Bookish Thoughts

I'd been meaning to read more Diana Wynne Jones for a while, so when I found this The Dark Lord of Derkholm for $0.65 at a used book store I couldn't pass it up. It was really enjoyable, written for a younger audience like most of her work. The premise was definitely original, and it was a lot of fun to see how it played out. The world in the book is a fantasy land where magic is real and dragons and elves and dwarves roam the countryside. It's under the control of a man from another world, who makes everyone do his bidding with the aid of a demon. His will is to turn the world into a tourist trap that he can make a ton of money off of. He has all sorts of demands, including a dark lord, several battles, and the kidnapping of some tourists, so make these vacations more authentic. Or at least more in line with what he considers to be authentic. However, the tours are taking their toll on the local economy and everyone's getting sick of them. Who wants t...

House of Many Ways  is a children's book, written by Diana Wynne Jones.  The intended audience is nine year olds, not twenty-four year olds.  So why would I choose to read it?  Simple.  It's a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle . I first saw Howl's Moving Castle , directed by Hiayo Miyazaki, sometime during college.  It's my favorite of the movies that he has directed and I have seen (which includes Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro ).  Howl himself is insufferable and arrogant, but Sophie is awesome.  She's not one to sit around and mope. When she gets turned into a ninety year old woman, she ventures out to find a way to lift the curse.  She spends almost no time complaining about her lot in life and all her time actively trying do something about it. I recently found out that this story was not the mind-child of Hiyao Miyazaki, but of the Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones.  Not ...