Erskine and Venturus's relationship. Erskine looks out for him! And understands him well enough to figure everything out about him when nobody else could. And Venturus is fond enough of him that he feels hurt and betrayed when the Goon turns out to be Erskine, and kind of likes him despite all this. When comparing all the rest of the siblings' attitudes towards each other, this is love indeed. Oba naslova su istovremeno spojlerična i zavode na pogrešan trag, što je stvarno redak uspeh. Jer dečja knjiga sa "čarobnjacima" u naslovu nekako priziva livadice i zamkove i bradate čike sa šiljatim šeširima. A Archer's Goon je zapravo vrlo realističan prikaz života u Britaniji za vreme Margaret Tačer. Čitav jedan nivo knjige (mada bi mi on verovatno promakao sa 10-15 godina) jeste vapaj protiv Tačerkine ekonomske politike. And in the end, you're left with so many questions--not the bad kind that leave things unfinished and bug you forever and indicate bad storytelling, but wonderful areas to imagine about. Like... Who ARE these people? Aliens? How did they get here? What are their parents like? (Must be amazing (in maybe an awful way) with children like those...) What will the people on the spaceship do? Will they survive and try to take over a different planet? Will Erskine try to farm the world? Will Awful try to farm the world with him? (I'm suspecting since Venturus is good with future stuff, maybe he can see the future to a certain extent and his intuition about Erskine was correct. Although maybe with Venturus's influence it will turn out differently.) The story carefully balances realism with fantasy, and although there is some kind of magic at play (in what is otherwise a normal world), each story beat follows the previous with logic, making it relatively easy to follow the action. (Note: the book avoids the term “magic”, or anything associated with it such as “wizards”.) The trouble started when Howard Sykes came home from school and found the "goon" sitting in the kitchen. He said he'd been sent by Archer. But who was Archer? It had to do with the 2,000 words that Howard's author father had failed to deliver.

Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Dillian is easily able to use her magic to charm Howard and Fifi, but Awful is simply too... awful. I must add that I read this book in one day. One day. I was astounded by the fact that three-fourths of the way through, Jones did a "reveal" about a character I loved which completely ruined my previous love. I hated that betrayal. THEN, she did it again with a different character. Again, I felt betrayed. It soon became clear not only that Archer wanted those words, but that his wizard siblings, Hathaway, Dillian, Shine, Torquil, Erskine, and Venturus, would also go to any lengths to get them. This is brilliant. And to think I was nervous about reading it, after Eight Days of Luke didn't work for me! This is very much in the vein of Eight Days of Luke, actually, but whereas I found that novel derivative, this is original and surprising and densely plotted - and it feels new and somehow grounded, because of its amazing familial interactions, even in the ridiculous lengths it eventually goes to.MacGuffin: The 2000 words. They do nothing, Venturus set them up to mislead the others and to give his adoptive father tax-free income. Weird Tales reviewer John Gregory Betancourt praised the novel as "a witty little urban fantasy [and] a delight to read." [3] I have this weird thing about Dianna Wynn Jones books. I know that they will be wonderful and I will love them... but I have an awful case of cover judging EVERY SINGLE TIME. I don't have a favorite Diana Wynne Jones book; I have a cluster of five favorites and six more second-tier favorites. Of those top five, three were published consecutively, and Archer's Goon is the first of those. DWJ's sixteenth published book, Archer's Goon represents, with Howl's Moving Castle, the peak of the humorous writing that characterizes much of her 1980s period. The core is a strong, beautifully plotted story, but it's overlaid with so many funny bits that it isn't until you get to the end that you realize how complex it is. Meaningful Name: Venturus, its meaning isn't mentioned in the book but the tv series has Quentin translate it as "he who is to come" in Latin.

But what I'm truly impressed with here is the way the plot unfolds, starting with the Goon in Howard's kitchen and proceeding through the introductions of the seven siblings. Parallel to this is the secondary plot (and I do think it's secondary despite its being the motivation for all the action) in which Howard scrambles to figure out who wants the 2000 words his father writes each month and what that person does with them. It's probably a mistake to say they run in parallel; it's more accurate to say that they are intertwined, and I think they are perfectly balanced, one plot advancing the other and then handing off the lead to be advanced in turn. In the climax to the story, both plots intersect, with Quentin Sykes's words being the device that keeps the world from being run by the megalomaniac Archer--a scene that is a true delight. Creative subjects, in the form of literature, music and the arts vie with science and technology, to the ultimate detriment of the latter, in philosophical terms at least. Although each wizard ruled a section of the town, he or she was a prisoner in it. Each suspected that one of them held the secret behind the words, and that secret was the key to their freedom. Which one of them was it? The Sykes family become pawns in the wizards' fight to win their freedom, wrest control from one another, and fan out to rule the world.Magical Seventh Son: Although all the siblings are magical, the seventh son is supposed to have twice the gifts of the others. Rereading this aloud was so FUN. Doing the voices etc. for this crazy cast of characters was fabulous. I also loved reading it a second time because this time I actually understood what was going on, after all those mindbending plot-twists in the first reading. A.k.a. IT WAS EVEN BETTER THE SECOND TIME AND I DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE. The names! Archer, Dillian, Shine, Hathaway, Torquil, Erskine, Venturus. All actual names as far as I know, though all fairly unusual. But don't they look lovely and interesting all in a row there? Ambiguously Gay: Torquil. Has a great love for theatrical outfits (eyeliner included), shopping, and disco dancers. This trope is even more true for the TV miniseries.