by Diana Wynne Jones
Intro: It has been seven years since the death of Diana Wynne Jones, and I've been a fan of hers since childhood, but I had never read this series before.The Dalemark Quartet, arguably the most effective series Jones ever wrote. Jones' genius didn't lend itself to sequels. When she created a world a...
It didn't feel like fantasy throughout and that's part of the magic of how Diana Wynne Jones writes, it's only when I think back on the story that I realise how much magic there actually was in the story. The story opens with Tanaqui's father and brother being taken as conscripts for a war, a war t...
Like the first two books in this series, it wasn't quite what I'd expected. That doesn't mean it's not a good book, it's just - not quite my thing. Or at least it reminded me of other writers' work.
When I first read this as a kid, I thought it was terribly dull. I was wrong.
I read this recently -- I always hesitate to revisit favorite authors from my youth, but this didn't let me down. To be sure, the plot is both elementary in fantasy terms and standard for Jones (it seems like almost every single one of her early books involved the main character discovering the hidd...
At first, this story seems to have little relationship to the two before it. It's not till the very end that it's revealed that it takes place in Dalemark – but during near-prehistoric times. The society portrayed is very primitive, perhaps analogous to Bronze Age tribes in Britain. When most of the...
Again with the absolutely astoundingly gorgeous covers. This one is for The Spellcoats really, which makes me a bit sad. I want this style for all four! Anyway. If the jump between Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet is disconcerting, the jump to The Spellcoats is even more so. Mitt and Moril mi...
The Spellcoats is the penultimate installment in Diana Wynne Jones’ Dalemark Quartet and it is very different from its predecessors.If Cart and Cwidder is our introduction to Dalemark, and Drowned Ammet is a fleshing out of that earlier exposure, then The Spellcoats is the (pre) historical volume th...