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Rating: 
Summary: Filler stuff from a good author
Review: I bought and read this book several months ago but recently realized I didn't remember anything about it, so I picked it up this week and started to leaf through it. The only thing I remember worth rereading was the novella "Everard's Ride," which was quite good in the usual DWJ tradition. All the rest was pretty tame stuff, especially the short story "Dan adn Nad and Quaffy," which particularly irked me. It would have been mildly interesting if Douglas Adams hadn't done the same "Quaffy" thing with "gin and tonics" several decades ago.
One thing I noticed (and after reading many of Ms. Jones' works I can't believe it took me this long to notice). English teachers and writing coaches always say "write what you know." Ms. Jones must have had a rather difficult childhood from which she wanted to escape - and possibly she spent a deal of time wishing she were a boy - because most of the central characters in her books and stories are teenaged boys living mildly-bad-to-really-annoying lifestyles, who are rescued and uplifted by magical forces to a much better lifestyle. It's a formula that works - especially since her books are very different each time, with the magic and its use in the world also being very different - but it's blatant once you come to realize it.
Still, I recommend this for "Everard's Ride" and the rest can suitably be saved for bathroom reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Expected "Magic"
Review: Prolific fantasy writer Diana Wynne-Jones is one of the few authors who can write short stories and novels equally well. And in "Unexpected Magic," Jones shows her flair for shorter works, with several previously published stories paired with a wonderful new novella.
Jones presents us with plenty of stories, mostly fantasy but some that border on SF or horror. A kindly wizard falls for a sniping, obnoxious woman -- and his cats discover her horrible identity. Mum's obsession with her latest whims and fads leads to a plague of fuzzy pink mushrooms -- not to mention a minor family rebellion. A girl falls in love with the sun, and turns into a tree so that it will love her back.
Elizabeth develops a friendship with her father's living walking stick, Carruthers. A robot called No One has difficulties following orders, especially with a house full of finicky appliances. Siglin is pursued by a witch-hunt for telepaths, on an alternative world where women rule. And a Boy and an undying cat set out to destroy an evil wizard.
And finishing it up is the solid novella "Everard's Ride." Cecilia and Alex are a pair of Victorian kids, who have an unexpected visitor when a richly-dressed outlaw arrives on their doorstep in the rain. But as they venture into another world that borders on ours, they find that not everyone is as benevolent as Lord Robert.
Those who have collected Jones' short story collections will probably already have several stories from this book. but "Unexpected Magic" is made worth the while by "Everard's Ride," a sprawling 200-page novella that could easily have been published on its own. It's not Jones' best work, but it is an entrancing and original fantasy tale.
Jones' style is all over the map in this collection, since they come from different parts of her career. But it's always detailed and deftly written. She retains a sense of humor in many of the stories like "The Fluffy Pink Toadstool," with its skewering of the all-natural-all-the-time lifestyle. At other times, she dips into an almost melancholy mood, such as "The Girl Who Loved the Sun." One of the few duds is "The Fat Wizard," which is just hard to decipher.
Even if you already have the stories elsewhere, "Unexpected Magic" is worth getting just for the wonderful "Everard's Ride." Full of humor, sweetness and plenty of cats, this is a good collection of Jones's writing.
Rating:
Summary: witty and imaginative
Review: This collection brings together fifteen stories and a novella, "Everard's Ride". Spanning genres from science fiction to fantasy and even a touch of horror (in "The Master"), all of the stories show off Jones' wit and wild imagination, qualities which make her one of the best young adult fantasy writers of today (perhaps one of the best fantasy writers of today, period). I was disappointed, though, that so many of the stories had been in previous collections - surely there were more to choose from?Among the stories, the standouts are: "Enna Hittims", in which a girl who has the mumps draws stories about a fictional hero, who becomes frighteningly real; "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight", set on a world in which dragons are real and telepathy is illegal; "The Girl Who Loved the Sun", the myth-like tale of a girl who longs to become a tree; "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy", a witty story of a typo-prone science fiction writer whose computer suddenly starts talking to her; and "What the Cat Told Me" and "Little Dot", both tales of magic narrated by cats. Since I already own and had read most of the stories, I was most looking forward to reading "Everard's Ride" and wasn't disappointed. Alex and Cecilia live in Victorian England, the children of a wealthy farmer; there is a mysterious island near their home, said to be the site of a ghostly kingdom called Falleyfell. When an enigmatic stranger comes to the farmhouse one night, Alex and Cecilia begin an adventure which leads them into Falleyfell and the dangerous intrigues of its court. Not as inventive as Jones' best novels, (...)
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