A Tale of Time City
Can you believe I hadn't read A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones yet? Me either. I thought the ending was rather sudden (I mean the *very* ending, the "what are we to do with Vivian, then?" bit), but I spent a good deal of the book being overcome by conscientious android feelings and wanting there to be time ghosts in, like, every book ever.
(It is entirely too hot for a proper review, but this will do as a placeholder.)
It's funny, how few DWJ books I've actually read. When I was younger, I was an enthusiastic but not a completist reader, which meant that I'd read the same book over and over again, but not necessarily search out other books by that author unless they came to my attention in some way, like being shelved nearby or being listed in the Troll Book Club flyer. (I didn't know, for example, that Penelope Farmer had written other books about the Makepeace girls besides Charlotte Sometimes until I'd graduated from college, when a friend of mine told me.) (And Madeleine L'Engle is the exception to this rule, I think because our school library had a copy of one of the books with endpapers that listed the characters in "Kairos," or "real time" books (the Murrys), versus those in "watch-time" books, like the Austins, and where they intersected. I remember being fascinated by that chart, and photocopying it so I could keep up with all the books I could get.) And the actual first DWJ book I read was Witch Week, without having read any of the other Chrestomanci books; I loved it but forgot who it was by, or even that I'd read it, until much later, after reading the Dalemark books and thinking I should read something else by her... Anyway, what this means is that every year or so, I find the new DWJ book that looks most likely for my current mood, and read that.
(It is entirely too hot for a proper review, but this will do as a placeholder.)
It's funny, how few DWJ books I've actually read. When I was younger, I was an enthusiastic but not a completist reader, which meant that I'd read the same book over and over again, but not necessarily search out other books by that author unless they came to my attention in some way, like being shelved nearby or being listed in the Troll Book Club flyer. (I didn't know, for example, that Penelope Farmer had written other books about the Makepeace girls besides Charlotte Sometimes until I'd graduated from college, when a friend of mine told me.) (And Madeleine L'Engle is the exception to this rule, I think because our school library had a copy of one of the books with endpapers that listed the characters in "Kairos," or "real time" books (the Murrys), versus those in "watch-time" books, like the Austins, and where they intersected. I remember being fascinated by that chart, and photocopying it so I could keep up with all the books I could get.) And the actual first DWJ book I read was Witch Week, without having read any of the other Chrestomanci books; I loved it but forgot who it was by, or even that I'd read it, until much later, after reading the Dalemark books and thinking I should read something else by her... Anyway, what this means is that every year or so, I find the new DWJ book that looks most likely for my current mood, and read that.