Dark Lord of Derkholm: Readalong!

By -
The cover of my paperback copy
Our MarchMagics DWJ readalong selection was Dark Lord of Derkholm, a send-up of all the tropes that got so worn out in sword-and-sorcery fantasy novels.  DWJ pokes merciless fun at the whole genre, but it's not all comedy; there's more than enough moral complexity and emotional weight to ground the novel and make it much more than a simple spoof.

Over forty years ago, the inhabitants of the world entered a contract to host tourist parties from another universe.  The tourists go on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord, led by a wizard tour guide, accompanied by a bard, and attacked by leathery-winged avians in the time-honored manner.  In the final battle, the heavily-outnumbered Forces of Good defeat the massed Forces of Evil, after which the tourists confront the Dark Lord in his lair and defeat him before heading home.

Well, the tours are wrecking the world and the situation is desperate.  In an attempt to escape from the demon-enforced contract, the head tourist committee assigns Wizard Derk to the job of being Dark Lord.  Derk has always stayed away from the tours and spends his time creating interesting new creatures.  His six children are five griffins and two humans, who all pitch in to help (with varying degrees of enthusiasm).  As the chaos piles up, Derk's family starts to figure out that there is even more at stake than they thought.

What do you think of the way DWJ skewers tropes? Is there one of these that is your favorite?

I am particularly fond of the animals.  There are winged horses!--who are a huge pain.  Pigs actually do fly--and get in everyone's way.

I also love how the bards are always striking poses and the wizard have to have long beards no matter how old (or young) they are.

Which of Derk's experimental animals would you like most to have one of?

Hm, I want either a winged talking horse or a griffin friend.  I don't need any extra-intelligent but mean geese, but I do love the carnivorous sheep.  They are my favorite.

One of the common complaints about DWJ stories is that the endings are a bit too fast and furious. Did you feel that way with this story? Did all of your questions get answered?


 It takes forever for Kit to come back!  I get really impatient for that by the end.  I love the wrap-up, where the gods all appear.  My questions do not all get answered, but I happen to like that about DWJ's books.  And the sequel, The Year of the Griffin, helps a lot with that.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 27, 2016 at 8:44 AM

    I also did not feel that Mara was nearly upset enough about Kit, when she thought he was dead. The spell Querida put on her was only making her not care about Derk (as far as I could tell), so WHAT IS UP, Diana Wynne Jones.

    I am tempted by the brilliant, mean geese. I feel we would get along.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kristen M.March 27, 2016 at 11:16 PM

    I agree about Jenny's Mara point. I did love how Derk reacted to Kit though. I felt that a lot of the emotions seemed quite real in this story. And I am sure I'll reread Year of the Griffin shortly because it's the only way that I feel satisfied after finishing this one!

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanMarch 28, 2016 at 7:13 PM

    I agree with you both about Mara; I'd kind of assumed that it was the spell, but you're right, it shouldn't work like that.

    And yep, I had to read Year of the Griffin right afterwards!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more