lives on the Isles of Blest, a place where magic is everywhere, and she follows the King's Progress as he travels the land, Nick lives in a world much like our own, but he knows about magic and is desperate to become a wizard, One day, their paths interconnect: Roddy uses a spell to call for help, and it finds Nick, much to his surprise, Two stories run parallel Roddy's desperate attempts to untangle a plot that may dismantle the magic in all of the universes, and Nick's travels from world to world as he tries to escape assassination and bring aid to Roddy.
This sounds complicated, but goodness, this book is SO MUCH FUN, Jones creates a fascinating world in Blest, which feels like a genuinely inhabited place: Roddy's relations, the progress of the King, the histories of the landscape, the roots of magic, are all fascinating, and though complex, are woven together completely believably.
Roddy is fierce, competent and utterly believable, Every glimpse we get into Blest makes me want to learn more! Meanwhile, Nick's journey is vivid and engaging, especially when he teams up with an elephant, Although this is almostpages long, I loved it and desperately wanted it to be longer, It's a very good time, This book is one of my favorite by Diana Wynne Jones, and I always return to it every year or so, just to remind myself how amazing and enchanting it is.
The Merlin Conspiracy follows heroine Roddy as she tries to uncover the magical conspiracy going on in the royal court, Her path intersects with the worldtraversing, accidentally magical Nick, who is pretty much the definition of an unimpressed teenage boy, Sorcerous intrigue, sharptongued snark, and mindblowing worldbuilding ensues, Its everything you would want in a fantasy book,
Jessica Yang
from The Best Books We Read In August: sitelink comriotr Better than Deep Secret in every regard, starting with the title, For one, it does the “everything comes together at the end” better for another, every character is more compelling,
Including Nick, who is even more selfcentered than Rupert, Is such a thing even possible! Here is how he ends his own story:
Ill go when Ive made sure that my dad will be all right for the rest of his life.I mean. Its unimpressive. But hes a great narrator for all that, He does some of that annoying “this would turn out to be a big mistake, which I would find out later” I always hate that, but he does grow as a narrator, at least and it makes his storytelling interesting.
And then theres Romanov, who might be the best character in these books, And its Nicks shifting narration which makes him so: the way Nick first describes him, the way he changes in Nicks estimation, the way he almost bulldozes his way past all of it.
Im less enamored of Roddy, who inherits vital information despite never working for it at all, and whose conflict is literally “the entire world is against me and now weve been abandoned by the side of the road!” Ehhhh.
And her world is such a vital counterbalance to Nicks craziness! I dont know why it doesnt make more of an impact when its literally the center of the conspiracy but theyre away from it for so much of the story, and so many details are never followed up on the Scottish king Alicia the Dimmer regalia the essentially unrecognized female equivalent to the Merlin how did they know about her.
Somehow the setting works as the linchpin of the entire story despite also being the least interesting part of it,
The myth aspects are better integrated here, I wonder if thats because this doesnt take place on Earth, and theres no attempt to fit it in with everyday life
In a weird way this reads as a precursor to Power of Three.
I think its the glamours The family dynamics Maybe the myth And yet Power of Three is set on Earth, and successfully pulls off a lot of things I dislike about Deep Secret, which this books different approach seems to fix.
Hmmm. 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, What better way to start the year than with one of my alltime favorite books Diana Wynne Jones has written some fantastic books, and The Merlin Conspiracy does not disappoint.
Every time, I'm surprised by each new detail I find in the plot of this intricately spun story, Highly recommend this to anyone who loves other worlds, magical creatures, mythology based magic, and having separate narrators whose stories suddenly and dramatically connect, Add in a dose of evil moms, living cities, scary magical grandfathers, nice magical grandfathers, weird systems of government, and an extremely dislikable pair of twins with matching names to get an altogether exciting and fun book! Violating my no for nostalgia bait rule to say: forever and always ten
my only complaint is that there are only two books in this series because there are so many things hinted at or dropped as throwaway lines and I desperately want a full novel devoted to at least two dozen of them Может быть, это не совсем пять, может быть, это четыре с половиной.
Увлекательная добрая смешная сказка. Ne može svaka Dajanina knjiga da bude najbolja :'
I ova, eto, nije najbolja, ali nije ni najslabija, nego je taman negde na pola puta, Ima sjajan koncept, ne, u stvari, ima desetak sjajnih koncepata, počev od sveta u kome se odvija najveći deo radnje pa do istorijata pojedinih epizodnih likova.
Ali ne funkcioniše sasvim kao celina različiti podzapleti nisu dovoljno integrisani i nije dovoljno zaokružena, i ti pojedinačni sjajni epizodni likovi naprosto ne dobiju dovoljno prostora, a pojedini bitni junaci su neuverljivi ili samo funkcionišu kao potreban točkić u zapletu Romanov pogotovu.
Ali ima dovoljno uspešnih momenata i humora i topline da se slabosti uglavnom prevaziđu i na kraju, možda na primeru ovakvog blagog podbačaja bolje vidi koliko je roman poput Heksvuda ili Vatre i kukute jedan tour de force od uspešnog preplitanja svega i svačega i koliko ga je teško ostvariti.
Diana Wynne Jones creates the most incredible
worlds and characters it's always a pleasure to spend time with them,
Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only, If you use it in any marketing material, online or anywhere on a published book without asking permission from me first, I will ask you to remove that use immediately.
Thank you!.