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Loading... The Merlin Conspiracy (original 2003; edition 2004)by Diana Wynne Jones
Work detailsThe Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones (2003)
Love Diana Wynne Jones, and a bad DWJ is still better than a poke in the eye, but this wasn't her best work. Still filled with fun stuff - I absolutely love the apologetic elephant and the cantankerous goat, the canyon world is brill and I really like Roddy and Nick and Grundo a lot. But the plot rambles about a bit and some things are more worked out than others. If she'd taken some time to polish this up it could have been about nine times better. Sometimes her stuff reads a little bit like a potboiler that she knocked out because she had some bills to pay. However, no reason DWJ shouldn't pay her bills and even when she's not fully up to her top standard, she's still fun. Once again Diana Wynne-Jones creates a fascinating world for her characters. I was intrigued by this unique perspective on the Merlin legend, and how Wynne-Jones combines present day London, Merlin, and the amazing world of Blest. Although I was a little disappointed by how quickly the climax of the story ends, and how neatly everything wrapped up in the final chapter, I still found this book a delight to read. I would say that The Merlin Conspiracy is a must-read for fans of Diana Wynne-Jones. This was one of my favorite books growing up. It is imaginative, exciting, and it has great characters and plot. I was always a fan of Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci stories, but this one always stood out to me. quite awesome..love how real dwj makes her stories! no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0060523204, Paperback)Master fantasist Diana Wynne Jones--author of the Chrestomanci books, Dark Lord of Derkholm, Year of the Griffin, and many others--scores another winner in this absorbing tale of magic and courtly intrigue told in two voices. In the world called Islands of the Blest, Roddy is a young page who has grown up traveling with her family in the King’s Progress, a constant journey around the kingdom. Just after she and her younger friend Grundo spot a growing conspiracy to overthrow the King and change the balance of magic, they are whisked away to visit Roddy’s grim and silent grandfather; when they return the Progress has moved on without them. Meanwhile in another world, Nick Mallory, 14, blunders into a dreamlike adventure that leads him to the powerful wizard Romanov and involves him in Roddy’s mission to save the worlds from the upset planned by the conspiracy. The story moves through several precariously linked worlds in vividly imagined episodes told alternately by Roddy and Nick, as their journeys begin to mesh. Part of the fun for the reader is sorting out Roddy’s many wizardly relatives from the double perspective and clicking them into place in the plot. Wynne Jones's many fans will pounce on this complex but fast-moving fantasy that features not only 34 characters, but a panther, a goat, a dragon, and an extremely charming elephant. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:34:56 -0500) Roddy and Nick, two teenagers with magical powers they are just learning to use, find that they must work together to save Roddy's home world of Blest from destruction by power-hungry wizards. (summary from another edition) |
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I love the way DWJ does magic in such a visual and unusual way - binding magic as great strands of white cottonwool cobwebs, magic to travel between worlds as dark paths or little strings of islands to jump between, elementals and spirits as their own characters. (