Deep Secret

Rating:
Summary: A Fun, Intricate Read
Review: "Deep Secret" is Diana Wynne Jones's move into adult fantasy writing, but keeping all the traits that she's become known for: quirky characters, intriging plot lines, wacky situations and unexpected conclusions.

Rupert Venables is the Magid of earth - responsible for overseeing the correct course of history in the world is taken, using magical means if necessary. He is only one of a huge group of Magids situated in the entire Multiverse, which is set in a figure-eight pattern, half of which is low on magic (situated Naywards from the centre), and half of which is populated by all sorts of magical creatures (Ayewards). The centre of the Multiverse is the Empire of Koryfos, the govenment system that everyone - especially Rupert - loves to hate. However, when an assassin's bomb goes off, killing the emperor and most of his court, Koryfos is thrown into civil war. The emperer left barely any clues as to who his children and heirs were, and with the gradual realisation that a conspiracy is afoot, Rupert is called in to help track these heirs.

But Rupert has problems of his own; he's bogged down trying to track down five potential Magids to take on as a student after the death of his own mentor Stan. After spending days looking for one infuriating potential Maree Mallory, he's fed up, and tangles with the fatelines of the other four to bring them to the Babylon hotel in Wantchester to participate in a Science Fiction Convention. Needless to say, when these two plot lines collide, chaos of every kind explodes across the pages.

Told in first-person narrative through either Rupurt or Maree, Wynne Jones gives us her usual, but always welcome components found in practically all of her books. Her heroes are always a delight; there are never any charming, attractive, innately 'good' figures here, our protagonists are a short-tempered, harried man whose career choice could translate basically in a magical govenment official, and a dumpy, half-blind, gloomy university student. The two of them bounce wonderfully off each other, and their wry, matter-of-fact, (and sometimes melodramatic) views on the world are blissfully refreshing.

In typical Diana Wynne Jones fashion she treats the fantasy world as nothing out of the ordinary, which can often be quite confusing for first time readers of her style, and it is sometimes her downfall that she jumps straight into the story with little or no background - readers have to pick up the pieces of the story as they go along, and in this case the beginning few chapters are a bit sluggish. It does not get *really* interesting until the convention, and all the previous talk on the Empire and Rupert's computer hacking slows down the pace considerably.

I've never actually been to a convention of any kind, much less a science-fiction one, so I can only assume that her parady on names, activities and confusion that takes place there is dead on the button. What struck me more deeply was her digs at some 'professional' writers who see books as machines - you know, those authors that chug out book after book without any imagination or creativity, and without any real differences in their publications.

To a point, it sometimes felt as if Wynne Jones herself had unknowingly fallen into this trap. As a long-time reader of her work, I couldn't help but feel as if I'd read this book before. All her usual strategies (parallel worlds, magical manipulation, etc) were in place, and did anyone who's read her most famous works - the 'Chrestomanci' series for kids - pick up a certain resemblance between the Magids and the Chrestomanci? Perhaps she was betting on the fact that her new adult readers haven't read these particular books, but the two are very similar in occupation, in which they use magical means to keep the world in line. *And* I was very surprised in her revelation concerning who the Emperer's main successor to the Koryfos throne was - simply because it was so predictable! 'The missing heir to the throne' plot device is something she herself has mocked in her 'Tough Guide to Fantasyland' parady on the fantasy genre, and yet she actually uses it here!

But all in all, a fun, entertaining read; certainly not her best work, and not entirely different from many of her children's books (expect with a few more adult jokes, and a massacre that certainly *doesn't* fit in with the light-hearted story she was previously telling), but anyone who is a fan of hers should be satisfied. Have the sequel "The Merlin Conspiracy" close by.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read!
Review: I actually first purchased the book for my daughter . . . but found myself engrossed in it! Excellent characters and plot line. Very enjoyable for those who are into sci-fi/fantasy.

Rating:
Summary: Got even better with the second read.
Review: I love all DWJ books, and this one was just as good. In fact, I liked it even more the second time I read it, and the third...and I'll probably re-read it again after a while.

The thing about this book (and others by the same author) is the more times you read it, the more you get from it. Interesting little details pop out at you, making you revel in the author's cleverness.

All of the characters have great, unique personalities that make you feel as if you could recognize them if they came walking down the street towards you--even the bad guys!

And of course, there are the funny bits, the haunting bits, the clever bits and so on. Every part of the book is worth reading. And worth owning. So that you can re-read it a thousand times, like me.

Rating:
Summary: Light Reading
Review: I saw the cover of this book and read the back and instantly bought it. I thought it would be the perfect book for me. It wasn't. It was written well and I really liked it at first but then I couldn't wait until I finished it and could start another book. In the begining of the book the two sibling characters are all new to this whole world of mages and centaurs. Then after a while they began to help the journoir mage help find a missing king in another world.
At first it seemed good. But then towards the end you find out that . . . (Sorry if I gave anything away). Now that would've been alright if it were talking about the kids in the second person. But they were all in the first person. . . . And the back of the book is entirely misleading. It says that . . . Don't read this book. If you need some good books to read, don't read this. E-mail me and I'll tell you some good book ideas. Read Artemis Fowl or Pendragon or His Dark Materials Trilogy or the Deptford Mice Trilogy or anything.... thank you for your patience.

Rating:
Summary: Light Reading
Review: I was in England when I saw this book. I normally like Diana Wynne Jones books, so i picked this one up. I read the back, and knew I wanted it, so i bought it and spent the next few hours reading it. It was pretty good!

I'd recomend this book for light reading. It is full of wit and humor and is overall very enjoyable. It was fast going, and even my younger brother liked it.

I'm giving this book 5 stars for light reading, but if you are looking for something intellectual or something that will require any thinking at all, i do not recomend this book, but i think that in all of the other circomstanses this book is good. By the way, the english paperback cover is better.

Rating:
Summary: Another treasure from DWJ
Review: If you liked The Merlin Conspiracy, you'll like this! In fact, if you haven't read The Merlin Conspiracy yet but it's on your list, I highly recommend you tear through this first. Nick Mallory is introduced in this book, which takes place a year prior to The Merlin Conspiracy.
But although Nick plays a key role, this book is (mostly) about Rupert Venables. Rupert is a magid, which is a wizard that travels through the universe making sure everything goes as its supposed to on orders from "Them Up There". Rupert is a magid to parts of Earth as well as the Korfyros Empire.
Now don't get thrown in the beginning when quite a few people die. I should add not to get thrown later on in Chapter 16 when more people do too.
One of the people who die is Stan, Rupert's mentor, who "stays behind" awhile longer in order to advise Rupert on sponsering a new magid.
Finding a new magid, and the sudden assinasion of the Korfyros emporer, who's heir is nearly impossible to find, although it's something he's been asked to do, is hard enough on anyone. But in order to decide who he's going to sponser as a magid, he must have his 5 canidates all meet at a hotel in which a Fantasy/Sci-Fi convention is occuring. And someone is trying to kill off the heirs when they ARE found. PLUS most of his canidates are either completely insane or completely annoying. And he despises the fifth one, Maree Mallory. Or does he?
We also hear a bit from Maree. Nick finishes the book up, but mostly we see the story from Rupert's point of view.
This is a wonderful book and leaves you wishing there was more as you turn the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Why oh why isn't Wynne Jones as famous as JK Rowling?
Review: Or, for that matter, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, etc. ad infinitum? She is certainly in their league, having already written four of the best YA books ever: Hexwood, Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air, and Fire and Hemlock. She's a damn genius, wildly clever and funny, and a deep, unsentimental romantic to boot. And Deep Secret is one of her best: a hilarious send-up of science fiction cons and a wonderful tale of Magids who "tend" worlds throughout the universe. Rupert Venables, her male protagonist, is everything a slavering Anglophile could ever want: diffident, self-conscious, witty, by turns outraged and cowed -- he's wonderful. And her female protagonists aren't cookie-cutter hotties, either. Like the resourceful but dumpy Ann in Hexwood, DS's heroine Maree is insufferable, untidy, shrewd, brave and totally endearing. DWJ's novels are like a tonic -- they come out of left field, are totally delightful and they make you feel, for at least a day or so, that there is some order in the universe.

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Diana Wynne Jones
Review: Rupert Venables is Earth's junior Magid, responsible for the gentle and secret use of magic to make things better on Earth. He's also responsible for a group of worlds known as the Koryfonic Empire, where his role is a bit more public. Almost simultaneously, another Earth Magid dies (and Rupert must select his replacement) and the Empire is thrown into chaos by the assassination of the Emperor--and the heir cannot be found.

It falls to Rupert to straighten all this out, and he influences the likely replacements to meet at a science fiction convention. I should add that Jones' depiction of a SF convention and its inhabitants is the best I've read, with the possible exception of "Bimbos of the Death Sun". The rather straightlaced Rupert is at a bit of a disadvantage, but soon rallies.

This is far from a comedy, though. Rupert makes mistakes. Others pay with their lives for the mistakes, and Rupert is guilt-stricken. As she is wont to do (see the attempted poisoning of the stepfather in The Ogre Downstairs for an example), Jones ignores the conventions as to who should live or die in a book--and she does it to good effect, as the deaths are necessary to the plot.

This is an intricately painted novel. You could almost believe that there were Magids, and an Empire, and a mystical place called Babylon.

A number of chapters are told from the point of view of Maree Mallory, one of the candidates to be the replacement Magid. She and Rupert start off hating each other--and well, you know the rest. A final chapter is told from the perspective of a third character, and fills us in on events during the course of the novel that Rupert had no opportunity to witness.

The book is slow-starting, and it can take a new reader a number of pages to figure out what is going on. The first "Maree" chapter adds to the confusion a bit, since we do not know of her yet. However, the book quickly takes off.

Another original masterpiece by Jones. How can she be so overlooked and Rowling so admired? The fluff of the Harry Potter books is far worse than the solid, fascinating works that Jones turns out.

Rating:
Summary: Infectious and Absorbing Alternate Worlds Fantasy
Review: Seldom recently have I simply enjoyed reading a book as much as I enjoyed Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret. Jones employs a mixture of engaging characters, interesting fantasy concepts, and a light touch with serious undertones, to create a novel that is infectious and absorbing.

Right from the beginning we know something is up, as narrator Rupert Venables is called away to the Koryfonic Empire, to give his stamp of approval as a Magid to a legal preceding there. Koryfonic Empire? Magid? We are told that the Multiverse consists of worlds arranged in a sort of infinity figure, with one half (including Earth), negative magically (this is the Naywards half). These worlds tend not to believe in magic, and magic is harder to do there. The other (Ayewards) half are positive magically, and creatures such as centaurs can exist there. The Koryfonic Empire is somehow very important, and it occupies the exact middle of the infinity sign. And Magids are some variety of wizard, with the duty to subtly influence events on whatever worlds they are responsible for in the appropriate direction. Rupert is Earth's junior Magid, and he is fresh from helping out in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, when he gets sent to the Empire.

This is a bit of a complicated setup, but it's not really necessary to worry about it too much. Rupert is soon engaged in two succession problems. His mentor has died, and he must select a new Magid from among several human candidates. In addition, the Koryfonic Emperor is assassinated, and he has to try to track down the proper heir: a process complicated by the previous Emperor's paranoia, which caused him to hide away his heirs so they wouldn't try to take over before their time. An alternate narrative path starts to follow Maree Mallory, one of the Magid candidates (which ought to be a clue to any reader).

The action converges at a Science Fiction convention. Much of the action is superficially light in tone, including some funny bits involving the difficulty of navigating the hotel's corridors, which reminded me of stories of real world conventions. But at the same time the concerns are deadly serious, and Jones doesn't cheat us there: real mistakes are made, people are really hurt and killed. So it's not just a light-hearted romp, and though it's often funny, Deep Secret is not a comedy.

What it is, is a thoroughly involving book. Jones is one of those natural storytellers: her books compel reading. The characters are real, and very likable. The plot is exciting, and resolved logically. The magical system is lightly sketched, but what we see is interesting and well drawn. The resolution is largely what we expect, but it also involves satisfying surprises. This book kept me up late at night reading, and made we eager for each chance to read another chapter. It's not perfect: the overall setup, though interesting, is a bit strained, and a bit too lightly sketched, which for me reduced the immediacy of some of the events. And structurally there is a slight burp: the book ends, more or less, and then there is an odd sort of coda, which really fills us in on an event from the earlier of the book that we had missed. But Jones finds a way to round up that coda nicely, without causing a muffled end to things. And I came away from this book a satisfied customer. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: YA Edition - beware
Review: This edition has a gorgeous cover by Charles Vess, but - alas -
the text has been edited for a YA audience. Our hero Rupert is
no longer referred to by his brothers as scatalogically as in
the unexpurgated text... but the deaths mentioned by another
reviewer remain just as graphic. Weird editing decisions... why
cut a rude word and leave the really scary stuff? There are some
other minor fixes. This isn't nearly as disastrous as the Really
Bad Edition of DWJ's _The Ogre Downstairs_, but I was
disappointed to find alterations in what is a marvellous story.