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Power of Three
Ayna could predict the future.
Cari could find what was lost.
Gair thought he was ordinary.
This edition was published as #9 in the MagicQuest series by Ace Books, a reissuing of classic young adult fantasy novels.
Cari could find what was lost.
Gair thought he was ordinary.
The three children of Gest, the chief of Garholt, know the perils of the Moor on which they live. The Dorig, their people's enemies, are cold-blooded, fierce underwater creatures who terrify anyone unlucky enough to happen upon them. The Giants are dangerous and violent.
But it's not until their home is invaded that Gair learns of a dying curse that endangers all three peoples of the Moor. A curse that ordinary Gair, with the help of his extraordinary brother and sister, may be able to break, but only at the most dreadful risk to all three, and to the Moor itself.
This edition was published as #9 in the MagicQuest series by Ace Books, a reissuing of classic young adult fantasy novels.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Diana Wynne Jones
160 books12.1k followersDiana Wynne Jones was a celebrated British writer best known for her inventive and influential works of fantasy for children and young adults. Her stories often combined magical worlds with science fiction elements, parallel universes, and a sharp sense of humor. Among her most beloved books are Howl's Moving Castle, the Chrestomanci series, The Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the satirical The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Her work gained renewed attention and readership with the popularity of the Harry Potter series, to which her books have frequently been compared.
Admired by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling, Jones was a major influence on the landscape of modern fantasy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, two Mythopoeic Awards, the Karl Edward Wagner Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 2004, Howl's Moving Castle was adapted into an acclaimed animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, further expanding her global audience.
Jones studied at Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. She began writing professionally in the 1960s and remained active until her death in 2011. Her final novel, The Islands of Chaldea, was completed posthumously by her sister Ursula Jones.
Admired by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling, Jones was a major influence on the landscape of modern fantasy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, two Mythopoeic Awards, the Karl Edward Wagner Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 2004, Howl's Moving Castle was adapted into an acclaimed animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, further expanding her global audience.
Jones studied at Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. She began writing professionally in the 1960s and remained active until her death in 2011. Her final novel, The Islands of Chaldea, was completed posthumously by her sister Ursula Jones.
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May 23, 2022
In Power Of Three, Diana Wynne Jones's seventh novel, she takes her skill with limited third person perspective and the naive narrator to a new level. Ayna, Gair and Ceri are siblings who live on the Moor, coexisting unpeacefully with the Dorig, water-dwelling fish-like humanoids, and the Giants, large and loud and strong. Ayna and Ceri have actual magical powers that they have to learn to use over the course of the story: Ayna can give a true answer to any question she's asked; Ceri can control others via Thoughts and mend anything that's broken. Gair's talent isn't revealed until later, but of course it's obvious that he has one even when he doesn't believe he does. The siblings' homelands are under attack by the Dorig because the Dorig want to drive the humans out of their lands, but the feud is made worse by a longstanding hatred between humans and Dorig, a feud caused by a curse and a murder years before. When their home, Garholt, is invaded by Dorig, Ayna, Gair and Ceri escape and find help among some Giant children, then make alliance with some Dorig children, and ultimately find a way to break the curse that's been driving the three groups apart.
None of the above is true.
The events of the story play out as I've described. The title refers in part to the individual magic powers the children have, the power they have as siblings, and the power of three races working together. But the story is entirely funneled through the perceptions of Ayna, Gair, and Ceri, and while in Dogsbody it was easy for readers to identify the things that Sirius saw because they were familiar objects, Jones takes advantage of the alienness of the children's world to completely fool the reader about who and what the humans, Dorig, and Giants are.
One of the things I like best about this book (aside from the total mindgame Jones plays) is the rather adult complication of the politics behind Dorig and human relations, and the politics of the Giants' intentions for the Moor. Each of the three races has its own well-defined culture that turns out to be part of a single religious/magical system. The underlying theme is that differences between people often turn out to be as simple as seeing things a different way. Breaking the curse, in the end, requires the help of all three races, with a final declaration that echoes Huck Finn's resolve to break an unjust law even if it means going to Hell. Add to this Jones's skill with characterization, dialogue, and description, and you have a complex novel suitable for readers of all ages.
None of the above is true.
The events of the story play out as I've described. The title refers in part to the individual magic powers the children have, the power they have as siblings, and the power of three races working together. But the story is entirely funneled through the perceptions of Ayna, Gair, and Ceri, and while in Dogsbody it was easy for readers to identify the things that Sirius saw because they were familiar objects, Jones takes advantage of the alienness of the children's world to completely fool the reader about who and what the humans, Dorig, and Giants are.
One of the things I like best about this book (aside from the total mindgame Jones plays) is the rather adult complication of the politics behind Dorig and human relations, and the politics of the Giants' intentions for the Moor. Each of the three races has its own well-defined culture that turns out to be part of a single religious/magical system. The underlying theme is that differences between people often turn out to be as simple as seeing things a different way. Breaking the curse, in the end, requires the help of all three races, with a final declaration that echoes Huck Finn's resolve to break an unjust law even if it means going to Hell. Add to this Jones's skill with characterization, dialogue, and description, and you have a complex novel suitable for readers of all ages.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2016
I haven't reread this in at least five years; no idea why. This is one of Diana Wynne Jones's strongest standalones. It's great. (Note: so is Melissa's review. After reading that, I need her to write me a definitive DWJ ranking so I can argue with her about it.)
Right off the bat, here's the one thing I dislike (and I remember disliking it way back in seventh grade, too): an aspect of the ending.
But all the children are fantastic. I love how detailed and specific they all are. I love how obviously they're more willing to look past entrenched ideas than adults.
This is wonderful, wonderful worldbuilding, with rich history, clever takes on storytelling and tradition, and the complex way in which varied perspectives interact.
One thing Diana Wynne Jones does so well - here, as well as in the Dalemark quartet - is show people thinking through things and make it fascinating and intelligent, instead of yawn-inducingly boring. She also does such a great job with the narration in general: Gair thinks he's ordinary, and she walks you through why, but she also tells you that no one else thinks the same, and the reason is because of Gair's response to being ordinary. It's so smart.
She fools you with regard to the specific genre of fantasy, too. Not for so long that you feel cheated - readers are able to figure out what's going on before Gair, Ayna, and Ceri can - but long enough that the feeling of a particular type of fantastic world has settled into the bones of the story.
In that way, I think, this is the most fey thing Diana Wynne Jones has ever written.
Right off the bat, here's the one thing I dislike (and I remember disliking it way back in seventh grade, too): an aspect of the ending.
But all the children are fantastic. I love how detailed and specific they all are. I love how obviously they're more willing to look past entrenched ideas than adults.
This is wonderful, wonderful worldbuilding, with rich history, clever takes on storytelling and tradition, and the complex way in which varied perspectives interact.
One thing Diana Wynne Jones does so well - here, as well as in the Dalemark quartet - is show people thinking through things and make it fascinating and intelligent, instead of yawn-inducingly boring. She also does such a great job with the narration in general: Gair thinks he's ordinary, and she walks you through why, but she also tells you that no one else thinks the same, and the reason is because of Gair's response to being ordinary. It's so smart.
She fools you with regard to the specific genre of fantasy, too. Not for so long that you feel cheated - readers are able to figure out what's going on before Gair, Ayna, and Ceri can - but long enough that the feeling of a particular type of fantastic world has settled into the bones of the story.
In that way, I think, this is the most fey thing Diana Wynne Jones has ever written.
Read
December 6, 2019Power of Three ima retko nezanimljiv i stereotipan naslov (osim ako ga ne prevedemo kao 'moć trojke' i počnemo da umiremo od smeha jer nikad nismo izašli iz puberteta i haha TROJKA kapirate) a zapravo je u pitanju jedna od boljih knjiga Dajane Vin Džouns u kojoj ona ceo jedan koncept fantastične književnosti, sav olinjao i izanđao, uzme i izvrne na naličje kao rukavicu i sjajno ga prekroji u nešto ako ne sasvim novo a ono barem sveže i primamljivo.
I sad odmah dolazimo do toga da zapravo ne mogu i ne želim da se upuštam u objašnjenje šta je tačno uradila jer bih time pokvarila iznenađenje potencijalnim čitaocima (a i ovo je suviše). Mogu samo da kažem kako je prikazani svet brižljivo osmišljen a njegovi različiti aspekti dobro uklopljeni. I kako je dinamika između članova porodice, po običaju, originalna i sjajno i ubedljivo izvedena i kako likove u potpunosti shvatamo tek preko njihove interakcije i uzajamnog viđenja.
I, konačno, kako je ovde u punom sjaju došla do izražaja autorkina sposobnost da magiju prikaže kao... pa kao magičnu: kao neshvatljivu silu koju tek donekle možemo razumeti i kojom se može ovladati uz razne (para)naučne sisteme i mnogo učenja ali koja u suštini uvek zahteva jaku intuiciju i urođen dar. I time smo zapravo opisali svaku ljudsku stvaralačku aktivnost.
A sve to u knjizi za decu od 9 do 12 godina, hvala doviđenja :) i ima još toga ali da ponovim - neću da zgrešim ni prema kome i da ovde sad uvlačim spojlere.
PS Ne, zapravo, moram da kažem kako i ovde bar na dva mesta tako vrhunski koristi postojeće mitove a da nije prežvakavanje, Dajana mi te volimo T_T
I sad odmah dolazimo do toga da zapravo ne mogu i ne želim da se upuštam u objašnjenje šta je tačno uradila jer bih time pokvarila iznenađenje potencijalnim čitaocima (a i ovo je suviše). Mogu samo da kažem kako je prikazani svet brižljivo osmišljen a njegovi različiti aspekti dobro uklopljeni. I kako je dinamika između članova porodice, po običaju, originalna i sjajno i ubedljivo izvedena i kako likove u potpunosti shvatamo tek preko njihove interakcije i uzajamnog viđenja.
I, konačno, kako je ovde u punom sjaju došla do izražaja autorkina sposobnost da magiju prikaže kao... pa kao magičnu: kao neshvatljivu silu koju tek donekle možemo razumeti i kojom se može ovladati uz razne (para)naučne sisteme i mnogo učenja ali koja u suštini uvek zahteva jaku intuiciju i urođen dar. I time smo zapravo opisali svaku ljudsku stvaralačku aktivnost.
A sve to u knjizi za decu od 9 do 12 godina, hvala doviđenja :) i ima još toga ali da ponovim - neću da zgrešim ni prema kome i da ovde sad uvlačim spojlere.
PS Ne, zapravo, moram da kažem kako i ovde bar na dva mesta tako vrhunski koristi postojeće mitove a da nije prežvakavanje, Dajana mi te volimo T_T
May 29, 2025
Another wonderful offering from the inimitable Diana Wynne Jones, Power of Three is an early-ish fantasy but one which displays all her trademark tics: a tricksy plot with an ending which has you rereading the last few pages wondering what has just happened (and how), a self-doubting protagonist with talents largely hidden from them, and a narrative that – while riffing on traditional themes, tropes and traditions – still manages to read as a one-off original.
We begin the novel assuming this is high fantasy: a seeming pastoral medieval community that is also au fait with magic, with some individuals able to divine the future, find distant objects and gifted with the power of suggestion. As we delve further we realise that it's quickly morphing into so-called low fantasy with the modern age beginning to impinge, first at the fringes and then at the centre.
Underlying this is the growing sense of triadic groupings, as suggested by the book's title: three siblings; Three Impossible Tasks, in the best fairytale tradition; three peoples (humans, the Dorig and the Giants); three powers (the Sun, the Moon and the Earth); and over all these, the Old Power, the Middle and the New. It all makes for a heady concoction, with a twist about a third of the way in.
Ayna, Gair and Ceri are the children of Gest of Islaw and Adara of Otmound, living in the earth mound of Garholt. Their lives are proceeding much as children's do, some ups, some downs – but in the background there is trouble brewing, trouble that seems to have been exacerbated by an incident involving Orban, the brother of the children's mother. When he was young he killed a young Dorig, but not before an awful curse involving the Old Power, the Middle and the New was laid on a golden collar or neck-ring, what we know as a torc.
Before even the children are born their future mother Adara can only be won by Gest achieving Three Impossible Tasks set by Adara's father; these are solving riddles, obtaining a Dorig's torc without killing him; and moving a massive boulder from a haunted mound to another mound. Folklorists, medievalists and lovers of fairytale will recognise these kinds of tasks set by prospective fathers-in-law keen to see off potential suitors. But it is the manner in which Gest completes them that ultimately has repercussions that threaten the lives of his children and his people.
To discuss more of the plot would give away too many spoilers so I will resort to discussion of incidentals that have particularly intrigued me. First is the author's invention and use of names. These have a sufficient unfamiliarity to sound foreign to English-speaking readers while yet retaining a general Northern European feel. Indeed, some names reminded me of Celtic forenames (Ayna seems close to Irish Áine, for example, actually pronounced something like 'Onyeh', and Ceri, pronounced 'Kerry', is a common name for both girls and boys in Wales). Their father Gest (probably with a hard 'g' sound) puts me in mind of Lady Charlotte Guest who produced one of the first translations into English of the Welsh native tales called the Mabinogion; in fact one of those tales, Culhwch ac Olwen, is the epitome of tales of impossible tasks, this time with the suitor hoping to marry a giant's daughter.
The choice of names for the mound dwellings in this novel are also revealing of the way Jones thought through the nomenclature for her fiction. For example, Beckhill means 'eminence by the stream', Islaw incorporates hlaw, the Old English for a burial mound or barrow, and Garholt includes holt meaning a burrow for an otter or similar burrowing animal, all entirely appropriate for moorland interspersed with streams, scrubland and marsh.
There's more. Considering the times the author lived in and her personal circumstances I find more clues embedded in the matrix. The author lived in Oxford until the mid-seventies, and the western end of the Berkshire Downs – the Lambourn Downs – is the chalky upland in the south of Oxfordshire, quite probably an area she knew well. This is doubtless why Oxford gets its mention here. Also, across central and southern England there are several examples of medieval moated sites, and for the Moat House in the novel the author may well have drawn on her knowledge of some of those in the area around Oxford (of which there are a few, such as Gaunt House at Standlake, some inhabited and others in ruins).
In addition, the issue of deliberate flooding of the moor in Power of Three is one that was in the news in the sixties and seventies. The community of Capel Celyn in North Wales was devastated by the decision to build the Llyn Celyn reservoir to serve the people of Liverpool and the Wirral, and the flooded valley of the Tryweryn is commemorated by a constantly renewed slogan painted on a rock face south of Aberystwyth stating Cofiwch Dryweryn ('Remember Tryweryn'). Such strong nationalist feeling in Wales was reignited with the militant burning of English holiday homes in the late seventies and eighties. All this pent-up anger and suspicion I'm convinced fed into a major strand of this novel, the mutual hostility between people, Dorig and Giants because of a proposed reservoir.
Yet underneath the themes of curses, enmity, magic, literary triads and so on beats a living human narrative. This is a tale of a child who doubts his worth, of sibling loyalty, of fear of disappointing one's parents, of bullying and betrayal and of the menace of an unjust authority. This is a story of jaw-jaw rather than war-war, of talking peace rather than the blind cycle of vendetta, and of considered evolution instead of violent revolution. It also explores issues around feeling overweight, and about blindly following cultural precedents and social prejudices, for example.
While the solutions that conclude the novel might seem a little pat, even confusing, there is no doubt in my mind that Power of Three has a sense of organic growth, with beginning, burgeoning and end following one another in a constantly renewing cycle: this is a universal tale while still being rooted in a very English landscape.
We begin the novel assuming this is high fantasy: a seeming pastoral medieval community that is also au fait with magic, with some individuals able to divine the future, find distant objects and gifted with the power of suggestion. As we delve further we realise that it's quickly morphing into so-called low fantasy with the modern age beginning to impinge, first at the fringes and then at the centre.
Underlying this is the growing sense of triadic groupings, as suggested by the book's title: three siblings; Three Impossible Tasks, in the best fairytale tradition; three peoples (humans, the Dorig and the Giants); three powers (the Sun, the Moon and the Earth); and over all these, the Old Power, the Middle and the New. It all makes for a heady concoction, with a twist about a third of the way in.
Ayna, Gair and Ceri are the children of Gest of Islaw and Adara of Otmound, living in the earth mound of Garholt. Their lives are proceeding much as children's do, some ups, some downs – but in the background there is trouble brewing, trouble that seems to have been exacerbated by an incident involving Orban, the brother of the children's mother. When he was young he killed a young Dorig, but not before an awful curse involving the Old Power, the Middle and the New was laid on a golden collar or neck-ring, what we know as a torc.
Before even the children are born their future mother Adara can only be won by Gest achieving Three Impossible Tasks set by Adara's father; these are solving riddles, obtaining a Dorig's torc without killing him; and moving a massive boulder from a haunted mound to another mound. Folklorists, medievalists and lovers of fairytale will recognise these kinds of tasks set by prospective fathers-in-law keen to see off potential suitors. But it is the manner in which Gest completes them that ultimately has repercussions that threaten the lives of his children and his people.
To discuss more of the plot would give away too many spoilers so I will resort to discussion of incidentals that have particularly intrigued me. First is the author's invention and use of names. These have a sufficient unfamiliarity to sound foreign to English-speaking readers while yet retaining a general Northern European feel. Indeed, some names reminded me of Celtic forenames (Ayna seems close to Irish Áine, for example, actually pronounced something like 'Onyeh', and Ceri, pronounced 'Kerry', is a common name for both girls and boys in Wales). Their father Gest (probably with a hard 'g' sound) puts me in mind of Lady Charlotte Guest who produced one of the first translations into English of the Welsh native tales called the Mabinogion; in fact one of those tales, Culhwch ac Olwen, is the epitome of tales of impossible tasks, this time with the suitor hoping to marry a giant's daughter.
The choice of names for the mound dwellings in this novel are also revealing of the way Jones thought through the nomenclature for her fiction. For example, Beckhill means 'eminence by the stream', Islaw incorporates hlaw, the Old English for a burial mound or barrow, and Garholt includes holt meaning a burrow for an otter or similar burrowing animal, all entirely appropriate for moorland interspersed with streams, scrubland and marsh.
There's more. Considering the times the author lived in and her personal circumstances I find more clues embedded in the matrix. The author lived in Oxford until the mid-seventies, and the western end of the Berkshire Downs – the Lambourn Downs – is the chalky upland in the south of Oxfordshire, quite probably an area she knew well. This is doubtless why Oxford gets its mention here. Also, across central and southern England there are several examples of medieval moated sites, and for the Moat House in the novel the author may well have drawn on her knowledge of some of those in the area around Oxford (of which there are a few, such as Gaunt House at Standlake, some inhabited and others in ruins).
In addition, the issue of deliberate flooding of the moor in Power of Three is one that was in the news in the sixties and seventies. The community of Capel Celyn in North Wales was devastated by the decision to build the Llyn Celyn reservoir to serve the people of Liverpool and the Wirral, and the flooded valley of the Tryweryn is commemorated by a constantly renewed slogan painted on a rock face south of Aberystwyth stating Cofiwch Dryweryn ('Remember Tryweryn'). Such strong nationalist feeling in Wales was reignited with the militant burning of English holiday homes in the late seventies and eighties. All this pent-up anger and suspicion I'm convinced fed into a major strand of this novel, the mutual hostility between people, Dorig and Giants because of a proposed reservoir.
Yet underneath the themes of curses, enmity, magic, literary triads and so on beats a living human narrative. This is a tale of a child who doubts his worth, of sibling loyalty, of fear of disappointing one's parents, of bullying and betrayal and of the menace of an unjust authority. This is a story of jaw-jaw rather than war-war, of talking peace rather than the blind cycle of vendetta, and of considered evolution instead of violent revolution. It also explores issues around feeling overweight, and about blindly following cultural precedents and social prejudices, for example.
While the solutions that conclude the novel might seem a little pat, even confusing, there is no doubt in my mind that Power of Three has a sense of organic growth, with beginning, burgeoning and end following one another in a constantly renewing cycle: this is a universal tale while still being rooted in a very English landscape.
August 13, 2007
Diana Wynne Jones' Power of Three is, if memory serves me correct, the first book I ever owned. It was given to me for Christmas, when I was quite young. I loaned it to a friend in seventh grade and it came back to me smelling of applesauce. It no longer smells of applesauce, but I remember pressing my face into the book for the smell. I've glued the spine back together once, and a section is currently trying to fall out again. I don't want to replace it.
Jones' particular genius is writing books for children that adults can enjoy. I probably don't need to tell you this, given how many people on my flist have Diana Wynne Jones listed as an interest. This book fills me with joy in the same way that Darwyn Cooke's New Frontiers does: it's a story of human endeavour, and possibilities. It's uplifting, never trite. I believe it may actually cure cancer.
The theme of the book is making peace. Well, that and a coming of age story, and a story about fathers and sons, and etc., but I find the making peace story the most compelling. It's a fix-it for most of human history (never mind the actual species involved) in which things go right. Yes, great sacrifices are called for, yes, there are stupid misunderstandings, but in the end, it is possible for peoples to get along. A hopeful modern myth for peoples taught to despise each other.
Jones' particular genius is writing books for children that adults can enjoy. I probably don't need to tell you this, given how many people on my flist have Diana Wynne Jones listed as an interest. This book fills me with joy in the same way that Darwyn Cooke's New Frontiers does: it's a story of human endeavour, and possibilities. It's uplifting, never trite. I believe it may actually cure cancer.
The theme of the book is making peace. Well, that and a coming of age story, and a story about fathers and sons, and etc., but I find the making peace story the most compelling. It's a fix-it for most of human history (never mind the actual species involved) in which things go right. Yes, great sacrifices are called for, yes, there are stupid misunderstandings, but in the end, it is possible for peoples to get along. A hopeful modern myth for peoples taught to despise each other.
December 4, 2010
This book is neat! I'm not sure I've ever seen someone do such a good job of creating fantastical non-human species with such powerful differences from, as well as similarities to, humans.
For some time, it's easy to assume that Gair and his people are humans, of a sort, living in a fantasy world with the Dorig and Giants. It becomes clear before long that the Giants are actually humans, while Gair and his people - and the Dorig, as best we can tell - are versions of fairies. I like that this is done taking advantage of, but not belaboring, the idea of humans as big, noisy, dangerous, and oblivious.
DWJ does a good job with that thing where each species thinks of itself as "people" and everyone else as Giants and Dorig, or Giants and Lymen, or "fairies." They all have myths and stories about each other, some of which are totally propaganda, like the Dorig being cold-blooded. There's also stuff that's used insultingly, but you don't get the impression anyone actually believes it, like when the Lymen say that Dorig are descended from frogs. Then, there are things that actually come from truth:
Dorig kids: Yeah, well, Lymen eat caterpillars!
Giant kids: Is that true?
Lyman kids: *Thinking* Of course we do, let me tell you about -
Giant kids: Because BLARGH that would be HORRIFYINGLY DISGUSTING.
Lyman kids: NO, WE DEFINITELY DO NOT.
Like a lot of myths and fairy tales, this story is sometimes unexpectedly dark. Certainly there is the murdered Dorig at the beginning, but I also found it striking that, when the Dorig later invade Garholt, they claim not to have killed many Lymen. We don't actually see anything about any specific members of Gair's community who were killed - certainly no one with a name - but it is sad to think that, at the end, when everyone's celebrating the peace between the three Peoples, there are still a few people who have just lost friends or family members.
I very much like the scene when Gair and Gerald are about to be sacrificed. Gerald freaks out, and Gair muses that this is because Giants deny death. Gerald cannot imagine himself actually being killed. Despite having lost a sister, he's never seen anyone die. Gair has, and though he really, really wishes he didn't have to, he can accept that he's going to be killed.
Which leads me to the way the collar is actually appeased: Gair volunteers his life in place of someone else's, and Hathil refuses to kill him. I liked this a lot. I don't think this even needs quite as much setup/pre-explanation as it has, but it's still very well done.
I was nervous at times because things would turn out to be not what they seemed in a way that occasionally made them seem less fantastical. For example, the Dorig, who live in the water and look like silvery reptiles, are actually much like Gair's people, but with silvery magical wetsuits. They breathe air and look a lot like Lymen. I felt similar when the Giants turned out to be humans - nervous, because I don't like when stories end up being less magical and fantasyish than I thought. But on the other hand, the Dorig still have yellow "sheep's eyes" and they're still shapeshifters. So really, it's not less magic, just different.
There are some excellent emotional points here, too. I like the expressiveness of Hafny's morgery - the idea that, as a shapeshifter, he reacts to complete misery by turning into a creature with no limbs, eyes, or ears. Of course, the bit at the end makes it apparent that he did this as a ploy, though I'm sure he really was crazy-miserable at the time. (That did disappoint me a little. Sort of like in The Queen of Attolia, where I kept sympathizing with Eugenides only to find that he was using the cover of fear and unhappiness to go out and do insanely brave things.)
The societies are super-cool, too. I like the gold collars, and life inside the mounds, and the way Lymen and Dorig have what we would call magic, but they don't think of it that way. The Dorig draw a parallel between the Lymen's "words and thoughts" and Dorig shapeshifting and the Giants' "unnatural strength and things that work by themselves."
Indeed, though I think humans generally define magic as stuff that doesn't work according to natural laws, it makes some sense to define it, as they seem to here, as stuff to which you don't know the rules. To Gair, words aren't magic, because he understands them and knows their rules and limitations. To humans, high technology isn't magic for the same reasons. (Not to say we all understand the actual workings of all high technology, but you know what I mean.)
It's also interesting how, once Ayna, Gair, and Ceri actually meet Gerald and Brenda, it becomes more clear just how not-human the Lymen are. They deny having magic like the Giants think or being tricky, lying creatures the way the Dorig say they are, but Ceri's reaction to meeting Gerald's skeptical aunt looks a lot like bewitching. On the other hand, it also has a strong hint of that, "I'm a cute kid, watch me manipulate adults" thing that's also sometimes used by some totally-human DWJ characters: the little girls in The Merlin Conspiracy, Mig in Black Maria. Jill does this in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, too. Somehow this technique never fails to entertain me.
I love the glimpses we get of the Giant/human world, here, too. George and Jerry's story of moving the stone is hilarious. Then, too, there's the interesting bit when everyone's arguing over which species has the right to live on the Moor, and Brenda points out that, if it's about who got there first, her human ancestors were there long before Gerald's, who were Norman conquerors. (This is Britain, naturally.) This is a nice parallel to the disagreements among Lymen, between the Otmounders and the Garholters. None of the cultures here are monolithic.
(Nor are they exempt from everyday concerns, like overcrowding. All of this makes for a richer story.)
Also, in the story of George and Jerry moving the stone, Gest makes a sort of throwaway comment of concern about how much faith the Giants put in iron, but he's perfectly okay with handling and even "saying words" on iron chains. He almost gets sick over engine fumes, though. Also, I love how Gest, who is a big, goodhearted-but-not-especially-clever, straight-talking hero among the Lymen is, compared to the Giants, sort of a little tricky guy.
Most of the characters aren't terribly developed, and we spend a lot of time in Gair's head as he just sort of ruminates on stuff - sometimes profound and fascinating, occasionally repetitive or telling us stuff that we could probably figure out for ourselves. I'd have liked to maybe see a bit more of Ayna and Ceri - I like Gair, but I like his siblings, too. Also, I find it a little funny that Gair is like, "Aw, my siblings have rare supernatural powers and I don't. I am ordinary and blah," and this is played not in the, "Gair is special for who he is, and can make a difference without having wacky powers!" direction, but in the, "Gair secretly has a supernatural power even rarer than Ayna's or Ceri's!" direction. (This is the paragraph explaining why I gave this book four stars instead of five.)
But yeah, a really cool book!
For some time, it's easy to assume that Gair and his people are humans, of a sort, living in a fantasy world with the Dorig and Giants. It becomes clear before long that the Giants are actually humans, while Gair and his people - and the Dorig, as best we can tell - are versions of fairies. I like that this is done taking advantage of, but not belaboring, the idea of humans as big, noisy, dangerous, and oblivious.
DWJ does a good job with that thing where each species thinks of itself as "people" and everyone else as Giants and Dorig, or Giants and Lymen, or "fairies." They all have myths and stories about each other, some of which are totally propaganda, like the Dorig being cold-blooded. There's also stuff that's used insultingly, but you don't get the impression anyone actually believes it, like when the Lymen say that Dorig are descended from frogs. Then, there are things that actually come from truth:
Dorig kids: Yeah, well, Lymen eat caterpillars!
Giant kids: Is that true?
Lyman kids: *Thinking* Of course we do, let me tell you about -
Giant kids: Because BLARGH that would be HORRIFYINGLY DISGUSTING.
Lyman kids: NO, WE DEFINITELY DO NOT.
Like a lot of myths and fairy tales, this story is sometimes unexpectedly dark. Certainly there is the murdered Dorig at the beginning, but I also found it striking that, when the Dorig later invade Garholt, they claim not to have killed many Lymen. We don't actually see anything about any specific members of Gair's community who were killed - certainly no one with a name - but it is sad to think that, at the end, when everyone's celebrating the peace between the three Peoples, there are still a few people who have just lost friends or family members.
I very much like the scene when Gair and Gerald are about to be sacrificed. Gerald freaks out, and Gair muses that this is because Giants deny death. Gerald cannot imagine himself actually being killed. Despite having lost a sister, he's never seen anyone die. Gair has, and though he really, really wishes he didn't have to, he can accept that he's going to be killed.
Which leads me to the way the collar is actually appeased: Gair volunteers his life in place of someone else's, and Hathil refuses to kill him. I liked this a lot. I don't think this even needs quite as much setup/pre-explanation as it has, but it's still very well done.
I was nervous at times because things would turn out to be not what they seemed in a way that occasionally made them seem less fantastical. For example, the Dorig, who live in the water and look like silvery reptiles, are actually much like Gair's people, but with silvery magical wetsuits. They breathe air and look a lot like Lymen. I felt similar when the Giants turned out to be humans - nervous, because I don't like when stories end up being less magical and fantasyish than I thought. But on the other hand, the Dorig still have yellow "sheep's eyes" and they're still shapeshifters. So really, it's not less magic, just different.
There are some excellent emotional points here, too. I like the expressiveness of Hafny's morgery - the idea that, as a shapeshifter, he reacts to complete misery by turning into a creature with no limbs, eyes, or ears. Of course, the bit at the end makes it apparent that he did this as a ploy, though I'm sure he really was crazy-miserable at the time. (That did disappoint me a little. Sort of like in The Queen of Attolia, where I kept sympathizing with Eugenides only to find that he was using the cover of fear and unhappiness to go out and do insanely brave things.)
The societies are super-cool, too. I like the gold collars, and life inside the mounds, and the way Lymen and Dorig have what we would call magic, but they don't think of it that way. The Dorig draw a parallel between the Lymen's "words and thoughts" and Dorig shapeshifting and the Giants' "unnatural strength and things that work by themselves."
Indeed, though I think humans generally define magic as stuff that doesn't work according to natural laws, it makes some sense to define it, as they seem to here, as stuff to which you don't know the rules. To Gair, words aren't magic, because he understands them and knows their rules and limitations. To humans, high technology isn't magic for the same reasons. (Not to say we all understand the actual workings of all high technology, but you know what I mean.)
It's also interesting how, once Ayna, Gair, and Ceri actually meet Gerald and Brenda, it becomes more clear just how not-human the Lymen are. They deny having magic like the Giants think or being tricky, lying creatures the way the Dorig say they are, but Ceri's reaction to meeting Gerald's skeptical aunt looks a lot like bewitching. On the other hand, it also has a strong hint of that, "I'm a cute kid, watch me manipulate adults" thing that's also sometimes used by some totally-human DWJ characters: the little girls in The Merlin Conspiracy, Mig in Black Maria. Jill does this in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, too. Somehow this technique never fails to entertain me.
I love the glimpses we get of the Giant/human world, here, too. George and Jerry's story of moving the stone is hilarious. Then, too, there's the interesting bit when everyone's arguing over which species has the right to live on the Moor, and Brenda points out that, if it's about who got there first, her human ancestors were there long before Gerald's, who were Norman conquerors. (This is Britain, naturally.) This is a nice parallel to the disagreements among Lymen, between the Otmounders and the Garholters. None of the cultures here are monolithic.
(Nor are they exempt from everyday concerns, like overcrowding. All of this makes for a richer story.)
Also, in the story of George and Jerry moving the stone, Gest makes a sort of throwaway comment of concern about how much faith the Giants put in iron, but he's perfectly okay with handling and even "saying words" on iron chains. He almost gets sick over engine fumes, though. Also, I love how Gest, who is a big, goodhearted-but-not-especially-clever, straight-talking hero among the Lymen is, compared to the Giants, sort of a little tricky guy.
Most of the characters aren't terribly developed, and we spend a lot of time in Gair's head as he just sort of ruminates on stuff - sometimes profound and fascinating, occasionally repetitive or telling us stuff that we could probably figure out for ourselves. I'd have liked to maybe see a bit more of Ayna and Ceri - I like Gair, but I like his siblings, too. Also, I find it a little funny that Gair is like, "Aw, my siblings have rare supernatural powers and I don't. I am ordinary and blah," and this is played not in the, "Gair is special for who he is, and can make a difference without having wacky powers!" direction, but in the, "Gair secretly has a supernatural power even rarer than Ayna's or Ceri's!" direction. (This is the paragraph explaining why I gave this book four stars instead of five.)
But yeah, a really cool book!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2013
Some of Diana's earlier work, and you can tell. She caught up with her golden era some ten years later. The elements are there, but they're not harnessed with the brilliance especially found in her works published in the 80s'.
Cute. Very cute, but anticlimactic all the way through. Likeable, but distant characters. The ending was really rather flat and boring, albeit very reasonable. I don't know. I kind of feel the same I felt about Hexwood – it was okay, but nothing remarkable, and the last quarter just made me want to finish it off as quickly as possible.
I am probably being a little harsh with my rating because I expect a lot from every DWJ book I pick up – because, really, what can else could you do after such masterpieces as Fire and Hemlock and Archer's Goon – but this was really just another okay-ish book to me and no more.
Extra points for a great plot-twist though,
Cute. Very cute, but anticlimactic all the way through. Likeable, but distant characters. The ending was really rather flat and boring, albeit very reasonable. I don't know. I kind of feel the same I felt about Hexwood – it was okay, but nothing remarkable, and the last quarter just made me want to finish it off as quickly as possible.
I am probably being a little harsh with my rating because I expect a lot from every DWJ book I pick up – because, really, what can else could you do after such masterpieces as Fire and Hemlock and Archer's Goon – but this was really just another okay-ish book to me and no more.
Extra points for a great plot-twist though,
February 8, 2022
Great writing, but just okay as a story. There's a "big twist" about halfway through, which discards and replaces the book's mood / atmosphere. Conceptually the twist is interesting, but it creates problems in the plot and setting that go unaddressed. I'm not against genre bending, but in this case felt baited and switched. The resolution was logical, but it felt unrealistic and even undesirable, given the moral stakes already in play.
Two paths would have made stronger stories - separate the events of the earlier and later plots into two different stories, taking place in much different times; or, rework the whole thing from beginning to end more carefully, so that the setting and culture supports the twist. In present form, feels like a book that got released too soon.
Two paths would have made stronger stories - separate the events of the earlier and later plots into two different stories, taking place in much different times; or, rework the whole thing from beginning to end more carefully, so that the setting and culture supports the twist. In present form, feels like a book that got released too soon.
October 11, 2021
Middle grade fantasy from an expert! Here is my review:
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/202...
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/202...
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February 18, 2020איינה, גאיר וקרי הם שלושה אחים, בניו של ראש שבט במישור הביצות. ביחד הם מתמודדים מול הקללה שהוטלה על המישור ופוגעת בשבטם ובמינים אחרים שחיים במישור.
אני אוהב את ויין־ג'ונס אבל היה לי קצת קשה לעקוב אחרי כל הדמויות ותהפוכות העלילה.
אני אוהב את ויין־ג'ונס אבל היה לי קצת קשה לעקוב אחרי כל הדמויות ותהפוכות העלילה.
April 28, 2023
It's interesting reading most of a body of work in publication order like this, for all I have been familiar with these books for years. This again feels a step closer to what I most associate Diana's writing with, and indeed I think Charmed Life - where it all *really* started - is next up. I could do without the way body size is handled, but it was after all the seventies.
February 25, 2022
Just as powerful as I remember
June 22, 2010
Complex magical setting which is slow to unravel? Winsome and “untalented” boy protagonist? Allegorical plot solved via several unveilings of reality? There are not really any elements that separate The Power of Three from some of my absolute favorite Diana Wynne Jones novels (the Chrestomanci novels, among many others come immediately to mind). And with that in mind, it is really amazing how consistently enjoyable I find her work when The Power of Three shows how easily such disparate parts can fail to cohere.
For one, I find Gair’s world (and his personality) to be a bit on the generic side and thus what is intended as a slow burn tends toward instead aimlessness. That the nature of this magic in his world and the personality of Gair himself don’t particularly tie into the resolution of the central conflict result in me feeling like it’s all a little bit of useless set up. Also, as plot-twists-that-unveil-the-allegorical-meaning go, it’s a little transparent and straightforward. From such a frequently subversive writer, it’s almost didactically simple and unbearably cheesy that the resolution requires intervention from a third party (unnecessarily introduced about at around the two thirds mark).
I’m not sure how I might have received this as a child, but frankly, one of her few entries in which I see very limited appeal beyond its marketed audience. Rating: 2 stars
*Also, this is one of the few times I find her treatment of gender actively suspicious.
For one, I find Gair’s world (and his personality) to be a bit on the generic side and thus what is intended as a slow burn tends toward instead aimlessness. That the nature of this magic in his world and the personality of Gair himself don’t particularly tie into the resolution of the central conflict result in me feeling like it’s all a little bit of useless set up. Also, as plot-twists-that-unveil-the-allegorical-meaning go, it’s a little transparent and straightforward. From such a frequently subversive writer, it’s almost didactically simple and unbearably cheesy that the resolution requires intervention from a third party (unnecessarily introduced about at around the two thirds mark).
I’m not sure how I might have received this as a child, but frankly, one of her few entries in which I see very limited appeal beyond its marketed audience. Rating: 2 stars
*Also, this is one of the few times I find her treatment of gender actively suspicious.
June 26, 2021
This is one of DWJ's earliest novels, and it shows that her ideas were always really off-the-wall and she just wrote whatever she wanted. There's a twist about 30% of the way through this book that really surprised me -- I thought I was reading one kind of story, and it turned out I was reading an entirely different one! Because of that, I'll put the rest of the review under spoiler tags.
January 7, 2015
*Spoilers*
As is the usual case of a DWJ reread, I liked it much better the 2nd time through because I understood it better. I think the size differences or the lack thereof kept throwing me off the 1st time.
This is a good, solid read that starts off with a murder and a dying curse and goes on to show how that curse has affected everyone in it's field of influence. The novel is just as much about the power of the three races working together as it is about the power of words. Words play a huge role in solving the problems and lifting the curse and Diana weaves them beautifully, especially when she describes how the Dorig king is being hunted by the words that the giants and lymen are using in the negotiation in order to get him to agree to the terms. They talk around him in such a way that his own people would be against him if he didn't agree. It really is a compelling scene.
This would be a good read from someone who likes classic fantasy, but doesn't mind a few modern elements such as radios or the mention of the London water council.
As is the usual case of a DWJ reread, I liked it much better the 2nd time through because I understood it better. I think the size differences or the lack thereof kept throwing me off the 1st time.
This is a good, solid read that starts off with a murder and a dying curse and goes on to show how that curse has affected everyone in it's field of influence. The novel is just as much about the power of the three races working together as it is about the power of words. Words play a huge role in solving the problems and lifting the curse and Diana weaves them beautifully, especially when she describes how the Dorig king is being hunted by the words that the giants and lymen are using in the negotiation in order to get him to agree to the terms. They talk around him in such a way that his own people would be against him if he didn't agree. It really is a compelling scene.
This would be a good read from someone who likes classic fantasy, but doesn't mind a few modern elements such as radios or the mention of the London water council.
December 21, 2016
Diana Wynne Jones is one of my absolute favourite authors, and there are several of her books that I reread almost every year, but for some reason (not sure why) I’ve skipped over Power of Three the last few years, so this is the first time I’ve read it in ages—and it has been an absolute joy to rediscover it!
I love this book. The characters and the setting are so incredibly well written. How can you not fall in love with Gair and Garholt and the moor? I love how Jones sets the story in the world that we live in, and that magic is everyday and ordinary, and that the three different folk—Lymen, Dorig, and Giants—all insist that they are people and the others aren’t, and that they all think that what the others do is magic.
Reading this again made me realise that one of my all-time favourite tropes is that of the loner/misfit/outsider. This book has that trope in spades, with Gair who thinks he’s ordinary in a family of gifted people, but who in fact is extraordinary in his own right.
Wonderful, wonderful book.
I love this book. The characters and the setting are so incredibly well written. How can you not fall in love with Gair and Garholt and the moor? I love how Jones sets the story in the world that we live in, and that magic is everyday and ordinary, and that the three different folk—Lymen, Dorig, and Giants—all insist that they are people and the others aren’t, and that they all think that what the others do is magic.
Reading this again made me realise that one of my all-time favourite tropes is that of the loner/misfit/outsider. This book has that trope in spades, with Gair who thinks he’s ordinary in a family of gifted people, but who in fact is extraordinary in his own right.
Wonderful, wonderful book.
October 31, 2021
Several different types of beings live on the Moor. There are the fairies, the Dorig, and giants. Of course, each of these groups thinks that they are people and the others are not. There had long been enmity between the fairies and the Dorig. However, this feud escalated when the son of a fairy chief murdered the son of the Dorig king. His goal was to take the prince's beautiful and elaborate gold collar. The prince was able to bestow a powerful curse on the collar before he died. Years later, hardship has plagued anyone who owned this collar or lived near it. Meanwhile, the daughter of the fairy chief had become a wise and respected woman. She has three children - Ayna, Gair and Ceri. Ayna and Ceri have special powers but Gair seems to be ordinary enough. Ayna and her two brothers become caught up in the feuds that plague the folks of the Moor. But it will become necessary for the three races to cooperate in order to battle against the pending destruction that will eliminate the Moor. This is a fun and fast read that can be enjoyed by beings of all ages.
October 24, 2009
Hmno... not what I expected. For the first 100 pages or so, this book was brilliant, but it just failed to keep me interested. I find it hard to explain why, can't pinpoint it, but I really had trouble finishing it.
May 18, 2022
Happily for all Hebrew readers, the small publisher Oz (עוץ) has published some of Jones's old books with solid translations, which can both expose her books to younger audience and give us older readers an excuse to read her books. I'm saying this after being previously disappointed by another book, but this one is the real deal.
It has charm in buckets, the story is interesting and while approachable to younger audience, it is not too childish. Fifty years old, I suppose if it would have been written today there would be cellphones instead of radio, but other than that, it ages very well. Recommended read for every age, four stars out of five.
It has charm in buckets, the story is interesting and while approachable to younger audience, it is not too childish. Fifty years old, I suppose if it would have been written today there would be cellphones instead of radio, but other than that, it ages very well. Recommended read for every age, four stars out of five.
May 9, 2024
A very different voice from later books by Diana Wynne Jones. While the storytelling style in this early novel in unmistakably Jones, she creates a different kind of distance to the events retold here, lending the whole thing a feeling of legend or epic.
As with all of her other stories, there is a lot of enjoyment that comes in letting her unfold the world in front of you. I highly recommend approaching each of her books (especially the standalones outside of the Chrestomanci series) with as little information as possible.
I find my mind returning to this book--there is a lot to think about here. Undoubtedly a novel I will return to multiple times. With her mix of humorous situations, well-developed characters, and philosophical questions, Diana Wynne Jones puts the fun in profundity.
As with all of her other stories, there is a lot of enjoyment that comes in letting her unfold the world in front of you. I highly recommend approaching each of her books (especially the standalones outside of the Chrestomanci series) with as little information as possible.
I find my mind returning to this book--there is a lot to think about here. Undoubtedly a novel I will return to multiple times. With her mix of humorous situations, well-developed characters, and philosophical questions, Diana Wynne Jones puts the fun in profundity.
February 25, 2011
Though the Moor is enchantingly beautiful, it holds great perils for the people who inhabit it. Powerful Giants, with extraordinary magical machines, clumsily roam the land, while silent Dorig, who possess devious shape-shifting abilities, terrify anyone unlucky enough to happen upon them.Then there are, as they call themselves, "the People" and it is among them that this story takes place. A cursed gold collar, a broken promise, ignoring a warning vision, and the clash of cultures for survival are all at the heart of this story. Although these are traditionally elements of epic tales, it is told in a way that makes it completely understandable.
This story has much more the feel of a traditional sort of fairy tale than the others I've read. Perhaps that accounts for the fact that it wasn't until I was about 2/3 of the way through the book to really become emotionally engaged. Not coincidentally, that was when the reader is given interaction between the three cultures: Giants, Dorigs, and the People. It is the give and take that rachets up the interest. Not to mention, Wynne Jones' trademark cliffhanging plots that take off at a whirlwind pace. It is not that the story was bad until that point, just that I felt Gair's problems were more those of a typical adolescent and I didn't care about that part of the story (being far past that point myself).
This is another Wynne Jones book that is different in feel and plot from the others I've read. How does she do this? I'm glad that she does though. It makes each of her books an adventure. The one thing, above all others, that I would tell to those reading her books is to ignore the descriptions on the back of the book. They can do no justice to the plots and would give away the entire thing if they made the attempt. Just dive in and see where it takes you. (You must keep in mind that, thanks to my pal's careful lending, I haven't come across any of her weaker books ... and I am told they are out there, which is only to be expected.)
October 21, 2018
“After some weeks of brooding, it occurred to Gair that one way to stop being ordinary was to have wisdom, like his mother.”
Gair is the chief's son and has always felt inferior to his siblings who were blessed with gifts - Ayna with the gift of Sight, and Ceri with the gift of Thought. Much as he finds himself ordinary, he is certain his father is also disappointed in him. Gifts are, after all, important to keep the giants and the water-dwelling Dorig out of their lands, who would otherwise threaten all of Gair's people.
The Power of Three is one of the best Diana Wynne Jones' books I've read. It has an intricate plot where you'll want to notice every detail to piece the whole picture together. It has deep and vivid characters - some to love, some to hate. It has an air of mystery and urgency that keeps you reading. But more importantly, it has a plot that tricks you - you think you're reading one thing and then you realise you're reading something different altogether. The Power of Three perfectly blends and combines fantasy with the modern contemporary world.
Gair considers himself ordinary, most people around him disagree. While this is a fun and exciting fantasy tale, it is built on common and very real fears and dark thoughts people dwell on. It is a story that shows how easily we judge, fear and reject things that are different from us - the fantasy element is just a wrapping to an otherwise very real story.
I loved the story, loved the characters, loved the concept and pace. It is also one of the few Jones' book that had a satisfying ending that actually felt like a conclusion with only a few to no questions left unanswered.
September 6, 2016
I have yet to come across a Diana Wynne Jones book that I haven't liked.
Her books are humorous, thoughtful, and they are well-planned from beginning to end.
This story was no different.
Power of Three follows the story of three different races–the people, the Dorig, and the giants–as they all share the Moor on which they live. One of the people is cursed by a Dorig, and it causes tremendous troubles for everyone.
The book is surprising, funny, and is one of the very best books I've read in a long time. And at its core, it's a rather sweet story about understanding each other.
I recommend this book to anyone.
Her books are humorous, thoughtful, and they are well-planned from beginning to end.
This story was no different.
Power of Three follows the story of three different races–the people, the Dorig, and the giants–as they all share the Moor on which they live. One of the people is cursed by a Dorig, and it causes tremendous troubles for everyone.
The book is surprising, funny, and is one of the very best books I've read in a long time. And at its core, it's a rather sweet story about understanding each other.
I recommend this book to anyone.
July 20, 2014
3 different peoples are living on the moor. The Giants (humans) don't really know about the fairies?, Lyman?, or the Dorig? The Dorig and Lyman have a combative history, though not all of both people feel that it needs to be that way. Then there is the threat to all of the people living on the moor...
September 5, 2016
Wanted to read this after reading Beth's review.
I liked it. The characters were really strong. I was a little confused figuring out the world at the beginning, but that might be on me.
I liked it. The characters were really strong. I was a little confused figuring out the world at the beginning, but that might be on me.
November 19, 2016
I loved this. I wish I had found this author nearer to my Brian Jacques and C.S. Lewis age.
November 9, 2018
So moving and such great messages. One of the few books worth reading over and over again.
May 31, 2025
I do not remotely have coherent thoughts about this but let's see what I have and see if, perhaps, some order comes of it. The first thing to say is that I am not particularly familiar with Diana Wynne Jones but I have always appreciated and indeed, admired the titles that I've come across. I like what she does and I like how she does it and I find her interesting. Her writing is so strange and intriguing to me. It kind of feels known but unknown, as if I understand it in one moment and then lose it in the next and then find it all over again before I even realise I've lost it.
So there, so this: a kind of intimate, domestic, known strangeness where things happen and it is up to others to resolve them, to right the wrongs, to kind of address these great fissures in the world. The subplot about weight bothered me. The final beat of this bothered me entirely, immensely. What else? I like her eye for character, a lot. I like her eye for the moor, I love moors in books, I absolutely do. I live for this sort of wildness. I liked how she pulled the rug from under my feet. I like how she wrote this in such a lively, smart, fiercely knowledgeable kind of way that was the only sort of way that this book could have been written. I like the fact that I couldn't have written this book in a month of Sundays. I like her grasp on masculinity. I like the way she writes boys. Actually, I think I like that a lot. I like how her boys scrabble for space against the men, all of these voices and people trying to find their foothold within the world.
I like how the ending felt like a spell being cast of its own, a word laid on a tempestuous river, a storm stilled. I loved how open people were to otherness and how they could accept their fate in a story that they did not, perhaps, know or understand. I liked the faith that people could place in others, the home they could find in the stranger. I liked how much it knew itself and how much it wanted to be. But I don't know if I liked it? I guess, perhaps, I admired it? I appreciated it?
Strange to finish in questions, but then when something gives you everything that it is then maybe questions are all that you can give it in return.
So there, so this: a kind of intimate, domestic, known strangeness where things happen and it is up to others to resolve them, to right the wrongs, to kind of address these great fissures in the world. The subplot about weight bothered me. The final beat of this bothered me entirely, immensely. What else? I like her eye for character, a lot. I like her eye for the moor, I love moors in books, I absolutely do. I live for this sort of wildness. I liked how she pulled the rug from under my feet. I like how she wrote this in such a lively, smart, fiercely knowledgeable kind of way that was the only sort of way that this book could have been written. I like the fact that I couldn't have written this book in a month of Sundays. I like her grasp on masculinity. I like the way she writes boys. Actually, I think I like that a lot. I like how her boys scrabble for space against the men, all of these voices and people trying to find their foothold within the world.
I like how the ending felt like a spell being cast of its own, a word laid on a tempestuous river, a storm stilled. I loved how open people were to otherness and how they could accept their fate in a story that they did not, perhaps, know or understand. I liked the faith that people could place in others, the home they could find in the stranger. I liked how much it knew itself and how much it wanted to be. But I don't know if I liked it? I guess, perhaps, I admired it? I appreciated it?
Strange to finish in questions, but then when something gives you everything that it is then maybe questions are all that you can give it in return.
March 4, 2021
I read this book as a kid, and while I don't remember loving it, it stuck with me, so much that I asked on "What is the name of that book???" Here was how I described it:
"As I remember it, in this book kids all develop a special power as they grow up. There's a limited list of powers, but everyone gets one. The protagonist doesn't though and as time goes on he feels he's a failure. But eventually he does develop a power that hasn't been seen for generations, and it's the powerful-est of powers, and (I think) there's a rule that the more powerful the power the later it develops, but people had forgotten that.
"I think he uses this power to Save the World. I also vaguely remember that he befriends a member of another race -- in my mind it's some sort of lizard-like race, that lives in volcanoes, and are discriminated against, but that could be way off. And that he and his friend save the world together, which leads to a detente between humans and the lizard-volcano-creatures."
This ended up being wrong in almost every particular, but what's interesting is how it was wrong. It's definitely not the case that everyone gets powers, but enough of the main characters had ones that maybe I just assumed it. I think the "more powerful powers develop later" just must have been from some other book. And reading as an adult, I think "friendship" is too strong to define the main character's relationships with others; it's interesting I read more into it as a kid.
Overall, the book is cute -- weak ending excepted -- though it leans too heavily on the "he looked wise and trustworthy" trope that substitutes for actual character interaction. But given this book has stuck with me for all those years, I can't give it less than 4 stars.
"As I remember it, in this book kids all develop a special power as they grow up. There's a limited list of powers, but everyone gets one. The protagonist doesn't though and as time goes on he feels he's a failure. But eventually he does develop a power that hasn't been seen for generations, and it's the powerful-est of powers, and (I think) there's a rule that the more powerful the power the later it develops, but people had forgotten that.
"I think he uses this power to Save the World. I also vaguely remember that he befriends a member of another race -- in my mind it's some sort of lizard-like race, that lives in volcanoes, and are discriminated against, but that could be way off. And that he and his friend save the world together, which leads to a detente between humans and the lizard-volcano-creatures."
This ended up being wrong in almost every particular, but what's interesting is how it was wrong. It's definitely not the case that everyone gets powers, but enough of the main characters had ones that maybe I just assumed it. I think the "more powerful powers develop later" just must have been from some other book. And reading as an adult, I think "friendship" is too strong to define the main character's relationships with others; it's interesting I read more into it as a kid.
Overall, the book is cute -- weak ending excepted -- though it leans too heavily on the "he looked wise and trustworthy" trope that substitutes for actual character interaction. But given this book has stuck with me for all those years, I can't give it less than 4 stars.
June 13, 2024
This book shows Diana Wynne Jones’s immaturity as a younger writer with raw talent; in this book she struggles with pacing and head-hopping detail especially. There is one bit where what could have been a short story in “showing” mode goes on and on in “telling” mode, longer than strictly necessary, relaying more details than made sense to tell — you’ll know it when you get to it. On the other hand, I feel this story is more clearly told than some of her other works, even if it is swiftly, abruptly, and neatly tied up at the end as usual, it feels more earned than some of her other works. I still wish the principles of that ending had been fleshed out a little more. YMMV. Oh, and too many characters with names that start with the letter G.
But the story has unusual creativity and strength for its weaknesses. The perspective shift and setup of misleading and subverted expectations is masterfully and cleverly done. The book does not suffer for the conceit because the stakes are shown to be exceedingly high from the beginning, and what must be discovered is crystal clear, riffing off the fractal of 3. The curse is terrifying. The sibling and generational dynamics feel real. There are more present and active adults and parent-child conflicts in this book than some of her other works.
It is bursting with interesting imagery that DWJ rarely depicts with as much clarity in her later novels: the torques, the bees, the sheep, the 3s, gifts gradually unwrapped, the curse, the courtships, the battle… even the drunk adults and real-world environmental issues. It is a kaleidoscope of a book.
All in all, I quite enjoyed the strengths of this book and was thoroughly amused by its weaknesses.
But the story has unusual creativity and strength for its weaknesses. The perspective shift and setup of misleading and subverted expectations is masterfully and cleverly done. The book does not suffer for the conceit because the stakes are shown to be exceedingly high from the beginning, and what must be discovered is crystal clear, riffing off the fractal of 3. The curse is terrifying. The sibling and generational dynamics feel real. There are more present and active adults and parent-child conflicts in this book than some of her other works.
It is bursting with interesting imagery that DWJ rarely depicts with as much clarity in her later novels: the torques, the bees, the sheep, the 3s, gifts gradually unwrapped, the curse, the courtships, the battle… even the drunk adults and real-world environmental issues. It is a kaleidoscope of a book.
All in all, I quite enjoyed the strengths of this book and was thoroughly amused by its weaknesses.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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