A Year of Diana Wynne Jones: The New Millennium!

In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read Believing is Seeing, Year of the Griffin, Mixed Magics, and Unexpected Magic! That’s three collections of short stories and the sequel  to my deeply beloved Dark Lord of Derkholm.

Believing is Seeing (1999)

This is a story collection, and Marn very helpfully put the list of stories included into the custom image. For me personally, the standout story in this collection is “Dragon Reserve, Home Eight” which constructs a whole system of worlds and their imperfect governance, including telepathy, dragons, and spaceships, just the kind of exciting genre combo I gravitate towards.

This collection has a range of genres, with everything from legendary origin story to straight up magician fantasy, to science fiction, and blends thereof.

We are in an era here where Diana Wynne Jones’s stories made it into multiple collections published within a year of each other, in a way I don’t really understand from a publishing perspective, but which made my reading for this month less than it would have been otherwise! I didn’t read “Sage of Theare” more than once this month, for instance. “Sage of Theare” is a f un one, though! It deals with prophecy, and whether once foretold, a fate can be avoided. It also has a brief cameo by Chrestomanci.

Year of the Griffin (2000)

Year of the Griffin is the sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm, focusing on one of Derk’s griffin daughters, who goes away to college and bonds with her cohort of misfits. Hijinks ensue. In my opinion, Dark Lord of Derkholm is one of Diana Wynne Jones’s absolute strongest works, as it is a really pointed satire of fantasy tropes and the readers who expect them, while at the same time being a heartfelt and gripping story about a family and world dealing with terrible occurrences. It has some of the funniest scenes, and some of the most deftly handled terrors in her oeuvre.

I don’t think Year of the Griffin hits as high of a mark as Dark Lord of Derkholm. It lightly satirizes the college novel, but not in as self-aware of a way as the satire in Dark Lord. I am exactly the target audience for Dark Lord of Derkholm, but I’m not the target audience for Year of the Griffin. While the student characters are likable, and I really appreciate the way they bond with each other and support each other, none of the faculty are sympathetic or competent enough for my taste. Also, it ends with (very light spoiler, ahoy!) multiple older male characters discussing how they need to wait for the college age girls they are in love with to grow up a bit so they can woo them. Other people love it!

Mixed Magics (2000)

Mixed Magics has four tales that all include Chrestomanci to greater or lesser degree. When Chrestomanci makes a cameo in a full length book or in a short story, you can predict that he is going to sweep in, probably in a fabulous dressing gown, look vague, and save the day. While that does happen in some of these stories, I find that very satisfying! There is a cozy aspect to trusting someone’s good will and ability to rescue the deserving (and sometimes the undeserving) from whatever situation they are in, because it means you as the reader can go along for the ride without worry.

Of these stories, my favorite is “Stealer of Souls,” partly for the fun premise, partly because we get to revisit multiple characters from some of the full length Chrestomanci books, and partly because we get some lovely interiority for a child character, which is not always on offer for Diana Wynne Jones’s shorter works focused on premise.

Unexpected Magic (2002)

Unexpected Magic is by far the longest collection of short stories we have encountered so far in the readthrough. It is as thick as the other ones put together, partly because it includes many of the ones we’ve already read!

Notably, the first story in the collection, “The Girl Jones” has no speculative element at all, and seems to be framed as autobiographical, telling about a time when the narrator at age 9 was saddled with watching several children at once, in the first person.

The final story in the collection, “Everard’s Ride,” is also noteworthy. It is divided into parts, those parts are divided into chapters, and it had been published already as part of another collection. In “Everard’s Ride” a couple teenage siblings in the Victorian era find their way into a medieval-era principality that has a lot of political intrigue and also a prophecy that protects Outsiders. The plot is largely concerned with how they interact with the personalities they meet there, and not focused on either the magic that makes the traverse possible or the technological differences of their societies. It’s novella-length, and to me, it feels kind of like I am reading notes for a full-length novel that would have a lot more about the characters’ thoughts and feelings.

If you’d like to follow along with me, my schedule is here! Next up will be The Merlin Conspiracy, Conrad’s Fate, and The Pinhoe Egg. It will be the penultimate month of the entire year!

Custom images for this series are by Marnanel Thurman.