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Hexwood
When Controller Borasus receives a strange letter from Earth he is both curious and alarmed. Someone has activated an ancient machine and is using it for most trivial purposes. Surely no one would dare to tamper with Reigner seals in this way? Yet the effects of such interference resonate throughout the universe, so he decides to go to Hexwood Farm to investigate…
On Hexwood Estate, Ann watches the mysterious comings and goings with interest. She knows something deadly is going on – or is Hexwood simply altering her too?
On Hexwood Estate, Ann watches the mysterious comings and goings with interest. She knows something deadly is going on – or is Hexwood simply altering her too?
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Diana Wynne Jones
121 books11k followersDiana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, in York, and back in London. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an educational conference centre. There, Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong, the literary critic) and Ursula (later an actress and a children's writer) spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. After attending the Friends School Saffron Walden, she studied English at St Anne's College in Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien before graduating in 1956. In the same year she married John Burrow, a scholar of medieval literature, with whom she had three sons, Richard, Michael and Colin. After a brief period in London, in 1957 the couple returned to Oxford, where they stayed until moving to Bristol in 1976.
According to her autobiography, Jones decided she was an atheist when she was a child.
Jones started writing during the mid-1960s "mostly to keep my sanity", when the youngest of her three children was about two years old and the family lived in a house owned by an Oxford college. Beside the children, she felt harried by the crises of adults in the household: a sick husband, a mother-in-law, a sister, and a friend with daughter. Her first book was a novel for adults published by Macmillan in 1970, entitled Changeover. It originated as the British Empire was divesting colonies; she recalled in 2004 that it had "seemed like every month, we would hear that yet another small island or tiny country had been granted independence."Changeover is set in a fictional African colony during transition, and begins as a memo about the problem of how to "mark changeover" ceremonially is misunderstood to be about the threat of a terrorist named Mark Changeover. It is a farce with a large cast of characters, featuring government, police, and army bureaucracies; sex, politics, and news. In 1965, when Rhodesia declared independence unilaterally (one of the last colonies and not tiny), "I felt as if the book were coming true as I wrote it."
Jones' books range from amusing slapstick situations to sharp social observation (Changeover is both), to witty parody of literary forms. Foremost amongst the latter are The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, and its fictional companion-pieces Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000), which provide a merciless (though not unaffectionate) critique of formulaic sword-and-sorcery epics.
The Harry Potter books are frequently compared to the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Many of her earlier children's books were out of print in recent years, but have now been re-issued for the young audience whose interest in fantasy and reading was spurred by Harry Potter.
Jones' works are also compared to those of Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman. She was friends with both McKinley and Gaiman, and Jones and Gaiman are fans of each other's work; she dedicated her 1993 novel Hexwood to him after something he said in conversation inspired a key part of the plot. Gaiman had already dedicated his 1991 four-part comic book mini-series The Books of Magic to "four witches", of whom Jones was one.
For Charmed Life, the first Chrestomanci novel, Jones won the 1978 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award by The Guardian newspaper that is judged by a panel of children's writers. Three times she was a commended runner-up[a] for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book: for Dogsbody (1975), Charmed Life (1977), and the fourth Chrestomanci book The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988). She won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, children's section, in 1996 for The Crown of Dalemark.
According to her autobiography, Jones decided she was an atheist when she was a child.
Jones started writing during the mid-1960s "mostly to keep my sanity", when the youngest of her three children was about two years old and the family lived in a house owned by an Oxford college. Beside the children, she felt harried by the crises of adults in the household: a sick husband, a mother-in-law, a sister, and a friend with daughter. Her first book was a novel for adults published by Macmillan in 1970, entitled Changeover. It originated as the British Empire was divesting colonies; she recalled in 2004 that it had "seemed like every month, we would hear that yet another small island or tiny country had been granted independence."Changeover is set in a fictional African colony during transition, and begins as a memo about the problem of how to "mark changeover" ceremonially is misunderstood to be about the threat of a terrorist named Mark Changeover. It is a farce with a large cast of characters, featuring government, police, and army bureaucracies; sex, politics, and news. In 1965, when Rhodesia declared independence unilaterally (one of the last colonies and not tiny), "I felt as if the book were coming true as I wrote it."
Jones' books range from amusing slapstick situations to sharp social observation (Changeover is both), to witty parody of literary forms. Foremost amongst the latter are The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, and its fictional companion-pieces Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000), which provide a merciless (though not unaffectionate) critique of formulaic sword-and-sorcery epics.
The Harry Potter books are frequently compared to the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Many of her earlier children's books were out of print in recent years, but have now been re-issued for the young audience whose interest in fantasy and reading was spurred by Harry Potter.
Jones' works are also compared to those of Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman. She was friends with both McKinley and Gaiman, and Jones and Gaiman are fans of each other's work; she dedicated her 1993 novel Hexwood to him after something he said in conversation inspired a key part of the plot. Gaiman had already dedicated his 1991 four-part comic book mini-series The Books of Magic to "four witches", of whom Jones was one.
For Charmed Life, the first Chrestomanci novel, Jones won the 1978 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award by The Guardian newspaper that is judged by a panel of children's writers. Three times she was a commended runner-up[a] for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book: for Dogsbody (1975), Charmed Life (1977), and the fourth Chrestomanci book The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988). She won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, children's section, in 1996 for The Crown of Dalemark.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 353 reviews
September 29, 2020
“Hexwood” by Diana Wynne Jones. Is marketed as a children’s book. I would argue that point.Ms Jones was Born: August 16, 1934, in London, United Kingdom, she Died: March 26, 2011, in Bristol, U.K. She was an an author who produced a book a year for forty years.
This copy of the book was published October 1993 as a UK Hardback by Methuen.
The story concerned A vast intergalactic government/corporation that relies on selling flint from Earth, which is used in interplanetary transportation. Earth has a galactic monopoly on flint, but we don’t know that.
The Earth represented is a fairly close approximation to the one we live in. The corporation is governed by a group of five Reigners, who are so far from most of the workers that they are more mythic than real.
There is an assassin called The Servant who takes care of any problems for them; he is their public face. The current Reigners are corrupt and excessively involved with consolidating their already extensive power.
On Earth, the corporation is called Rayner Hexwood International; the Earth installation has the two goals of exporting as much flint as possible as cheaply as possible and preventing the local population from discovering the existence of life offplanet. There is also a secretive underground file storage facility, sometimes called a library, sometimes Hexwood Farm. The library houses The Bannus, a reality simulator that helps people make decisions. was designed to create a reality that would run people through several different versions of a situation so that they could choose the best way to act. This Bannus was programmed to choose Reigners.
Reigner One didn’t want to lose his position, so he sealed it up and hid it where he thought no one would ever find it. He did the same to his two most dangerous enemies. A thousand years later The Bannus is pissed, and manipulates a computer hacker into breaking the seals and turning it on. The dupe wanted to do some live role-playing with hobbits on a Grail Quest,
but instead he got angry alien technology with mind control. It sucks in all the people around it and convinces them they’re living in this Camelot-style environment; as the book goes on, it sucks in more and more people, and the situation gets increasingly complex. But none of these people know they’re in a simulation, only the hacker does.
Life before plumbing was rather more difficult than he anticipated. But hackerboy isn’t the protagonist; he’s just a pawn who thinks that he’s more central than he is.
The local village is early-1990s contemporary British. Ann is a regular girl with a familiarly obtuse family. She hears voices in her head and discovers a magical medieval world in the woods at the edge of the village. She accepts her reality as the real one, but can’t convince her friends in the woods around the castle that their reality isn’t real. Given time, Ann figures out that neither is real. She’s not a girl; she’s a grown woman who accompanied the Reigners to Earth to try to defuse the situation. The goal is to find and shut down The Bannus; it’s hard because it keeps convincing people they’re knights or ladies-in-waiting or shopkeepers. And if a sentient computer can alter reality, what would it make itself look like? Would it really become a Grail? The Bannus’s goal is to draw in the Reigners and kill them.
Hexwood Farm is a place where nothing can be taken for granted. It is full of machines that should not be tampered with.
This copy of the book was published October 1993 as a UK Hardback by Methuen.
The story concerned A vast intergalactic government/corporation that relies on selling flint from Earth, which is used in interplanetary transportation. Earth has a galactic monopoly on flint, but we don’t know that.
The Earth represented is a fairly close approximation to the one we live in. The corporation is governed by a group of five Reigners, who are so far from most of the workers that they are more mythic than real.
There is an assassin called The Servant who takes care of any problems for them; he is their public face. The current Reigners are corrupt and excessively involved with consolidating their already extensive power.
On Earth, the corporation is called Rayner Hexwood International; the Earth installation has the two goals of exporting as much flint as possible as cheaply as possible and preventing the local population from discovering the existence of life offplanet. There is also a secretive underground file storage facility, sometimes called a library, sometimes Hexwood Farm. The library houses The Bannus, a reality simulator that helps people make decisions. was designed to create a reality that would run people through several different versions of a situation so that they could choose the best way to act. This Bannus was programmed to choose Reigners.
Reigner One didn’t want to lose his position, so he sealed it up and hid it where he thought no one would ever find it. He did the same to his two most dangerous enemies. A thousand years later The Bannus is pissed, and manipulates a computer hacker into breaking the seals and turning it on. The dupe wanted to do some live role-playing with hobbits on a Grail Quest,
but instead he got angry alien technology with mind control. It sucks in all the people around it and convinces them they’re living in this Camelot-style environment; as the book goes on, it sucks in more and more people, and the situation gets increasingly complex. But none of these people know they’re in a simulation, only the hacker does.
Life before plumbing was rather more difficult than he anticipated. But hackerboy isn’t the protagonist; he’s just a pawn who thinks that he’s more central than he is.
The local village is early-1990s contemporary British. Ann is a regular girl with a familiarly obtuse family. She hears voices in her head and discovers a magical medieval world in the woods at the edge of the village. She accepts her reality as the real one, but can’t convince her friends in the woods around the castle that their reality isn’t real. Given time, Ann figures out that neither is real. She’s not a girl; she’s a grown woman who accompanied the Reigners to Earth to try to defuse the situation. The goal is to find and shut down The Bannus; it’s hard because it keeps convincing people they’re knights or ladies-in-waiting or shopkeepers. And if a sentient computer can alter reality, what would it make itself look like? Would it really become a Grail? The Bannus’s goal is to draw in the Reigners and kill them.
Hexwood Farm is a place where nothing can be taken for granted. It is full of machines that should not be tampered with.
June 3, 2022
Una novela muy original por la mezcla de escenarios, que incluye desde portales espaciales a bosques mágicos, y su trama, compleja y a veces un poco confusa.
Me han gustado los personajes y su desarrollo, hay desde personajes que pertenecen a los mitos artúricos, a robots, dragones o corporaciones galácticas. En fin, una locura con un desenlace que todos estos han llevado a buen puerto.
Ha sido una lectura agradable, pero podría haberme fascinado, y no.
3,5⭐
Me han gustado los personajes y su desarrollo, hay desde personajes que pertenecen a los mitos artúricos, a robots, dragones o corporaciones galácticas. En fin, una locura con un desenlace que todos estos han llevado a buen puerto.
Ha sido una lectura agradable, pero podría haberme fascinado, y no.
3,5⭐
March 28, 2019
Reread March 2019
SO delightful rereading this now that I knew what actually happened! XD It's brilliant on a reread! I love it! AND MORDION.
First read April 2017
An ordinary modern-day British girl (kind of), named Ann, stumbles into an epic fantasy world (…sort of), and meets a pigeon-hole-defying, spoiler-drenched man named Mordion, and a boy named Hume (maybe).
There are also robots. And dragons.
There’s also an inter-galactic sci-fi mess going on, some Arthurian legends sprinkled around the edges in totally unexpected ways, and oh, yeah, the entire thing is out of order in a time-bending confusing labyrinth of plot-twists.
Nobody is who they seem (or rather, they may be somebody else… or several somebody elses. I literally kept a list/diagram while I was reading).
FEATURING:
+ Dragons
+ Robots
+ King Arthur and Merlin (sort of)
+ Time which is… fluid, shall we say, and more complicated than Doctor Who
+ A tragic brainwashed assassin to rival Bucky Barnes (he’s got nothing on this guy)
+ A complex plot-within-plot that makes my head hurt and kind of makes Inception’s layers look like a children’s cartoon
+ Several hundred plot twists
+ An unexpected romance
+ One of my new favorite characters of ever (not sure how I feel about this)
+ Weirdest book I’ve ever read
+ Has more genres mashed in it than I’ve ever seen in a single book (Contemporary/Fantasy/Sci-fi/Time/Arthurian/Romance/YA/Adult/DWJ)
+ Darker than most DWJ books (except Deep Secret)
+ One of my top five-or-ten DWJ books (despite the darkness/weirdness… don’t hold it against me; I’m surprised at me too)
+ First new-to-me DWJ book since my How to Read Diana Wynne Jones blog posts; it lined up with pretty much everything, x100000
+ I need to reread it now, please and thank you
Don’t read this as your first DWJ, and if you do read it, know you’re getting into an insanely complex, inter-genre, rather dark story, for which reason I only recommend it to older teens/adults. If I recommend it at all. I loved it to bits but have a feeling that it’s far too weird to recommend to anyone at all. I literally can’t predict who would/wouldn’t like this. You’ll either a) love it a ridiculous amount (*raises hand*), b) hate it, or c) not understand it at all. I have a feeling there’s no middle ground.
Anyone who has read it: TALK TO ME! I need somebody who understands my confused feels about this book.
If you need me, I’ll be in a corner with my mind blown, contemplating re-reading this book so that I can understand it, and generally having a massive book hangover. Because how am I going to find anything to read, after this mindbending confusing thing, that will not feel like bland cardboard? HELP. *collapses* (I’m hoping Stephen Lawhead’s The Fatal Tree might help me with this… *reaches for bookshelf*)
Favorite quote:
[Review originally posted on The Page Dreamer: https://thepagedreamer.wordpress.com/...]
SO delightful rereading this now that I knew what actually happened! XD It's brilliant on a reread! I love it! AND MORDION.
First read April 2017
An ordinary modern-day British girl (kind of), named Ann, stumbles into an epic fantasy world (…sort of), and meets a pigeon-hole-defying, spoiler-drenched man named Mordion, and a boy named Hume (maybe).
There are also robots. And dragons.
There’s also an inter-galactic sci-fi mess going on, some Arthurian legends sprinkled around the edges in totally unexpected ways, and oh, yeah, the entire thing is out of order in a time-bending confusing labyrinth of plot-twists.
Nobody is who they seem (or rather, they may be somebody else… or several somebody elses. I literally kept a list/diagram while I was reading).
FEATURING:
+ Dragons
+ Robots
+ King Arthur and Merlin (sort of)
+ Time which is… fluid, shall we say, and more complicated than Doctor Who
+ A tragic brainwashed assassin to rival Bucky Barnes (he’s got nothing on this guy)
+ A complex plot-within-plot that makes my head hurt and kind of makes Inception’s layers look like a children’s cartoon
+ Several hundred plot twists
+ An unexpected romance
+ One of my new favorite characters of ever (not sure how I feel about this)
+ Weirdest book I’ve ever read
+ Has more genres mashed in it than I’ve ever seen in a single book (Contemporary/Fantasy/Sci-fi/Time/Arthurian/Romance/YA/Adult/DWJ)
+ Darker than most DWJ books (except Deep Secret)
+ One of my top five-or-ten DWJ books (despite the darkness/weirdness… don’t hold it against me; I’m surprised at me too)
+ First new-to-me DWJ book since my How to Read Diana Wynne Jones blog posts; it lined up with pretty much everything, x100000
+ I need to reread it now, please and thank you
Don’t read this as your first DWJ, and if you do read it, know you’re getting into an insanely complex, inter-genre, rather dark story, for which reason I only recommend it to older teens/adults. If I recommend it at all. I loved it to bits but have a feeling that it’s far too weird to recommend to anyone at all. I literally can’t predict who would/wouldn’t like this. You’ll either a) love it a ridiculous amount (*raises hand*), b) hate it, or c) not understand it at all. I have a feeling there’s no middle ground.
Anyone who has read it: TALK TO ME! I need somebody who understands my confused feels about this book.
If you need me, I’ll be in a corner with my mind blown, contemplating re-reading this book so that I can understand it, and generally having a massive book hangover. Because how am I going to find anything to read, after this mindbending confusing thing, that will not feel like bland cardboard? HELP. *collapses* (I’m hoping Stephen Lawhead’s The Fatal Tree might help me with this… *reaches for bookshelf*)
Favorite quote:
“Can’t you treat yourself with a bit more consideration?”
“Why should I?” Mordion said, hugging the duvet round himself.
“Because you’re a person, of course!” Ann snapped at him. “One person ought to treat another person properly even if the person’s himself!”
“What a strange idea!” Mordion said.
[Review originally posted on The Page Dreamer: https://thepagedreamer.wordpress.com/...]
July 22, 2008
I can normally handle DWJ's intricate plots, even the ones with time travel. But this one still makes my head hurt (in a good way.) The twist catches you almost totally by surprise, even when you can see something is coming, and multi-threaded story fits together perfectly if you take the time to step back and look at it carefully.
I can't think of many novels that attempt something this complex, let alone ones classed as "young adult". The fact that the story and characters are also highly engaging pushes this into my top list.
I can't think of many novels that attempt something this complex, let alone ones classed as "young adult". The fact that the story and characters are also highly engaging pushes this into my top list.
November 6, 2015
As an unabashed fan, I kind of love being gobsmacked by Diana Wynne Jones's labyrinthine plots that hang together solely by her ability to concisely create worlds strangely logical and magical and fiercely true characters while hilariously eschewing your expectations.
I think this is Diana Wynne Jones's most confusing novel, and by that fact alone, gains a great fondness in my evaluation of it. This is the story of Hexwood Farm, where the Bannus, a dangerous probability machine, has been mistakenly turned on to create a fantasy football team. This is the story of Ann Stavely, a 12 year old girl who lives by Hexwood Farm and keeps noticing strange people disappearing into the woods. This is a story of the corrupted intergalactic "Reigners" who have a stranglehold on the universe, threatened only by the power of the Bannus.
Any further attempt to explain the plot is likely to be more confusing than enlightening. All the events are out of order, everything both is and isn't what it seems, and through it all, yet... The humor of the moment shines. Each narrative "layer" of the story is by itself a compelling and holds together surprisingly well through the power of the character arcs- and it still makes sense at the genius/typical slapdash ending (without neglecting the themes of power and possiblity).
Is it for everyone? Maybe not. But for the rest of us, I'll continue savoring the sweet bliss of having to immediately flip to the first page again after the last page, for a go for catching all the plot twists the second time around. (Really, I don't think the plot could come from any other writer, it's so essential DWJ genre-mashing. Dragons! Italy-esque intergalactic trading houses! Yamaha robot! Bureaucracy! Romance! Knights! Grocers! Wardrobe humor! Fantasy soccer!) Rating: 4.5/5 stars (Reread 1/04/2010)
I think this is Diana Wynne Jones's most confusing novel, and by that fact alone, gains a great fondness in my evaluation of it. This is the story of Hexwood Farm, where the Bannus, a dangerous probability machine, has been mistakenly turned on to create a fantasy football team. This is the story of Ann Stavely, a 12 year old girl who lives by Hexwood Farm and keeps noticing strange people disappearing into the woods. This is a story of the corrupted intergalactic "Reigners" who have a stranglehold on the universe, threatened only by the power of the Bannus.
Any further attempt to explain the plot is likely to be more confusing than enlightening. All the events are out of order, everything both is and isn't what it seems, and through it all, yet... The humor of the moment shines. Each narrative "layer" of the story is by itself a compelling and holds together surprisingly well through the power of the character arcs- and it still makes sense at the genius/typical slapdash ending (without neglecting the themes of power and possiblity).
Is it for everyone? Maybe not. But for the rest of us, I'll continue savoring the sweet bliss of having to immediately flip to the first page again after the last page, for a go for catching all the plot twists the second time around. (Really, I don't think the plot could come from any other writer, it's so essential DWJ genre-mashing. Dragons! Italy-esque intergalactic trading houses! Yamaha robot! Bureaucracy! Romance! Knights! Grocers! Wardrobe humor! Fantasy soccer!) Rating: 4.5/5 stars (Reread 1/04/2010)
January 27, 2024
3.5 stars - For my enjoyment, I would say 3 stars. For my nostalgia for this kind of writing and world building, I would say 4 stars, so let's split the difference
January 26, 2024
Still trying to decide how I feel about Hexwood. Parts of it were painfully boring, but the ideas and how it comes together at the end are more interesting. But also I'm unclear who this is for? It starts out reading almost middle grade, but then gets much more mature. Some elements read like YA, some like adult. It's kind of a weird little book that blends sci-fi and fantasy in a twisting story, but its quite creative. That said, I struggled to get through the middle because it was so dull and repetitive. I think I kind of liked it?
December 20, 2015
Strange, complicated, and carefully written. There are several moments in this book where I discovered that I was not reading the book that I thought I was reading, and each time I was surprised and, once I adjusted, delighted. But definitely strange.
December 23, 2020
Diana Wynne Jones writes the books I try to write, but she does it a hundred times better, and she did it in 1993. Sigh. Robots, time loops, unreliable narrators, closed environments, space, memory loss - this has got the whole caboolde. So good.
January 15, 2022
on re-read it lives up to its previous place as an all time favourite read and THEN some. also it's been so long since i could read for fun that i'd forgotten a LOT of things and had the joy of figuring out things again as if it was the first time.
enchanted all over again
enchanted all over again
May 26, 2011
There's so much going on in Hexwood that I don't even know how to begin reviewing it. It surprised me, several times, without making such leaps that I couldn't see how it got there. It's a complex book, jumping around in time a lot, and with lots of cases of mistaken identity (including people mistaking their own identities). It took me a while to put it all together, but despite that it was also an engaging read, and also not too much of a long one (according to my log, it took me three hours total, five reading sessions -- and two of those were at a concert where I was quite distracted). So it's impressive how much of it there is.
To my eyes, the main source is the Arthurian mythos: the court, the Grail quest, the Fisher King, Morgan Le Fay by any other name, Arthur, Merlin... There's other stuff too, including Beowulf, but it's fascinating what Diana Wynne Jones did with the material that's so familiar to me.
The basic story is that an old machine intended to select the right rulers of the universe, the Reigners, is turned on again. The current Reigner One cheated, and since then has wrongfully held power. The machine lures people into its field so it can finally fulfil its intended purpose, and continues to run scenarios until it has things the way it wants it.
I found the characters interesting, and guessing who they really were was also fun. I was wrong several times, and right once or twice, and totally missed one or two more. I got to love them quite a bit, especially Mordion, and I actually think they were probably better fleshed out and their connections better explored than, say, Howl and Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle. While I love that book, this satisfied more.
To my eyes, the main source is the Arthurian mythos: the court, the Grail quest, the Fisher King, Morgan Le Fay by any other name, Arthur, Merlin... There's other stuff too, including Beowulf, but it's fascinating what Diana Wynne Jones did with the material that's so familiar to me.
The basic story is that an old machine intended to select the right rulers of the universe, the Reigners, is turned on again. The current Reigner One cheated, and since then has wrongfully held power. The machine lures people into its field so it can finally fulfil its intended purpose, and continues to run scenarios until it has things the way it wants it.
I found the characters interesting, and guessing who they really were was also fun. I was wrong several times, and right once or twice, and totally missed one or two more. I got to love them quite a bit, especially Mordion, and I actually think they were probably better fleshed out and their connections better explored than, say, Howl and Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle. While I love that book, this satisfied more.
Read
January 17, 2022Still my favorite DWJ novel! <3
January 27, 2024
Like… this kind of like Winnie the Pooh/ The Wizard of Oz / Hitchhiker’s Guide maybe a mutant baby who was also somehow Merlin?
May 16, 2015
I'm pretty sure I wrote somewhere on this site that the interesting thing about fantasy was the way the author set up a new system of rules to the real world and seeing how they chose to play out their scenarios in this new system. Well, that can be interesting, but a large part of what makes Diana Wynne Jones interesting is the way she sets up a system of rules that is so vague that she can pretty much do anything she wants. It's a fact that I've read my traditional favourite of hers, Fire and Hemlock, at least ten times and never once have I understood the ending. Her characters' ability to do magic seems to depend more on their individual psychology than on any coherent idea of how magic actually works in her worlds.
What you get when you read Diana Wynne Jones is a whole lot of the same. And yet it's so good that I keep coming back to it. I love her.
Also read 14.5.15-16.5.15
What you get when you read Diana Wynne Jones is a whole lot of the same. And yet it's so good that I keep coming back to it. I love her.
Also read 14.5.15-16.5.15
December 4, 2017
2,5 "It was ok" y un poquito más
A ver, vaya por delante que no quiero restarle méritos porque realmente la historia es original y muy bien pensada. Mezcla viajes en el tiempo, portales espaciales, robots y caballeros, damiselas y dragones, pero a mí me ha resultado intrincada y complicada con lo que me ha resultado pesada en ocasiones, se me ha hecho un pelín larga y me he dispersado mucho durante su lectura.
No he acabado de conectar con la historia ni con los personajes (que son muy monos todos) pero no… y me sabe muy mal porque tenía muchas ganas de leer el libro.
A ver, vaya por delante que no quiero restarle méritos porque realmente la historia es original y muy bien pensada. Mezcla viajes en el tiempo, portales espaciales, robots y caballeros, damiselas y dragones, pero a mí me ha resultado intrincada y complicada con lo que me ha resultado pesada en ocasiones, se me ha hecho un pelín larga y me he dispersado mucho durante su lectura.
No he acabado de conectar con la historia ni con los personajes (que son muy monos todos) pero no… y me sabe muy mal porque tenía muchas ganas de leer el libro.
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December 17, 2019Toliko je napakovano u ovu knjižicu 🤯
February 12, 2024
This book is not for everyone, that much is certain.
A wild mix of fantasy and whimsical scifi, it reads a bit like Doctor Who, or Umbrella Academy, but more chaotic and without any character or group of characters that you can latch onto throughout the chaos.
I think this book is quite brilliant, and I think a reread - knowing what is going on this time around - would be very rewarding. But, this is not a flavor for everyone. If you like zany British television and humor, I'd say give it a go, but be prepared to be bewildered.
A wild mix of fantasy and whimsical scifi, it reads a bit like Doctor Who, or Umbrella Academy, but more chaotic and without any character or group of characters that you can latch onto throughout the chaos.
I think this book is quite brilliant, and I think a reread - knowing what is going on this time around - would be very rewarding. But, this is not a flavor for everyone. If you like zany British television and humor, I'd say give it a go, but be prepared to be bewildered.
Read
December 23, 2014This book is a master class in time travelly confusion - and also a very cool story. There are a couple of negative points (Jones' use of fat as a bad person trait, and a wince-worthy conversation with a Japanese person) but otherwise thoroughly enjoyable.
January 19, 2019
This book is a difficult one to review because it is such a highwire act which on the whole succeeds. Superficially it is more science fictional than most of DWJ's work but some of the elements - such as dragons and the role playing virtual reality which dominates the book - steer its feel towards fantasy. The story opens when an alert comes into an area controller that an emergency has occurred on a backwater planet called Earth. It seems that a machine stored there, called the Bannus, has been switched on by an interfering library clerk and has begun creating virtual reality scenarios which have sucked in various personnel. It soon becomes clear that aliens have been a presence on Earth for centuries - which was populated by criminal or political prisoners - and that they have secretly been exporting flint, as only Earth flint is of the right quality for use in the instantaneous transport links on which the galactic corporation depends. That corporation is dominated by five individuals called Reigners who have artificially extended their lives and who have engineered things so that they exercise tyranny over the rest of the galactic community. A few brave souls in the rival families hope to one day overthrow them but are having to play a long game.
Meanwhile, a 12 year old Earth girl called Anne, daughter of greengrocers, lives near the gates of a derelict farm called Hexwood - except the farm is actually the site where the Bannus is stored. She soon becomes drawn into the virtual reality and becomes a key player.
That only gives a basic outline because the story has a multiplicity of characters who interact in different time frames which are presented out of order so that a child is seen older then younger - because of the machine's creating of a field of play. There is also a huge twist partway through when we start to discover that no one is who they appear to be. Other aspects include a pseudo Arthurian set-up complete with Fisher King and Morgan le Fay imposter, dragons, robots, the raising of children ruthlessly to become loyal assassins, power struggles in the past and present between the ruling classes, a form of telepathy where certain people hear voices in their heads to whom they can only give role names such as the Prisoner, the Boy, the King etc, magic enabled by the Bannus and real magic from a wider entity . A couple of minor things that might cause offence are a stereotypical cameo appearance by a Japanese person and a somewhat negative attitude to overweight people.
The ending is not quite as rushed as some of DWJ's more complicated tales, such as Fire and Hemlock but still involves a lot of sorting out of who various characters really are, and certain people getting their just deserts. It has a more satisfying ending than some of the others I've read. Possibly this is one that would benefit from a re-read when you know what is really going on. A solid 3 star read.
Meanwhile, a 12 year old Earth girl called Anne, daughter of greengrocers, lives near the gates of a derelict farm called Hexwood - except the farm is actually the site where the Bannus is stored. She soon becomes drawn into the virtual reality and becomes a key player.
That only gives a basic outline because the story has a multiplicity of characters who interact in different time frames which are presented out of order so that a child is seen older then younger - because of the machine's creating of a field of play. There is also a huge twist partway through when we start to discover that no one is who they appear to be. Other aspects include a pseudo Arthurian set-up complete with Fisher King and Morgan le Fay imposter, dragons, robots, the raising of children ruthlessly to become loyal assassins, power struggles in the past and present between the ruling classes, a form of telepathy where certain people hear voices in their heads to whom they can only give role names such as the Prisoner, the Boy, the King etc, magic enabled by the Bannus and real magic from a wider entity . A couple of minor things that might cause offence are a stereotypical cameo appearance by a Japanese person and a somewhat negative attitude to overweight people.
The ending is not quite as rushed as some of DWJ's more complicated tales, such as Fire and Hemlock but still involves a lot of sorting out of who various characters really are, and certain people getting their just deserts. It has a more satisfying ending than some of the others I've read. Possibly this is one that would benefit from a re-read when you know what is really going on. A solid 3 star read.
February 15, 2016
Ne mogu uopšte da ulazim u to zašto je knjiga toliko dobra bez stravičnih spojlera :(
Mogu da kažem kako je ovo, eto, prava omladinska književnost, ili YA, a ima i složen zaplet i bogatu karakterizaciju i poigravanje pripovedanjem i intertekstualnošću i mitskim i žanrovskim matricama i vrlo ozbiljne-do-mračne teme. A ovamo je još malo pa akciono štivo.
Sa treće strane, Hexwood je vrlo zahtevan roman u pogledu čitalačke koncentracije, naročito u prvoj polovini, nesrećni čitalac se samo batrga među nejasnim naznakama prividnog, pravog i najpravijeg zapleta, lako mi je da zamislim kako neko iole nestrpljiv odustaje :|
Topla preporuka?... uz opomenu da je ova knjiga, kao i npr. Fire and Hemlock, za dva-tri uzrasna nivoa iznad, recimo, Haulovog pokretnog zamka i drugih romana Dajane Vin Džouns koji su kod nas prevođeni. Dakle, ne 10-12+ nego oko 14-15+.
Mogu da kažem kako je ovo, eto, prava omladinska književnost, ili YA, a ima i složen zaplet i bogatu karakterizaciju i poigravanje pripovedanjem i intertekstualnošću i mitskim i žanrovskim matricama i vrlo ozbiljne-do-mračne teme. A ovamo je još malo pa akciono štivo.
Sa treće strane, Hexwood je vrlo zahtevan roman u pogledu čitalačke koncentracije, naročito u prvoj polovini, nesrećni čitalac se samo batrga među nejasnim naznakama prividnog, pravog i najpravijeg zapleta, lako mi je da zamislim kako neko iole nestrpljiv odustaje :|
Topla preporuka?... uz opomenu da je ova knjiga, kao i npr. Fire and Hemlock, za dva-tri uzrasna nivoa iznad, recimo, Haulovog pokretnog zamka i drugih romana Dajane Vin Džouns koji su kod nas prevođeni. Dakle, ne 10-12+ nego oko 14-15+.
September 22, 2018
“Wonderful things did exist. Even if they're only in my own mind.”
Ann hears voices in her head. She was never sure whether they are her imaginings or whether these voices do indeed exist, but they always give her sound advice. Down the road lies the old Hexwood Farm where admission is prohibited - everyone knows that! Yet Ann notices an array of strange visitors entering the farm and never return. Curiosity draws her to investigate, but once in the wood, she finds her voices are no longer there and time and place in Hexwood seem to change at random intervals.
Diana Wynne Jones has written quite an amount of books, and I can't comprehend why Hexwood does not rank among the most read. It is such a wonderfully complex and interwoven story that stretches across a wide board of genres. I love stories where the narrative seems to jump back and forth between different timelines. Here we have Ann from a perfectly ordinary contemporary setting, a troop of knights and medieval characters who may or may not be related to the Arthurian saga, as well as a futuristic sci-fi cast that has a dystopian undertone to it. Yet even when grouping events into those three parts, nothing in Hexwood is quite what it seems.
Ann is not our only narrative, in fact, her narrative only starts after a couple of chapters have gone by. Among others, we have Mordion the magician of sorts, Yam the robot, and Hume who isn't quite sure whether he is a true human but desperately wants to become a knight. There is also the Reigner organisation which consists of five individuals who control the entire universe. Earth is quite unaware of all this, just as much as Ann is unaware that the farm down the road is a Reigner institute of sorts. A so-called Banus is kept there - a machine that can play out dreams and replay scenes to find the best outcome. With a machine like that, you're bound to get quite the story.
Thanks to the many back and forths and the numerous narrators, I found myself often confused about characters' true identities and how everything would eventually fit together. And I mean that it's confusing in the best way possible. You need to pay attention to every small detail and many events won't make sense until the very last chapter. It also gives the book a great re-readability quality.
And if a dream-machine with Arthurian elements, an enchanted wood, and outer space adventures aren't enough for you, Hexwood is a story that is incredibly funny, adventurous with action-packed scenes, genuinely sad and, unlike many others of Diana Wynne Jones' books, has a great and well rounded ending that does not leave you hanging with many unanswered questions. The characters are genuine and relatable - they are all quite unique and have different motivations and wishes. Hexwood has a new surprise around every other corner and even a sprinkle of romance - in fact, the romance caught me quite off guard and was yet another great twist on top of everything else.
This is such an incredibly well-crafted work that I wish more Diana Wynne Jones fans would read and appreciate. But not just them, anyone who loves complex and interwoven stories can enjoy this work, even more so as it includes so many different genres.
September 10, 2018
Hexwood starts off conventionally enough. Earth is an unwitting backwater in the galaxy when an ancient device activates, and the ruling junta's efforts to stop the problem fail.
Life on Earth continues normally, except for our main character. She observes strange goings on right outside Hexwood Farm (the secret storage facility where this is going on), and gets drawn into the situation, and a rebellion against the cruel leadership of the House of Balance.
And already we've gone off the track, because despite appearances, that isn't entirely true. The rest of the novel slowly goes down a rabbit-hole of increasing awareness of just how much everyone's perceptions are being played with. It would be interesting to try and map out some of what's actually going on, but a lot of it is deliberately obscure, and probably impossible to pinpoint exactly.
Despite the confusing mess that the novel tries to descend into, it's very well written and engaging. I'm kind of disappointed in some revelations near the middle, and while there's a definite case of characters popping out of the woodwork at the end, much of that is actually mentioned earlier. Worth a read, but be prepared for the plot not to be what it seems!
Life on Earth continues normally, except for our main character. She observes strange goings on right outside Hexwood Farm (the secret storage facility where this is going on), and gets drawn into the situation, and a rebellion against the cruel leadership of the House of Balance.
And already we've gone off the track, because despite appearances, that isn't entirely true. The rest of the novel slowly goes down a rabbit-hole of increasing awareness of just how much everyone's perceptions are being played with. It would be interesting to try and map out some of what's actually going on, but a lot of it is deliberately obscure, and probably impossible to pinpoint exactly.
Despite the confusing mess that the novel tries to descend into, it's very well written and engaging. I'm kind of disappointed in some revelations near the middle, and while there's a definite case of characters popping out of the woodwork at the end, much of that is actually mentioned earlier. Worth a read, but be prepared for the plot not to be what it seems!
April 18, 2019
Now, that was unique. I own this book in physical form, which was a good thing, since I spent a lot of time paging back and forth to remind myself of who was who and what was what and when was . . . you get the idea. Tangled, complex, frustrating, intriguing, and ultimately quite satisfying.
If you love Diana Wynne Jones, prepare yourself for a wild ride and go for it. If you're reading an ebook, take copious notes.
Yes, it has a happy romance. Lots of violent death, but nothing graphic. The good guys win, and the bad guys . . . not so much.
I would call this a space-and-time-jumping Arthurian legend (if you squint and tilt your head a little), with a lovable assassin and a likable heroine. It is all over the place, yet I enjoyed it.
If you love Diana Wynne Jones, prepare yourself for a wild ride and go for it. If you're reading an ebook, take copious notes.
Yes, it has a happy romance. Lots of violent death, but nothing graphic. The good guys win, and the bad guys . . . not so much.
I would call this a space-and-time-jumping Arthurian legend (if you squint and tilt your head a little), with a lovable assassin and a likable heroine. It is all over the place, yet I enjoyed it.
September 16, 2015
También quiero una peli Ghibli de ésto, gracias.
February 8, 2023
Howl Movingcastle is the original babygirl, but Mordion Agenos is the original poor meow meow.
April 24, 2021
Here’s another twisty plot from the girl Jones, somewhat similar to wandering around a curiously managed patch of woodland. One thing I have learned about rereading Diana Wynne Jones novels is that, whatever my first impressions were, future revisits will inevitably reveal that I wasn’t paying proper attention the first time around. Or even the second time.
In this fantasy, for example, much is made of the sense of déjà-vu experienced by principal characters, emphasising that this or that memory will always prove more or less elusive the more one tries to examine it. And so it proved with my reread — I kept having to turn back pages to check if and when something familiar seemed to turn up, and not always being successful.
In fact, then, Hexwood appears to be a kind of metaphor or indeed metafiction for the experiences a reader has when visiting the author’s novels for the first or, indeed, the nth time, highly apt then for a fiction which doggedly explores the unreliability of time perception.
To summarise the premise of Hexwood in a few words isn’t easy, but I shall try, using a phrase from the blurb to my edition: “Hexwood is like human memory; it doesn’t reveal its secrets in chronological order.” In this it shares some of the attributes of the woodland in Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood (1984) in which mythic images or mythagos emerge out of wood’s matrix and become substantial, and the mythic past interacts with the quotidian present in unpredictable ways.
At first though we seem to be dropped straight into a science fiction novel rather than a piece of mythic fiction: we meet a Sector Controller of the planet Albion who’s received a message from somebody at Rayner Hexwood Maintenance on Earth warning of a potential problem. He feels he must involve Homeworld, where the power for several inhabited worlds rests with five rulers called Reigners, whose authority is dispensed by a Servant. Our attention then shifts to a boy in a wood, who when confronted by a dragon-like creature has to find a way to counter it. No sooner are we digesting this then our attention is switched to the mundane setting of Hexwood Farm Estate and Ann Stavely, on the cusp of becoming a teenager but stuck at home because of a debilitating virus. Oh, and she hears voices.
These multiple scenarios are all linked to Hexwood, a place which suggests magic in its very name. But as well as hopping around in time the novel introduces us to many named individuals and entities, and pretty soon we realise that many of these have multiple identities. I had to resort to a notebook to keep track of these, very much as one might do with a crime mystery, and became easily distracted with trying to work out the significance of names and functions. For example, it doesn’t take a genius to realise many Arthurian motifs are involved, even Norse mythic types, or that descriptions of ‘pearly’ portals (made of Earth flint) are possible references to Christian mythology. I also suspect that the author has taken ideas from the traditional counting song Green Grow the Rushes, O! but without being literal about the numbers involved.
There are also dark elements here which give a real edge to the storytelling. There’s child abuse, both physical and emotional, and even hints of incest, along with terrible abuse of power. Why such sombre details in what was marketed as a children’s book? I suspect that, not long after Margaret Thatcher’s premiership came to an end but while her party were in power, Jones — like a lot of sensitive individuals who believed in social justice — was aware of how virtual absolute power could corrupt, and how social inequalities were being exacerbated. Also, as in the case with much of her fiction, elements of autobiography doubtless crept in when we remember her own dysfunctional upbringing.
Yet this novel as a whole has the quality of a dream verging on nightmare in which nonsensical connections somehow appear to have a rationale. Early on we are told that Ann’s brother Martin enjoys role-playing games, and this fact gives a clue to the logic pervading the narrative: players have the chance of exploring scenarios, learning from them so as to proceed past dangers to the next level of expertise. We have to be careful though that as readers we’re not being misdirected: at various stages we’re told that a machine called the Bannus merely enacts a series of scenes (much as RPGs), then that it’s a machine for making dreams come true or translating dreams to reality; but, as several clues make very clear, it has functions beyond this which aren’t revealed — if they’re revealed at all — till near the end.
But ultimately, despite all the colourful characters (who really whittle down to some half dozen or so individuals), this novel is about the magic the imagination can create. We seem to have an ancestral fascination with woods, sometimes verging on fear; whether the Teutonic forests of the Grimm fairytales, the tropical jungles where unknown fauna and flora abound, or the tamed coppiced woodland of pastoral countrysides, we dare to explore vicariously, playing hide and seek, peopling them with outlaws, damsels, warriors and mythical creatures, and searching for a structure — whether cottage or castle — to rest awhile.
Just such a place is Hexwood -- just forty miles from London, we're specifically told. As, incidentally, was Thaxted, where the author spent a significant part of her unorthodox childhood. No wonder Hexwood has a distinct if uncomfortable intensity about it, as though Jones was revisiting part of her life through the writing of it.
In this fantasy, for example, much is made of the sense of déjà-vu experienced by principal characters, emphasising that this or that memory will always prove more or less elusive the more one tries to examine it. And so it proved with my reread — I kept having to turn back pages to check if and when something familiar seemed to turn up, and not always being successful.
In fact, then, Hexwood appears to be a kind of metaphor or indeed metafiction for the experiences a reader has when visiting the author’s novels for the first or, indeed, the nth time, highly apt then for a fiction which doggedly explores the unreliability of time perception.
To summarise the premise of Hexwood in a few words isn’t easy, but I shall try, using a phrase from the blurb to my edition: “Hexwood is like human memory; it doesn’t reveal its secrets in chronological order.” In this it shares some of the attributes of the woodland in Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood (1984) in which mythic images or mythagos emerge out of wood’s matrix and become substantial, and the mythic past interacts with the quotidian present in unpredictable ways.
At first though we seem to be dropped straight into a science fiction novel rather than a piece of mythic fiction: we meet a Sector Controller of the planet Albion who’s received a message from somebody at Rayner Hexwood Maintenance on Earth warning of a potential problem. He feels he must involve Homeworld, where the power for several inhabited worlds rests with five rulers called Reigners, whose authority is dispensed by a Servant. Our attention then shifts to a boy in a wood, who when confronted by a dragon-like creature has to find a way to counter it. No sooner are we digesting this then our attention is switched to the mundane setting of Hexwood Farm Estate and Ann Stavely, on the cusp of becoming a teenager but stuck at home because of a debilitating virus. Oh, and she hears voices.
These multiple scenarios are all linked to Hexwood, a place which suggests magic in its very name. But as well as hopping around in time the novel introduces us to many named individuals and entities, and pretty soon we realise that many of these have multiple identities. I had to resort to a notebook to keep track of these, very much as one might do with a crime mystery, and became easily distracted with trying to work out the significance of names and functions. For example, it doesn’t take a genius to realise many Arthurian motifs are involved, even Norse mythic types, or that descriptions of ‘pearly’ portals (made of Earth flint) are possible references to Christian mythology. I also suspect that the author has taken ideas from the traditional counting song Green Grow the Rushes, O! but without being literal about the numbers involved.
There are also dark elements here which give a real edge to the storytelling. There’s child abuse, both physical and emotional, and even hints of incest, along with terrible abuse of power. Why such sombre details in what was marketed as a children’s book? I suspect that, not long after Margaret Thatcher’s premiership came to an end but while her party were in power, Jones — like a lot of sensitive individuals who believed in social justice — was aware of how virtual absolute power could corrupt, and how social inequalities were being exacerbated. Also, as in the case with much of her fiction, elements of autobiography doubtless crept in when we remember her own dysfunctional upbringing.
Yet this novel as a whole has the quality of a dream verging on nightmare in which nonsensical connections somehow appear to have a rationale. Early on we are told that Ann’s brother Martin enjoys role-playing games, and this fact gives a clue to the logic pervading the narrative: players have the chance of exploring scenarios, learning from them so as to proceed past dangers to the next level of expertise. We have to be careful though that as readers we’re not being misdirected: at various stages we’re told that a machine called the Bannus merely enacts a series of scenes (much as RPGs), then that it’s a machine for making dreams come true or translating dreams to reality; but, as several clues make very clear, it has functions beyond this which aren’t revealed — if they’re revealed at all — till near the end.
But ultimately, despite all the colourful characters (who really whittle down to some half dozen or so individuals), this novel is about the magic the imagination can create. We seem to have an ancestral fascination with woods, sometimes verging on fear; whether the Teutonic forests of the Grimm fairytales, the tropical jungles where unknown fauna and flora abound, or the tamed coppiced woodland of pastoral countrysides, we dare to explore vicariously, playing hide and seek, peopling them with outlaws, damsels, warriors and mythical creatures, and searching for a structure — whether cottage or castle — to rest awhile.
Just such a place is Hexwood -- just forty miles from London, we're specifically told. As, incidentally, was Thaxted, where the author spent a significant part of her unorthodox childhood. No wonder Hexwood has a distinct if uncomfortable intensity about it, as though Jones was revisiting part of her life through the writing of it.
September 19, 2009
Woah, this book is trippy!
DWJ is quite ambitious in this one. A Bannus has accidentally been activated at Hexwood Farm. It's a machine that manipulates time and reality in order to act out solutions to a problem, and it co-opts any people that cross into its field.
Because most of our characters are at the mercy of the Bannus, their perception of reality is highly altered. They never know quite what has happened to them, and events occur out of order, especially at first. So, yeah, it's all a bit postmodern, which Jones uses to talk about some important postmodern topics: power, agency, and injustice.
As the controlling element of the plot, the Bannus is an author figure in its little world. So it's quite appropriate that this is one incredibly intertextual novel. First of all, much of the plot is quietly adapted from The Tempest. Not just any version of the Tempest, mind you, but a post-colonial reading of the Tempest overlaid with Forbidden Planet and with a splash of As You Like It for good measure (because As You Like It is after all The Tempest with less plot and more jokes.) Prospero and Ariel/Caliban are everywhere you look, Antonio is Reigner One, Miranda has become young Hume, and the island becomes Hexwood (or the Forbidden Planet Earth, rather interestingly.) I don't imagine Jones expects very many readers to notice the similarities, but she does draw her source material from the best.
There are also explicit references: a somewhat tongue-in-cheek Grail Quest, some Arthur and Beowulf, a couple Hamlet references, and an Alice in Wonderland bit, for those of us keeping track at home. The Bannus, we learn, has had a library at its disposal, so it too uses the best. Basically it gets a big A+ from a English major's standpoint.
From a reader's standpoint, it's also quite a good book. Jones for the most part handles all this wackiness quite deftly. The plot requires a bit of patience at first, but by the end it's a page-turner. Most of the characters are pretty strong and likable, which is impressive because the surreal mechanism of the plot is between us and them all the time, and because we jump around between brains quite a lot in order to keep abreast of what is happening. I did feel, nevertheless, a bit distanced at times from the heart of the novel, because the characters' identities and motivations kept coming into question - Hume especially was perplexing. Then there is the usual Jonesian expanse of elaborate minor b-plot, which was occasionally WTF-ish, although still entertaining.
What did really like was how clear the themes were by the end - it made a really strong statement about the misuse of power and how it affects both disenfranchised individuals and those who try to restore a balance of power.
A strong and ambitious novel!
DWJ is quite ambitious in this one. A Bannus has accidentally been activated at Hexwood Farm. It's a machine that manipulates time and reality in order to act out solutions to a problem, and it co-opts any people that cross into its field.
Because most of our characters are at the mercy of the Bannus, their perception of reality is highly altered. They never know quite what has happened to them, and events occur out of order, especially at first. So, yeah, it's all a bit postmodern, which Jones uses to talk about some important postmodern topics: power, agency, and injustice.
As the controlling element of the plot, the Bannus is an author figure in its little world. So it's quite appropriate that this is one incredibly intertextual novel. First of all, much of the plot is quietly adapted from The Tempest. Not just any version of the Tempest, mind you, but a post-colonial reading of the Tempest overlaid with Forbidden Planet and with a splash of As You Like It for good measure (because As You Like It is after all The Tempest with less plot and more jokes.) Prospero and Ariel/Caliban are everywhere you look, Antonio is Reigner One, Miranda has become young Hume, and the island becomes Hexwood (or the Forbidden Planet Earth, rather interestingly.) I don't imagine Jones expects very many readers to notice the similarities, but she does draw her source material from the best.
There are also explicit references: a somewhat tongue-in-cheek Grail Quest, some Arthur and Beowulf, a couple Hamlet references, and an Alice in Wonderland bit, for those of us keeping track at home. The Bannus, we learn, has had a library at its disposal, so it too uses the best. Basically it gets a big A+ from a English major's standpoint.
From a reader's standpoint, it's also quite a good book. Jones for the most part handles all this wackiness quite deftly. The plot requires a bit of patience at first, but by the end it's a page-turner. Most of the characters are pretty strong and likable, which is impressive because the surreal mechanism of the plot is between us and them all the time, and because we jump around between brains quite a lot in order to keep abreast of what is happening. I did feel, nevertheless, a bit distanced at times from the heart of the novel, because the characters' identities and motivations kept coming into question - Hume especially was perplexing. Then there is the usual Jonesian expanse of elaborate minor b-plot, which was occasionally WTF-ish, although still entertaining.
What did really like was how clear the themes were by the end - it made a really strong statement about the misuse of power and how it affects both disenfranchised individuals and those who try to restore a balance of power.
A strong and ambitious novel!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 29, 2010
Hexwood: really frelling smart. One of those books I keep seeing more in the longer I think about it. Sort of startling that it’s Young Adult Fiction; way smarter than the vast number of books we read in my reading group. I suspect if I was a little more educated, I’d see a whole lot more in it.
We start with a young woman who has the flu and imaginary friends. Confined to her bed, she sees all these mysterious trucks driving up to an old farm, all these odd people going in, and no one ever leaving. When she’s well enough, she goes to investigate, and ends up in some tulgy, mythic wood with an old man, a child, a robot, and a dragon. And without her imaginary friends. She returns often, and every time, things are . . . different. Also non chronological.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, some official in the old and corrupt empire that really runs things realizes that some unauthorized operative on Earth has turned on a piece of equipment, apparently to assist in role playing games, and no one can turn it off.
Plays with the Fisher King, Tiamut and Marduk, Stargate, Enders’ Game, the “gods were aliens” notion, the grail, D&D, children raised to be assassins, hints of the Snow Queen, old stories of kings who refused to die at the right time and robots that do not have Asimov’s Laws deeply inscribed in their souls. I suspect I’ll be reading it again.
We start with a young woman who has the flu and imaginary friends. Confined to her bed, she sees all these mysterious trucks driving up to an old farm, all these odd people going in, and no one ever leaving. When she’s well enough, she goes to investigate, and ends up in some tulgy, mythic wood with an old man, a child, a robot, and a dragon. And without her imaginary friends. She returns often, and every time, things are . . . different. Also non chronological.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, some official in the old and corrupt empire that really runs things realizes that some unauthorized operative on Earth has turned on a piece of equipment, apparently to assist in role playing games, and no one can turn it off.
Plays with the Fisher King, Tiamut and Marduk, Stargate, Enders’ Game, the “gods were aliens” notion, the grail, D&D, children raised to be assassins, hints of the Snow Queen, old stories of kings who refused to die at the right time and robots that do not have Asimov’s Laws deeply inscribed in their souls. I suspect I’ll be reading it again.
March 9, 2016
While reading Laura Miller's essay about fantasy and Narnia, I had a sudden urge to read some Dianna Wynne Jones. I have read absolutely everything by her I can get my hands on before, so this is my second time around "Hexwood."
It's a bit messy, but the ideas are interesting enough to keep me hanging on the edge. It's a complex narrative, based on the assumption that reality is easily bent and none of the characters are who they think they are, or that they are where they think they are and that time is completely undependable. Then, there's the added layer of English and Welsh mythology combined with science fiction.
There's a lot going on, but as usual Wynne's sharp characterizations pull me along. They're so very practical that it makes it hard to think of her fantasies being called "escapist," like maybe "Twilight" or "Eragon" (or even something like Nancy Drew or a James Patterson novel). I think they're what make her novels so very satisfying. After reading her books I usually feel like "this is how fantasy should be done."
"Hexwood" actually improved on the second reading because with a vague idea of what was going on it wasn't half as confusing.
It's a bit messy, but the ideas are interesting enough to keep me hanging on the edge. It's a complex narrative, based on the assumption that reality is easily bent and none of the characters are who they think they are, or that they are where they think they are and that time is completely undependable. Then, there's the added layer of English and Welsh mythology combined with science fiction.
There's a lot going on, but as usual Wynne's sharp characterizations pull me along. They're so very practical that it makes it hard to think of her fantasies being called "escapist," like maybe "Twilight" or "Eragon" (or even something like Nancy Drew or a James Patterson novel). I think they're what make her novels so very satisfying. After reading her books I usually feel like "this is how fantasy should be done."
"Hexwood" actually improved on the second reading because with a vague idea of what was going on it wasn't half as confusing.
September 7, 2008
I think, now, having read this a few times, I finally understand the plot, which means I can finally appreciate the brilliance of it, and of the twist mid way through - the Bannus machine has actually been in use since before the book started, and has been causing havoc for quite some time. All the characters have been sucked in, and are now under the impression that they are totally different people.
I think my favorite part, though, is the way several of the characters talk to voices in their heads which turn out to be real people. There's never really an explanation given for how they can do this, but I think it works very well. It leads for five of the characters having a rather interesting connection before they even meet.
I think my favorite part, though, is the way several of the characters talk to voices in their heads which turn out to be real people. There's never really an explanation given for how they can do this, but I think it works very well. It leads for five of the characters having a rather interesting connection before they even meet.
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