books 2008: The Merlin Conspiracy, by Diana Wynne Jones

[supercheesegirl]

I read this all day while I was at jury duty yesterday. It was really enjoyable while I was reading, but after I finished it, I had some issues.

First of all, is there some other earlier book about Nick Mallory? Because, okay, having signed papers stating he wouldn't try to claim the emperor's throne, that's kind of one heck of a back story.

Mostly, though, I was just really disappointed by the ending. Everything turned out okay, in a big climactic scene involving every character and plot thread introduced so far and a few that hadn't been, just like in every one of her books. But the time travel thread felt weak to me. The priestmaster kids set a poisonous thing onto Nick, which starts him into this story, where he meets up with and pisses off the priestmaster kids as boys, and they later grow up to hatch the whole conspiracy. So Nick is the one inadvertently time traveling? Or the priestmaster world is just ten years behind everybody else just on principle?

Also, the last few pages of the book were meh. Yes, they're in character for a book that is supposedly written by two adolescents to tell about the events after they happened, but not really in character at all for a Diana Wynne Jones novel. The whole "Well, Roddy's ride is here, guess I'll go visit my dad and make sure he's okay before I wander out of his life"? So anticlimactic. Very flat. I turned the page and was like, that's it?

There was some really good stuff in this book, but I just didn't love it. Kind of dark. I mean, Roddy's relationship with Grundo is never going to be the same. Grundo's mom got, what, eaten by Roddy's grandpa, who just happens to be the lord of the dead. Nick got tortured, that's fun. And everybody's all right now, and all's well that ends well, but still. I don't know, I keep saying I'm going to stop reading Wynne Jones for a while, but then I keep not doing that. Argh.

Comments

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

Looks like perhaps this is the beginning of the series?

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

That's the idea I was picking up from the comments on goodreads. Would have been nice if it had maybe SAID THAT ON THE JACKET FLAP. Sigh. This book stood alone pretty well, but I think I might have connected better to Nick and liked it more if I'd had his backstory.