I know later he’s going to be all “We were hoping you would trust us.”

Having just finished Lives of Christopher Chant wherein he himself had to deal with a less-than-helpful mentor, I’m wondering why/how he expects his own behavior to lead to any good results in this case.

I’m not used to being cross with Chrestomanci!

A Sudden Wild Magic is one of those books that it took me a lot of tries to start enjoying. It’s one of the few books she wrote that’s clearly for grown-ups, but somehow it’s still a good bit sillier than a lot of her books for kids. I mean that she’s being deliberately a bit silly, where she’s often more serious in her books for younger people. It’s rather like Deep Secret – or at least, when I finally came to like it, it was the time I read it straight away after reading Deep Secret.

I know what you mean. The books that were like a cymbal-crash to read the first time are the ones that often stick with me most, even when I can see that other books may be technically better. The Homeward Bounders may be one of my favorites too, now you mention it – always makes me cry!

Hard. It’s a matter of the ones I got the most excited about the first time I read them, and the ones I think the most about now, and say, “wow, that was a good book.” The first-read memories get mixed up with the lingering ones. I’ll say Homeward Bounders, Charmed Life, Lives of Christopher Chant, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Cart and Cwidder (very first DWJ I read), if pressed. I didn’t like the two newer Dalemark books as well as the older two.

Okay, see, I know the Archer’s Goon parents do some useful things, so useless isn’t a good adjective. But they aren’t very good parents! Quentin is totally irresponsible – who stops paying taxes?? – and Catriona leans far too heavily on Howard to take care of Awful. I hate it when she tells him that he’s the one she relies on because she can’t depend on Quentin. They’re better than the average, certainly. DWJ apparently had fairly uninterested parents that wouldn’t give them any books, so there’s certainly a good explanation for why she writes parents this way.

What didn’t you like about Conrad’s Fate? I thought it was so great to see Christopher at a halfway point between his young self and his scary grown-up self. Plus, I liked all the stuff about how to be a servant. The magic part of the plotline wasn’t as good as some of DWJ’s other books, but I thought the rest of the book was strong enough that it didn’t bother me. Merlin Conspiracy is not a favorite of mine. I like the elephant though!

Haha, I love arguing the relative merits of Diana Wynne Jones’s books too!

I suppose it was just that I never knew what to expect, but I still developed expectations going in. I loved Castle in the Air the first time though! Abdullah was so sweet!

Moril is from the Dalemark Quartet – far from my favorites. I’m going to read them again anyway, just because it’s been a while, but they’re definitely not her best effort. The Dark Lord of Derkholm, on the other hand, is great. Took me several tries but I thoroughly love it now (and the sequel).