A very tentative schedule for Fridays in 2018

Support me with a Patreon monthly subscription! — 11 Sep, 2017

16 comments

This is a work in progress. Open to suggestions. In 2015 and 2016, I devoted Fridays to Norton and Lee, respectively. That led to a certain level of fatigue towards the end of the projects. In 2017, I focused on authors from Waterloo Region, which side-stepped the fatigue issue at the cost of causing problems with the gender ratio of authors reviewed¹. In 2018, my idea is to

Focus on four primary authors, three women and one man: Dianna Wynne Jones, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Carrie Vaughn. A rotating roster avoids fatigue and with women outnumbering men three to one, I shouldn’t have the same problem maintaining my desired women to men ratio. Some months have five Fridays; I could just let the authors cycle on a four week rotation anyway but I think I will use this to review the slowly accumulating pile of Expanse novels I own. I might review two of them this year so by the end of 2018 I will be caught up.

I am open to suggestions as to which Joneses to review.

1: There is no shortage of review sites that focus on men.

Month	Date	Author	Title
January	5	Jones
	12	Tchaikovsky	Empire in Black and Gold
	19	Bujold	Shards of Honor
	26	Vaughn	Kitty Goes to Washington
February	2	Jones
	9	Tchaikovsky	Dragonfly Falling
	16	Bujold	Barrayar
	23	Vaughn	Kitty Takes a Holiday
March	2	Jones
	9	Tchaikovsky	Blood of the Mantis
	16	Bujold	The Warrior’s Apprentice
	23	Vaughn	Kitty and the Silver Bullet
	30	Corey	Caliban’s War
April	6	Jones
	13	Tchaikovsky	Salute the Dark
	20	Bujold	The Vor Game
	27	Vaughn	Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand
May	4	Jones
	11	Tchaikovsky	The Scarab Path
	18	Bujold	Cetaganda
	25	Vaughn	Kitty Raises Hell
June	1	Jones
	8	Tchaikovsky	The Sea Watch
	15	Bujold	Mirror Dance
	22	Vaughn	Kitty’s House of Horrors
	29	Corey	Abbadon’s Gate
July	6	Jones
	13	Tchaikovsky	Heirs of the Blade
	20	Bujold	Memory
	27	Vaughn	Kitty Goes to War
August	3	Jones
	10	Tchaikovsky	The Air War
	17	Bujold	Komarr
	24	Vaughn	Kitty’s Big Trouble
	31	Corey	Cibola Burn
September	7	Jones
	14	Tchaikovsky	War Master’s Gate
	21	Bujold	A Civil Campaign
	28	Vaughn	Kitty’s Greatest Hits
October	5	Jones
	12	Tchaikovsky	Seal of the Worm
	19	Bujold	Diplomatic Immunity
	26	Vaughn	Kitty Steals the Show
November	2	Jones
	9	Tchaikovsky	The Tiger and the Wolf
	16	Bujold	Captain Vorpatil’s Alliance
	23	Vaughn	Kitty Rocks the House
	30	Corey	Nemesis Games
December	7	Jones
	14	Tchaikovsky	The Bear and the Serpent
	21	Bujold	Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
	28	Vaughn	Kitty In the Underworld

Comments

Elusis

Howl's Moving Castle, certainly (with or without its sequels?) Archer's Goon, Tough Guide to Fantasyland, A Tale of Time City, and what's the one basically set at a Con?

OmegaElusis

Deep Secret. Contains several not so thinly veiled portraits of British fen.

Jonesnori

Deep Secret, The Dark Lord of Derkholm and maybe its sequel Year of the Griffin, all or some of the Chrestomanci series (Charmed Life et seq), Howl's Moving Castle et seq, maybe the Dalemark Quartet, maybe The Merlin Conspiracy. The first four sets listed are the ones I reread periodically.

Madscientistnz

Howl's Moving Castle, Deep Secret, Dark Lord of Derkholm and any of the Chrestomanci series. Would be very interested to see your review of Fire and Hemlock. I always feel like I am missing important nuances when I read this, and it's not that DWJ is a poor writer, but that I am not clever enough or knowledgable enough to pick them up. Also like Archer's Goon, Black Maria/Aunt Maria, Hexwood, Dogsbody and The Time of the Ghost.

Meredith

Deep Secret Dogsbody The Time of the Ghost Hexwood Witch Week The Lives of Christopher Chant Charmed Life Dalemark Quartet Dark Lord of Derkholm Howl's Moving Castle Castle in the Air Eight Days of Luke

Shem

Definitely Howl's Moving Castle and Archer's Goon. I'd like to see A Tough Guide to Fantasyland as well.

Lenora Rose

Howl's Moving Castle Charmed Life OR the Lives of Christopher Chant (The two plausible first books of the Chrestomanci series - Charmed life was written first and Lives of... happens first) Dogsbody Hexwood The Homeward Bounders Fire and Hemlock (tends towards an older audience than most of hers) Deep Secret (the fandom one) The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
Dark Lord of Derkholm (Which is set in the Fantasyland of the guide) Archer's Goon

So far I've suggested essentially the first book of most series, excluding Dalemark (And there's two open spots), and a set of the standalones that cover her range both for ages and emotions (plus both SF and F). There's a lot of her other books I like and would suggest you read, but this was meant to cover the broadest set for review.

Dana ALenora Rose

Homeward Bounders and Hexwood for sure. They are two of her most science fiction type books. Also two of my favorites

Xtifr

My top choice would appear to be a bit of a dark horse: A Sudden, Wild Magic. Like Fire and Hemlock, it's aimed at a slightly older audience than most of her work, but I think it's got a bit more meat on its bones. (Though both are good.)

Beyond that, I'd second:

Howl's Moving Castle Archer's Goon Dark Lord of Derkholm Dogsbody Deep Secret The Homeword Bounders Charmed Life OR the Lives of Christopher Chant (see Lenora Rose's post above)

(I'm actually kinda meh on the Chrestomancy books, but they're important and significant to her body of work, so at least one almost has to be here.)

CHip

Definitely Fire and Hemlock; probably her most ambitious work, and IIRC the only one that strongly binds to a specific traditional story (while bending to her purposes much more than Pamela Dean did).

I'm also partial to Eight Days of Luke and Archer's Goon for sheer fun, __Deep Secret_ for the tangle and references, and A Tale of Time City and Conrad's Fate, good stories in which she nails the ending (which she was often weak on).

Marisa

My top picks for DWJ would be Hexwood, Fire and Hemlock, Deep Secret, The Homeward Bounders, Eight Days of Luke, The Power of Three, Dark Lord of Derkholm, Charmed Life and Howl's Moving Castle.

Chomiji

I believe DWJ's books are best read approximately in publication order because she did improve over time. You've also already blogged two of my favorites, The Homeward Bounders and Archer's Goon.

Dogsbody - 1975 The Time of the Ghost - 1981 Witch Week - 1982 Fire and Hemlock - 1985 Howl's Moving Castle - 1986 The Lives of Christopher Chant - 1988 Deep Secret - 1997 Hexwood - 1993 (which I actually dislike, but so many people I respect like it a lot) The Tough Guide to Fantasyland - 1996

Weatherglass

Deep Secret, Hexwood, Archer's Goon, Howl's Moving Castle. I'm also partial to The Ogre Downstairs, which I don't think I've seen mentioned yet. It's not one of her absolute best, but it's one that I remember delighting me by how much better it was than I expected from the cover blurb.

Farah

Ha, you are going to have real difficulty narrowing Jones down. But I recommend Time of the Ghost, Fire and Hemlock, Archer's Goon, Dalemark (see above) and Witch Week. Try not to get bogged down in the Chrestomanci sequence. (also, and apologies for the heavy hint; my own book is now on kindle at a not too horrendous price: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diana-Wynne-Jones-Fantastic-Literature-ebook/dp/B00FDR4DCG/ref=sr_1_4_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1505299058&sr=8-4&keywords=farah mendlesohn)

Katie

Seconding the following: Hexwood Archer's Goon Dark Lord of Derkholm The Homeward Bounders Witch Week Howl's Moving Castle Dalemark-- all 4 would be best to see how they fit together, but if not, maybe Spellcoats Maybe Deep Secret and The Merlin Conspiracy Maybe Lives of Christopher Chant

Janet

I love the recs above and almost everything Jones wrote. Very much looking forward to your reviews! Most reviews and academic analyses (including my thesis, ha!) focus on the Howl's Moving Castle books or the Chrestomanci series, and there's relatively little on Jones's short story collections, or chapterbook/novella Wild Robert. It'd be lovely to see more written on the Dalemark Quartet, which takes (relatively) seriously some of the principles DWJ emphasizes through parody in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and Year of the Griffin. I don't know if anyone has yet examined Deep Secret and The Merlin Conspiracy together (they're very loosely connected and written years apart), and Hexwood is one of my favourites. But really, you could write about any of DWJ's stories and I would be delighted :) I second Farah's mention of her own book - it really is excellent. Catherine Butler devoted a quarter of her examination of four British fantasists to DWJ as well, also a good read.