diane gets the manuscript to them.
(Hint, Hint, DD )

The Door into Sunset is also out of print, but I just did an Amazon search that turned up 19 copies available.

"Is the glass half full or empty, I ask her as I fill it; she said it doesn't really matter, pretty soon you're bound to spill it" Indigo Girls

[Fox]

Dai stiho
Hi everyone, just seen this topic and thought I would join in. and it must be fate!!!!!!!!!
I was on www.Amazon.co.uk

SPOILERS FOR TBONWM

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OK, I wanted to, um, write out a little summary. In case someone still wants it.

Rhiow (female) is part of a team of feline wizards who maintain the worldgates at Grand Central station. Her compatriots are Saash (female) and Urruah (male). One day when they're wandering in Grand Central, they come across a little kitten who's been attacked by those huge NYC rats. They heal him, and it turns out he's (you guessed it) a wizard, too.

But Arhu is weird, and Rhiow's not sure what to make of him. She teaches him about wizardry and about life in general, and he starts warming to them all. He treats Saash as a mother-figure, and Urruah as a sort of big brother, and Rhiow as the leader that she is.

There are problems with a worldgate, and the cats go in to fix it. I don't really remember how. Sorry.

Rhiow figures out at some point what's weird about Arhu -- he's a Seer, and he can see the future, and stuff that might happen. Useful talent, eh?

Something goes terribly wrong with one of the worldgates, and Carl (yes, that Carl) gets sucked off into another dimension (or whatever). Then Rhiow's human dies completely unexpectedly, because the Lone One wants her to cop out of the intervention that she has to take part in. But she soldiers on, along with her three teammates.

The gate starts spurting dinosaurs that eat Luciano Pavoratti. (I'm not even kidding. This, incidentally, is what Nita's talking about to her mom towards the beginning of Dilemma.) All the NYC wizards try to patch their univere with timeslides, but they won't "stick."

The cats go in to fix the gate, and they meet a saurian wizard called Ith. (Yeah, a dinosaur.) Then they go down to the root structure of the gates, where they find the Tree that is the source of the worldgates, the Lone One in the guise of a serpent, and an evil saurian wizard called Haath. Basically, Ith has to make the Choice for the saurians, and he chooses the path of Light.

The Serpent gets mad, kills Haath, and then proceeds to kill Saash, Urruah, and Arhu. Rhiow then says a spell that is just there in her mind that she's never known the purpose for. It turns her into an avatar for the One, and she resurrects her companions in the forms of two Bright Powers and an "ambivalent" Power, who is a rough analog to the Lone One.

Then the four of them have to reenact the cats' creation story, which they do. They kill the Serpent -- hurray! Then they all go back to normal NYC, where everything is all right and Carl's back.

Because they died, they all lose a life, but Saash was on her ninth life, so she becomes a "tenth lifer," which is (as far as I can tell) a sort of assistant Power. Or something.

It's a very, very confusing book. I really like it, but it made my head spin on more than on occasion. It took me a while to read, too, and I'm a quick reader. It's worth a look, though, especially since it gives us more info about the Young Wizards universe. Hope that helped!

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[PK]

*blinks at Melissa, impressed* I don't think I could have summarized it anywhere near that neatly.

A couple of interesting points (well, I think so, anyway):

The glossary says that the ambivalent feline Power, sa'Rrahh, is "roughly" analogous to the Lone Power. She is however referred to by that term as well on a fairly regular basis in both feline novels, and greeted with 'Eldest, Fairest, and Fallen, greeting and defiance, now and forever' (despite, in the cats' stories, the Defender being firstborn... oh well) so I have no idea what the qualification of "roughly" is supposed to indicate, except that the cats don't look at her quite the same way. She's also in charge of the tenth life -- which does, indeed, seem to mean becoming a sort of assistant Power. Or a new/lesser known one. A Maia?

One passage in this book that seems to illustrate both the head-spinning qualities and the general confusion resulting from the Powers existing outside of time: Rhiow is thinking about the Devastatrix (sa'Rrahh) and how her ambivalence is "a recent development as the gods reckon time" -- and then in the next thought or breath is saying how at the beginning of time, she was both the Old Serpent and one of the Powers who fought and killed it.

Carl says, after his return, that wherever he was he ended up helping straighten out some problem there. I can't help wondering if the local manifestation of the LP there was annoyed at whoever sent him.

Thanks, PK! I did my best. It's actually "Marissa," not "Melissa" . . . don't worry, it happens all the time. At least you didn't write it in the Speech! I'd be a very different person!

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[PK]

*facepalms* Sorry. I have a cousin named Melissa, though that doesn't really explain it.

[Fox]

[PK]

Fox: To the best of my knowledge....

The Door into Starlight hasn't yet been published for the excellent reason that it isn't finished yet. There is, I believe, one website which lists it as having come out in 1978, but I don't know why.

There are only two feline wizard novels, but On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service was also published under the title To Visit the Queen, which made me think there were three for a while too.

[Fox]

ohh--it's not written yet--that would explain why it wasn't in worldcat...

Sunset's the best--unless starlight is better??? who knows???

sigh...

le
and
the white cat
and speckles--don't forget speckles.
and of course
my pillow.

[Fox]

yeah. after my cat--which is pretty obvious. my pwetty widd-ul wide cat... *mushy baby talk* she's my pretty girl *hee hee*

le
and
the white cat
and speckles--don't forget speckles.
and of course
my pillow.

[Fox]