ladyofastolat | Books read in mid-November

I felt like some cheery rereads a couple of weeks ago, so turned to some of those Diana Wynne Jones that I have read less often. I'm very good at forgotting plot details of books, so even if I've read a book twice in the last 15 years, I can still be surprised by... well, by almost all of it.

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

The story is set in a magical world which has been trapped into an unbreakable contract with a businessman from a world very like our own. Every year, waves of "pilgrim parties" travel to their world, where they expect all the trappings of a high fantasy adventure, complete with battles between good and evil and a final confrontation with a Dark Lord. The world is being rapidly ruined, and in desperation, the chancellor of the university consults an oracle, who says that if they want to stop the pilgrim parties for good, they must appoint as Dark Lord the next person they see. This happens to be the wizard Derk, an unassuming family man obsessed with a sort of magical genetic engineering, whose chaotic household is full of griffin offspring, flying pigs, carnivorous sheep (a mistake) and the like...

I remember struggling to get into this book the first time I read it, although I'm not sure why, since making fun of Dark Lord cliches is very much my thing. While it's not my favourite DWJ, I do now enjoy it a lot. It is, in many ways, a novelisation of her Tough Guide to Fantasyland, her very funny "guidebook" to the tropes of high fantasy, but it my opinion it works perfectly well as a novel in its own right. It's published as an adult novel, but much of it feels closer to a children's book, with a significant chunk of the plot focusing on Derk's teenage offspring (both human and griffin) who get thrown into a difficult situation and in dealing with it, grow up and learn to master their various skills and powers. However, there are a few slightly more "adult" happenings, and the book is probably most appealing to someone familiar with the sort of novels the Tough Guide parodies.

The Year of the Griffin

Partial sequel to the above, set 8 years later. The university is struggling to recover from the devastation caused by years of pilgrim parties. The moon-obsessed new chancellor hand-picks around half a dozen new students - a prince, the daughter of the now-famous wizard Derk, a dwarf from a rich stronghold and so on - planning to write begging letters to their doubtless rich families back home. Things turn out very differently from his hopes. Some of his chosen students are penniless, some are attending without permission, and Derk's daughter is a griffin. As various angry delegations, pirates and assassins turn up in response to the begging letters, his new students get carried away with books of advanced magic, and actually start thinking for themselves. Shocking!

This is another of DWJ's adult books that feels very much like a children's book. It's set at a university, but it feels quite like a school story, with a mismatched group of new students becoming friends and dealing with a series of adventures. I call it a partial sequel because the first book can stand alone, and doesn't need a sequel, although this one answers any questions anyone might have about what the various characters did next. I probably enjoy it a bit less than Dark Lord, but I still find it a pleasant, short read.

The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones

Angharad ("Roddy") lives in Blest, a parallel England that has magic and computers. The king and court spend their entire time on the road, travelling from place to place to maintain the magic of the land, and Roddy and her parents travel with them. When the Merlin - chief wizard - drops dead, Roddy stumbles upon a conspiracy between some courtiers and the new Merlin to take over the throne and all the magic in the land. Meanwhile, in another England - ours or one like it - Nick (younger brother of one of the main characters in DWJ's Deep Secret) dreams of becoming a Magid (a sort of magical policeman, introduced in Deep Secret) and travelling between worlds. But soon he finds himself quite unintentionally wandering the paths between worlds, where he sees - and is attracted to - a vision of Roddy. After much journeying, many adventures and a lot of encounters with eccentric and/or powerful relatives, the two characters finally meet. Can they thwart the conspiracy and save the land?

One of my least favourite DWJ novels. In fact, I stalled completely on my first read, although I liked it a lot more when I returned to it a few years later. Unlike in most of her other books, the characters don't really come alive for me, and I'm not sure about the split storyline. I also feel that it would work better with the Nick's role being taken by an original character. This is not in any way billed as a sequel to Deep Secret, and, really, it isn't, but the references to Nick's backstory, although few and infrequent, could be quite confusing to someone who hasn't read the other book. I have a few issues with specific plot points, too, but they're firmly in spoiler territory, so I won't say anything now. It's also quite a bit longer than I feel it needs to be, and I did skim a little on this re-read. On the other hand, I like many of the references to British mythology, and even one of my least favourite DWJ novels is a book that I enjoy a lot more than the works of many other authors.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

18 years ago, the bickering provinces of the peninsula of the Palm fell one by one to two separate tyrants from the mainland, both of them sorcerers. The son of Brandin, one of the tyrants, died in battle against the principality of Tigana. In his grief and fury, Brandin not only killed many of the people of Tigana and destroyed their art and architecture, he cast a hugely powerful spell that ripped its very name out of existence. Only those born there can hear and remember the name. The story concerns a group of exiles, children or teenagers at the time of the conquest, who are trying to undo the spell. It is not enough merely to kill Brandin, since then the Palm will just fall to the other tyrant. Instead, they have spent years laying careful plots and plans to unite the provinces and take down both well-nigh unkillable tyrants at the same time. After all years of exile, perhaps now the time has come...

This is, I think, the third time I've read this book. One of the reasons I like it is because it's a standalone, coming in near the end of the story. The mastermind of the plan is the exiled prince of Tigana who, along with his loyal and taciturn best friend, has spent the last 15 years in a series of disguises, making contacts, having adventures, carefully setting pieces on the board. We could have had a trilogy, even a 6 book series, about their adventures. Instead, we see him and his plan right at the end, seen mostly through the eyes of a young singer who is new to the game.

This is a book full of shades of grey. The second main storyline concerns a woman who spent years engineering her way into Brandin's harem and getting herself into a position where she can kill him. Through her eyes, we see that although he has done - and continues to do - some dreadful things, he is not the personfication of all evil. He's just a man, and he has many good points, and she has come to love him. At the same time, the "good" characters sometimes have to do bad things in the service of their cause. They do so regretfully, but they do them all the same.

Mostly, though, I have to confess that the main appeal of this book to me is that it features a character type I am very fond of, in the form of the exiled prince: a music-loving cultured man who has been forced by necessity to become a charismatic leader and a master-plotter and arch manipulator. (He reminds me of Lymond in many ways, although he's a nicer version.) Although he drives the plot, we hardly ever see things through his eyes - as with Lymond - but only through the eyes of the young singer who has newly joined the cause. (Outsider viewpoint: another of my favourite things.) I like silent, loyal sidekicks, too, so, really, I have a lot of guilty pleasures coming together in this book.

I don't like it unreservedly. It's probably longer than it needs to be, and everyone is so desperately emotional, constantly being moved to tears, or having their souls pierced with despair. I didn't notice this as much on my first reading, when I was busy writing fanfic about over-emotional people myself, but I notice it more now, and it bothers me, but not that much. Overall, though, it's a book I like a lot - hence the second re-read.