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Diana Wynne Jones roundup
Jul. 19th, 2020 08:45 pmEnchanted Glass
4/5. Thoroughly charming standalone about a kid who flees to the country home of what his grandmother said would be a great wizard, only to find the great wizard's grandson, a somewhat magical professor instead. Lots of dog and country fair hijinx and the fae and suchlike. Charming, that is, if you ignore the thing where the book tells you something cheerfully and you're like whoa wait what the fuck. You're talking about sexual exploitation of a young and vulnerable woman by an older powerful man, right? and the book is like la dah dah. So there's that.
The Lives of Christopher Chant
3/5. Chrestomanci. Christopher Chant has nine lives, and carries on wasting them doing stupid things with his rare power to travel between worlds. This was okay, but Christopher's privilege is so overwhelming from start to finish that his conflicts over whether he is going to bother to be a decent person or not didn't land for me. I mean, for real, he spends half the book sulking about how he is being trained to be the most powerful enchanter in the world when he'd rather be back at his posh boarding school playing cricket with all his rich friends. Okay dude, whatever, tiny violin.
Conrad's Fate
3/5. Better. Young man becomes a servant in a wealthy household to uncover who is making reality skip and reset itself. It turns out a running theme in these books is the terribleness of being a child in the power of manipulative adults. The ultimate resolution here has had all the sense surgically removed from it, but the journey is enjoyable, as Conrad learns to define himself instead of letting adults do it for their own ends. Also, Christopher appears, and the book is quite aware of how he is like 20% charming and 80% terrible from an outsider's perspective.
The Magicians of Caprona
2/5. Meh. Not in the mood for a book about rival magical Italian city-state magician families. I.e. a book about people being irrationally prejudiced against each other (they literally both think the other family smells bad), sprinkled with DWJ's cultural stereotypes about Italy. Good cats though.
Mixed Magics
3/5. Four Chrestomanci shorts, ranging from the cute (criminal leaps dimensions, ends up being bullied by a dog and a small child), to the . . . weird? (boy brings down a world of rules by asking questions of gods). But by this point I was starting to ask some uncomfortable questions about the Chrestomanci series in general, like so basically the rule here is that the most powerful man becomes the multiverse head cop and judge and jury? That's sure a system you've got going.
4/5. Thoroughly charming standalone about a kid who flees to the country home of what his grandmother said would be a great wizard, only to find the great wizard's grandson, a somewhat magical professor instead. Lots of dog and country fair hijinx and the fae and suchlike. Charming, that is, if you ignore the thing where the book tells you something cheerfully and you're like whoa wait what the fuck. You're talking about sexual exploitation of a young and vulnerable woman by an older powerful man, right? and the book is like la dah dah. So there's that.
The Lives of Christopher Chant
3/5. Chrestomanci. Christopher Chant has nine lives, and carries on wasting them doing stupid things with his rare power to travel between worlds. This was okay, but Christopher's privilege is so overwhelming from start to finish that his conflicts over whether he is going to bother to be a decent person or not didn't land for me. I mean, for real, he spends half the book sulking about how he is being trained to be the most powerful enchanter in the world when he'd rather be back at his posh boarding school playing cricket with all his rich friends. Okay dude, whatever, tiny violin.
Conrad's Fate
3/5. Better. Young man becomes a servant in a wealthy household to uncover who is making reality skip and reset itself. It turns out a running theme in these books is the terribleness of being a child in the power of manipulative adults. The ultimate resolution here has had all the sense surgically removed from it, but the journey is enjoyable, as Conrad learns to define himself instead of letting adults do it for their own ends. Also, Christopher appears, and the book is quite aware of how he is like 20% charming and 80% terrible from an outsider's perspective.
The Magicians of Caprona
2/5. Meh. Not in the mood for a book about rival magical Italian city-state magician families. I.e. a book about people being irrationally prejudiced against each other (they literally both think the other family smells bad), sprinkled with DWJ's cultural stereotypes about Italy. Good cats though.
Mixed Magics
3/5. Four Chrestomanci shorts, ranging from the cute (criminal leaps dimensions, ends up being bullied by a dog and a small child), to the . . . weird? (boy brings down a world of rules by asking questions of gods). But by this point I was starting to ask some uncomfortable questions about the Chrestomanci series in general, like so basically the rule here is that the most powerful man becomes the multiverse head cop and judge and jury? That's sure a system you've got going.