I had just finished The Coldest Winter Ever and needed a fluffy detox. So I picked up an old childhood favorite. If you didn’t grow up reading Dianna Wynne Jones, you are severely deprived. She was one of the greatest children’s literature authors of all time. She wrote Howl’s Moving Castle, which is excellent and nothing like the stupid Miyazaki remake. She also wrote so many other novels that you could potentially fill an entire child’s bookshelf with them. My personal favorites are Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin. She had this wonderful ability to write “high fantasy” that was accessible to children, intellectual, extremely witty and farcical, well-crafted, high-brow comedic, and always re-readable. As a young person you felt grown-up, in on the joke, reading her works. As an adult you just find them enjoyable in the extreme.The Merlin Conspiracy is one of her lesser-known stand-alones. It tells the story of two young people, each from a different “universe” or “reality,” who are swept together in a cross-world race to unravel a magical and political conspiracy that has the potential to destroy all universes at once. Luckily for our preteen heroes, the ringleaders of said conspiracy are rather stupid.Minor characters are often hilarious and delightful just for the sake of being hilarious and delightful. A giant world-walking talking elephant who is always hungry but still sweet and caring. Twin 9-year-old girls who manipulate everyone around them into not noticing how completely obnoxious they are. A lord of the dead who wears suits and insists on proper tea. The most annoying and stubborn goat of all time.And this is one of those well-crafted stories where every character, every little detail, matters. It’s not over-your-head, as it’s a children’s story, but as a child I was AMAZED that an author would have the attention to detail to bring in tiny details from the beginning and make them major plot points by the end. It had not yet occurred to me how much outlining, crafting, and rewriting a normal book goes through, and it still stays with me as an example of a well-crafted plot with extraneous details that delight and then turn out to not be extraneous at all. Not even Tolkien or Lewis did that.Read this book. Read all her other books. Bow down at the feet of a mind we are hard-pressed to find again. This is what children’s literature could be. This is what it should be. All J and YA fiction writers take heed.TL;DR: Excellent, well-crafted, hilarious romp. Several preteens on a quest to unravel and stop a magical political conspiracy. Minor characters are really great, “romance” is very subtle, magic and the world-crafting are original but not too strange. It’s just great. Read it.
DWJ Book Toast, #15Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite fantasy authors, growing up and now, and I was saddened by the news of her death. I can't say I'm overcome with emotion - as personal as some of her work is to me, its not like I knew her after all - but I wish I could put into words how I feel about her no longer being out there, writing new adventures and laughing at all of us serious fans thinking so hard about her words when we should simply get on with the business of enjoying them.And that's...what I'm going to do. She's left behind a huge body of work, a large amount of which I haven't read yet, so I'm going to reread all my old favorites (and hopefully some new).The sequel to Deep Secret, The Merlin Conspiracy is split between Secret's Nick and Roddy, a girl on the world known as Blest. The Isles of Blest, essentially Great Britain and Ireland, are the magical hub of hundreds of worlds in the Magid multiverse. The common tradition of magic on Blest has continued for thousands of years, all of it being tightly interlaced and building off of each other, it's a delicate balance that must be maintained.Roddy and her friend Grundo are both children who travel with their families in the King's Progress. In their England (Wales, Scotland and Ireland remain independent), magic is guided by the Merlin and the Lady of Governance with a tradition of the King and Court moving constantly across the country as additional protection. Soon after the old Merlin dies unexpectedly Roddy and Grundy overhear conspirators planning on gaining control of the magic of Blest. The only problem is, part of the spell is that nobody will believe it. In desperation Roddy calls up Nick, hoping for a powerful magic-user to help stop Blest's magic from being overturned. Unfortunately Nick has a great deal of talent, but no training to speak of yet.This was a fun read and a great improvement, structurally, on Deep Secret, which had been hampered by being a single-perspective report. Blest is an interesting world, if a bit anglo-centric even for Jones, and she really knows how to write about magic. Some of the peripheral characters I could have done without, the Izzys - seriously?, and Nick was one of the last characters I would have wanted more of from Deep Secret, but Jones' writing is a pleasure, especially in cases like this where she rambles and spreads out (almost 500 pages of Jones, yes!). She avoids her usual sequel pitfalls and delivers a satisfying YA novel.
What do You think about The Merlin Conspiracy (2004)?
I read the book sometime when I was in High School - there everyone would start guessing just how old I am. It's quite funny to think of that. Anyway. This is definitely my favourite genre. Fantasy and magic. Well, I am one of those who does have her head in the clouds and not afraid to actually admit it. I loved every character by the time I was finished with each line. Sure Nick was comical at some point I wanted to stab him, Roddy was being too weird for me and there was several time I really thought, "That's it, I'm never reading this bloody book again". Still, I pull through the very end. I don't think it had been an easy book to read from Diana Wynne Jones. It was a little bit too tangled up from several other books of hers - of course, that's just me. It had a highly imaginative storyline that kept you wondering - what if, exactly what if it was all real. I've always loved how Ms Jones kept inserting bits of the real world, even when it's filled with excessive amount of ludicrous amount fantasy dose.
—Jack
I absolutely love Diana Wynne Jones! Chrestomanci was my introduction to her work, and she's not disappointed with any of her other works.If you've never read DWJ before, be aware that you can NEVER underestimate her imagination! It is limitless! As a Dickens fan, I love that DWJ also has multiple storylines running which inevitably fall together near the end and combine to blow your mind. The Merlin Conspiracy is a crazy, twisted story with incredibly lovable characters. DWJ made these storylines easier to follow by separating Roddy's side of the story from Nick's. Nick's side of the story is a good deal crazier, so it's nice having Roddy's to help recover from the insanity. In my opinion, any one who can write up such an awesome goat and elephant has succeeded in their writing career! I won't give away more than that. You'll have to read it for yourself!
—Jenn DeMent
The most recent and most disappointing book by Diana Wynne Jones. Wynne Jones has been around for many years and is another of my favourite children’s authors - Harry Potter pales in comparison to her best. However, published in 2003, I get the feeling that this book was rushed out to cash in on the Harry Potter phenomenon and therefore skimped on some essential editing.Set in a parallel universe to ours (this is a common theme in Wynne Jones’ books) called Blest, the book tells the story of Arianrhod (Roddy), Nicothedes (Nick) and Ambrose (Grundo), who between them must foil a plot hatched by some evil witches and wizards to drain all the magic of Blest and take over the world. It is told through the eyes of Roddy and Nick, in roughly alternating order. Nick’s adventures, in particular, have a dreamlike quality about them for at least the first half of the book (probably because Nick does think he’s dreaming for a while), but “dreamlike” in that it meanders and wanders and doesn’t seem to make much sense. And we all know how other people’s dreams are incredibly boring and not at all as deep and mysterious as our own.It did pick up a bit towards the end, but if you are interested in giving Dianna Wynne Jones a go (which I hope you are!) skip this one and try some of her best, like Charmed Life, Howl’s Moving Castle and Dogsbody. In my opinion, they leave Harry Potter for dead.
—pinknantucket
