(no subject)
Over the course of my awesome weekend with visitors gramarye1971, phoenixchilde and neenie (as well as various NY associates), I mentioned that I had been thinking of writing up the Massive Diana Wynne Jones Complete Recommendation Post of Ultimate Doom. Fools that they are, they encouraged me! THEREFORE: I present to you a Full and Complete Roundup of Diana Wynne Jones Novels, for the guidance of all of those people out there who inexplicably have not yet obsessively hunted down and read everything she has ever written, and would like to know where to begin or continue.
This is part one of two, covering DWJ one-off novels; the second post (coming soon! Probably!) will be an overview of all of DWJ's series books.
Title: Archer's Goon
Plot: Thirteen-year-old Howard Sikes comes home one day and finds someone's goon in his kitchen, announcing that Howard's semi-famous writer father Quentin is late on his payment - his payment of 2,000 words, to be precise - and that someone called Archer is going to be very unhappy if he doesn't receive them. Archer turns out to be one of a series of seven disfunctional megalomaniac wizard siblings, who all seem to believe that Quentin's nonsense writings are the reason that they're trapped in the town (much to Quentin's bemusement, and slight smugness). The family starts to come under a good deal of uncomfortable magical pressure, while Howard and his (aptly-named) little sister Awful try to a.) maintain a normal standard of living and b.) find out what on earth is actually going on. Kidnapping, time travel, and sewer adventures ensue!
Why It's Awesome: The characters and their family dynamics! *_* (You are going to hear me say this a lot over the course of this post.) The Sikes family has to deal with everything from losing their electricity to being harassed by marching bands, and they deal with it in hilarious and realistic ways, from cheerful ingenuity to screaming fights. (Awful is my favorite. No one who knows me will be surprised by this.) The other family, Archer and his siblings, form factions and have epic feuds and petty jealousies and play fascinating power games - not to mention the fact that they're all fantastic characters in their own right. From Torquil, who has a tendency to bring along a full backup troupe of choirboys and disco dancers when he makes his dramatic entrances, to Shine, a ginormous lady who runs heists, dresses in black leather, and will beat your ass down, each and every sibling has their own variety of fabulous. There is also the most hilarious school orchestra scene that you will ever read, ever.
On a more serious note, once you look past all the wacky, the emphasis of the story is split pretty evenly between the power of words and imagination, and the power of family bonds and responsibility. These are two themes that are near and dear to my heart, and I love the way that Diana Wynne Jones uses them here, and how they work together and against each other.
Things To Be Wary Of: I don't actually know if I have any! This is one of Diana Wynne Jones' more complete books, and would be a good introduction to DWJ really - it's got the range of awesome characters, the magical mundanity, and the complicated families, and strikes a good balance between her more kid-focused writing and the more complicated stuff.
Title: Black Maria (or Aunt Maria, depending on the edition)
Plot: Mig's parents were in the middle of a messy divorce when Mig's father went over the cliff in his car while on the way to visit his aunt Maria. Now Mig's mother has packed Mig and her brother Chris up to stay with Great-Aunt Maria, who's old and frail and looks like a sweet little old teddy bear and has to have things just her way. Mig sees her father's car that was supposed to have gone over the cliff, and Chris starts seeing a ghost; all the men in the town seem mildly braidead and the children act like clones, and Mig's mother seems to have become strangely oblivious to everything that's going on . . .
Why It's Awesome: This is one of the scariest of Diana Wynne Jones' books; it's full of the kind of creeping ordinary horror that gets you precisely because it feels so normal. There may be powerful supernatural forces at work (and the buried-alive sequence and emotions-in-a-box sequences are horrific - you've never seen muesli used as a genuine terror weapon before!) but the real weapons in this book are quiet passive-aggression and all the polite social cues you can't avoid - "but dear, I'm sure you couldn't have meant that," and you find yourself going along with it just to avoid a fuss. Tea parties of evil are not a joke, here; at one point, a character literally uses her powers of Polite Social Chatter to bore and confuse her way into victory, and in short Aunt Maria is pretty much the most terrifyingly effective villain of all time. Mig herself is a wonderful narrator - she's an Aspiring Writer who is engrossed in creating just the kind of hilarious Mary Suetastic work so many of us wrote when we were twelve - and the relationships between her and her brother and her mother are still some of my hallmarks for amazingly drawn family relationships in fiction. (And unlike in many of DWJ's books, the relationship between these three is actually healthy. And Mig's mom eventually gets to do stuff! Which is a nice change from most books where Oblivious Parents are a plot point.) I would also highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in werewolves or humans-as-wolves, portrayed in a fashion that deals with actual lupine qualities and not just "ZOMG WOLF MONSTER." Also there is a super adorable scene with kittens.
Things To Be Wary Of: The gender dynamics in the book are weird and often uncomfortable; Diana Wynne Jones is very explicitly trying to explore something about gender here, and I don't necessarily agree with the way she did it much of the time, though I find it fascinating to see (and want to read academic papers on it!) There is also a very little bit of weird race stuff, or lack thereof - it's pretty much outright stated that The Gender Issue Officially Trumps The Race Issue, which is not exactly a success for intersectionality. The issue of an abusive parent is also lightly touched on, and - okay, did I mention the creepiness? IT'S CREEPY.
Title: Dogsbody
Plot: Sirius, the Dog Star, is famed for his temper, but he's almost sure he didn't kill that other star. Nonetheless, he's been separated from his beautiful dwarf star Companion and sent to Earth to find a lost Zoi as his punishment. The catch: he's been born into the body of a puppy who can only vaguely remember bits and pieces of his former life as a star, he has no idea anymore what a Zoi is or what it's supposed to look like, and if he doesn't find it by the end of his mortal lifespan he'll die. Not to mention the fact that everything he does to try and find it only makes more problems for Kathleen, the Irish girl who's begged her English relatives to be allowed to keep him.
Why It's Awesome: This rises head and shoulders above any other 'Girl And Her Dog' story you've ever read. For one thing, it has a fascinating mythology that blends astrology with science with English mythology of the Wild Hunt and things under the ground; for another, the issues between Kathleen and the English family that has taken her in are real and well-drawn but not overplayed. The animals think like animals, but they're definitely not cutesy-adorable, and it's fascinating to see the way DWJ writes the struggle between the star-part and the dog-part of Sirius' brain. And unlike in many dog books, cats also get their due! Also, the ending is one of those fitting and cruel DWJ endings that ducks all the cliches and yet will still quite likely make you cry.
Things To Be Wary Of: If you cannot deal with dead puppies? This is not the book for you.
Title: Eight Days of Luke
Plot: Okay, be warned, this is one of the few books of DWJ's that I've only read once, so I don't remember it very well (it's next on my list of DWJs to reread) but basically it is a reworking of Norse mythology. David Allard is an abused orphan! Luke is his new BFF who drops strange comments about chains and bowls of venom and seems to have made a lot of very powerful people rather annoyed at him! THREE GUESSES WHO LUKE MIGHT BE.
Why It's Awesome: Like I said, I don't remember much about it, but - guys, this is a book that kind of inspired American Gods. (Well, Neil Gaiman apparently says that they are not so much inspired as an odd sort of second cousins, but Eight Days of Luke came well first, so . . .) Also, if I remember rightly, DWJ is doing some extremely cool stuff with the gods and their power politics and the days of the week. And Luke is an amazing character! That much I definitely remember.
Things To Be Wary Of: I have absolutely no recollection of David's personality, which implies to me that he doesn't have much of one. But I could be wrong!
Title: Fire and Hemlock
Plot: Polly, a Normal University Student, is cleaning out her room one day when she comes across a bizarre painting . . . and all of a sudden remembers a whole second set of memories involving a man named Tom who has been extremely important to her since she was ten, a series of strange characters of various degrees of sinister, some events that correspond to ballads like Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer to an unnerving degree, and stories that she wrote as a child who may or may not have come true. Polly the unwanted child, whose home life was strange and fraught even without the addition of the supernatural, didn't realize the power that she held over the unfolding events - but Polly the adult just might be able to save Tom's life.
Why It's Awesome: If you want subtle magic, if you want the power of stories, then this is a book for you - all of the unusual happenings in the book are just-on-the-edge of explicable, and eerie for precisely that reason. The story is gorgeously understated and provides a lot of food for thought on writing and stories and belief. Moreover, though it's one of the few DWJs that's usually classified as an adult novel, it's also an amazing story of the coming-of-age of a would-be writer. Polly starts out gamely writing Mary Sues and continues on her literary way with a torrid 15-year-old romance, and the tirade that Tom sends her on the unlikeliness of her hero's perfect glistening muscular back is a beauty to behold. At one point, Tom sends Polly a list of books to read about myths, ballads and the heroic archetype, and I will totally admit I stole a bunch of my childhood reading from there. The whole thing is a huge game of spot-the-reference, which is massive amounts of fun for book- and myth-nerds. Who doesn't love a creepy Tam Lin allusion or twenty? And, more than most DWJ books, there is an emphasis on the relationship between girls - Polly and her grandmother and her friends Nina and Fiona - that is really nice to see.
Things To Be Wary Of: This tends to be a polarizing DWJ book, for a lot of reasons. The dual-memory storyline and the ambiguity of a lot of the things that happen can make it a very confusing read, and the debates and analysis about the ending are ongoing and will probably NEVER end. The relationship between Tom and Polly is also a controversial topic, considering the age difference between the two (I have a theory that whether you ship it or are squicked by it depends on the age you are when you read it; I read it young enough that I ship it, but I suspect I would have been a lot more bothered by it if I'd read it first as an adult.) Also, while Diana Wynne Jones is known for writing in a quiet matter-of-fact fashion about terribly unhealthy and dysfunctional family relationships, Polly's parents are awful even by DWJ standards - very realistically awful, and very much real people, but it can be very distressing to read about. Basically, I think it's an incredibly rewarding read, but I would never hand it to someone as their first Diana Wynne Jones novel for fear it would turn them off forever.
Title: The Game
Plot: This is an individually-published novella, rather than a novel, and follows a girl called Hayley who gets sent away from her strict grandparents to stay with her cousins in Ireland. Her cousins, who have some rather unusual abilities, introduce her to the BEST GAME EVER: they get to go play in the mythosphere!
Why It's Awesome: This is basically just an extended romp through myths and tropes and gods all jumbled together, so anyone who enjoys that kind of thing at all would be missing out not to pick it up.
Things To Be Wary Of: It's way too short. Seriously. There is interesting material for at least three full-length novels here and it's all packed together into less than 200 pages, which means that nothing gets explored as much as it deserves. It's like dangling your big toe in the water on a really hot day - yeah, it's nice, but what you'd actually like to do is go swimming! Read the more complete novels first.
Title: Hexwood
Plot: Oh man, where to start? The setting is probably most relevant here: Hexwood Farm is located in the center of a magical wood, and is also the hiding place of a super-powerful machine called the Bannus that can warp time and space around itself. The combination of these factors means that the plot often becomes SORT OF CONFUSING. Stealing a bit of the summary from Wikipedia might give you something of an idea: Hexwood is, without a doubt, Diana Wynne Jones' most complex book. The scenes happen in the wrong order, every character (including the Bannus itself) suffers from a case of mistaken identity at some point in the book, and both ordinary Earth businessmen and men from outer space are deluded into believing they are knights. OH, SO TRUE. Other aspects of the plot involve a group of five evil intergalactic dictators called the Reigners; the Reigners' Servant, Mordion, the Reigner's specially bred, highly trained, and mentally coerced assassin; Hume, the boy Mordion has apparently used the power of the wood to create; Ann, a thirteen-year-old grocer's daughter who was a sort of accessory to Hume's creation and considers it her job to dun common sense into Mordion and Hume's heads; Vierran, a wardrobe manager who hears voices in her head and has a terrible crush on Mordion; and King Arthur. There is also a Humorous Robot. At one point one character throws a giant temper tantrum because "I WAS PROMISED HOBBITS ON A GRAIL QUEST, AND NOT ONE HOBBIT HAVE I SEEN!" At another point several members of the cast turn into dragons, apparently due to the sheer power of manpain. DID I MENTION IT IS GLORIOUS.
Why It's Awesome: You mean my plot summary above did not convince you of the beauty of this book? OKAY THEN. Aside from the fact that it's on so many different levels of bizarre magical-sci-fi-reality-bending crack that it rivals Kaori Yuki, Hexwood is doing some really complicated and fascinating things with the construction of story and time - it takes a while to figure out what's going on, but once you do you end up sort of drop-jawed with the brilliance. Also, your heart will break for Mordion, who is the biggest sweetheart of a mentally enslaved killing machine you will ever see. He looks kind of like a camel, and is eternally harassed by the difficulties of parenthood! And he's SO PROUD of Hume when Hume figures out how to make a toy cart, because his three-year-old just re-invented the wheel! (Part of the mental coersion is that he can't laugh at the things about the Reigners that strike him as funny. It makes him sick when he tries. Diana Wynne Jones understands the sheer horror of that, which is one of the reasons why she's amazing.) The rest of the characters are also fabulous - I have a special fondness for the relationships between Ann and, um, EVERYONE - and the way Diana Wynne Jones relentlessly skewers the trope of the wonderful medieval castle is a joy to behold, and basically it is ALL FABULOUS.
Things To Be Wary Of: Did I mention all of the scenes in the book happen out of order, and some of them happen twice? Basically the best way to read the book is just to go with it and enjoy the characters until things start making sense three quarters of the way through; I adore it in every aspect of its bizarreness, but it would be very easy to bounce off of early on. Also, it is worth mentioning that the bro-ho ratio is really not great - there are basically three women with speaking parts and one of them is evil.
Title: The Homeward Bounders
Plot: Jamie Hamilton was doing his usual activities, skipping school and wandering around his city to poke his nose in places where he didn't belong, when he stumbled over Them, a group of super-powerful beings who play games with the worlds. Now Jamie's a been exiled to walk from world to world, moving at Their whim and subject to Their rules, until he can find a way back Home.
Why It's Awesome: It is no secret that I love this book with a fiery passion - I think it may be the best DWJ ever wrote, or at least it's way up there. Jamie's voice is wonderful; he's an ancient and world-weary wanderer at the same time that he's a thirteen-year-old kid, funny and realistically flawed and no kind of hero except by complete accident. Helen and Joris, the other main characters, are also brilliant. Helen is cranky and smart and suspicious and a complete badass who's destined to be queen of the world (also she can turn her arm into an elephant's trunk!); Joris is strong and heroic and noble and sweet and capable of babbling dorkily about his teacher for hours on end, a demon hunter -who is also a slave, with a whole bundle of issues tied up with that. (It's worth mentioning that this is one of the best of Diana Wynne Jones' novels with regard to characters of color, too; Helen and Joris' teachers the Khans come from different worlds but are identified as looking southeast Asian.) More than all that, it's a very, very complete book. The plot, unlike in many of my other favorite DWJs, is relatively straightforward and easy to follow, and the ending is right and inevitable and knives you in the heart.
Things To Be Wary Of: I have nothing to report! GO READ IT. (Unless I guess for some inexplicable reason you do not enjoy being knived in the heart.)
Title: The Ogre Downstairs
Plot: Caspar, Johnny and Gwinny's mother has married a horrible man who can only be described as an Ogre, with two equally horrible sons, Malcolm and Douglas. One fateful day the Ogre buys each set of children a chemistry set. The chemicals, when properly activated, turn out to do some rather unusual things - making you fly, for example. Bringing inanimate objects to life. BODYSWAPPING. Cue Wacky Hijinks and family bonding, as all the kids in the blended family compete, squabble, and grudgingly cooperate to a.) do awesome stuff with the chemistry kits and b.) stop their parents from finding out!
Why It's Awesome: I just want to hug this book, it has all my favorite things. Siblings! Ensembleness! People who despise each other Learning To Appreciate Each Other due to wacky magical mishaps and dysfunctional families Coming Together When The Chips Are Down! Also, it is full of sly comedy and glorious moments and all the things that people really would do if they were given a chemistry kit with magical powers. Douglas uses the flying powder to sneak out to a rock concert; Johnny brings his chocolate bars to life, keeps them as pets, and is exceedingly distressed when they start to melt all over the house. On a more serious note, I like that the class issues are there in the family (Malcolm and Douglas used to go to a private school) and how they're addressed. All of the sibling relationships are awesome, but my favorite is probably Malcolm and Caspar's progression from despising each other to grudging respect and teamwork . . . due to BODYSWAP. Seriously, it is glorious, Caspar is like, "I thought you were a complete jerk, but it turns out it is just that YOUR STUPID FACE IS INCAPABLE OF SHOWING EMOTION! All is explained!" And Malcolm is like "I HATE YOUR STUPID FACE TOO" and then they are on the road to being friends and bonding over dorky science. :D I totally platonically ship them.
Things To Be Wary Of: The book reads a bit younger than some of her others, which might be a turn-off for some people. Also, though the Ogre is pretty mild in comparison to the emotional abuse perpetuated by some DWJ parents *coughFireandHemlockcough* he does definitely subscribe to the school of corporal punishment, which could be triggery for some.
Title: Power of Three
Plot: This is another one of the few that I don't know quite as well, having only read it once and that a while ago, but it centers on the interactions between children of three different species - the Lyman, who are small and have magical gifts (most of the story is from the perspective of three Lyman children); the Dorig, who live underwater and can shapeshift; and the Giants (self-explanatory. OR MAYBE NOT.) There is war between the Lymon and the Dorig, and the Giants are oblivious, all of which becomes a problem when it turns out that the Lymon are in possession of a magical cursed object that must be destroyed through the power of INTERSPECIES TEAMWORK!
Why It's Awesome: Sibling-ness! Teamwork! Bickering and bonding! - okay, yeah, you can tell I don't remember this one very well, but that isn't the fault of the book but rather the fault of my library for not having a copy when I was growing up.
Things To Be Wary Of: This is another one that reads pretty young, and it has more of a blatant Moral Message than most DWJ books, which is another reason I don't remember it thrilling me quite as much as most of hers.
Title: A Tale of Time City
Plot: Vivian is a refugee from London during the Blitz, waiting on the railroad platform to meet her cousin Marty in the country, when she gets whisked up by strange lordly Jonathan and his excitable cousin Sam, who both seem convinced that she's the legendary Time Lady. Vivian tries her very best to convince them that it's a case of mistaken identity, but by that time, it's too late - they've already taken her to Time City, which keeps watch over and studies Earth chronology. Now she's got to impersonate Jonathan and Sam's cousin in order not to be arrested by the Time Patrol, while Sam and Jonathan drag her through time searching for the real Time Lady and the gadgets that will stop Time City from being destroyed.
Why It's Awesome: Time City is a fascinating conceit, and the various futures that DWJ has her protagonists bop through are equally fascinating and creepy in turns (the Mind Wars, oh man! TERRIFYING.) As in every good DWJ, there are a few scenes that are flat-out hilarious - my favorite is probably the one where Vivian tries to translate an ancient Time City text ("one large black smith threw four coffins about so that they turned into four very old women!") and the one where Jonathan and Sam's father has hysterics while rushing about the house looking for his ceremonial regalia. And I really love how explicit it is that Jonathan and Sam are not Heroic Young Children Destined To Save Everything, but bored kids who want an adventure because they're on their summer holidays and have screwed a lot of things up as a result! It's also nice that Time City is not at all lily-white without making a big deal about it; the Lees that both Sam and Jonathan are descended from are Chinese, and Jonathan's father seems to be at least part-Indian. And Vivian's 1930s culture clash as she's confronted with Time City and the various futures is awesome and realistic.
Things To Be Wary Of: The story is a little disjointed, and several side characters seem to have been snatched out of other books (Elio bears a suspicious resemblance to Yam from Hexwood, and Jonathan and Sam's tutor shares a teaching style and a purple face with Christopher Chant's first teacher, although I found the resemblance more entertaining than irritating.) Also, the ending happens very much in a rush and I'm not sure I entirely approve of it.
Title: The Time of the Ghost
Plot: The ghost doesn't know exactly who she is - she just knows that she's one of four sisters, and she's been sent to the past, when all of them were children, to prevent something awful from taking place. The four sisters are Charlotte (Cart), Selina (Sally), Imogen and Fenella; their parents are completely absorbed in running a boy's school and have no time to care for their daughters, occasionally to the point of forgetting to provide them with things like food. As a result, the sisters have come up with some exceedingly bizarre - and dangerous - plans to get their parents' attention. They've also teamed up with some of the boys at the school and developed, half as a joke, the worship of a creepy doll called Monigan, and it seems likely that this has something to do with the ghost . . .
Why It's Awesome: Oh man is this book interesting and creepy, and the moreso once you realize that everything about the sisters and their parents is largely autobiographical. Of course, this is a Diana Wynne Jones novel, so even though their parents' neglect is horrific, the sisters are emphatically not tragic little moppets. They're prickly, independent, bizarre, often hilarious, very individual, and fiercely united when push comes to shove. And having the book narrated by a very confused ghost creates an overwhelming sense of eery foreboding that is really effective.
Things To Be Wary Of: The parents in this book rival the ones in Fire and Hemlock for awful neglect, and the book also features an extremely unhealthy and abusive romance as well. Likely to be triggery on a number of levels. Although it's short, it's also an extremely psychological story, and not nearly as madcap as most of DWJ's books; I love it, but would probably not recommend it for a light read.
I read A Sudden Wild Magic but don't remember liking it particularly, and I haven't read Changeover, so I'm not going to talk about them here (cheating, I know) but if anyone has, and wants to chime in with Why They're Awesome, please absolutely feel free!
NEXT ROUND: Series books!
This is part one of two, covering DWJ one-off novels; the second post (coming soon! Probably!) will be an overview of all of DWJ's series books.
Title: Archer's Goon
Plot: Thirteen-year-old Howard Sikes comes home one day and finds someone's goon in his kitchen, announcing that Howard's semi-famous writer father Quentin is late on his payment - his payment of 2,000 words, to be precise - and that someone called Archer is going to be very unhappy if he doesn't receive them. Archer turns out to be one of a series of seven disfunctional megalomaniac wizard siblings, who all seem to believe that Quentin's nonsense writings are the reason that they're trapped in the town (much to Quentin's bemusement, and slight smugness). The family starts to come under a good deal of uncomfortable magical pressure, while Howard and his (aptly-named) little sister Awful try to a.) maintain a normal standard of living and b.) find out what on earth is actually going on. Kidnapping, time travel, and sewer adventures ensue!
Why It's Awesome: The characters and their family dynamics! *_* (You are going to hear me say this a lot over the course of this post.) The Sikes family has to deal with everything from losing their electricity to being harassed by marching bands, and they deal with it in hilarious and realistic ways, from cheerful ingenuity to screaming fights. (Awful is my favorite. No one who knows me will be surprised by this.) The other family, Archer and his siblings, form factions and have epic feuds and petty jealousies and play fascinating power games - not to mention the fact that they're all fantastic characters in their own right. From Torquil, who has a tendency to bring along a full backup troupe of choirboys and disco dancers when he makes his dramatic entrances, to Shine, a ginormous lady who runs heists, dresses in black leather, and will beat your ass down, each and every sibling has their own variety of fabulous. There is also the most hilarious school orchestra scene that you will ever read, ever.
On a more serious note, once you look past all the wacky, the emphasis of the story is split pretty evenly between the power of words and imagination, and the power of family bonds and responsibility. These are two themes that are near and dear to my heart, and I love the way that Diana Wynne Jones uses them here, and how they work together and against each other.
Things To Be Wary Of: I don't actually know if I have any! This is one of Diana Wynne Jones' more complete books, and would be a good introduction to DWJ really - it's got the range of awesome characters, the magical mundanity, and the complicated families, and strikes a good balance between her more kid-focused writing and the more complicated stuff.
Title: Black Maria (or Aunt Maria, depending on the edition)
Plot: Mig's parents were in the middle of a messy divorce when Mig's father went over the cliff in his car while on the way to visit his aunt Maria. Now Mig's mother has packed Mig and her brother Chris up to stay with Great-Aunt Maria, who's old and frail and looks like a sweet little old teddy bear and has to have things just her way. Mig sees her father's car that was supposed to have gone over the cliff, and Chris starts seeing a ghost; all the men in the town seem mildly braidead and the children act like clones, and Mig's mother seems to have become strangely oblivious to everything that's going on . . .
Why It's Awesome: This is one of the scariest of Diana Wynne Jones' books; it's full of the kind of creeping ordinary horror that gets you precisely because it feels so normal. There may be powerful supernatural forces at work (and the buried-alive sequence and emotions-in-a-box sequences are horrific - you've never seen muesli used as a genuine terror weapon before!) but the real weapons in this book are quiet passive-aggression and all the polite social cues you can't avoid - "but dear, I'm sure you couldn't have meant that," and you find yourself going along with it just to avoid a fuss. Tea parties of evil are not a joke, here; at one point, a character literally uses her powers of Polite Social Chatter to bore and confuse her way into victory, and in short Aunt Maria is pretty much the most terrifyingly effective villain of all time. Mig herself is a wonderful narrator - she's an Aspiring Writer who is engrossed in creating just the kind of hilarious Mary Suetastic work so many of us wrote when we were twelve - and the relationships between her and her brother and her mother are still some of my hallmarks for amazingly drawn family relationships in fiction. (And unlike in many of DWJ's books, the relationship between these three is actually healthy. And Mig's mom eventually gets to do stuff! Which is a nice change from most books where Oblivious Parents are a plot point.) I would also highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in werewolves or humans-as-wolves, portrayed in a fashion that deals with actual lupine qualities and not just "ZOMG WOLF MONSTER." Also there is a super adorable scene with kittens.
Things To Be Wary Of: The gender dynamics in the book are weird and often uncomfortable; Diana Wynne Jones is very explicitly trying to explore something about gender here, and I don't necessarily agree with the way she did it much of the time, though I find it fascinating to see (and want to read academic papers on it!) There is also a very little bit of weird race stuff, or lack thereof - it's pretty much outright stated that The Gender Issue Officially Trumps The Race Issue, which is not exactly a success for intersectionality. The issue of an abusive parent is also lightly touched on, and - okay, did I mention the creepiness? IT'S CREEPY.
Title: Dogsbody
Plot: Sirius, the Dog Star, is famed for his temper, but he's almost sure he didn't kill that other star. Nonetheless, he's been separated from his beautiful dwarf star Companion and sent to Earth to find a lost Zoi as his punishment. The catch: he's been born into the body of a puppy who can only vaguely remember bits and pieces of his former life as a star, he has no idea anymore what a Zoi is or what it's supposed to look like, and if he doesn't find it by the end of his mortal lifespan he'll die. Not to mention the fact that everything he does to try and find it only makes more problems for Kathleen, the Irish girl who's begged her English relatives to be allowed to keep him.
Why It's Awesome: This rises head and shoulders above any other 'Girl And Her Dog' story you've ever read. For one thing, it has a fascinating mythology that blends astrology with science with English mythology of the Wild Hunt and things under the ground; for another, the issues between Kathleen and the English family that has taken her in are real and well-drawn but not overplayed. The animals think like animals, but they're definitely not cutesy-adorable, and it's fascinating to see the way DWJ writes the struggle between the star-part and the dog-part of Sirius' brain. And unlike in many dog books, cats also get their due! Also, the ending is one of those fitting and cruel DWJ endings that ducks all the cliches and yet will still quite likely make you cry.
Things To Be Wary Of: If you cannot deal with dead puppies? This is not the book for you.
Title: Eight Days of Luke
Plot: Okay, be warned, this is one of the few books of DWJ's that I've only read once, so I don't remember it very well (it's next on my list of DWJs to reread) but basically it is a reworking of Norse mythology. David Allard is an abused orphan! Luke is his new BFF who drops strange comments about chains and bowls of venom and seems to have made a lot of very powerful people rather annoyed at him! THREE GUESSES WHO LUKE MIGHT BE.
Why It's Awesome: Like I said, I don't remember much about it, but - guys, this is a book that kind of inspired American Gods. (Well, Neil Gaiman apparently says that they are not so much inspired as an odd sort of second cousins, but Eight Days of Luke came well first, so . . .) Also, if I remember rightly, DWJ is doing some extremely cool stuff with the gods and their power politics and the days of the week. And Luke is an amazing character! That much I definitely remember.
Things To Be Wary Of: I have absolutely no recollection of David's personality, which implies to me that he doesn't have much of one. But I could be wrong!
Title: Fire and Hemlock
Plot: Polly, a Normal University Student, is cleaning out her room one day when she comes across a bizarre painting . . . and all of a sudden remembers a whole second set of memories involving a man named Tom who has been extremely important to her since she was ten, a series of strange characters of various degrees of sinister, some events that correspond to ballads like Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer to an unnerving degree, and stories that she wrote as a child who may or may not have come true. Polly the unwanted child, whose home life was strange and fraught even without the addition of the supernatural, didn't realize the power that she held over the unfolding events - but Polly the adult just might be able to save Tom's life.
Why It's Awesome: If you want subtle magic, if you want the power of stories, then this is a book for you - all of the unusual happenings in the book are just-on-the-edge of explicable, and eerie for precisely that reason. The story is gorgeously understated and provides a lot of food for thought on writing and stories and belief. Moreover, though it's one of the few DWJs that's usually classified as an adult novel, it's also an amazing story of the coming-of-age of a would-be writer. Polly starts out gamely writing Mary Sues and continues on her literary way with a torrid 15-year-old romance, and the tirade that Tom sends her on the unlikeliness of her hero's perfect glistening muscular back is a beauty to behold. At one point, Tom sends Polly a list of books to read about myths, ballads and the heroic archetype, and I will totally admit I stole a bunch of my childhood reading from there. The whole thing is a huge game of spot-the-reference, which is massive amounts of fun for book- and myth-nerds. Who doesn't love a creepy Tam Lin allusion or twenty? And, more than most DWJ books, there is an emphasis on the relationship between girls - Polly and her grandmother and her friends Nina and Fiona - that is really nice to see.
Things To Be Wary Of: This tends to be a polarizing DWJ book, for a lot of reasons. The dual-memory storyline and the ambiguity of a lot of the things that happen can make it a very confusing read, and the debates and analysis about the ending are ongoing and will probably NEVER end. The relationship between Tom and Polly is also a controversial topic, considering the age difference between the two (I have a theory that whether you ship it or are squicked by it depends on the age you are when you read it; I read it young enough that I ship it, but I suspect I would have been a lot more bothered by it if I'd read it first as an adult.) Also, while Diana Wynne Jones is known for writing in a quiet matter-of-fact fashion about terribly unhealthy and dysfunctional family relationships, Polly's parents are awful even by DWJ standards - very realistically awful, and very much real people, but it can be very distressing to read about. Basically, I think it's an incredibly rewarding read, but I would never hand it to someone as their first Diana Wynne Jones novel for fear it would turn them off forever.
Title: The Game
Plot: This is an individually-published novella, rather than a novel, and follows a girl called Hayley who gets sent away from her strict grandparents to stay with her cousins in Ireland. Her cousins, who have some rather unusual abilities, introduce her to the BEST GAME EVER: they get to go play in the mythosphere!
Why It's Awesome: This is basically just an extended romp through myths and tropes and gods all jumbled together, so anyone who enjoys that kind of thing at all would be missing out not to pick it up.
Things To Be Wary Of: It's way too short. Seriously. There is interesting material for at least three full-length novels here and it's all packed together into less than 200 pages, which means that nothing gets explored as much as it deserves. It's like dangling your big toe in the water on a really hot day - yeah, it's nice, but what you'd actually like to do is go swimming! Read the more complete novels first.
Title: Hexwood
Plot: Oh man, where to start? The setting is probably most relevant here: Hexwood Farm is located in the center of a magical wood, and is also the hiding place of a super-powerful machine called the Bannus that can warp time and space around itself. The combination of these factors means that the plot often becomes SORT OF CONFUSING. Stealing a bit of the summary from Wikipedia might give you something of an idea: Hexwood is, without a doubt, Diana Wynne Jones' most complex book. The scenes happen in the wrong order, every character (including the Bannus itself) suffers from a case of mistaken identity at some point in the book, and both ordinary Earth businessmen and men from outer space are deluded into believing they are knights. OH, SO TRUE. Other aspects of the plot involve a group of five evil intergalactic dictators called the Reigners; the Reigners' Servant, Mordion, the Reigner's specially bred, highly trained, and mentally coerced assassin; Hume, the boy Mordion has apparently used the power of the wood to create; Ann, a thirteen-year-old grocer's daughter who was a sort of accessory to Hume's creation and considers it her job to dun common sense into Mordion and Hume's heads; Vierran, a wardrobe manager who hears voices in her head and has a terrible crush on Mordion; and King Arthur. There is also a Humorous Robot. At one point one character throws a giant temper tantrum because "I WAS PROMISED HOBBITS ON A GRAIL QUEST, AND NOT ONE HOBBIT HAVE I SEEN!" At another point several members of the cast turn into dragons, apparently due to the sheer power of manpain. DID I MENTION IT IS GLORIOUS.
Why It's Awesome: You mean my plot summary above did not convince you of the beauty of this book? OKAY THEN. Aside from the fact that it's on so many different levels of bizarre magical-sci-fi-reality-bending crack that it rivals Kaori Yuki, Hexwood is doing some really complicated and fascinating things with the construction of story and time - it takes a while to figure out what's going on, but once you do you end up sort of drop-jawed with the brilliance. Also, your heart will break for Mordion, who is the biggest sweetheart of a mentally enslaved killing machine you will ever see. He looks kind of like a camel, and is eternally harassed by the difficulties of parenthood! And he's SO PROUD of Hume when Hume figures out how to make a toy cart, because his three-year-old just re-invented the wheel! (Part of the mental coersion is that he can't laugh at the things about the Reigners that strike him as funny. It makes him sick when he tries. Diana Wynne Jones understands the sheer horror of that, which is one of the reasons why she's amazing.) The rest of the characters are also fabulous - I have a special fondness for the relationships between Ann and, um, EVERYONE - and the way Diana Wynne Jones relentlessly skewers the trope of the wonderful medieval castle is a joy to behold, and basically it is ALL FABULOUS.
Things To Be Wary Of: Did I mention all of the scenes in the book happen out of order, and some of them happen twice? Basically the best way to read the book is just to go with it and enjoy the characters until things start making sense three quarters of the way through; I adore it in every aspect of its bizarreness, but it would be very easy to bounce off of early on. Also, it is worth mentioning that the bro-ho ratio is really not great - there are basically three women with speaking parts and one of them is evil.
Title: The Homeward Bounders
Plot: Jamie Hamilton was doing his usual activities, skipping school and wandering around his city to poke his nose in places where he didn't belong, when he stumbled over Them, a group of super-powerful beings who play games with the worlds. Now Jamie's a been exiled to walk from world to world, moving at Their whim and subject to Their rules, until he can find a way back Home.
Why It's Awesome: It is no secret that I love this book with a fiery passion - I think it may be the best DWJ ever wrote, or at least it's way up there. Jamie's voice is wonderful; he's an ancient and world-weary wanderer at the same time that he's a thirteen-year-old kid, funny and realistically flawed and no kind of hero except by complete accident. Helen and Joris, the other main characters, are also brilliant. Helen is cranky and smart and suspicious and a complete badass who's destined to be queen of the world (also she can turn her arm into an elephant's trunk!); Joris is strong and heroic and noble and sweet and capable of babbling dorkily about his teacher for hours on end, a demon hunter -who is also a slave, with a whole bundle of issues tied up with that. (It's worth mentioning that this is one of the best of Diana Wynne Jones' novels with regard to characters of color, too; Helen and Joris' teachers the Khans come from different worlds but are identified as looking southeast Asian.) More than all that, it's a very, very complete book. The plot, unlike in many of my other favorite DWJs, is relatively straightforward and easy to follow, and the ending is right and inevitable and knives you in the heart.
Things To Be Wary Of: I have nothing to report! GO READ IT. (Unless I guess for some inexplicable reason you do not enjoy being knived in the heart.)
Title: The Ogre Downstairs
Plot: Caspar, Johnny and Gwinny's mother has married a horrible man who can only be described as an Ogre, with two equally horrible sons, Malcolm and Douglas. One fateful day the Ogre buys each set of children a chemistry set. The chemicals, when properly activated, turn out to do some rather unusual things - making you fly, for example. Bringing inanimate objects to life. BODYSWAPPING. Cue Wacky Hijinks and family bonding, as all the kids in the blended family compete, squabble, and grudgingly cooperate to a.) do awesome stuff with the chemistry kits and b.) stop their parents from finding out!
Why It's Awesome: I just want to hug this book, it has all my favorite things. Siblings! Ensembleness! People who despise each other Learning To Appreciate Each Other due to wacky magical mishaps and dysfunctional families Coming Together When The Chips Are Down! Also, it is full of sly comedy and glorious moments and all the things that people really would do if they were given a chemistry kit with magical powers. Douglas uses the flying powder to sneak out to a rock concert; Johnny brings his chocolate bars to life, keeps them as pets, and is exceedingly distressed when they start to melt all over the house. On a more serious note, I like that the class issues are there in the family (Malcolm and Douglas used to go to a private school) and how they're addressed. All of the sibling relationships are awesome, but my favorite is probably Malcolm and Caspar's progression from despising each other to grudging respect and teamwork . . . due to BODYSWAP. Seriously, it is glorious, Caspar is like, "I thought you were a complete jerk, but it turns out it is just that YOUR STUPID FACE IS INCAPABLE OF SHOWING EMOTION! All is explained!" And Malcolm is like "I HATE YOUR STUPID FACE TOO" and then they are on the road to being friends and bonding over dorky science. :D I totally platonically ship them.
Things To Be Wary Of: The book reads a bit younger than some of her others, which might be a turn-off for some people. Also, though the Ogre is pretty mild in comparison to the emotional abuse perpetuated by some DWJ parents *coughFireandHemlockcough* he does definitely subscribe to the school of corporal punishment, which could be triggery for some.
Title: Power of Three
Plot: This is another one of the few that I don't know quite as well, having only read it once and that a while ago, but it centers on the interactions between children of three different species - the Lyman, who are small and have magical gifts (most of the story is from the perspective of three Lyman children); the Dorig, who live underwater and can shapeshift; and the Giants (self-explanatory. OR MAYBE NOT.) There is war between the Lymon and the Dorig, and the Giants are oblivious, all of which becomes a problem when it turns out that the Lymon are in possession of a magical cursed object that must be destroyed through the power of INTERSPECIES TEAMWORK!
Why It's Awesome: Sibling-ness! Teamwork! Bickering and bonding! - okay, yeah, you can tell I don't remember this one very well, but that isn't the fault of the book but rather the fault of my library for not having a copy when I was growing up.
Things To Be Wary Of: This is another one that reads pretty young, and it has more of a blatant Moral Message than most DWJ books, which is another reason I don't remember it thrilling me quite as much as most of hers.
Title: A Tale of Time City
Plot: Vivian is a refugee from London during the Blitz, waiting on the railroad platform to meet her cousin Marty in the country, when she gets whisked up by strange lordly Jonathan and his excitable cousin Sam, who both seem convinced that she's the legendary Time Lady. Vivian tries her very best to convince them that it's a case of mistaken identity, but by that time, it's too late - they've already taken her to Time City, which keeps watch over and studies Earth chronology. Now she's got to impersonate Jonathan and Sam's cousin in order not to be arrested by the Time Patrol, while Sam and Jonathan drag her through time searching for the real Time Lady and the gadgets that will stop Time City from being destroyed.
Why It's Awesome: Time City is a fascinating conceit, and the various futures that DWJ has her protagonists bop through are equally fascinating and creepy in turns (the Mind Wars, oh man! TERRIFYING.) As in every good DWJ, there are a few scenes that are flat-out hilarious - my favorite is probably the one where Vivian tries to translate an ancient Time City text ("one large black smith threw four coffins about so that they turned into four very old women!") and the one where Jonathan and Sam's father has hysterics while rushing about the house looking for his ceremonial regalia. And I really love how explicit it is that Jonathan and Sam are not Heroic Young Children Destined To Save Everything, but bored kids who want an adventure because they're on their summer holidays and have screwed a lot of things up as a result! It's also nice that Time City is not at all lily-white without making a big deal about it; the Lees that both Sam and Jonathan are descended from are Chinese, and Jonathan's father seems to be at least part-Indian. And Vivian's 1930s culture clash as she's confronted with Time City and the various futures is awesome and realistic.
Things To Be Wary Of: The story is a little disjointed, and several side characters seem to have been snatched out of other books (Elio bears a suspicious resemblance to Yam from Hexwood, and Jonathan and Sam's tutor shares a teaching style and a purple face with Christopher Chant's first teacher, although I found the resemblance more entertaining than irritating.) Also, the ending happens very much in a rush and I'm not sure I entirely approve of it.
Title: The Time of the Ghost
Plot: The ghost doesn't know exactly who she is - she just knows that she's one of four sisters, and she's been sent to the past, when all of them were children, to prevent something awful from taking place. The four sisters are Charlotte (Cart), Selina (Sally), Imogen and Fenella; their parents are completely absorbed in running a boy's school and have no time to care for their daughters, occasionally to the point of forgetting to provide them with things like food. As a result, the sisters have come up with some exceedingly bizarre - and dangerous - plans to get their parents' attention. They've also teamed up with some of the boys at the school and developed, half as a joke, the worship of a creepy doll called Monigan, and it seems likely that this has something to do with the ghost . . .
Why It's Awesome: Oh man is this book interesting and creepy, and the moreso once you realize that everything about the sisters and their parents is largely autobiographical. Of course, this is a Diana Wynne Jones novel, so even though their parents' neglect is horrific, the sisters are emphatically not tragic little moppets. They're prickly, independent, bizarre, often hilarious, very individual, and fiercely united when push comes to shove. And having the book narrated by a very confused ghost creates an overwhelming sense of eery foreboding that is really effective.
Things To Be Wary Of: The parents in this book rival the ones in Fire and Hemlock for awful neglect, and the book also features an extremely unhealthy and abusive romance as well. Likely to be triggery on a number of levels. Although it's short, it's also an extremely psychological story, and not nearly as madcap as most of DWJ's books; I love it, but would probably not recommend it for a light read.
I read A Sudden Wild Magic but don't remember liking it particularly, and I haven't read Changeover, so I'm not going to talk about them here (cheating, I know) but if anyone has, and wants to chime in with Why They're Awesome, please absolutely feel free!
NEXT ROUND: Series books!