Merlin Conspiracy

It turns out that I have never read The Merlin Conspiracy. How this came to pass, I do not know. It certainly looked read, sitting there contentedly on my shelf next to Deep Secret, where it belonged. But, no, I had never read it. This has now been rectified. I have a vague feeling that I started it once, but never finished it. Why this should be, I do not know, since I certainly liked it this time. Maybe I tried to read it too soon after Deep Secret? Deep Secret is one of my favourite Diana Wynne Jones books (mostly because of the Con), and perhaps I was disappointed to find that although inhabiting the same fictional reality and sharing one character, it was not in any way a sequel. But surely I would have expected that, since this is just how things work in DWJ sequels and series. Do any of her books behave even remotely as a conventional sequel? The Pinhoe Egg, perhaps? I wish we could have got a DWJ style sideways non-sequel to Archer's Goon.

It struck me while reading it that I long ago got to the point that I had read so many novels based on British folklore and mythology, that all the different versions of the Wild Hunt, King Arthur, spirits of geographical features, the Queen of Elfland, white dogs with red ears, and the like, all coexist in my mind, all of them simultaneously real no matter which version I'm reading. They probably are. I bet it causes them no end of trouble at family gatherings, and leads to unfortunately unappropriate Christmas presents. "Oh, I'm sorry, you're that version of Herne the Hunter. Um... you'd probably better stop unwrapping that now before you see what's inside it." And all those different spirits of London and its rivers, bickering over who is the rightful recipient of badly addressed Christmas cards!

It has also occurred to me that I can remember nothing at all about Enchanted Glass but that it (I think) contained Vegetables of Unusual Size, so I'd better go and read that now.