Nick waking up was so funny! I suspect I am sometimes like that, though not to the same extent.
I was really impressed with how she handled all the madcap shenanigans, and with how she resolved the plot mythically while keeping people in character.
A lot of people don't seem to get along with Deep Secret, so I'm glad to see someone else who likes it. I should reread now that I have been to one actual con.
Phantasmacon is, I am told by people who were there, an only-thinly-disguised and slightly-more-weird-and-mythic retelling of a particular British Science Fiction convention. That hotel, all attendees concur, had unlabeled tesseracts in it (and she didn't in fact exaggerate the hotel at all).
My own favorite bits of this were probably the spooky-eerie, the wait, while keeping the candles burning, for Nick and Maree to return from the Babylon, the journey to somewhere else based around one of my favorite songs ever, "This Ae Night." Loved it!
This is one of my favorite Diana Wynne Jones books! I'm partial to the "witchy dance" scenes, and the scene at Will's (Rupert's brother's) house. Jones really is on-target with the convention experience in general - it also holds for anime/manga cons (but there you get the added plus of even more people in costume, all the time) and strategy/fantasy gaming cons.
Have you tried Fire and Hemlock, and Archer's Goon?
I love the witchy dance scenes as well! And I just love Maree in general.
Fire and Hemlock was actually one of the very first DWJ books I read, and it's still one of my favorites. I mean... Tam Lin! I haven't read Archer's Goon yet, though I think I will look that up in my library.
Archer's Goon is in many ways a younger book, but it has the same madcap feel of "let's just follow this through to its logical conclusion - even if it doesn't make conventional sense." Bits of it have stuck firmly to our family's collective subconscious, so that we find ourselves suddenly discussing, quite seriously, whether Archer is to blame for certain types of incidents. I long to say more, but I don't want to spoil it.
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I wish I knew how she pulled off the switch to the mythic at the end, because it's really remarkable.
Also, I've apparently been to the wrong cons or the wrong floors of con hotels, because I've never seen an orgy.
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I was really impressed with how she handled all the madcap shenanigans, and with how she resolved the plot mythically while keeping people in character.
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I loved the entire putting together of the Babylon poem.
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This is one of my favorite Diana Wynne Jones books! I'm partial to the "witchy dance" scenes, and the scene at Will's (Rupert's brother's) house. Jones really is on-target with the convention experience in general - it also holds for anime/manga cons (but there you get the added plus of even more people in costume, all the time) and strategy/fantasy gaming cons.
Have you tried Fire and Hemlock, and Archer's Goon?
- Cho
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Fire and Hemlock was actually one of the very first DWJ books I read, and it's still one of my favorites. I mean... Tam Lin! I haven't read Archer's Goon yet, though I think I will look that up in my library.
Reply
Archer's Goon is in many ways a younger book, but it has the same madcap feel of "let's just follow this through to its logical conclusion - even if it doesn't make conventional sense." Bits of it have stuck firmly to our family's collective subconscious, so that we find ourselves suddenly discussing, quite seriously, whether Archer is to blame for certain types of incidents. I long to say more, but I don't want to spoil it.
Enjoy!
- Cho
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