Magid Series: Diana Wynne Jones

A few years ago my cousin Colleen and I had what is commonly referred to (or maybe not so much) as book battles. The battles took on many forms, who could read a book faster? How many books could each of us read in a week? We finally ran out of things of our own to read and began meeting at family function with huge bags of books to let the other borrow. This is how I read my first Diana Wynne Jones novel.

'Deep Secrets' is about a man named Rupert who is a Magid by profession. I get the impressions they're like magical guidance counselors. Rupert lives and works in our world, but he is also responsible for the Koryfonic Empire, which sounds like a nice musical place but it actually just awful. The empire is located in a separate dimension, which as I read more of Ms. Jones novels seems to be a recurring theme.

During the course of this book we also get to know Maree, and by association her younger cousin Nick. Which is good because Nick is one of the stars of the sequel, 'The Merlin Conspiracy'.

In 'Deep Secrets' Nick is a spoiled but good hearted teenager, in 'The Merlin Conspiracy', he's still pretty spoiled and bratty but he genuinely seems to be trying to do better. I always liked him as a character in the first book, even at his most lazy, I mean people are just boring without their flaws. But it's the oddest sensation to read the second book, about a fictional characters life, and feel a sense of pride for their efforts.

Anyway without spoiling the plot for anyone I'll name out of sequence a few of the reasons you should read these books.

• A Science Fiction convention
• Quack Chicks
• Interspecies relationships
• A talking circus elephant
  
• A centaur named Rob
• The Luck Dance

So yes, go read and tell me what you think!