History Literature / TheBookOfNightWithMoon

The ''Book of Night with Moon'' / ''Feline Wizards'' series is a sister series to ''Literature/YoungWizards'', also written by Creator/DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are three books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999, and ''The Big Meow'', written as a Storyteller's Bowl project but not "officially" published yet and currently available only via "subscribing" at [[http://the-big-meow.com/ the project web site]]. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.
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!!These books provide examples of:

* AlternateTimeline: One pops up in the second book and the plot revolves around stopping it from overwriting the protagonists' timeline.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: [[spoiler: The Saurians, subverted.]]
* BoisterousBruiser: Urruah
* BrattyHalfPint: Arhu starts out pretty bratty.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: There's a fair amount of it, between the use of cats' words for familiar things (like ''houff'' for "dog") and the mangled versions of human names for other things (cats aren't really equipped to pronounce most consonants).
* CatsHaveNineLives: They [[{{Reincarnation}} reincarnate]] eight times, keeping their personalities and some but not all of their memories. A cat can feel what life they're on, and the subject of how many lives one has left is fairly personal, something it's okay to divulge but not okay to just brazenly ask about.
* ChessMotifs: The cats have their own strategy game depending on position, ownership of people and things, etc.
* DeadpanSnarker: Rhiow
* DefaceOfTheMoon: They don't bother writing a message or anything, but the Victorians with nukes test their nukes on the Moon, sending a very visible message to everyone else on the planet.
* DoingInTheWizard: [[MagicAIsMagicA Magic operates]] via [[TechnoBabble String Theory]] and the cat wizards manipulate the "[[JustForPun strings]]."
* {{Fictionary}}: The important words in Ailurin (some of which have simple translations, but most of them don't) are untranslated, with a glossary provided at the back of the book.
* GodOfEvil: While the Lone Power is as much the enemy as in ''Literature/YoungWizards'' and in much the same way, cats don't seem to separate Her out from the other Powers quite as much as humans do. She's a goddess to them - one whose work and desires need to be opposed at all costs, but a goddess to be reunited with the pantheon, not the Devil.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: Urruah and Arhu
* HistoricalPersonPunchline: [[spoiler:Artie]] is Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
* HumansByAnyOtherName: The cats call humans ''ehhif''.
* InsufferableGenius: Fhrio.
* IntellectualAnimal:
** The cats are basically a society of these; they're as cognitively capable as humans, but they don't think like humans. They're also physically incapable of building much of anything and normally speak their language at a volume inaudible to humans, which mostly explains why humans aren't aware that cats are that smart.
** Many other species are said to be this, and can produce wizards; canine and falcon wizards are discussed, but not shown.
* InterspeciesFriendship: The cat wizards and the human wizards. Also [[spoiler: Arhu and Ith.]]
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The second book, ''To Visit the Queen''.
* LongLostSibling: [[spoiler: Arhu and his "sister"]]
* {{Masquerade}}: Not from other cats, but they make up for it with extra worrying about humans. Notably in the second book, while planning a commuting schedule: Rhiow (who's living with a human) asks Arhu (who she knows ''isn't'') whether there are any humans, anywhere he visits, who take special notice of him and might worry if he didn't turn up regularly. People can go to surprising lengths when a cat goes missing...
* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours: Urruah has the most LifeEnergy at his disposal and acts as a power source for the rest of the team.
* {{Mythopoeia}}
* NoBiologicalSex: Though they have gender identities, spayed or neutered cats are treated as basically this by cat society. The books state they the words "queen" and "tom" not just to differentiate from this but because "female" and "male" don't accurately portray just ''how'' important the distinction is to cats, who do after all go into heat. The narrator being a female spayed in kittenhood makes her viewpoint on same- and mixed-sex relations unusually humanlike... both for better (her viewpoint's more audience-relatable) and for worse (she tends to fail to notice or entirely misread subtext).
* OfThePeople: The cats' name for their species is People. They don't actually call other species "not-people", though. They look down on humans somewhat (in a patronising way, rather than a xenophobic way), but not as much as they look down on dogs, birds, rats, and other animals that are either prey or competition for cats.
* OracularUrchin: Arhu develops into one, although his personality remains fairly down-to-earth.
* OutOfContinues: Turns out Saash is on her ninth life.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Ith
* StarfishLanguage: Ailurin qualifies from a human perspective, though there are at least two humans who learned to speak it anyway. It's a tonal language with 37 vowels, extremely sensitive to mispronunciation. The transcriptions are both rather approximate and condensed to be more accessible to the human audience. Also, what cats consider normal volume is inaudible to humans; to be heard by a human they have to shout. (This goes both ways: most human attempts to talk back to "their" cat(s) comes across as yelling in HulkSpeak and/or [[YouNoTakeCandle a horrible accent]].) The bit about volume is a little TruthInTelevision; cats really do have extraordinary hearing, and they can easily pick up a quiet sound from halfway down the block. And "shout" also refers to body language, which supposedly makes up a lot of what's being given as dialogue.
* SteamPunk: The alternate timeline from the second book is a pretty textbook case. But they have nukes, which they first use to DefaceOfTheMoon and then to blow themselves up in the 1880s.
* StuffedIntoTheFridge: The Lone Power arranges for Rhiow's owner Hhuha/Susan to get hit by a taxi in the first book, to distract her with grief and discourage her from interfering.
* TimelineAlteringMacGuffin: From the second book, ''Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia'', a massive book dropped by an unfortunate London student who was briefly diverted into the year 1874. It contains pretty much all the information about modern science and technology you could possibly need.
* TimeTravel: The second book revolves around it.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Cheese... it's solid milk!]]
* {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler:Auhlae]] eventually turns out to be one.

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* GodOfEvil: While the Lone Power is as much the enemy as in ''YoungWizards'' and in much the same way, cats don't seem to separate Her out from the other Powers quite as much as humans do. She's a goddess to them - one whose work and desires need to be opposed at all costs, but a goddess to be reunited with the pantheon, not the Devil.

The ''Book of Night with Moon''/''Feline Wizards'' series is a sister series to ''Literature/YoungWizards'', also written by Creator/DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are three books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999, and ''The Big Meow'', written as a Storyteller's Bowl project but not "officially" published yet and currently available only via "subscribing" at [[http://the-big-meow.com/ the project web site]]. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.

The Book of Night with Moon/Feline Wizards series is a sister series to ''Literature/YoungWizards'', also written by Creator/DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are three books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999, and ''The Big Meow'', written as a Storyteller's Bowl project but not "officially" published yet and currently available only via "subscribing" at [[http://the-big-meow.com/ the project web site]]. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.

* NoBiologicalSex: Though they have gender identities, spayed or neutered cats are treated as basically this by cat society.
** The books state they the words "queen" and "tom" not just to differentiate from this but because "female" and "male" don't accurately portray just ''how'' important the distinction is to cats, who do after all go into heat. The narrator being a female spayed in kittenhood makes her viewpoint on same- and mixed-sex relations unusually humanlike... both for better (her viewpoint's more audience-relatable) and for worse (she tends to fail to notice or entirely misread subtext).

* StarfishLanguage: Ailurin qualifies from a human perspective, though there are at least two humans who learned to speak it anyway. It's a tonal language with 37 vowels, extremely sensitive to mispronunciation. The transcriptions are both rather approximate and condensed to be more accessible to the human audience. Also, what cats consider normal volume is inaudible to humans; to be heard by a human they have to shout. (This goes both ways: most human attempts to talk back to "their" cat(s) comes across as yelling in HulkSpeak and/or [[YouNoTakeCandle a horrible accent]].)
** The bit about volume is a little TruthInTelevision; cats really do have extraordinary hearing, and they can easily pick up a quiet sound from halfway down the block.
** And "shout" also refers to body language, which supposedly makes up a lot of what's being given as dialogue.

The Book of Night with Moon/Feline Wizards series is a sister series to ''Literature/YoungWizards'', also written by DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are three books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999, and ''The Big Meow'', written as a Storyteller's Bowl project but not "officially" published yet and currently available only via "subscribing" at [[http://the-big-meow.com/ the project web site]]. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.

* StarfishLanguage: Ailurin qualifies from a human perspective, though there are at least two humans who learned to speak it anyway. It's a tonal language with 37 vowels, extremely sensitive to mispronunciation. The transcriptions are both rather approximate and condensed to be more accessible to the human audience. Also, what cats consider normal volume is inaudible to humans; to be heard by a human they have to shout. (This goes both ways: a typical human's attempts to talk back to "their" cat(s) comes across as yelling HulkSpeak with a horrible accent.)

* StarfishLanguage: Ailurin qualifies from a human perspective, though there are at least two humans who learned to speak it anyway. It's a tonal language with 37 vowels, extremely sensitive to mispronunciation. The transcriptions are both rather approximate and condensed to be more accessible to the human audience. Also, what cats consider normal volume is inaudible to humans; to be heard by a human they have to shout. (This goes both ways: a typical human's attempts to talk back to "their" cat(s) comes across as yelling with a horrible accent.)

* {{Masquerade}}: Not from other cats, but they make up for it with extra worrying about humans. Notably in the second book while planning a commuting schedule Rhiow (who's living with a human) asks Arhu (who she knows ''isn't'') whether there are any humans, anywhere he visits, who take special notice of him and might worry if he didn't turn up regularly. People can go to surprising lengths when a cat goes missing...

* StarfishLanguage: Ailurin qualifies from a human perspective, though there are at least two humans who learned to speak it anyway. It's a tonal language with 37 vowels, extremely sensitive to mispronunciation. The transcriptions are both rather approximate and condensed to be more accessible to the human audience. Also, what cats consider normal volume is inaudible to humans; to be heard by a human they have to shout.

The Book of Night with Moon/Feline Wizards series is a sister series to ''Literature/YoungWizards'', also written by DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are two books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, and ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.

The Book of Night with Moon/Feline Wizards series is a sister series to ''YoungWizards'', also written by DianeDuane, following the adventures of a group of wizardly cats who maintain the worldgates in New York City. Currently there are two books: ''The Book of Night with Moon'', published in 1997, and ''To Visit the Queen'', published in 1999. The series is targeted to adults instead of a YoungAdult audience, but the only difference this makes is the presence of some explicit references to sexuality and the fact that the viewpoint character, Rhiow, is an adult cat.

* GodOfEvil: The Lone Power

* AlwaysChaoticEvil – [[spoiler: The Saurians, subverted]]
* BeingGoodSucks
* BoisterousBruiser - Urruah

* CatsAreMagic

** OutOfContinues: Turns out Saash is on her ninth life.
* ChessMotifs - the cats have their own strategy game depending on position, ownership of people and things, etc.
* DarkIsNotEvil
* DeadpanSnarker - Rhiow

* DelayedRippleEffect: In the second book.
* DinosaursAreDragons
* DoingInTheWizard – [[MagicAIsMagicA Magic operates]] via [[TechnoBabble String Theory]] and the cat wizards manipulate the "[[JustForPun strings]]."

* GodOfEvil - the Lone Power
* HeadbuttingHeroes - Urruah and Arhu

* HumansThroughAlienEyes

* IntellectualAnimal: The cats are basically a society of these; they're as cognitively capable as humans, but they don't think like humans. They're also physically incapable of building much of anything and normally speak their language at a volume inaudible to humans, which mostly explains why humans aren't aware that cats are that smart.

* InterspeciesFriendship - the cat wizards and the human wizards. Also [[spoiler: Arhu and Ith.]]

* LongLostSibling - [[spoiler: Arhu and his "sister"]]
* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours - Urruah has the most LifeEnergy at his disposal and acts as a power source for the rest of the team.

* [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Species Guy]] - Ith
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent - played with.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood - [[CrowningMomentOfFunny cheese... it's solid milk!]]

* HistoricalPersonPunchline: [[spoiler:Artie]] is ArthurConanDoyle.