A Review of Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms by Lissa Evans

Quest books based on puzzles and clues really only work if you get caught up in the main character's desire to find the answers. Fortunately, that's what happens in Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms: Magic, Myster & a Very Strange Adventure. In this book originally published in Great Britain, Stuart's parents move him to Beeton, the town his father's family is from. Stuart's initial dismay and boredom are not relieved by the girls next door, triplets who spy on him and publish his activities in a neighborhood newspaper. They are, however, relieved by the discovery of a mystery involving Stuart's great-uncle Tony.

Tony was a magician and, being short (like Stuart), his stage name was Teeny-Tiny Tony Horten. The magician disappeared unexpectedly after being accused of being responsible for his fiance's death in a fire. He left his nephew, Tony's father, a message hidden in a puzzle box along with eight threepenny bits.

I have to go away, and I may not be able to get back. If I don't return, then my workshop and all it contains is yours if you can find it—and if you can find it, then you're the right sort of boy to have it.

Affectionately, Your uncle Tony

P.S. Start in the telephone booth on Main Street.

As it turns out, Stuart's father didn't even find the message because he was not the right sort of boy to have it. But Stuart is. He finds the message and begins following a treasure trail of old mechanisms, inserting a threepenny bit in each one when he can and getting further clues. Then April, one of the girls next door, starts following him, as does a greedy woman connected with his uncle's magician past. Stuart also meets a kindly elderly woman with another sort of connection to Teeny-Tiny Tony.

The other piece of Stuart's heritage is that there used to be a factory where the Hortens made mechanisms. Some of the machines are kept in the Beeton city museum, but Stuart runs into trouble when he tries to get at them. Oh, and Uncle Tony's house, which contains clues and possibly the missing workshop, is about to be demolished. It all comes to a head during Beeton's summer festival. Meet Stuart and April in the park by the bandstand and see what happens...

Stuart is your basic nice Everykid, while the secondary characters are a good bunch. About the only flat character is the villainess, and since you'll find yourself wanting to flatten her with a cartoon steamroller, that's not too terrible, after all.

At first this book seems to be about mechanisms, not magic, but as Stuart learns, there is magic associated with the mechanisms, the threepenny bits, and the long-ago disappearance of the magician. (The combination of magic and mechanicals is what I wish we'd seen a bit more of in Hugo Cabret, actually.) This is a small book, even in trim size, but it's a perfectly satisfying read even as it opens the door to a sequel. The codes and puzzles Stuart must solve may appeal to a different sort of reader than the usual fantasy fan, giving the story a broader, more unusual appeal. Touches of steampunk, Oz, and Edward Eager: I think you'll like this one!

Note: If you enjoy Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms, try The Inventions of Hugo Cabret, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, and R.L. LaFevers' Theodosia series.

Thank You, Diana Wynne Jones

Last spring, British fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones passed away from cancer. I felt a huge, personal sense of loss. After all, I've loved her books for as long as I can remember. She's in my trio of best children's fantasy writers, along with Megan Whalen Turner (whom she helped to publish a first book) and another Brit, Terry Pratchett.

What makes DWJ's books so great?

I'll begin with the details. I've noticed a lot of the best fantasy books and stories have shockingly creative details. Just think about it: glass slippers, a giant beanstalk, a cat in boots, an aerial school sport played on broomsticks, a young witch who uses her little brother as bait and hits a river monster with a frying pan.

Now, consider Diana Wynne Jones's inventiveness: a dirty sneakers spell, a scrawny young goddess who longs to go to a girls' boarding school, a nine-lived enchanter supervising magic through the dimensions like a chief of police, a song that brings down a mountain, a goon at the kitchen table, a young woman who is cursed with old age, a spell that's a conga line...

And Jones's parallel worlds always include big doses of the ordinary, making the dragon's blood matter all the more.

Convolution. (I wanted to say convolutedness, perhaps because it sounds more twisty!) DWJ's books are unpredictable, with a subtle vein of humor running through most of them. One of the biggest compliments of my life was when an editor compared the ending of my manuscript to Diana Wynne Jones's work because I had what he called a cast of thousands plus a complicated ending.

There are certain scenes in Diana Wynne Jones's books—you know, the kind that make you smile and even laugh a little because you know they're coming up in a few pages. One of them is the conga line mentioned above, actually from one of Jones's books for grown-ups, A Sudden Wild Magic.

Of course, the reason you know they're coming up is because you're rereading. Some books can only be read once. But DWJ's books are rereadable in a big way.

One of the best things about Diana Wynne Jones's writing is her way with characters. For example, her kid characters aren't heroic, particularly. They're grubby and surprised and sometimes unkind, though they do have their good points. I am very fond of Christopher Chant and Millie, not to mention Howard and Sophie and obviously Howl, just for starters. Plus the Goon. And a cat named Throgmorten! The villains are dimensional, too. Anyone who has ever had a horrible older sister will nevertheless gasp at Gwendolyn Chant's complete and utter ruthlessness, as well as her ongoing efforts to upset Chrestomanci with her over-the-top spells.

DWJ's books are also characterized by a kind of practical, nearly hardnosed, sort of whimsy.

I have my favorites, as you can tell. Here are a handful of them:


Cart and Cwidder

Like the other books in this unconnected set, the Dalemark Quartet, Cart and Cwidder takes place in a vaguely medieval setting. You'll find that the author's way with character extends to an understanding of families and how they function, or rather how they straggle along. Clennen is a larger-than-life personality on a small stage, a musician and performer traveling around Dalemark with his children. But when they pick up a new passenger, Moril learns that his father is not what he seems, and Moril will have to be braver and more musical than he ever imagined. I say this, sounding epic, but the fact is that these kids squabble along even as they try to fulfill their father's mission and beat the bad guys. They don't always know what to do, and yet they plug along, alternately messing up and getting it right. Like I said, real.

Random excerpt:

While Lenina was cooking supper, Clennen fetched the big cwidder down, polished it, tuned it carefully, and beckoned Moril. Moril came reluctantly. He was rather in awe of the big cwidder. Its shining round belly was even more imposing than Clennen's. The inlaid patterns on the front and arm, made of pearl and ivory and various colored woods, puzzled him by their strangeness. And its voice when you played it was so surprisingly sweet and quite unlike that of the other cwidders. Clennen took such care of it that Moril still sometimes thought—as he had when he was little—that this cwidder was an extra, special part of Clennen, more important than his father's arm or leg—something on the lines of a wooden soul.

How's that for writing?? Keep in mind that that's her early stuff. DWJ was just getting started!


Howl's Moving Castle

A lot of people know about this book, or at least the 2004 film of the story made by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. In a world where fairy tale rules dictate that the younger daughters will have all the luck, Sophie doesn't see herself having much of a future—and that's even before the Witch of the Waste turns her into a little old lady. Freed from her shyness by dint of old age, Sophie sets out on an adventure. She catches up with the terrible wizard Howl's moving castle and basically forces herself in, making friends with a strange fiery creature named Calcifer. Of course, this is a DWJ books, so there are about 50 subplots. Yet she makes them all work!

Random excerpt:

[When Sophie tries to tidy up Howl's room and then the yard.] "Not here either," he said. "You are a terror, aren't you? Leave this yard alone. I know just where everything is in it, and I won't be able to find the things I need for my transport spells if you tidy them up."

So there was probably a bundle of souls or a box of chewed hearts somewhere out here, Sophie thought. She felt really thwarted. "Tidying up is what I'm here for!" she shouted at Howl.

"Then you must think of a new meaning for your life," Howl said... "Now trot along indoors, you overactive old thing, and find something else to play with before I get angry. I hate getting angry."

Sophie folded her skinny arms. She did not like being glared at by eyes like glass marbles. "Of course you hate getting angry!" she retorted. "You don't like anything unpleasant, do you? You're a slitherer-outer, that's what you are! You slither away from anything you don't like!"

Howl gave a forced sort of smile. "Well now," he said. "Now we both know each other's faults."

Archer's Goon

A boy named Howard comes home to find the Goon sitting at the kitchen table, scaring baby sitter Fifi and not exactly scaring Howard's holy terror of a little sister, Awful. The Goon wants something, but what? I can sincerely predict that you'll never guess where this is going, but it has something to do with the two thousand words Howard's father must turn in to a man named Mountjoy every three months. When the pages get waylaid, the electricity is turned off. And that's just the beginning of the troubles that come to Howard's family. Let's just say things escalate—it's rotten and hilarious all at the same time. Howard discovers that a group of unpleasant siblings are running the city, a crime family with magical powers. I'll stop there, but this is another odd, convoluted tale. I love it! Especially the Goon.

Not-So-Random Excerpt (because it's the prologue):

1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.
2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch.
3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight.
5. Music does not always soothe the troubled breast.
6. An Englishman's home is his castle.
7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
8. One black eye deserves another.
9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm.
10. It pays to increase your word power.

Dogsbody

To my dismay, when I sat down to write this post, I realized I had loaned Dogsbody to my associate editor. Why, oh why? Well, I figure it speaks volumes that when I realized she was a fantasy reader and writer who had missed out on a lot of the best stuff, this was one of half a dozen books I loaned her, as well as Howl's Moving Castle (she had seen the movie). Dogsbody has a fairly gritty subplot about a little girl who is living with unloving relatives and a parallel subplot about a puppy she rescues from the river. Only, this being DWJ, the puppy is something more, a lost somebody on the run from enemies, but stuck in a puppy mind. He has trouble protecting Kathleen, let alone himself. A strange and tender story with an appearance by the horned god in the forest.

No excerpt. Sorry!


The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life

DWJ's best invention is arguably Chrestomanci, which sounds like a name but is actually a title. The most powerful enchanter in the series of known worlds is obligated to be trained to police magic in those worlds. In The Lives of Christopher Chant, the son of rather awful feuding parents is often at loose ends. Is it any wonder he responds when his too-bland governess and his mother's friend involve him in a scheme to take advantage of the fact that he travels to the Anywheres in his dreams? One of the two funniest things about this book is the gruesomely amusing way Christopher keeps getting killed in his dreams (in answer to the old question, if you die in your dreams, do you die in real life?). The other is a friend Christopher makes in one of the worlds, the young Goddess of Asheth. Her idea of bliss is to read books about girls at boarding schools, e.g., Head Girl Millie. Then the plot thickens. And swerves. And does a loop-de-loop. I especially like the creativity of the bootboy, the cook, the gardeners, and some maids who are called upon to join the magical defense of the house.

Charmed Life features a Chrestomanci who turns out to be the grown-up Christopher Chant. He always wears silk dressing gowns around the mansion full of magic workers. Since he can be summoned by repeating his name three times, he tends to show up in his dressing gown. But our story begins with a boy named Cat (Eric) Chant and his vain, ringleted older sister Gwendolyn. The two go to live with Chrestomanci. Gwendolyn expects to be cosseted, if not revered, so she is enraged to find that's not what happens. Meanwhile, Cat wanders around, bewildered, finding out the various small secrets of a house full of magic. There's a mystery surrounding Cat and his sister that gradually emerges as the plot progresses. And then Gwendolyn disappears, leaving an astonished doppelganger behind.

Random Excerpt (from Charmed Life):

"Why were you in the bath?" he said, wondering whether to search the bathroom.

"I don't know. I just woke up there," said Janet, shaking out a tangle of hair ribbons in the bottom drawer. "I felt as if I'd been dragged through a hedge backward, and I'd no clothes on, so I was freezing."

"Why had you no clothes on?" Cat said, stirring Gwendolen's underclothes about, without success.

"I was hot in bed last night," said Janet. "So naked I came into this world. And I wandered about pinching myself—especially after I found this fabulous room. I thought I must have been turned into a princess. But there was this nightdress lying on the bed, so I put it on—"

"You've got it on back to front," said Cat.

Janet stopped scanning the things on the mantelpiece to look down at the trailing ribbons. "Have I? It won't be the only thing I'm going to get back to front, by the sound of it. Try looking in that artistic wardrobe. Then I explored outside here, and all I found was miles of long green corridor, which gave me the creeps, and stately grounds out the windows, so I came back in here and went to bed. I hoped that when I woke up it would all have gone away. And instead there was you. Found anything?"

"No," said Cat. "But there's her box—"

"It must be in there," said Janet.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

If you're going to write fantasy, you should read this book. And if you're a fantasy reader, you should, too. DWJ presents a delightfully diabolical, tongue-in-cheek look at all the most standard-issue fantasy tropes every written. This send-up is very, very funny, but in addition, it has helped me to think differently about my own writing. For example, I never serve my fantasy characters stew, and that's entirely due to this book. Note that Ms. Jones sets the whole thing up as a tour. (See also her book The Dark Lord of Derkholm. The Guide is a companion to that one.) Here are a few sample entries. Note that OMT stands for Official Management Term.

DUKES. This is the highest form of lord, often one of the KING's family. Very few of them are GOOD and most of them are wicked uncles at the very least. The few Good Dukes are always frantically busy and beset with cares of state [OMT]. The Rule is that all Dukes, Good or EVIL, are always forty years old or more. See also REGENTS.

from COLOUR CODING. Eyes. Black eyes are invariably Evil; brown eyes mean boldness and humour, but not necessarily goodness; green eyes always entail TALENT, usually for MAGIC but sometimes for MUSIC... grey eyes mean POWER or healing abilities (see HEALERS) and will be reassuring unless they look silver... blue eyes are always GOOD, the bluer the more Good present; and then there are violet eyes and golden eyes. People with violet eyes are often of Royal birth and, if not, always live uncomfortably interesting lives. People with golden eyes just live uncomfortably interesting lives, and most of them are rather fey into the bargain.

Of the hundreds of books that have taught me to write, Diana Wynne Jones's are among the few at the top of the list. I can only imagine that her books will continue to touch, delight, and teach writing to young readers for many years to come.

Thank you, Diana, for the treasure of your books. Through their cleverness, creativity, and wry good humor, I do feel I got to know you. Again, thank you.


See also my 2009 post, "The Queen of Children's Fantasy"; my recent review of DWJ's last book, Earwig and the Witch, and a review of the book before that, Enchanted Glass. You can find a complete list of Diana Wynne Jones's books at this Wiki page.

I will add that I wrote this post as part of a blog tour honoring DWJ. Here's the site where you can link to the other posts in the tour. You should be aware that Firebird has reissued some of Diana Wynne Jones's books in her honor with new introductions and extras, as follows:

Three Firebird reissues (DOGSBODY, FIRE AND HEMLOCK, and A TALE OF TIME CITY—each is the definitive edition, and each has an intro by a star—DOGSBODY (Neil Gaiman), A TALE OF TIME CITY (Ursula Le Guin), FIRE AND HEMLOCK (Garth Nix). FIRE AND HEMLOCK also features the essay "The Heroic Ideal," which DWJ wrote about the writing of the book; it has never before appeared alongside the book, or THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND (the Firebird edition is also definitive, entirely redesigned, with new art and material), the novella THE GAME, or her final book, EARWIG AND THE WITCH.

Yep, I have the updated Tough Guide to Fantasyland in my hot little hand, and I will lure you with the title of this special page, "How to Compose a Ballad." You will want to check out the map, too, and find out the secret of those epic fantasy names with the apostrophes in the middle.

A Review of Ravenwood by Andrew Peters

In Ravenwood, Andrew Peters gives us a world in the treetops. Either these are really gigantic trees, or people have shrunken. I'm pretty sure it's the former, despite the presence of creatures like monster ravens and worms.

The Dendrans' religion has to do with the goddess Diana, though it has been largely overtaken by a newer, more militant belief system represented by a group of Dendrans known as the Holly Woodsmen. (Peters gets a little carried away with tree puns. For example, Buddy Holly's name is used here, and the word "holly" acts both as "holy" and as a reference to hell.) Here's a glimpse of the leafy world of Arborium:

He ignored the fast-food stall, shoehorned into a dark alcove of the trunk, and wearily trudged on down the steps toward the lower levels. This way took him past the inner doors and windows of apartments hollowed out into the heartwood: prime property for the rich, but far out of reach of a plumber's income. The steps continued, winding down and down the central trunk, and the crowds eventually began to thin as he descended to the lower levels. Finally, a poorly patched-up gate swung open, revealing his local branch line. He stepped out into a land of shadows. The twilight had problems reaching this far. Night came earlier for the poor.

Our hero, Ark, short for Arkorius Malikum, has the inglorious job of apprentice plumber. This means he has a lot of interactions with poop, known herein as "squit." Ark is on a plumbing job when he has a run-in with an old enemy from his school days, Petronio, who is studying to be a surgeon, though he seems more interested in being an assassin. Unfortunately, while Ark is working on the pipes he overhears the boy's father, Counselor Grasp, talking with an enemy spy from Maw about his treasonous plot against the king. Moments later, Ark is fleeing along the branches of his treetop town with Grasp's two favorite minions right behind him, intent on his death.

Ark tricks the guards and gets home, but his life as he knows it is over. He must hide from Counselor Grasp and his men, leaving his job and his family behind. He wants to warn the king, but how? Ark enlists the help of a burly co-worker named Mucum and sets out to save the kingdom of Arborium from the would-be invaders. Along the way, he meets a group of low-dwelling Dendrans called the Rootshooters and discovers the true nature of his own heritage.

But the author doesn't just follow Ark's quest; he also gives us the journey of Ark's opposite number, Petronio. Grasp's son is quickly sucked into the treacherous plots of the spy from Maw, a woman named Fenestra. She represents a country across the sea that has no trees at all and covets the wealth of the Dendrans' wood. Fortunately, the trees have their own defenses. Unfortunately, Fenestra has plenty of evil plans up her sleeve.

Boy readers in particular will probably enjoy the frequent fights and chase scenes, not to mention the even more frequent close encounters with squit.

I have mixed feelings about Ravenwood. On the one hand, Peters does an amazing job of world-building in his book, which you'll swear is fantasy in the first half and suspect is dystopian science fiction in the second half. But I didn't fall completely in love with the characters. I also had a little trouble with things like the dialect used by the Rootshooters, some of the creatures randomly thrown into the mix, and a section of the book that positively blurs by, leaving Ark with semi-superpowers afterwards for somewhat unclear reasons.

I also noticed that two of the four villains appeared to get away in the end. (Despite talk of their probable death, their escape is remarkably parallel to one of Ark's many narrow escapes earlier in the book.) So—we are clearly gearing up for a sequel.

Yep, I'm quibbling. There are a lot of fun things going on in this book, not the least of which is the use of Ark's baby sister's hair-raising scream as a secret weapon. I'm hoping the next book flows more smoothly and that I find myself warming up to Ark and his buddies just a little more.


Here is Andrew Peters reading a selection from the book. You can visit the website he shares with his wife to find out more about Ravenwood.

The Loss of Diana Wynne Jones

I woke to the news that Diana Wynne Jones passed away night before last. (Thanks, Charlotte's Library.) Due to some random difficulties I will not get into, I will not be posting reviews this weekend, but I really must acknowledge such a tremendous loss to the world of children's literature in general and fantasy in particular.

Did you know that Diana Wynne Jones was a major influence on Megan Whalen Turner as well as Neil Gaiman? (Um, and on me?) She actually hooked Megan up with her editor at Greenwillow.

And yes, there's a reason Diana received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Association in 2007.

Diana's fantasy is known for its humor, its intricacy, and its creativity. Perhaps you're familiar with her book, Howl's Moving Castle, which was made into an animated feature film. And who else has ever used a conga line as a magic weapon, as in her adult fantasy novel, A Sudden Wild Magic?

Here is my detailed post about Diana Wynne Jones and her work, "The Queen of Children's Fantasy," from a year or so ago. See also my review of her book, Enchanted Glass, which was published last year.

Good-bye, Diana. You will be missed very much.

Note: Look for one last book, Earwig and the Witch (for younger readers), this fall.

Update: Two more links from Charlotte, an obituary in The Guardian and thoughts from Neil Gaiman. See also Amy's thoughts at Amy's Library of Rock.

Really good update: Judith of Misrule has compiled an extensive list of links to obituaries and musings on the great Diana Wynne Jones. Thank you, Judith!

4/13/11 update: We have a Diana Wynne Jones tribute post up at the Enchanted Inkpot. (Thanks, Grace Lin!) You can stop by and leave your own thoughts about Ms. Jones in the comments.

The Queen of Children's Fantasy

Aha! You thought I was going to say J.K. Rowling, didn't you? J.K. Rowling is, rather, the queen of Harry Potter's world and also of England, the latter thanks to a bloodless coup in June 2006 (bloodless except for an accident involving one of the corgies). Diana Wynne Jones, though she does deign to reside in England, reigns over the world of children's fantasy. Terry Pratchett is not her royal consort, though it may seem like it at times. That would be Neil Gaiman.

Suffice it to say that if you haven't read any of DWJ's books, your life and your education are sadly lacking. The author's 2007 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement should slap your hand sufficiently to drive this point home. And yes, one of her books has been made into a movie: Howl's Moving Castle (2004), from respected Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Diana Wynne Jones is famous for her fresh, convoluted plots and for the invention of a character called Chrestomanci. She is also known for skewering sword-and-sorcery conventions, e.g., in books like The Dark Lord of Derkholm, which postulates that all of the characters on a particular fantasy world are actors, performing their roles at the behest of a greedy corporate entity for the benefit of a group of tourists. Even better, perhaps, is the companion book, a wry encyclopedia of tropes called The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which purports to be a tour guide (cover shown is from first edition). Here's a sample entry, one of my favorites:

STEW (the OMTs [official management terms] are thick and savoury, which translate as "viscous" and "dark brown") is the staple FOOD in Fantasyland, so be warned. You may shortly be longing passionately for omelette, steak, or baked beans, but none of these will be forthcoming, indoors or out. Stew will be what you are served to eat every single time. Given the disturbed nature of life in this land, where in CAMP you are likely to be attacked without warning...and in an INN prone to be the centre of a TAVERN BRAWL, Stew seems to be an odd choice as staple food, since, on a rough calculation, it takes forty times as long to prepare as steak. But it is clear the inhabitants have not yet discovered fast food. The exact recipe for Stew is of course a Management secret, but it is thought to contain meat of some kind and perhaps even vegetables. Do not expect a salad on the side.

Yet much as I love The Tough Guide, it is ultimately a book for grown-ups, and although Diana Wynne Jones's books are often funny, satire is too small a window through which to consider her work. Let's turn instead to her many marvelous books for children, beginning with the Chrestomanci titles.

Diana Wynne Jones envisions a series of parallel worlds related by differing causalities, or alternative outcomes of key events, and one of the worlds is our own. (Read about Hugh Everett and string theory for quantum mechanics-based thoughts on the concept.) In these worlds, magic is a commodity that is often misused by the criminal element. The most powerful enchanter in the related worlds, recognizable because he has nine lives, is appointed director and policeman over magic in all of the worlds. His title is Chrestomanci, and he can be summoned by repeating it three times in magical emergencies. (Click here for an A-Z Glossary of the Related Worlds as compiled by Helen Scott on the official DWJ website.)

The most important Chrestomanci books are The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life, which tell about the current Chrestomanci and his young successor, respectively. Christopher Chant is raised by a lovely, negligent society wife—or rather, by governesses. No one realizes for years that his powerful magic is constrained by the touch of silver. Meanwhile, he is walking the parallel worlds in what he thinks are dreams. As he is used by his avaricious uncle to smuggle illegal magical supplies, Christopher begins to lose his nine lives at an alarming rate. The tangle eventually gets untangled, but in the meantime, Christopher aids and abets a young runaway who happens to be the goddess of Asheth, along with her menace of a temple cat. To give you an idea of the kind of humor in Jones's books, the goddess wants nothing more than to be a British school girl, like the ones she reads about in a series of dippy books Christopher has brought her because she is bored.

In Charmed Life, Christopher is a grown-up now married to the Living Asheth, who has renamed herself Millie. He rambles about Chrestomanci Castle and indeed, the known worlds, in embroidered silk dressing gowns—of course, he does tend to be summoned unexpectedly to put out magical fires. The castle is partly a training ground for Chrestomanci's children and for his successor. When Cat (Eric) and Gwendolyn Chant are brought to live there, it takes the grown-ups a while to figure out that Gwendolyn is using her little brother's magic to fuel her own ambitions.

Another key book about Christopher Chant/Chrestomanci is Conrad's Fate, in which you can see the enchanter and Millie as teens. The rest of the books set in this series of worlds give us a Chrestomanci who simply makes cameo appearances, usually in the role of a rather tongue-in-cheek deus ex machina. But never fear, the young characters in these books do work out their own magic-related dilemmas. The Magicians of Caprona, The Pinhoe Egg, and Witch Week are also Chrestomanci books, and Jones has written four short stories involving her nine-lived enchanter, as well. Of these titles, I particularly like Witch Week, a tale that plays out in a world where witchcraft is forbidden. The setting is a school called Larwood House, and the book begins,

The note said: SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH. It was written in capital letters in ordinary blue ballpoint, and it had appeared between two of the geography books Mr. Crossley was marking. Anyone could have written it. Mr. Crossley rubbed his ginger mustache unhappily. He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 6B and wondered what to do about it.

The world of Witch Week considers such a note to be more than a prank; it's an accusation. But Mr. Crossley hesitates to inform his boss, who will probably call in an Inquisitor, a man authorized to use torture to root out and destroy witchcraft. As the school is rocked by magical happenings, including flocks of birds flying through classrooms and the sudden disappearance of every shoe in the entire school, the students in Class 6B try to uncover the identity of the resident witch and save each other from the forthcoming attentions of the Inquisitor.

Of course, Diana Wynne Jones has written many books besides her Chrestomanci titles. The most well known is probably Howl's Moving Castle, a book I dearly loved even before Miyazaki made it into an animated film. In this world, fairy tale rules tend to apply, so as the eldest of three sisters, Sophie knows she is destined to fail if she sets out to seek her fortune. But even working quietly in a hat shop, Sophie manages to offend the Witch of the Waste, getting herself turned into an elderly woman for her troubles. Deciding she has nothing to lose, Sophie hobbles out into the world, where she encounters a floating, traveling castle belonging to the wizard Howl and moves in, looking for adventure as well as answers. Howl is vain and moody, but he has met his match in practical, cantankerous Sophie. Pretty soon the two of them overcome their differences to deal with the growing threat of the Witch of the Waste, not to mention the problem of the fire demon who powers Howl's castle. Jones has written a couple of sequels to Howl's Moving Castle—Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, the latter being her most recent book (2008).

Most of the author's stories are rambunctious and sometimes mysterious adventures, but one of her very best books is quieter and often poignant. Dogsbody tells about a girl who is being raised by her aunt and uncle after she is orphaned. The story is told from the point of view of a puppy named Sirius, who gradually becomes aware of how badly Kathleen is treated in the household, especially by her aunt. Yet Sirius has his own enemies and his own past. He is no mere puppy, but the dog star himself in exile, falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. As allies and enemies converge, both Sirius and Kathleen fight to claim their selves and their futures. Dogsbody is astoundingly unique, well crafted, and in fact, just plain lovely.

Diana Wynne Jones has a knack for mixing ordinary life and magic that reminds me of Joan Aiken's work (e.g., the recently published collection of Armitage stories, The Serial Garden). Other than Aiken, I don't think anyone besides Jones has ever achieved the blend quite so beautifully—or with plots that escalate quite so madly. For example, consider Archer's Goon, another DWJ book I like very much. It begins:

The trouble started the day Howard came home from school to find the Goon sitting in the kitchen. It was Fifi who called him the Goon. Fifi was a student who lived in their house and got them tea when their parents were out. When Howard pushed Awful into the kitchen and slammed the door after them both, the first person he saw was Fifi, sitting on the edge of a chair, fidgeting nervously with her striped scarf and her striped leg warmers.
"Thank goodness you've come at last!" Fifi said. "We seem to have somebody's Goon. Look."
Howard looked the way Fifi's chin jerked and saw the Goon sitting in a chair by the dresser. He was filling most of the rest of the kitchen with long legs and huge boots. It was a knack the Goon had. The Goon's head was very small, and his feet were enormous. Howard's eyes traveled up a yard or so of tight faded jeans, jerked to a stop for a second at the knife with which the Goon was cleaning the dirty nails of his vast hands, and then traveled on over an old leather jacket to the little, round fair head in the distance. The little face looked half-daft.

Howard discovers that his father has been writing two thousand words of nonsense and sending them to Town Hall every month for some inexplicable reason. This month, the pages are missing. Howard gradually learns that there is more than one person trying to get their hands on the pages, and that each of these individuals is a kind of sorcerer who "farms" part of the city arrogantly and sometimes criminally. The mystery takes still more twists and turns before Howard learns the complete truth, and all along the way, the Goon looms just over his shoulder.

Aside from many wonderful standalone titles and several story collections, one other group of books is worth mentioning: the Dalemark Quartet. Here Jones delves into more serious and traditional fantasy. Dalemark is split between the freedom-loving earls of the North and the tyrannical earls of the South, so war often breaks out between the two sections of the land. I am especially fond of the first book, Cart and Cwidder, which begins with the murder of a musician who has been driving around the countryside with his children, putting on performances. But there was more to Clennen than meets the eye, and his children discover they must carry out his last mission while evading the reach of the ruthless earls of the South. Like many of Jones' books, this is a good example of the way the author draws a realistic picture of the bickering and support between siblings even as her plot takes us on an adventure colored by magic.

I will mention that Eight Days of Luke draws on Norse mythology, and that The Ogre Downstairs unites a quarrelsome group of newly minted stepsiblings when the kids are given magical chemistry sets and start getting themselves into trouble—there's a whiff of Edward Eager in that one. The Magicians of Caprona features two warring magical houses reminiscent of the Montagues and the Capulets. The Homeward Bounders works with the idea of parallel worlds in a more ominous way than the Chrestomanci titles do, creating a solitary and iconic young hero by book's end. Note that both Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock are Young Adult books, with a more mature sensibility. (I also recommend DWJ's adult fantasy, A Sudden Wild Magic, which has one of the funniest resolutions I've ever read in my life.)

Other notable books include The Merlin Conspiracy, A Tale of Time City, Wild Robert, Power of Three, Aunt Maria (U.S. title), The Time of the Ghost, and The Game, along with short stories in the author's own collections and other anthologies. I especially like "Chair Person" from Stopping for a Spell and "What the Cat Told Me" from Unexpected Magic.

Diana Wynne Jones had a strange childhood, which might explain in part how she turned out to be such an interesting person. You can read a brief but fascinating autobiography on her website, but I'll just quote from an interview on BookBrowse here:

I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving, hand-making pottery, and singing madrigals, for none of which I had either taste or talent. So, in intervals between trying to haunt the church and sitting on roofs hoping to learn to fly, I wrote enormous epic adventure stories which I read to my sisters instead of the real books we did not have. This writing was stopped, though, when it was decided I must be coached to go to University. A local philosopher was engaged to teach me Greek and philosophy in exchange for a dollhouse (my family never did things normally), and I eventually got a place at Oxford.
At this stage, despite attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, I did not expect to be writing fantasy. But that was what I started to write when I was married and had children of my own.

As a children's fantasy writer, I am sometimes asked who my influences are. Since I suspect interviewers don't want to hear a list of a hundred-plus books, I reluctantly narrow it down. And yes, Diana Wynne Jones is on my shortlist, more than anything because her work reminds me to use my own imagination boldly.

You may rejoice to hear that the latest DWJ drought is almost over: the author has a book called Enchanted Glass coming out in April 2010. Her website says of the book, "A stand-alone book, not part of any series, there are the expected magicians, but it also includes giant vegetables, revenge by cauliflower cheese (?!) and fortune-telling using racing tips." So yes, rest assured—Diana Wynne Jones is as unusual and funny a thinker and writer as ever.

I will end with one more quote from the author, also from the BookBrowse interview. The interviewer asked Ms. Jones if she prefers writing for children or adults, and what the differences are. The author replied, "Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only have to tell things to once."

To learn more about Diana Wynne Jones, visit her website, or click here to read an excellent Publishers Weekly interview from June 2006. See either her website or this nice Wikipedia article for a list of the author's books and short stories.

Note: I was inspired to write this post because I am hosting a book club discussion of The Lives of Christopher Chant on the Enchanted Inkpot fantasy blog tomorrow. You are welcome to join us.

Update: Read this lovely article about Diana Wynne Jones and her books at Under the Green Willow (July 2010).

What Is It with British Writers and Fantasy?

There’s just something about British fantasy—but what is it? You’ve heard of the “It” factor in Hollywood (no doubt sex appeal), but what is the “It” factor when it comes to fantasy, and how come British writers seem to be so very good at that particular genre?

Or, to be less intimidating about it, since many American fantasy writers are very talented, how is British fantasy unique? To answer that question, we obviously need to compare Monty Python and the Holy Grail to I Love Lucy, or Wallace and Gromit to The Simpsons, or When Harry Met Sally to Bridget Jones’s Diary. Therein we will surely find the answer, especially if we stick blithely to sweeping generalizations, which I hereby pledge to do in today’s post.

Actually, I looked at a couple of lists of American film comedies and TV shows, trying to decide what they have in common, and I concluded that Americans are very good at what the term “sitcom” tells us: situational comedy. Our humor is based on plot twists. We’re especially good at putting people in embarrassing situations and watching what happens—e.g., I Love Lucy, Everybody Loves Raymond, Get Smart, Seinfeld, and just about every “reality” show ever made. And just like in reality shows, the situations we find funny tend to be derived from things that do actually happen, or things that could happen very easily.

In contrast, British humor tends to lean towards the surreal—witness any number of scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but just for instance, take the one where the guy’s arms and legs have all been chopped off and he’s yelling at his opponent to come back and fight. Or the killer rabbit, or the coconuts. It’s all kind of nuts, and I mean that in a good way!

Combined with the strangeness, we get a real deadpan reaction from the characters. When something goes wrong for Lucy, she scrambles to handle it, but ends up flipping out. Wallace of Wallace and Gromit fame, like other British comedic characters, reacts to the most bizarre happenings with equanimity and an air of faint puzzlement.

Which brings me back to books: there’s something literary, not to mention clever, about British comedy, and about British fantasy writing. The words that keep coming to mind are wit and whimsy. I realize these tend to be used stereotypically, but then, stereotypes can have their roots in truth. I suppose we can define wit as cleverness and surprising humor. Just what is whimsy? Overused, it can become saccharine attempts to be cute, or as the British themselves, especially Terry Pratchett, might say, “twee.” But whimsy is creativity with a cheery grin. It is the oddly hopeful thought processes of a child, taking us to strange places which are not inhabited by vampire boyfriends, but rather by giant, traveling peaches and by baby griffins who eat too much and require our young heroes to earn extra money in order to feed them (thanks to Roald Dahl and Joan Aiken, respectively).

Beyond offering up solid plotting and appealing characters, children’s books—especially fantasy—really should surprise us. I’ve written before on this blog about the Fresh Factor, by which I mean innovation, the kinds of plots and language and details that make us sit up and take notice. Perhaps it’s a sad tribute to the televisionization of American culture that so many of our stories are prone to being predictable. In any case, I don’t know why some of the best or certainly most off-the-wall fantasy is British, but I can only surmise that there’s a little less TV involved and a lot more Lewis Carroll.

Whatever the explanation, the most innovative children’s fantasy I’ve read in recent years has been by British writers. This may seem like a cruel thing to say considering all of the excellent American fantasy out there, but I’m comparing good books to other good books, truly. My point is simply that the most fantastical fantasy tends to be British. There’s Diana Wynne Jones with her dragon’s blood smugglers and moving castles, Terry Pratchett with his frying pan-wielding young witch and his tidal wave-and-ghost-washed island, and Philip Reeve with steampunk space adventures and moving cities that devour smaller cities, for example. Not to mention Garth Nix’s bell sorceress in the land of the dead or his key-seeking Arthur Penhaligon in the seriously strange House, let alone Neil Gaiman’s Other Alice and Mowgli-in-a-Cemetery. (Yes, I realize Garth Nix is Australian, but I’ve decided to lump him in!) Frankly, one of the most original concepts I’ve seen in years is from a less well-known book, Eva Ibbotson’s Dial-a-Ghost, in which a temp agency that places ghosts in houses gets two orders mixed up. I also recently read the collected Armitage Family stories by Joan Aiken in The Serial Garden—and really, if you want to know what I mean by British wit and whimsy, her book perfectly exemplifies the phrase.

Of course, the big name in British fantasy today is J.K. Rowling. People who fuss about her rather ordinary prose are completely missing the point, which is that this is the woman who invented Bertie Bott’s Many Flavored Beans and quidditch. Besides the lovable characters, it’s those crazy, brilliant details that lift the Harry Potter books out of the ordinary.

And despite all the press, Rowling hasn’t actually unseated Roald Dahl—his stuff is still the best bet I know of for almost any eight-year-old on the planet. Talk about wit and whimsy! Golden tickets for the possibility of entrance to a mysteriously unknown chocolate factory? A girl who chews a stick of gum and turns into an oversize blueberry? I won’t get into lions and witches and wardrobes, but I hope you get the idea.

I got started thinking about all this because I read two British fantasies this week: Magical Kids by Sally Gardner and The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock by Alex Williams. I didn’t realize they were British at first, but I started getting the feeling I wasn’t in Kansas anymore and checked those back flaps to see where the authors were from. Suspicions confirmed!

Neither book is amazing, though both are pretty good. Magical Kids is a flip book—one side is a novella called The Smallest Girl Ever and the other is one called The Boy Who Could Fly. The idea of a shrinking child is not new, nor is the rather pop psychology explanation that Ruby Genie shrinks because adults are belittling her. The idea of a boy getting his wish to be able to fly is an oldie, as well, and it’s burdened by a creaky subplot about a dad who has forgotten how to have fun. But in each case, the story telling rolls cheerfully along just the same—especially in The Smallest Girl Ever, whose title character spends part of the book inhabiting a ladies’ purse while improving the magic tricks of an inept but helpful magician. (Apparently this is the second volume, by the way; the first volume consists of The Strongest Girl in the World and The Invisible Boy.)

The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock features one of those moustache-twirling villains intent on taking the family farm, also the farmwife. Only in this case, the farm is an oddly crafted house where the Breezes make intricate mechanical fans, and the farmwife is Elizabeth Breeze. Bartholomew Tullock has turned the town into a wintry, miserable place where everyone but the Breezes works in his turnip fields under a dark gray sky. As the villain increases the pressure, Madeline Breeze and her father leave town with a charming con artist to try to sell their fans in a warmer climate, while Rufus Breeze and his mother try to keep the bad guys from destroying their house. The book is a fun, fast-paced read, but as other reviewers have pointed out, the best thing about The Deep Freeze is the fans, which are utterly bizarre and are described in loving detail, making readers want to own one.

Like Magic Kids, The Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Tullock is a good way to spend an afternoon. Both books have that sense of whimsy, a valuable commodity in a fantasy world often overrun by dour plotting.

Of course, all is not lost on the American front. Going back to humor, I am happy to report that Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and sequels actually give British humor a run for its money (particularly Louise Rennison!). And when it comes to TV, I am both relieved and proud to say that The Simpsons makes up for any number of predictable, unfunny TV comedies cobbled together by less creative Americans.

As for children’s fantasy, I suppose we can attempt to claim Neil Gaiman, despite the deplorable persistence of his entrancing accent. More important, we have some innovative newcomers appearing on the horizon: Marie Rutkoski (The Cabinet of Wonders), Ingrid Law (Savvy), and Joseph Helgerson (Horns and Wrinkles) all seem promising.

But let’s focus on the really kooky stuff. For madcap, whimsical, Britishy off-the-rails books, there are two American writers to watch: Ysabeau S. Wilce and James Kennedy. Wilce is the author of Flora Segunda: Being the Magical Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. The sequel, just in case you can’t guess, is Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room). The first book tends to ramble, but is nevertheless something new and intriguing—imagine a California about a century or so ago if the Aztecs were still around and had territorial rights, and if all concerned had magical abilities. Throw in a teenager with a Califan slang vocabulary and insufficient supervision, then watch what happens. Flora’s mother is the Califan military leader, while Flora herself is a rambunctious fourteen-year-old who gets suckered by a banished magical butler. I will say that the second book hangs together better. (It is also more clearly a Young Adult title.)

James Kennedy’s The Order of Odd-Fish isn’t perfect, but it is astonishing and funny. Here’s my Amazon review:

Jo was discovered as a baby by the flamboyant actress, Lily LaRouche, inside a washing machine, accompanied by a note that read: “This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a DANGEROUS baby.” When our story opens, Jo is thirteen years old, living with Aunt Lily in the extravagantly moldering ruby palace in the middle of the California desert. The night of Lily's annual costume Christmas party, a Russian colonel whose actions are directed by his intestinal rumblings shows up, as does a narcissistic giant cockroach butler, not to mention a package for Jo that falls out of the sky. Chapter One ends, “After that, everyone had the leisure to start screaming.”

Soon Jo and company are being chased by a billionaire with evil aspirations. They end up in Eldritch City, where Jo finds out just why she is considered dangerous and must continue to hide her identity from her newfound friends, fellow squires to the Knights of the Order of Odd-fish. The order is working on making, not an encyclopedia of all knowledge, but an appendix “of dubious facts, rumors, and myths.... A repository of questionable knowledge, and an opportunity to dither about.”

As this task implies, author James Kennedy prefers to range along the road from the absurd to the ridiculous, stopping along the way in the outrageous. He also makes arguably masculine side trips into the realms of bodily functions and violence.

The plot is a little uneven in spots, perhaps because Kennedy combines one of those dark end-of-the-world story lines with the aforementioned nuttiness—and sometimes these two efforts seem to pull each other sideways. A few bits and pieces work better than others: I didn’t quite buy the parts involving a pie-loving character called Hoagland Shanks, for example. However, many OTHER bits are simply hilarious—and refreshingly creative. The rituals related to dueling, particularly the exchange of insults, are among Kennedy’s bizarre gems. Think of Eldritch City as the love child of Lewis Carroll and Neil Gaiman. It is well worth the trip.

I will caution you that Kennedy does not shy away from big words, nor from an irony worthy of a satirist writing for adults. I suspect a lot of the humor will sail right over young readers’ heads, although Lemony Snickett has already established a precedent for using irony and obscure vocabulary in children's books. Watch in particular for the subplot involving the vain cockroach butler, Sefino, and his archenemy, a centipede newswriter.

I can’t resist closing this review with the most astonishing sentence in The Order of Odd-Fish, a lovingly concocted work of art that will give you some idea what you’re in for: “But soon Ken Kiang found he was both cat and mouse in a bewildering showdown with the Belgian Prankster, in which strategies of ever greater sophistication were deployed, canceled, reversed, appropriated, adapted, and foiled; pawns sacrificed, attacks repulsed, fortresses stormed and captured, treaties signed and betrayed, retreats faked and traps sprung, territory gained, lost, besieged, divided, despoiled, and exchanged—it was a shadow world, of infinite levels of deceit and disguise, of decoys that were Trojan horses full of more decoys that were red herrings in non-mysteries that had neither a solution nor a problem, concerning people that didn't exist in a place that was nowhere in a situation that was impossible!” (275)

Frankly, I can’t wait to see what Kennedy writes next.

Now, I suppose this idea of British fantasy I’ve been trying to describe may be a style—and it may even be partly imaginary. (How apt!) But if there’s a lesson American fantasy writers can learn from the Brits, it is that we needn’t limit ourselves to simply finding a new method for establishing a portal to another world or swiping a medieval setting and introducing sorcerers. There’s a special kind of risk-taking involved in letting your imagination go significantly farther afield. So perhaps with this entry, I’m issuing a challenge to children’s fantasy writers, myself included. Because the mind can come up with far more creative worlds and plots and details if you will only let it travel higher into the ether.