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There are older threads about the great Diana Wynne Jones here, here, here and here. None of them have seen much activity recently (unlike the rest of the books forum, obviously), so I thought this might be a good time to start a new thread focusing on her more recent stuff.
The Pinhoe Egg is a couple of years old now. It's set in the Chrestomanci universe, and takes place a little while after Charmed Life. I enjoyed it, although not as much as I had thought I would. Perhaps I'll get more out of it with a second reading - I certainly enjoyed Conrad's Fate more the second time around. I think that part of my problem was that I found all the new characters a bit intrusive. I would have preferred it if people like Janet had bigger roles to play. I suppose, really, that what I had wanted was really just more of the same, which must be frustrating for authors. Thinking about it, the consistency of atmosphere and characterisation between the two books is actually very impressive, given that they were written almost 30 years apart.
The other problem that I had was that it seemed a bit too reliant on what I personally find to be DWJ's most annoying recurring plot element - children going to great lengths to keep something secret from adults and thus unwittingly exacerbating their problems.
House of Many Ways, on the other hand, I thought was great fun. It's the third book in the Howl's Moving Castle world. Again, it introduces new characters and has a plot that's based around people trying to keep secrets; for whatever reason, though, I didn't find that either of these things detracted from my enjoyment at all.
So ... has anyone read them? What did you think? And has anyone read her other new one, The Game? I haven't managed to get my hands on it yet. |
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