Saturday, December 8, 2007

Book Review: Conrad's Fate

[Cc'ed the blog.]

Well, I just finished reading Conrad's Fate, and I liked it quite a bit. The "villain" (to the extent that Diana Wynne Jones has villains) is totally nutbar, and so the plot doesn't make much sense, but 1.) there are nutty people in real life, and 2.) mostly it's a character book. It's nice to hear from Christopher and Millie again, and to get some perspective on how their relationship works later on in Charmed Life. I do wonder whether Millie has to call him Chrestomanci in private now too--does name-magic require that it function as his exclusive name as well as his title? Probably not, because Gabriel de Witt seems to have used his birth name--but it's fun to hear her say what she thinks of Christopher. Some of the plot involving the Walker didn't make sense to me either, and the final plot twist was resolved rather abruptly, but I liked Conrad and I especially liked his outsider perspective on Christopher. I give the book four out of five stars for Chrestomanci fans, three for new readers.

P.S. I think I know what's wrong with security mechanism on this blog. Unfortunately it's not fixable, so I'm disabling security.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

1 comment:

Shosho said...

I agree with your name magic theory. Didn't Millie call Christopher by his real name? I think there's an event in Stealer of Souls when Millie called Christopher by his name in front of the children.