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Rating: 
Summary: The Good, the Bad and the Undying
Review: A young dissident flees his home town in an earldom downtrodden by a harsh ruler and his martial forces, and winds up trying to survive at sea with the grand niece and nephew of that very Earl. And then, the mysterious Undying take a hand and you realize that nothing is as it seemed. There are more things at stake than were clear at first. Out of all her fantastic books, this one is my all-time favorite. Mitt, the hero, is in a situation of such inner and outer difficulty and truly walks the lonely knife edge between right and wrong. And all the while, he is so familiar and likeable that you feel you have been friends for years. I respect this author so much for not being treacly or saccharin, but still being so compassionate and wise. She never falls for a stereotype & fully promotes the good mystery in life. What is not to love? I always wished there was a Mitt to really meet. If only all authors kept such high standards!
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Summary: This is Jones' best and most heart-felt book to date.
Review: Drowned Ammet is, for my money, Jones' best novel of all. Mitt is an engrossing hero, and the gritty sense of reality that runs through the book makes his flaws tolerable, and his heroism all the more admirable. A stunner.
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Summary: Stuck at sea...
Review: For years, Mitt has been waiting and waiting for the day when he would finally carry out his plan of revenge upon three men who informed on Canden, a kind Free Holander, which is a person who is against Earl Hadd of Holand. But when all of his years of careful planning, smuggling gunpowder, and his mother sewing him a disguise all go down the drain, and someone else kills the earl, Mitt doesn't get his chance at revenge. Instead he is running for his life. When he finds himself stuck on a pleasure boat out for some sailing, among his enemies, he doesn't know what to do. So he does the only thing he can think of: put them both at gunpoint and force them to cooperate. Then it's off to the North for all three of them. Soon the three youngsters encounter gods, terrible enemies, a horrible storm, and a surprising growing friendship between them all. They must all realize that they'll have to trust each other if they ever want to come out of this adventure alive. This book was a wonderful installation in the Dalemark Quartet. I recommend this book for fans of Cart and Cwidder, which is the first book in this quartet, and fans of Diana Wynne Jones and great fantasy books and series.
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Summary: This is Jones' best and most heart-felt book to date.
Review: I read Drowned Ammet when I was 14. I found it strange because it deals with a society that doesn't exist, but in a realistic way - not the jokes and silly stuff you find in a lot of fantasy. Just like in the real world, you think you know what the place/people are about, then you learn you were mistaken, and have to think twice about who you trust. It's more of a mystery than anything else, about two ancient gods, and why the town believe in them. Diana Wynne Jones is my favourite children's author of all time, and this book really pulls at your emotions when you finish it. Stick with it until the end - there are lots of surprises. this is a book for kids who want to find out, to see through tricks, to think about something new.
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Summary: Drowned Ammet is worth the effort
Review: I read Drowned Ammet when I was 14. I found it strange because it deals with a society that doesn't exist, but in a realistic way - not the jokes and silly stuff you find in a lot of fantasy. Just like in the real world, you think you know what the place/people are about, then you learn you were mistaken, and have to think twice about who you trust. It's more of a mystery than anything else, about two ancient gods, and why the town believe in them. Diana Wynne Jones is my favourite children's author of all time, and this book really pulls at your emotions when you finish it. Stick with it until the end - there are lots of surprises. this is a book for kids who want to find out, to see through tricks, to think about something new.
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Summary: drowned ammet reveiw
Review: I think that drowned ammet is a great book because...
Of all the excitment, suprises and mystery.
I also love the way you have a few people's lives then they meet up and it's just the one.I would love to read more books like this.P.S I love the other books in series.
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Summary: the drowned ammet
Review: i was looking in the teenage section in my local library looking for the diary of anne frank after being told it was there by the computer. I was looking for a book of similar width and this book caught my eye, which when i looked, only one person had read since it had been bought so i got it not particarly thinking i'd like but you don't judge a book by it's cover. I began reading this book and after the first page i considered putting it down and taking it back-i'm glad i didn't. The fantasy story is brilliant and i thoroughly enjoyed it. The quiet mitt with the "common as muck" name starts his life in the country and is forced to move to the city as the evil and ruthless earl of holand rises the taxes and they end with no money at all. Mitt is troubled at his first years in holand by the children who picked on him. Then his father dies and he wants to get back at the people who's fault it is. he decides from there on that it was to be his lifes meaning, to back at the free hollanders. His mission finally comes when he is older approxiametly 14 (this is uncertain as the author never says how old mitt is, a downfall) it goes tragically wrong but he goes on the run and an amazing chain of events follows. the ending is very open and there is a need at the end to read the next book.
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Summary: 2nd in Dalemark Series
Review: This book, the second in the Dalemark Quartet, seemed a little weaker than the other three. It was much better than many books I have read, though, and I recommend it. Mitt lives in Southern Dalemark, in an earldom run by a mean guy. His father is betrayed, and Mitt dedicates his time and talents to get his revenge. Very good, as all Diana Wynne Jones' books are!
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Summary: The plots thicken and the magic deepens
Review: Unlike the standard fantasy series, in which each volume follows the continuing adventures of a single cast of characters - a series of tunes played on the same set of instruments - this one really is designed as a "quartet". Each of the first three books is all but independent of the rest, told in its own distinct voice. They interlock, but in subtle ways - through common geography, family names that link with the long history of Dalemark and its peculiar "gods". Diana Wynne Jones always provides the pleasure of well-told, formula-busting stories. In her Quartet, she also provides the pleasure of watching an intricate pattern unfold behind the stories. In this second volume, we meet at last the main character of the series, Mitt, raised in poverty under the grinding heel of the despotic Earls of South Dalemark, grown up too soon, and recruited early to the dangers and exhilarations of a revolutionary underground in the seaport of Holand. The plots and counterplots he's embroiled in come to a head at the port's spring festival, when all the nobles must take part in a grand procession to the sea, carrying the festival effigies of Drowned Ammet and Libby Beer to be cast into the harbor. No one remembers why the ritual has to be performed, but no one dares to alter the tradition. Well, Drowned Ammet may remember. And perhaps that's why everyone's best laid plans start going queer... Family drama, peril on the high seas, ancient magics awakened - there's a lot of action packed into these pages. Young adults will love it, and Ms. Jones proves once again to her crossover adult audience that YA doesn't *always* stand for Yawns Assured. Just for rousing storytelling, I give volumes 1 and 3 four and a half stars, volumes 2 and 4 four stars. But the Quartet is more than the sum of its parts, and the series as a whole merits five.
Rating:
Summary: Fine continuation to the Dalemark Quartet
Review: _Drowned Ammet_ is the second in Diana Wynne Jones' _Dalemark Quartet_. It is set roughly contemporaneously with the first book, _Cart and Cwidder_. In this book we meet Alhammitt, or Mitt, a poor boy from the far southern town of Holand, who becomes somewhat radicalized when his father and mother are thrown out of their farm for capricious reasons by the tax collector for the evil Earl Hadd. Later his father's involvement with the Free Holanders goes terribly wrong, leaving Mitt and his feckless mother alone. Mitt grows up a sailor and later a gunsmith's apprentice, and plots to gain revenge on both the Free Holanders (for betraying his father) and on Earl Hadd (for pretty much everything) by killing the Earl and implicating the Free Holanders. But this plot too goes terribly wrong, and Mitt ends up on a yacht with the two of the Earl's grandchildren, heading for the North. I liked this book quite a bit -- Jones' puts her characters (Mitt and the two noble children) under great stress -- not just physical danger but she pushes them to see their own severe personal faults, and this works very well. The fantastical elements, involving the mysterious godlike figures of Ammet and Libby Beer, are very nicely evoked. The political situation is also well described and realistic. The plot is well resolved, albeit with a bit of convenience, maybe with a bit more magical help than I like, and with a plot twist that even though I saw it coming, I could hardly believe she had the effrontery to exercise. (And I thought it just a shade unfair.) All told, though, a very nice book, and coupled with the first clearly part of a series, but reasonably well contained too.
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