Year of the Griffin
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- ¥470
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- ¥470
発行者による作品情報
A hilarious fantasy sequel to The Dark Lord of Derkholm, set at the University after the ‘fantasy world’ tours have stopped, and centred around 6 students (one a Griffin) and the bumbling new University Head Wizard. From the ‘Godmother of Fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones.
The Year of the Griffin is the sequel to the Dark Lord of Derkholm, set in the same world several years after the abolition of commercial ‘fantasy world’ tourism from our world.
The University now aims to produce competent wizards to repair the damage caused by the tours. It’s broke, and out of date in terms of what it teaches. The new head, Wizard Corkoran, is obsessed with becoming the first man to visit the moon so is mostly preoccupied, and the new faculty is mostly inexperienced.
Wizard Corkoran has selected children from wealthy families to fill his own first-year classes, hoping to beg for money. But his students turn out to be more than he expected in oh-so-many ways, and despite the incompetence of their teacher, it falls to them to save the university… and themselves…
Reviews
For Diana Wynne Jones:
“…Her hallmarks include laugh-aloud humour, plenty of magic and imaginative array of alternate worlds. Yet, at the same time, a great seriousness is present in all of her novels, a sense of urgency that links Jones’s most outrageous plots to her readers’ hopes and fears…”
Publishers Weekly
“Truly magical – guaranteed to leave you gasping – even hotter than Potter”
The Bookseller
For The Merlin Conspiracy:
“The characterisation is first rate, the ideas are fabulous … This is fantasy at its most inventive – canny, funny and far-reaching.” The Telegraph
“A curiosity shop of a book … a pleasure to lose yourself in.” The Sunday Times
“The Merlin Conspiracy is Wynne Jones on top form … [her] powerful narrative and her ability to create extraordinary charachers with real emotions make her more than a worthy rival to J K Rowling.” Financial Times
“A must for all Wynne Jones fans, past, present and future.” Limited Edition
About the author
Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) spent her childhood in Essex and began writing fantasy novels for children in the 1970s. With her unique combination of magic, humour and imagination, she enthralled generations of children and adults with her work. She won the Guardian Award in 1977 with Charmed Life, was runner-up for the Children's Book Award in 1981 and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Infused with all manner of enchantments, this boisterous spoof of the campus novel reads like a cross between David Lodge and a particularly buoyant incarnation of J.R.R. Tolkien. Standards at the Wizards' University have fallen grievously in recent years: under the leadership of Wizard Corkoran (a charismatic slacker preoccupied with dreams of moon travel), the school's main goals seem to be to enrich its coffers and graduate classes of mediocre bureaucrats. Into this unpromising situation bounds first-year student Elda, griffin daughter of the powerful Wizard Derk (the eccentric breeder of flying pigs, winged horses, etc., previously seen in Jones's Dark Lord of Derkholm). Elda becomes fast friends with other new students, among them a rebel dwarf, a penniless crown prince, the Emperor's jinxed half-sister and two youths who must hide their true identities. A newly kindled passion for the great works of magical literature and a shared struggle against such foes as a tyrannical professor and a band of trained assassins deepen the bonds of the students' friendship. One exuberantly inventive adventure follows the next all the way to the pleasing conclusion, in which matches are made, secrets revealed and numerous loose ends tied up. Great fun. Ages 10-up.
