books 2005: Castle in the Air, by Diana Wynne Jones

[supercheesegirl]

Heather lent me this, thank goodness. I really liked it, a lot. It was interesting how this book says on the cover that it's a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, but it's not, really. More of an intersection. It's not another story about Howl and Sophie and co., it's a story about Abdullah and some djinn, and Howl and Sophie just happen to get caught up in it by virtue of being in the same world and Howl being a wizard. It was kind of interesting to read it, since I was wondering for the first few chapters when we were going to run into Howl and have him take over. Then I started being interested to see what would happen to Abdullah. I ended up really liking his character. The whole thing wound up awfully neatly, almost too neatly, as if the author got most of the way through the book and then said, oh wait I forgot, this was supposed to be a sequel so I'd better write bigger parts for these characters! I kind of want to read it through again, knowing that the carpet is really Calcifer and the genie is really Howl and the cat is really Sophie. I guess what I didn't like was that it was billed as a sequel, but it wasn't really a sequel since it was actually Abdullah's story, but if it was actually Abdullah's story then why were all the characters from the first book the final focal point? Why couldn't the magic carpet just be a magic carpet? I did really like the book, though.

Comments

[birdmaddgirl.livejournal.com]

it's a very disorienting "sequel" ... it's a good thing i like the way diana wynne jones writes or i'd probably have been pissed off by the end of it.

abdullah was interesting to me because he's an anti-sophie. he wants to trust in fate and go along for the ride. i guess there had to be some more take-charge characters at some point. poor justin, he's always getting into trouble that results in not looking like himself.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Heh. Hopefully Beatrice can settle him down and keep him being Justin. :)