TBR shelf March 2017The fantasy writer I will always read, Diana Wynne Jones’ books are consistently well-written, funny but not stupidly so, gender-balanced and unputdownable. She’s the author who I always push at people (recommend to people?) who have liked Harry Potter – her Chrestomanci series has a similar Boy Wizard idea but is just as good, if not better. The reason this one isn’t in the photo above is that I took it to Iceland to read on the plane home, but didn’t get very far due to spending most of the flight asleep. I did, however, push aside my Friday Housecleaning to sit on my bottom and finish the last 100 pages.

Diana Wynne Jones – “Dark Lord of Derkholm”

(19 November 2016 – from Luci)

I acquired this one from my London book-buying trip in November – the lovely Luci always brings along a big bag of books and this one immediately appealed.

The somewhat slimy Mr Chesney has been running Pilgrim Parties from the next-door universe for 40 years. His sinister accountant minions and sets of instruction booklets lay out the experiences his tourists are to have – and as these involve the usual fantasy novel tropes of setting out as a brave band of explorers, encountering wizards and dwarves, being ambushes, having battles with mythical creatures and slaying a Dark Lord, Wynne Jones can have great fun with how it all works behind the scenes.

The mild-mannered wizard Derk is chosen to be this year’s Dark Lord, with not many expectations of doing a good job. he’s not a great wizard and certainly no good at raising demons, being more interested in creating new and peculiar creatures, including some mistakes (the carnivorous sheep are certainly a mistake and the winged horses create perhaps rather too much interest). He’s even got a family of offspring made up of a mix of people and griffins (and one of the female griffins is a whizz at technology and inventing, which is lovely).

This standalone novel is full of excellent characters, set pieces and Easter Eggs – who can resist an author who names two of her (male) dwarves Galadriel and Dworkin?

This one fills in the latest gap in my Century of Books, 1998.

I’ve just finished “The Year of No Clutter”, which is handy, because I’m taking part in a Blog Tour for it tomorrow! Watch this space for the chance to enter a competition to win a copy (run by the publisher, not me) and a link to more info on a decluttering programme (but only if you’re interested; I get nothing out of you clicking or not clicking). I’m also enjoying E. Nesbit’s “The Lark” very much indeed.