Deep Secret

Diana Wynne Jones (author)

Starscape, Tom Doherty Associates, USA: 1997; 375pp

ISBN: 0765342472

Genres: adventure, fantasy/scifi

Issues: identity

Rupert Venables, youngest Magid on Earth, is responsible for a number of things in the vast Multiverse. Not least of these is finding a new Magid to fill the position left empty when his mentor dies.

He has to do that at a time when the Korfyronic Empire is exploding into civil war - and he has duties there, as well. As all his Magid candidates are widely scattered and inclined to wander, Rupert decides the simplest solution is to tweak their fatelines and bring them all together in the one place, where he can interview them separately. The perfect environment is a fantasy convention but it seems that Rupert is not the only one who has plans for the gathering hordes. The arrival of a centaur certainly causes a distraction and Rupert begins to realise that things are not entirely under his control.

Written in the first person but from the perspective of several different characters, powerful personalities are conveyed despite the limitations of the narrative point of view. Although a simpler story than many of her earlier works, Jones employs her usual skill in interweaving references to myths and legends and placing them in the rather warped reality that her characters experience. There is a certain sense that DWJ is poking affectionate fun at fantasy conventions and those who attend them, as well as the ‘author talks' often given at such meetings. An amusing novel, the strong characters and lively narrative of Deep Secret will entertain most fantasy lovers provided they don't take their fantasy too seriously.

This novel precedes The Merlin Conspiracy but is a little harder to find in bookshops and is not always included in the list of novels by the author at the front of other books by Diana Wynne Jones.