Diane DuaneCritiques

F/SF

F/SF

F/SF

Dude if I don’t marry someone as smart and playful and petty as Amanda “there is nothing small about my husband” Greyson, what is the point? And hello Sir Sarek, Reigning Supreme Simp of not one, but two worlds? We’ve always known it, but there’s a special thrill in having it spelled out in flashbacks.

And Bones! His speech! The mic drop! (Duane has an obvious bias for Bones.) Hilarious.
Legends, all.

Fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy

Some really interesting world building was supported by interesting characters with a strong and empathetic main character, but the pacing was stuttering, and the some sections seemed overly drawn out - and the big nope - an overheard conversation that was in the mc's language when it shouldn't have been and was overfull of explanations that would have been unnecessary to the speakers. The actions resulting from that conversation could have been much more naturally inspired. And I feel that 3* is generous for the amount of time I lost to this book.

I would have given this book five stars for a highly original setting and scientific yet meaningful magic system, but for three major flaws. The forced rhymes of the whales' songs made them sound like a sanctimonious human choir. The master shark's behavior towards Nita was quite literally predatory, and he was portrayed too sympathetically, in my opinion. Also the ubiquitous victimized villain trope, but that's another essay.

Part of what makes great fantasy is a great setting, i.e. an original other world that feels real even though it's so different from the world we inhabit. I found this book totally lacking in that department. Nita and Kit (whose names and personalities are too similar--I kept getting them mixed up as I read) start in the real world as normal kids. They meet when they realize they're both aspiring wizards and then they go looking for Nita's lost pen and end up in this horrible, dark alternate universe where they are chased by monstrous living helicopters and cars.

Here's my biggest problem: The story got so deep so fast. The kids have only been wizards for a few weeks and suddenly they're totally alone and fighting for their lives to find the most important book in the universe? I'm barely getting to know the world Duane has created and we're already at what feels like the climax! It's like someone asking to marry you on the second date. And this date is not making you laugh. In fact, he's a little hard to follow and seems to be speaking a different language that he doesn't bother explaining to you. You are getting bored and tuning him out for whole paragraphs, but there's something about him that reminds you of an old boyfriend you still think of fondly (maybe his name was Harry? Or Charles Wallace?) and so you cut him some slack.

But let's face it: he is not what you want. It's time to move on.

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12082999

Yet another 90's SFBC selection I could not muscle through

This was a cute read for younger folks.

I found some parts to be quite confusing, some of it speaking as if we were all aware of what they were talking about when, in fact, it was fiction and we had no basis for understanding it. The children were exceptionally smart and intuitive for 12 year olds, which was a tad hard to buy into. There were several parts that were left unresolved, like the ending wasn't the ending. I realize this is a series, but it is a nice idea to have endings in each book anyway.

Yet ... this was thrilling to read, kept me on the edge of my seat, and I stayed up past my bedtime to finish it.

A decent novelization of the pilot episode of seaQuest DSV. There's a few important scenes missing, notably when Bridger arrives at the seaQuest and meets the crew the first time. It almost felt like a few pages were missing, but that's just the way it was written. A bit disappointing for that, but otherwise it was pretty faithful. Good book, good TV show.

In an alternate universe, Lee and Gelert are a detective team tasked with finding the murderer of an Alf, a visitor from yet another universe. There are 5 universes that travel between themselves. The Alf universe is the most powerful because it controls the supply of fairy gold which is the substance that allows this travel. As they begin to research their case they uncover a huge conspiracy.
Off to a slow start but it got more interesting toward the end.
read 11/8/2023½

Just a classic romp with the characters we all know to!d in a way that only Diane Duane can.

Great book for those who are getting more into reading and love a good magic adventure story! I would say middle school reading level is appropriate. This book has a very good story line and is pretty descriptive.

I feel that re-reading this book, now older, has granted me better appreciation for it. Though Shadow will always remain my favourite book of the series.

Always a treat - not sure how many times I've read this, but it made for a great read while visiting WDW!

Great for any 9-13 year old. Had a blast in middle school with this series

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.)

Diane Duane’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – Dark Mirror tells the first story of the Enterprise-D crew traveling to the Mirror Universe that first appeared in The Original Series episode “Mirror, Mirror.” The Enterprise, on an exploratory mission to a remote part of the galaxy in order to scan for particles that would reveal hyperstring structures, a subspace structure that could revolutionize galactic navigation and nicely builds on the then-recent superstring theory at the time Duane wrote. In the course of their work, the universe appears to attenuate. A mission specialist provides the first clue that they may no longer be in their own universe, but the sudden appearance of a döppelganger character provides further proof. Counselor Deanna Troi, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and Lt. Geordi La Forge realize that their alternate universe selves aboard the I.S.S. Enterprise-D managed to transport the Federation ship across the universal barrier. At Captain Picard’s direction, the Enterprise crew must infiltrate the alternate vessel to learn how they can return home before the universes are no longer in alignment. Picard himself must go to the alternate ship, where he impersonates his other and finds, to his amusement, that the Empire solved the issue of his tunic riding up (pg. 144). Duane builds on the psychologically disturbing nature of running into one’s evil döppelganger in a way that works far more effectively in a novel than in broadcast, crafting a story worthy of the TNG crew.

Ever a master of connecting to previous elements of Star Trek canon and trivia, Duane gives the reader their first explanation of Cetacean Ops through the character Commander Hwii. The Next Generation episodes “We’ll Always Have Paris,” “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and “The Perfect Mate” from seasons 1, 3, and 5 all included references to Cetacean Ops while two Next Generation reference guides from the 1990s featured diagrams of the facilities, but they first appeared on-screen in the Lower Decks episode, “First First Contact.” Linking to the Mirror Universe, Captain Picard, Lt. Commander Data, Lt. Geordi La Forge, and Chief Miles O’Brien discuss the events that transpired for Kirk (pgs. 63-68). While they discuss Starfleet having classified these events, subsequent television appearances of the Mirror Universe would have similarly appeared in their files, specifically those from Star Trek: Discovery, which predate The Original Series. This novel also predates the Deep Space Nine episodes “Crossover” and “Through the Looking Glass,” which state that the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance overthrew the Terran Empire and worked to prevent crossover events. The continuity of the novel works in predating those episodes as Picard discovers that the Spock of this novel failed to change the Empire (pgs. 246-247). Finally, Duane’s discussion of how humanity spread outward and created the United Empire of Planets (pgs. 124-126, 179) differs from that which later appeared in the fourth season of Enterprise.

Interestingly, the idea of the Mirror Universe being darker, as the world attenuated during the shift of the Prime Universe Enterprise, foreshadows the concept introduced in Discovery that the Mirror Universe is not only darker in tone but literally not as brightly-lit as the Prime Universe. Similarly, Duane portrays Picard musing about a means of travel through dimensions that would seem to foreshadow the spore drive from Discovery. Finally, Duane links to the theme of a doomed empire from “Mirror, Mirror,” positioning another alien as the one who might bring about its transformative end (pg. 291). Though TNG never encountered the Mirror Universe on-screen, later comics from IDW portrayed a Mirror Universe version of The Next Generation as did William Shatner’s Mirror Universe trilogy of novels with each published work tells its own story without limiting itself to events from preceding novels and comics.½

Duane makes me like McCoy a lot - although he was never my favorite of the core three.

Why can't every book be by Diane Duane? Only half joking. I really love this one.

All I can ever say about Diane Duane's Star Trek novels is "more, please."