6/10/2023 0 Comments Derkholm seriesThe mild-mannered wizard Derk is chosen to be this year’s Dark Lord, with not many expectations of doing a good job. His sinister accountant minions and sets of instruction booklets lay out the experiences his tourists are to have – and as these involve the usual fantasy novel tropes of setting out as a brave band of explorers, encountering wizards and dwarves, being ambushes, having battles with mythical creatures and slaying a Dark Lord, Wynne Jones can have great fun with how it all works behind the scenes. The somewhat slimy Mr Chesney has been running Pilgrim Parties from the next-door universe for 40 years. I acquired this one from my London book-buying trip in November – the lovely Luci always brings along a big bag of books and this one immediately appealed. Diana Wynne Jones – “Dark Lord of Derkholm” I did, however, push aside my Friday Housecleaning to sit on my bottom and finish the last 100 pages. The reason this one isn’t in the photo above is that I took it to Iceland to read on the plane home, but didn’t get very far due to spending most of the flight asleep. She’s the author who I always push at people (recommend to people?) who have liked Harry Potter – her Chrestomanci series has a similar Boy Wizard idea but is just as good, if not better. The fantasy writer I will always read, Diana Wynne Jones’ books are consistently well-written, funny but not stupidly so, gender-balanced and unputdownable.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |