Mixed Magics by Diana Wynne Jones
Mixed Magics by Diana Wynne Jones
Illustrated by Tim Stevens
HarperCollins Children’s Books (2005)
170 pages
This is a collection of short stories — four stories, to be exact — all involving Chrestomanci, one way or another. Most of them also feature characters that had appeared in other Chrestomanci books, and while the stories are still readable without having read any of the other books, I think it would be easier to enjoy them if you knew the characters somewhat.
The first story, Warlock at the Wheel, fell flat for me. It was about a warlock stealing and driving a car, and said warlock was trapped in the car with a child and a dog. The warlock was a not-quite-evil warlock, in a bumbling, hapless way, and you just know bad things are going to happen to him. It’s not a bad story, I think — I just didn’t feel any connection with any of the characters and it left me feeling rather bewildered.
The second story was my favourite of the collection. It’s also the longest one in the book. Titled Stealer of Souls, it features Cat Chant (from Charmed Life and, after the events in this short story, The Pinhoe Egg) and Tonino Montana (last seen in The Magicians of Caprona).
Tonino comes to visit Chrestomanci Castle and Cat has to show him around. Cat’s not happy with this — he’s a bit jealous of Tonino — but there’s nothing he could do since the other children are ill with the measles. Worse still, Gabriel de Witt, the former Chrestomanci, wants to see Tonino, and Cat has to accompany Tonino to see the old man, something he really dreads.
The visit turns into an adventure for Cat and Tonino, as it appears that someone is trying to steal Gabriel’s lives.
I loved this story, how Cat and Tonino just click together, despite Cat’s moping at the start. Tonino is generally miserable when he first arrives. Poor Cat seems to think he will grow up to be an evil enchanter, because he was “doing a whole lot of good things for bad reasons”, such as giving Tonino books to read so he would be out of Cat’s way. I wonder what it is Cat’s so hung up on. Chrestomanci makes an appearance, this time complete with a new dressing gown, and goes vague and gets people’s names wrong, as usual. I like Janet. Her role is pretty much insignificant here, but I just wanted to say I like her.
The ending of the story connects neatly to the third story, Carol Oneir’s Hundredth Dream. (The title page for the story in my edition — ISBN 0-00-6755329, published by HarperCollins — misspells the word “Hundredth”; it’s missing the second “d”. Whoops. I just noticed it just now, as I was flipping through the pages to check the story titles.)
Carol Oneir is a best-selling dreamer — she controls what she dreams about and the dreams are bottled and sold to others. One day, Carol stops dreaming, so her parents take her to see Chrestomanci. He figures out what’s wrong, of course, and young Carol also learns a thing or two. The story is a bit too cutesy for my liking. I did like reading about Carol more than the Warlock, though!
The last story is called The Sage of Theare, one of those confusing stories where there is a pantheon of gods trying to stop a prophecy from being fulfilled, and they fulfil the prophecy by trying to stop it from being fulfilled. Go figure. I enjoyed this one, with all its puzzling twists.
Cat makes a cameo appearance! Chrestomanci can even deal with gods (and apparently infect them with the flu)! Questioning is a good thing! That’s what we learn from this story here.
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All in all, this whole volume is a bit uneven, most likely because the stories were written years apart. Only Stealer of Souls has not been published before, and it’s the newest story in the collection, and I found it to be the most engaging of the four. I’m glad to have read the book, if only because I got to read this story. The Sage of Theare is delightful, and I’m a bit so-so on Carol Oneir’s Hundredth Dream, and Warlock at the Wheel suffers from severe lack of Chrestomanci — he was only mentioned there, and that didn’t help the story much for me.
What’s missing is mostly length — I’m not much of a short story reader. And with this book, I’ve finished all the Chrestomanci novels. I am a bit sad! But there are always rereads, and hopes for a new novel in a not-too-distant future, yes?
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