Archer’s Goon

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Add a dash of magic, parental embarrassment, and a rogue bagpipe band, and you have a thoroughly entertaining read for any age. I don't really feel that the Bad Guys who get dealt with in the end necessarily are the ones who should be punished. Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages. Also the characters are in a constant state of changing around in the eyes of the reader: who’s good, who’s bad, who has devious intents, WHO IS UP TO WHAT AND WHAT ON EARTH OR POSSIBLY OFF OF IT IS GOING ON? Jones' books range from amusing slapstick situations to sharp social observation (Changeover is both), to witty parody of literary forms.

Him and his family’s life is upended one day when a large Goon deposits himself in their kitchen and refuses to leave. This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. Weird Tales reviewer John Gregory Betancourt praised the novel as "a witty little urban fantasy [and] a delight to read.Foremost amongst the latter are The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, and its fictional companion-pieces Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000), which provide a merciless (though not unaffectionate) critique of formulaic sword-and-sorcery epics. This is also Jones of the 80s, my favourite decade of hers, not the mellow and a bit obsessed with domesticity Jones of the aughts, but Jones who is full of energy and ideas. The only thing to watch out for is that the particular paperback edition pictured seems to fall to pieces. DWJ's sixteenth published book, Archer's Goon represents, with Howl's Moving Castle, the peak of the humorous writing that characterizes much of her 1980s period. Here the parents are as much a part of the story as the kids which is kind of unique all things considered.

DIANA WYNNE JONES was born in August 1934 in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. Written and published during the Reagan-Thatcher years, when it felt as though some of the world at least was taking a dangerous lurch towards an confrontational and authoritarian triumphalism, Archer’s Goon explores some of that state of affairs in what presents merely as children’s fantasy. The core is a strong, beautifully plotted story, but it's overlaid with so many funny bits that it isn't until you get to the end that you realize how complex it is.When the raids of World War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger sisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their grandparents. The Goon himself, which is the key character the story revolves around (besides Howard) is very lovable and entertaining.

Not only do we have the seven siblings who "farm" Howard's town, we also have Howard's family, their live-in student Fifi, and Shine's bully boy Ginger Hind, and all of them have well-developed, interesting, but above all unique personalities. And Fifi’s fate, which I will not disclose here, except to say that I had completely forgotten what happened to her at the end of the book. A conference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West England, Bristol, in 2009.If ever there is a day when I don't love one of Diana Wynne Jones' books, I shall either be ashamed of myself for losing that bit of myself that appreciates her particular humor and writing style, or I'll be disappointed that Mrs.

In 1973, she joined forces with her lifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana Wynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single year. My favourite parts were “all power corrupts, but we need electricity” and “the female of the species is more deadly than the male”, which are both, of course, true. It's probably a mistake to say they run in parallel; it's more accurate to say that they are intertwined, and I think they are perfectly balanced, one plot advancing the other and then handing off the lead to be advanced in turn.As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by a father, 'who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest'. Howard Sykes is an average 13 year old boy who lives with his parents, younger sister and their au pair in the fictional town of Holisbury. Mountjoy's revelation starts the Sykes family on a quest for the sibling who is the actual user of Quentin's words.