A review by snazel
The Book of Night with Moon by Diane Duane, Kathryn Parise
I read l'Engle's [b:A Wrinkle in Time|33574273|A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)|Madeleine L'Engle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507963312s/33574273.jpg|948387] at a similar time that I read Duane's [b:So You Want to Be a Wizard|116563|So You Want to Be a Wizard (Young Wizards, #1)|Diane Duane|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328877065s/116563.jpg|3464], and they kinda blurred together in my memory. Having now watched the new movie last night, and read this book today, I begin to see why. Both books/series have a very similar focus: on the necessity of responding to hatred and fear with love, with mercy, with refusing to be ground down by despair, not because it is easy, but because it is the only thing that keeps life worth living. And both books have a similar tendency towards dramatic moments with people shouting very emotionally in very large and deadly rooms. (Not super conducive to being filmed.) But I was always more interested in Duane's world, and in this book I finally put my finger on why.
In this world it is well known that you may not survive your confrontation with the forces of destruction (the Lone Power in this world, It in L'Engle's). I have always been aware that not everybody makes it home (family history of military service), and so with books that purport to deal with the absolute "is it worth getting up tomorrow" questions, but don't acknowledge that some people don't get to see what they work towards, those books could approach feeling accurate on a baseline level, but can never feel absolutely true. But here in this universe we know that part of the associated cost of standing against entropy, destruction, death, cruelty, is that some of us don't come home. We all know going in that some of us will die in pain and never know if our sacrifices did anything to help. And we still make the choice to go to the fight, to stare down despair, to do our best, because we have looked at the alternative and this is better/best/the only thing. So. This is a thing Bujold does too in the Chalion books, which I have not been able to tell people about because saying "a faithful servant of god died under torture and it healed something in me" does not sound like a sane thing to say. But yeah, a book that looks well into the dark and still comes out of it saying "we've got to be kind" is affirming at the soul level. Possibly because I don't read alluded to stuff very well, but I totally missed if l'engle covers the horrible cost of continuing to love? But I got it in Duane's work. So I glommed onto it more.
ALSO, I glommed onto Duane's work because there are semi-sentient trains, and dinosaurs attacking an opera, and excellent cat-chess played by posing, and tips on stealing pastrami.
In this world it is well known that you may not survive your confrontation with the forces of destruction (the Lone Power in this world, It in L'Engle's). I have always been aware that not everybody makes it home (family history of military service), and so with books that purport to deal with the absolute "is it worth getting up tomorrow" questions, but don't acknowledge that some people don't get to see what they work towards, those books could approach feeling accurate on a baseline level, but can never feel absolutely true. But here in this universe we know that part of the associated cost of standing against entropy, destruction, death, cruelty, is that some of us don't come home. We all know going in that some of us will die in pain and never know if our sacrifices did anything to help. And we still make the choice to go to the fight, to stare down despair, to do our best, because we have looked at the alternative and this is better/best/the only thing. So. This is a thing Bujold does too in the Chalion books, which I have not been able to tell people about because saying "a faithful servant of god died under torture and it healed something in me" does not sound like a sane thing to say. But yeah, a book that looks well into the dark and still comes out of it saying "we've got to be kind" is affirming at the soul level. Possibly because I don't read alluded to stuff very well, but I totally missed if l'engle covers the horrible cost of continuing to love? But I got it in Duane's work. So I glommed onto it more.
ALSO, I glommed onto Duane's work because there are semi-sentient trains, and dinosaurs attacking an opera, and excellent cat-chess played by posing, and tips on stealing pastrami.