Dark Lord of Derkholm

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=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
11,961
2,900
#1
Dark Lord of Derkholm, 1998, by the late Diana Wynne Jones.
I'm currently obsessed with it, and I have not yet found any place online with a level of discussion much deeper than "I liked it" except for a thesis on postmodern deconstruction (because DWJ did a number on most of the standard fantasy tropes in it), which isn't the sort of thing I see in it.

One of the reasons I'm so fond of it, I am coming to realize, is that it is the closest I've found to a book that is written somewhat like the way Sir Terry does. It has a few stealth puns, it has comedy on more than one level and tragic relief and information sneaked in that you have to dig to find. DWJ goes into the economic damage of a world that is having an annual onslaught of questers seeking to destroy the Dark Lord (and getting annoyed about it), which is not too surprising since she published this book two years after she published The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

Has anyone else read this? Have you figured out the map yet? (The edition I have does not have a map, but there are hints in the text.) I did finally figure out the calendar, and it does work.
 

=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
11,961
2,900
#4
Slantaholic said:
I found this on article on Fanlore:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Diana_Wynne_Jones

It links up to a few DWJ communites and fanfiction sections.

Also, on the DWJ wiki there is a map:
http://dianawynnejones.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tough_Guide_to_Fantasyland
Those are interesting but I don't think the map in Tough Guide works for Dark Lord of Derkholm.
The distances are too far away for horse travel in the times given, and really only one name on that map is related.
Apparently she didn't want to have "official" maps put in her books, though she didn't mind people drawing their own.
 

=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
11,961
2,900
#5
Sigh. Since I first posted, I have gone through DLoD in great detail and the calendar doesn't really work. I have figured out where the glitch is, and it would take only a little revision to fix it. Now I really wish I could go back in time and advise her editor so they could get it right. Oh well, probably nobody but me ever noticed.
Edited to add: maybe a lot more changes than I thought... right now I really sympathize with copyeditors.
 

=Tamar

Lieutenant
May 20, 2012
11,961
2,900
#6
=Tamar said:
Sigh. Since I first posted, I have gone through DLoD in great detail and the calendar doesn't really work. I have figured out where the glitch is, and it would take only a little revision to fix it. Now I really wish I could go back in time and advise her editor so they could get it right. Oh well, probably nobody but me ever noticed.
Edited to add: maybe a lot more changes than I thought... right now I really sympathize with copyeditors.
Update: Just ignore all my previous posts on this topic except the first. I think I just found something in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland that can be used to make the original calendar work. I sure hope so. While I had found a way to fix it, I'd be much happier finding a way to convince myself that it was never wrong in the first place.
Update: It works! But oh my word this book is complicated. I wish she hadn't died back in 2011, for a lot of reasons but right now, I'd love to be able to ask her whether my solution is correct.
 

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